Blogging Away Debt: Is It Really Possible or Should You Just Get Another Job?

Debt really blows so you’re here because you want to know if blogging away debt is an option for you.

The quick answer is that you can blog away debt and I’m going to show you how.

The long answer is the rest of this post.

(Note: Business debt is a different beast and can be used as a valuable tool to grow your business, but I’m talking about personal debt here like credit cards, medical bills, and student loans.)

But back to debt absolutely SUCKING.

It’s one of those things that just stays on your mind and seems to ruin every single day.

Your day can be going well and then something reminds you of your debt and then it’s like “well, shit, there goes that smile.”

Student loans, credit cards, car payments, rent, and that loan for your Russian dwarf hamster can really put you in a bind.

It’s cool if you can budget your way out of the mess but that never worked for me. I have expenses and I like to have a good time.

(Note: If you really do need to budget though then check out these free budget planners.)

If I budgeted myself out of debt it would’ve meant that I didn’t do anything for about oh 7-10 years.

Nobody has time for that.

Life is meant to live so the only solution that I could think of was to MAKE MORE MONEY.

I’d been trying that for years with up-and-down success.

My Blog Journey

In 2003, I started my first blog. It was a success. I did a lot of great things with it.

Then I sold it and did other things in life.

When I found myself without a job and needing to make money I had to take some kind of action.

I figured I would get back into blogging because I had made money with it before.

Actually, I didn’t just randomly think about how it would be a good idea to get back into blogging. I came across an income report from a blogger who was making $15,000 a month and that reminded me that blogging was a thing.

I was decent at it before so I could be decent at it again.

Unfortunately, being decent at it didn’t mean I was making money with it.

I kept on looking at the other blogs that were making money and trying to figure out what they were doing differently than me.

Look, here are the numbers for my first 90 days of blogging.

1,195 pageviews TOTAL over 90 days.

Don’t worry you don’t have to do the math. I’ll do it for you.

That’s 13 pageviews a day.

I 100% believe that 90% of those pageviews were my wife, my brother, and myself.

One day I lost it.

I wouldn’t say it was a mental breakdown but I wasn’t in a good mental state.

I had to go for a walk and on this walk, for some odd reason, this whole blogging thing started to make sense.

I went back home, sat down, laid out my plan, and 3 months later I was making over $1,000 a month with my blog.

Then I created another blog and was making over $1,000 a month with that.

Then I created an ebook and was making over $1,000 a month with that.

Then I created a course.

Then a membership site.

Next thing you know I’m making 5 figures a month with these blogs.

While it was a long process it seems like it happened in a blink.

So to answer your question of whether a blog can help with getting rid of debt then I would say the answer is “yes”.

(Note: Unless your debt isn’t monetary and it actually involves some pact with an angry leprechaun. I can’t help you out of that one.)

This should be followed up with “Okay, how do you do it?“

Excellent question.

I’m going to answer that right now.

Blogging and Marketing

First things first, what is a blog?

I’m going to blow your mind here. Please be ready.

Your blog is simply the marketing arm of your business.

That’s right. A blog itself isn’t anything but a site (or section of a site) with a bunch of words so you shouldn’t think of blogging as a way to get out of debt.

Marketing is how you’re getting yourself out of debt.

If the word marketing makes you cringe then this might not be for you but you just have to trust me that it’s going to be okay.

Why?

Because blogging is marketing.

This fact also means that your blog is part of your business.

And that’s the secret.

You have to see this as a business so you treat it as a business. One of the business’s main goals is to generate revenue.

You want to generate revenue to get out of debt. The more revenue you make, the faster you get out of debt.

It’s all making sense, right?

So the first thing you have to do is ask yourself if you’re ready to treat this blog like a business.

If you’re not then this isn’t for you.

You’ll try to make it happen and you’ll just spend the next 3 years wondering why it doesn’t work and then your friends and family will smile and possibly laugh because they told you it was a dumb idea.

If that isn’t you then let’s continue.

The next question you need to ask is what should you blog about?

But I’m not going to answer that yet because you need to quickly understand how blogs can make money.

Once you understand that everything else will make sense.

How Do Blogs Make Money

I don’t want to go into extreme detail about how blogs (businesses) make money so expect this to be a quick rundown.

There are 3 main ways that a blog makes money:

1. ads
2. affiliate marketing
3. products

When starting a blog most people go for ads because all this requires is getting traffic to your site and getting ads up. How do you get ads?

You join an ad network.

While you can join an ad network right when you start your blog, I’d suggest waiting until you can get into one of the premium networks like Mediavine or AdThrive.

Until that happens it’s best to keep your focus on growing your blog and getting everything right.

From ads, you can graduate to affiliate marketing. You don’t have to stop with the ads. You just add another revenue stream to your business.

The same goes for creating your own digital products.

Eventually, you’ll want a business that has multiple streams of revenue bringing in money.

Pretty fun.

Okay, now with that out of the way, we can go back to the question of what you should blog about.

How to Choose a Blog Topic

You might be hoping that I tell you to follow your passion.

Well, I have bad news for you.

That ain’t happening.

If the goal is to get out of debt as soon as possible you have to play it smart.

The more traffic you get, the more money you can make with ads. The more money you can make with ads then the faster you can get out of debt.

But this holds true for other methods of making money. The more people you get to your site, the better your odds of making money assuming you bring the right people to your site (we’ll talk about that later).

That’s why you would be wise to stick to popular niches that have a lot of people who can come across your site.

For example, beauty is a big topic. So maybe you have a blog on that.

You aren’t limited by your options as there are a number of niches that can help you create a high-traffic (100,000+ pageviews) blog.

The key is you need to know how to get that traffic and that’s where Pinterest comes into play.

Getting Traffic with Pinterest

The whole premise behind most methods of blogging is that you create a blog where ads are the main revenue stream and you can build that blog up to over $1,000 a month in ad revenue.

The fastest way that I’ve found to make this happen is by using Pinterest as a tool for traffic generation.

And because you’re going to use Pinterest, you’ll want to choose topics that are popular on Pinterest.

The first site that I got to over 100,000 pageviews a month was my health blog and it was all thanks to Pinterest.

I wrote a lot about yoga and exercise which happen to be popular topics on Pinterest.

The next site that got over 100,000 pageviews was fitness site. It’s geared more towards women and health.

The next site after that was a good site.

After that, it was a site on personal finance.

And after that, it was a blog dedicated to the keto diet. It’s also happened with gardening, parties, and home decor.

I have blogs in other niches as well that aren’t at 100,000 pageviews yet, but still, bring in 100s of dollars a month from ad revenue all thanks to Pinterest.

If you can start by generating traffic with Pinterest, you’ll find that you don’t have to wait as long to bring in money with your blog.

That doesn’t mean it is easy, but for me, it’s the best route when you want to take this approach.

So what would be my gameplan if I wanted to get out of debt as quickly as possible?

I’m glad you asked!

Blogging Away Debt: a Gameplan

No matter what type of blog you create, you have 3 options with regards to how you present yourself:

1. Journeyman: Show people your journey in how you’re learning something. For example, I might not know a thing about gardening but I’m going to take you on my journey of starting a backyard garden.
2. Expert: I’m already really good at something and I’m going to walk you through how I got there.
3. Curator: I’m going to find all of the best things within a niche and present them to you. Essentially, I’ll be your research assistant.

So what I would do is make an assessment of the passions, skills, and interests that I have and then see if any of them are viable business opportunities.

How?

Research

There are multiple types of research that you can do but if we’re being honest it will be much easier for you to go through the Blogging Library here.

It’s a healthy amount of reading but it will save you in the long term from choosing the wrong niche.

Next, I would make sure that whatever niche I picked it allowed me to create digital products since that would be the fastest way for me to make money.

Digital Products

While making money with ads is great, it can be a slow process to get traffic.

Affiliate marketing is wonderful as well but you don’t control the whole process of selling and it can be hard to convince people to go and buy something the very first time they come across you.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t utilize any of these revenue streams. I most certainly would.

However, the main revenue stream that I would focus on is having digital products.

Why?

I can control all of my money and the quality of the product.

$99,415.59 in one week.

That doesn’t happen with ads or affiliate marketing. That only happens with digital products.

Automated Sales Funnel

You might think that constantly selling can be tiresome, but that’s where automated sales funnels come into play. While talking in-depth about sales funnels goes beyond the scope of this post, just know that you can set up email software that runs 24/7 and sends out your sales campaign emails for you.

I prefer to run evergreen funnels which means that there is no open or close date. They are always running which allows me to make money 24/7 and avoid the feast and famine mentality of product launches.

Because I’d set an automated sales funnel then that means I need to have the following things in place before launching:

• a product
• a landing page
• a sales funnel
• an opt-in to get people onto my mailing list

I know it can seem like a lot but once you get those things done they can do major work for you for years to come.

Big Net and Small Net Content

Next, I would start doing some content research using Pinterest, YouTube, and Google.

I would look for what I like to call Big Net and Small Net content.

What are those?

Big Net content works really well on social media and it’s usually very general.

For example, on Bogoten we have a post on 11 Glamorous Bedroom Ideas That Look Luxurious. That’s Big Net because it will appeal to anyone looking for bedroom stuff.

Small Net content is content that is targeted towards a more specific reader.

For example, on Bogoten we have a post on Luxurious Glam Bedroom On a Teeny IKEA Budget. That post is only going to work for someone who is looking for a luxurious-style bedroom on a budget.

How much Big Net and Small Content would I compile?

I wouldn’t stop until I had at least 100+ ideas across my Silos.

If you aren’t sure what Silos are then be sure to read about Topic Clusters. Seriously, it’s all covered in there.

Pinterest AND YouTube

Ideally, I’d have a niche that worked well on Pinterest as that would give me the quickest way to get a little bit of traffic to the blog.

I’d also utilize YouTube because it’s great for any niche and while it can take longer to build up, especially when you need to learn video, in the long run, it’s one of the best ways to build a tribe.

Launch

Alright, with my site all setup, content written, and my product ready to go it’s time to launch.

I’d try to launch with at least 10 pieces of content in a single micro-silo, but if I can churn out 20+ pieces then even better.

Why?

Because I’m going to have to feed the Pinterest beast as much as possible and it’s just good to have a niche stockpile of content ready to go.

I’d also make sure that I had a weekly routine setup that would allow me to continue to push out content as each piece of content gives me another opportunity to get people onto my mailing list where I can sell to them more effectively.

With regards to promotion, I would work with Pinterest and YouTube, but I’d also keep an eye for other places in which my audience is at.

If I find some decent places then I’d make sure I participate as much as possible.

It’s all about planting flags so that people get used to you and your brand.

To keep things simple my only focus is on the money triangle of business.

What’s that?

Picture a triangle with arrows going around it in a clockwise manner.

Each point of the triangle has a different word. The 3 words are:

1. Traffic
2. Conversion
3. Revenue

The more (of the right kind of) traffic I get, the better my conversions are. The better my conversions are, the more money I make. The more money I make, the more I can put back into getting more traffic.

Wait, put money back?

I thought this was about getting out of debt!

And it is, but you have to keep in mind that what you’re doing here is building an asset that can work for you for years. If you’re smart with the money you put back in (maybe a social media manager or content creator) then you can increase the revenue that you bring in and make it faster.

Once you have everything set up, it really becomes a system that you stick to. You don’t have to keep on thinking of new things to do.

You get your blog system set up and then you just put in the work.

And that’s how I’d get out of debt with blogging.