Make sure you read this whole story because at the end I take you through the steps you can take to emulate (or even surpass) my results! (Or visit my Blogging Resources page)
I have been blogging for over 3 years now and in that time I have started, run and sold many blogs but for the majority of the time I was working long hours (late nights/early mornings) for peanuts.
The reason I tell you this is because that is the place that the majority of bloggers are in – they are working hard, but not getting any results.
However, September 2009 was a turning point for my online ventures because I had just returned from my 3 month honeymoon in Canada/US and was now starting to build the foundations of a successful marriage and I needed to make some changes.
As I was working full-time in construction, I always did my blogging at night and into the early morning, but that wasn’t going to cut it anymore as I wanted and needed to spend time with my wife (plus it wasn’t making me very much money).
But I loved blogging, so I needed to find a way to start making decent money from it – without the crazy hours I had been putting in.
That was September 2009, and now in mid 2010 I am making on average over $3,000 a month!
About Thomas Sinfield
Growing up…
I was always taught that I could do anything I put my mind to – and I think I have tried everything as I could never find a career that I thought I could continue to do for the rest of my life.
I have been a…
soccer referee, supermarket produce assistant, raffle ticket seller, builders labourer, real estate sales person, 3d house designer and marketing my brothers architecture company. I have also start and not finished a bachelor of Science and bachelor of business degree, a financial planning diploma and the certification to become a mortgage broker.
It’s not that there were not some of these jobs and degrees that I didn’t like, but I wanted to be doing something that made me want to get out of bed with a smile -ready to welcome a new day. And I knew working for someone else was never going to do this for me!
I don’t say all that to brag – because it is not a track record I am that proud of. It is more of an ‘if I can do it, then so can you!’
What’s life like for me?
At the moment I am enjoying being a husband (to Fiona) and a dad (to Isabelle). I am still working in construction (4-5 days a week), but I can definitely see that changing soon as I make the shift to full-time online as we hope to do some traveling over the next couple 2 years (with Europe, Canada, New Zealand and a North Queensland cruise on our to-do list).
I am now blogging 2-3 hours a day (so it pays much better than construction) and love getting checks in US$ (cause it’s worth 10-20% more here in Australia).
I Loved Blogging, But More Importantly I Love My Family!
The main reason that I love blogging is because I can do it from home (or where ever I am). I don’t have to leave my wife and daughter to make money from my blogs. In fact since the majority of my blog readers are from the United States so I am usually making money while I am asleep and wake up to an email or two each morning telling me that a product I was promoting had made a sale and I was getting a commission.
My current goal is to take my blogging income to $5,000/mth by the end of 2010 and then on to $10,000/mth by the end of 2011 because I want to spend as much time with my two favourite girls – and working 9-5 cuts into that time way too much!
What Was The Defining Change?
I find it interesting looking back that for so long I was working insane hours on my blogs and making small change and then almost overnight I was making $700, $1,500 and then $3,000+ a month (while investing less hours!)
It took me a while to work out what changed, but it was in fact quite obvious.
I Found My Reason!
Before, I was blogging without purpose. I was writing because I loved what I was writing about – but there was no driving force behind the need to make money. But enter into the equation my wife and now my beautiful daughter and I found that I already had a vehicle to make enough money to stay home with them each day and now I had a reason to drive that vehicle down a profitable path.
But Let’s Talk Facts & Figures
I know I have so far been talking more about internal elements that lead to making money blogging (but that is because they are important), but let’s look at the steps and measures that I put into place to make $3,000 a month.
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1. I Started Promoting Products
This seems like an obvious decision but I really struggled with the thought of promoting products on my blog. I didn’t want to be seen as a sellout or money hungry, instead I was looking to become influencial. Little did I know that having a blog that didn’t make any money (in my niche) didn’t have that much of a chance of being hugely influential.
So I added banners to my blog, reviewed products that I believed in (like the SEO Power Plugin), and found products that converted well for me personally (like Market Samurai).
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2. I Focused On Search Engine Traffic
Because I needed to minimise the amount of time that I spent blogging I really need to optimise the way I was running my blogs – and more importantly, who I was targeting.While I was getting decent traffic to my blog through social media and blog commenting, the problem was that no one was buying. My few affiliate sales, I realised were coming from old posts that were generating search traffic (Read my Search vs Social post for more on this).
So obviously I then turned my attention to search engine optimised blogging!
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3. I Gave Away To Make More Money
This may sound counter-intuitive but a lot of the products that I make money from I don’t have to give the hard sell on because a lot of them come with free samples and it is then up to the product creator to convert my lead to a sale. I love this because I am no longer focusing on selling but on giving.
A few examples are the SEO Power Plugin (Free WordPress plugin – with Paid SEO course upgrade) and John Chows The Ultimate Blog Profit Model (free ebook – with paid blogging membership site upgrade). So all I have to do is give away a plugin or an ebook and if they decide to buy the product attached – I get paid.
I am currently working on a project that will really ramp up my profits from this method.
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4. I Built An Email List
Now in relation to some of the bigger internet marketers my list is tiny, but as the saying goes:
It’s not the size of the list, but it’s how you use it.
This is an area I am still working on optimising and can see it becoming one of my biggest money earners by the end of the year.
If you want to get started and don’t already have your own blog you can get started today in 3 easy steps:
That’s all you need and then make sure you are subscribed to my ecourse that will take you through the 7 things that every successful blogger has – and how you can too!
