Every company I know, whether a manufacturer, retailer or an interior design firm, is now seeking new ways to generate revenue, 24/7, from their websites. And one of the key ways to do that is to start a blog that can be monetized.

I invite you to grab a cup of coffee or tea, or a glass of wine, and take the time to not only scan the images in this post, but to really read it, for if you do, you will see a way forward, financially, that might not have been visible to you before.

CAN YOU MAKE REAL MONEY THROUGH BLOGGING?

Yes you can. But let’s talk about it.

First, if you are a working interior designer and wish to still continue to do design work, or need to, then blogging will become/can become a part of what you do, but generally it will take you longer to build income through your blog, simply due to lack of time.

If you have the means and desire, however, you can hire others to build blog content for you, and there are some very successful multi-contributor design blogs. Emily Henderson’s blog and Paloma Contreras’s La Dolce Vita blog come to mind right away.

But if you prefer to write your own blog, and do the work yourself, then it’s important to be realistic about what can be achieved. Blog monetization is not a fast solution for income.

What’s a realistic time frame to build income through your blog if you are doing it yourself and you are very consistent with posting and marketing your content?

If you are still working as a full time interior designer, working with 1 on 1 clients on site, it will take approx. 3-5 years, in general, for you to see significant financial results.

If you are not still working as a full time interior designer and have time to devote to your blog, you can see results a bit faster: - 1 - 2 years.

THE MONEY:

If you are still doing daily design work for others, and if you are consistent, you can be making between $1500 - $4500.00 a month ( and possibly much more if you offer online courses and market them well) — within 1-3 years.

If you have more time and are consistent, within 5 years, you can make a high five to low six figure income.

For the lucky few that are consistent AND execute perfectly, you can make in the low to mid six figures within 5-7 years.

Keep in mind that that the key to making a six figure income with your blog comes from layering in multiple ways to make money to your blog…all of which are discussed below.

So, it’s not just one thing that makes you money. It’s the layering that makes it work. And creating the content and marketing the content takes time and some investment.

The genuine key to it all is to be consistent and post genuinely valuable content. Post twice a week at the same time each day. And if you can’t manage twice a week, post once a week or once a month. But BE CONSISTENT.

People trust consistency.

ALSO, BEFORE WE REALLY START:

The most important thing to know is this: if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

It’s not easy, it takes discipline and focus, but if you enjoy writing, then blogging is a viable long term career choice, whether practiced as a second revenue stream within an already established design business or as a primary career choice for anyone who is able and ready to leave the world of full service interior design (or retailing) and wants to monetize their knowledge and experience in a new way that gives them more freedom and time flexibility.

Just be realistic about the amount of money you can make and the time it will take, before you plunge in.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS POST ON PINTEREST + BLOGGING RIGHT NOW?

The genesis of this post came from a Facebook LIVE video chat I held in my Facebook Group for interiors designers in collaboration with my good friend, The Woodlands, Texas based interior designer Carla Aston, who is a nationally known influencer, blogger and a major user of Pinterest to drive consumer traffic to her blog.

Carla agreed to answer questions the viewers had about Pinterest in the comments on that Facebook Live, while I discussed blogging. As you keep reading down in this post, you will see every PINTEREST question Carla answered for those who asked her questions.

A NOTE on my Group. It is called #DesignWealth and there, we discuss all kinds of things related to designing 24/7 income into your websites and blogs.

If you’re an interior designer, you can Request To Join it on the link at the end of this post. Please note you must have a functioning website and be willing to share your email with me to be a member of the Group.

Once you’re in the Group, you will see that there are hundreds of free tips on how to drive the traffic to your blog/website in order to generate 24/7 income. Search the Group for the words #toptraffictips or #toptraffictip. )

WHY ARE CARLA AND I QUALIFIED TO TALK WITH YOU ABOUT THIS?

Carla has been blogging for approx. 10 years alongside also doing interior design work for her clients. She has been successful at monetizing her blog for 24/7 income with a combination of programmatic advertising, affiliate product links and ebooks for both consumers and designers.

Carla has been very successful in utilizing PINTEREST to drive consumer traffic to her blog and currently her Pinterest account has over 10 million monthly viewers. ( See a link to Carla’s Pinterest account at the end of this post. )

As many of you know, I have also been blogging for many years.

First as the writer of Furniture Today.com’s Retail Ideas blog for 9 years, later on behalf of my past client, Leslie Hendrix Wood, owner of the Hadley Court blog, for which I wrote 187 blog posts over the course of 2.5 years.

The end result of that work was Leslie being asked to be a contributing blogger on www.marthastewart.com.

In addition, I have written many blog posts for others as a ghost writer, (work I no longer do) except for currently writing the blog for award winning indoor/outdoor furniture, lighting and decorative accessories manufacturer, Seasonal Living.

So, now that you know that we have some idea of what we are talking about, the balance of this post will help you understand the possibilities for making money through your blog and then how to use PINTEREST ( a consumer driven visual search engine) to drive the consumer traffic to your blog that will, over time, allow you to monetize it for 24/7 income.

And for those brand new to blogging: the word blog is short for web log and is simply a fresh page of content on your website.

HOW TO MONETIZE YOUR BLOG

WHAT ASPECT OF MONETIZING YOUR BLOG SHOULD YOU FIRST FOCUS ON?

The ability to accept ads onto your blog.

Note: ads are different than affiliate product links, or any other kind of monetizable content.

Why Are Ads Different?

Because, if you can get enough consumer traffic onto your blog ( in other words, if you can get enough people to simply land on and SEE any page on your website/blog), people do not have to buy anything from you in order for you to make money, 24/7. That money is deposited into your bank account every morning, by the ad network, without any additional action needed from you.

Ads pay on impressions, not purchases. And once you have enough traffic to your website, you can be part of an ad network. The more people that come to your site, the more money you make.

And that’s why PINTEREST is critical. But more on that in a few more paragraphs.

How Much Traffic Do You Need To Be Part Of An Ad Network?

When you reach 50,000 sessions in the previous 30 days per your Google Analytics on any part of your website ( you want it to be on your blog, but it can be on any part of your website), you gain the ability to join an advertising network like MEDIAVINE or others.

And if you can get 100,000 page views per month, you can join a premium ad network like ADTHRIVE.

I know your question, though, about ads.

Am I right?

And if I am right, here’s your answer:

HOW CAN I MONETIZE BY BLOG, 24/7 WITHOUT ADS, IF I JUST DON’T WANT THEM?
HOW CAN I LAYER IN MORE MONEY TO MY BLOG FOR 24/7 INCOME, WITH ADS, TOO?

The answers to these two questions are the same.

If you want to layer even more monetization opportunities into your blog along with the ads or if you don’t want ads, but still want to monetize your blog, you can:

1. Offer online courses for sale.

See what my own online course, created in partnership with Jenna Gaidusek, How To Structure, Design and Market Your Own Online Courses*, is all about (and buy it right now for its lowest price ever, if you’d like to offer an online course yourselves) by clicking here.

2. Offer ebooks, design downloads and shoppable online magazines, either for sale and/or on a complimentary basis in exchange for emails. Read my post about how Emily Williams Clark is offering design downloads, very successfully, here.

Get a complimentary subscription to the shoppable online magazine my company produces for Seasonal Living by clicking here: http://seasonalliving.com/bonus-mag.

3. 2. Include affiliate product links in your post..

Buy Carla’s 15.00 guide on How To Use Affiliate Marketing Links by clicking here and read my post on how to join the affiliate marketing network Sovrn (formerly known as Viglink) here.

(Note: Sovrn/Viglink is what’s known as a super aggregation site, in other words, by joining this affiliate product network, you have access to all the merchants using Share A Sale, Pepperjam, ShopStyle, Rakuten, etc. This will include vendors like 2 Modern, Amara Living, Target, Nordstrom’s, etc. ). However: if you can get in, REWARD STYLE is the best affiliate product network based on ease of use and commission payouts.

You can layer in all of the above to your website and blog for 24/7 income, over time, to maximize your ability to make money with your blog or website. 24/7.

Why Use Pinterest vs. Instagram To Drive Traffic?

PINTEREST is the world’s #1 VISUAL search engine for consumers. Over 330 million people a month now use it. Unlike Instagram, every image you pin to Pinterest can have a link to your blog attached to it ( or a link to anywhere else on your site ).

When someone SAVES (aka as repinning) your image to their own Pinboard, that is 100% free marketing for you, forever, because other people will pin your image, from their pin boards, to their own pin boards. When a pin goes viral, that means it’s been saved hundreds or sometimes thousands of times.

And most importantly for you, the link you attached to your original pinboard stays with your pinboard forever - no matter who saves it. This means that pins, when they are clicked on, can drive traffic to your website and blog, forever.

Massive amounts of consumers interested in all things home decor/fashion/food/makeup use PINTEREST to search . They might be searching for how to information, or they might be searching for products for their home or they might simply be collecting pins for current inspiration and future plans, but it doesn’t matter.

What almost all of them are doing, at what point or another, is clicking that pin which takes them through to your blog… .and that is traffic..and the power of Pinterest to help you make money from blogging.

For instance, they might type into Pinterest’s search bar the term: OPEN SHELVING if they are thinking about open shelving for a new kitchen.

What happens next? They will click through the most beautiful images that appear in their feed that share with them HOW TO install open shelving or they will click on beautiful images that give them INSPIRATION for the open shelving DIY project they are considering.

Does that make sense? When you can match what you know to searcher intent, and you pair it with beautiful images, you have a winning formula for getting people to click through to your website/blog and that counts as a page view.

How To Use Pinterest: Top Tips

The most important tip here is to switch your personal Pinterest account to a business account. You won’t lose followers, but will gain the ability to see your analytics so that you can know which PINS are your top performing pins and then promote them so you can supercharge the traffic to your website so you can get up to 35,000 page views per month, faster.

Here is the link to Pinterest’s HELP page with all the info you need to make the switch from a personal account to a business account. It takes 1 minute.

Here is the link for RICH PIN validation.

Q & A WITH CARLA ASTON ABOUT PINTEREST
As promised in my opening paragraph, I’ve created pinnable graphics of the questions Carla was asked during my Facebook LIVE.

Below are two further RESOURCES for you as you dive into monetizing your websites and blogs.

The direct link to my blog on USING RICH PINS and HOW TO MAKE YOUR PINTEREST PINS SHOPPABLE, as shown in the image below, is here.

I invite you to PIN these images!

Carla has a guide for sale on Pinterest + Blogging and it is available here.

I hope, if you’ve made it this far, that this post will help you, whether you’re a manufacturer, retailer or interior designer, understand that you have the capability to create income for your business in new ways, ways that allow you to work from home and that give you more time freedom in your life.

And even though this post is about the combination of blogging and Pinterest, realize that if you don’t want to blog, you can still monetize your website in these other ways: with online courses, with design downloads, with ecomm drop ship shops, with affiliate product links, with ebooks, with shoppable magazines.

The possibilities are truly endless… and the money is there to be made as consumers are shopping online now, more than ever.

And don’t forget: as long as you are diligent about using Pinterest and all other means available to you to increase the traffic to your site, you can pivot effectively and, at the same time, create a long term sellable business asset: because the content and email list that you will have developed as a result of your efforts are sellable to outside investors.

Just ask my friend Micle, the creator of the design blog, Freshome, who sold his blog a few years ago for over a million dollars to a US investor. Or my friend, Jaime, who just sold her blog, Design Milk, for a princely sum, as well.

And if my company, Savour Partnership, can help you design, create or write any type of shoppable digital publication, please reach out to me at leslie@savourpartnership.com. ( Take note of the email opt in mini magazine on Carla’s website. We created that for her: she was our first client, back when we first started Savour Partnership, for which we are forever appreciative. )

Thank you!

Leslie Carothers
Chief Energizing Officer
Savour Partnership

Named One of Home Furnishing Magazine’s Top 40 Most Inspiring Women In Home.

LINKS

Leslie Carothers
Instagram | Twitter | #DesignWealth Facebook Group (for interior designers only)

Savour Partnership
Instagram

Carla Aston
Instagram | Blog | Pinterest

Carla also has an excellent, second blog for interior designers only. Click here to access it.

Stay healthy, my friends. Stay safe. And please share this post with as many people as you think would benefit from seeing it. A lot of people right now are needing a new way to go forward. This post is our contribution to that conversation.

Leslie
+
Carla