HOW MANY BLOG POSTS DO YOU NEED TO MAKE MONEY

How Many Blog Posts Do I Need To Make Money?

If there is one question that is on every new blogger’s mind, it’s usually:

How many blog posts do I need to make money from this?

Blogging is a very lucrative business that is highly overlooked. When in reality, there are so many bloggers making 6 to 7 figures a month from their websites.

It is all a matter of how well their blogs and websites are optimized to bring in income.

But when you are just starting out, numbers like that may seem impossible. Leaving many to wonder if they will ever make that kind of money.

So in this article, I am going to tell you how to best optimize your blog for revenue, how much money you can expect to make, and how many posts you are going to need to kick off this process.

How To Create Blog Posts That Bring Traffic To Your Site

Before you start slamming away at your keyboard, you are actually going to want to plan your content.

With today’s search engines, you will need to make sure that you are putting out high-quality content. But also, content that search engines will find.

So to make sure that you don’t get lost in the sea of content on the internet, here are some things that you can do.

Blogging Seo For Beginners

Whether you like it or not, SEO is going to be every blogger’s best friend or worst enemy.

If you do not know what SEO is, it is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. This is a process that makes your content more suitable for search engines and easier to find.

You basically optimize your post and website to make it easier to rank on search engines like google.

Why is this important?

Great question.

If you plan on scaling your blog or business at all, then you are going to need organic traffic.

Simply focusing on social media and marketing takes a lot of work. You will need to constantly push out new social media content and each platform has its rules.

Whereas making your content searchable through Google will give you more traffic with essentially less work.

You can read more about everything you need to do to optimize your blog for SEO.

How To Get Content For Your Blog?

Once you have done your SEO process and gathered some keywords, you are going to start planning your content.

As much as writing off the top of your head is fun, it may bring more headaches than you need.

So where do you find your content ideas?

Here are some of my favorite and fastest ways to find new content ideas:

  • Use Answer The Public
  • Use the Google Search Bar
  • Use Ubbersuggest
  • Use Pinterest
  • Use Google’s Keyword Planner

Having a place where you gather all of your ideas is going to help you save a lot of time when it comes to picking topics. So make sure that you save your ideas in a worksheet or document. You can then use this information to create your blogging calendar.

Use Answer The Public

One of my favorite tools to use is Answer The Public and it still surprises me how many people don’t know about it. This tool allows you to pull data from Google’s search results and see what people are looking for on the platform.

It lays it out for you in a very nice visual web.

answer the public

There you will be able to see the different search queries and how they are formulated. They won’t give you an SEO score or any information about the real search volume but you can get hundreds of ideas in one sitting.

Google’s very own search bar is an amazing place to start getting some content ideas.

When you start typing into the search engine, it will start giving you some suggestions. Well, what you may not realize is that these suggestions are actually the top searches that people are entering into the search bar.

google search suggestions

Meaning that these are the things that people are actually looking for when they go on Google. This gives you great ideas about what kind of content you can then start to make to cater to those people. It’s a very simple process that can give you dozens of ideas in one sitting.

Use Ubbersuggest

Safe to say, Neil Patel really did a great job when he decided to create Ubersuggest. A highly efficient and budget-friendly SEO tool that comes very close to the more robust tools like Semrush and Ahrefs.

finding content ideas with ubersuggest

This tool has a very user-friendly interface and is a great SEO tool to start with if you are a bit of a beginner.

Not only will this tool give you great ideas for new content, but you can do 3 SEO searches for free every day. With each of those searches, you can get dozens or even thousands of keywords. This is more than enough to start building a back of content ideas that you can work on.

Use Pinterest

If you are thinking that Pinterest is just for people who are looking for recipes, interior design ideas, and outfits, then you are only half right.

MINDED MARKETING PINTEREST

On the other half of Pinterest, you will find millions of pins that talk about email marketing, blogging, sports, art, and just about anything else you can think of.

Making it a great place for you to start getting some ideas for your content. Plus, there are hundreds of thousands of new pins uploaded every day meaning you will get fresh inspiration daily.

Use Google’s Keyword Planner

google keywords planner, blog post keyword ideas

One of my absolute favorite tools to use has to be Google AdWord’s very own Keyword Planner.

I have been using this tool for years! Ever since I started out blogging and affiliate marketing. Not only is it very easy and straightforward, but you will also get information about keywords like volume and difficulty.

Just this tool alone can be good enough to use as your main SEO tool and you can get great results with it.

Learn more about Google Keywords planner here:

How Long Does It Take To Write A Blog Post?

In general, one blog post can take you anywhere from 1 to 3 hours to write.

When it comes to writing blog posts, you need to have a good balance of quality and quantity. You really can’t have one without the other. If you are looking to make a sustainable passive income stream, you are going to have to find that balance.

So the first thing you need to think about is how much research needs to be put into the article. If you are already an expert in your field, then this work may take you only 30 minutes. Whereas a beginner may need a few hours.

Either way, set aside time to be able to do the research that you need to create good content. You can take an hour or an entire day, the choice is yours.

One thing that I DO NOT recommend is researching while you are trying to write your blog post. You will find that you actually lose a lot of time and energy this way. Instead, have a rough outline of your topics and headlines beforehand.

You should also have a list of the websites that you want to refer to on hand to keep you from having to do Google searches every five minutes.

It may sound like a chore but you will be so thankful that you did it in the long run.

Need some more resources?

Check out our resources page! Find everything you need to start building a website, email list, youtube channel, and content creation strategy!

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How Long Should A Blog Post Be?

The main rule of thumb is that a well-optimized blog post should be around 1,500 or longer.

Up until very recently, blog post length used to play a very important role when it came to SEO and ranking higher on search engines. This led people to create a lot of what we call “fluff” content.

They would write 5,000-word long articles that were not even filled with the information that the viewers needed. But, because longer articles used to perform better, these articles would still rank. Plus, longer posts usually mean longer pages which means more space for display ads.

Which means more money.

However, Google is becoming a lot smarter.

Now it takes things like bounce rates and session times more into account. Google wants to make sure that the viewers are getting what they searched for. However, this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t care how long your articles are. Posts that are around 1,500 words or longer still tend to do better.

But just because your post has 5,000 words will not guarantee that it will rank higher in search results.

Creating A Strong Blogging Content Calendar

If you really want to save some time in your blogging career that having a blogging calendar is going to be a great move.

Having a list of content ideas beforehand is going to save you a lot of time when it comes to content research. You will even be able to see which topics you can cluster together if you want to batch your content.

However, it will even save you time from a financial aspect. If you know ahead of time what you want to write about, you will have time to go find affiliate products for that posts.

Sometimes, it can take a few days before you get responses and/or affiliate links from companies. So having some time on your hands is going to be essential to making the right money moves.

But you may be thinking, how do I create a content calendar?

It’s actually very simple! I personally use a Google Sheet or Excel sheet to save my keywords and content ideas.

youtube content calendar, blog content calendar

Having it on Drive makes it a lot easier because it is accessible no matter where you go.

If you want, you can even have it in a word document and there are also other products and services that you can use for your content calendar as well.

How Often Should I Update My Blog?

You should be updating your blog at least every month.

If you are still making new content then you can go at your own pace. But at least once a month, you should be either making new blog articles, checking your SEO stats, tweaking and optimizing your website, or updating older posts.

Now, I say once a month because that is what most people will have time with IF you are not blogging full time. However, as a blogger and youtuber myself, I find that I am on my site almost every day. When you have your own platform, you will almost always have something to work on.

But I also know that not everybody is able to work on their website or blog every day.

Just make sure you are not leaving your blog for months without any movement. That is not a good sign for the algorithm.

How Many Blog Posts Per Week?

If you are just starting your blog, you should be posting 1 to 2 blog posts every week.

However, if you have the possibility to do more, without sacrificing the quality of your content, then you can do that as well. The main goal here is to set up a rhythm that you can keep up with for several months.

Posting every day can be great for your blog but it can really burn you out as well. And trust me, it will show through your content.

You can even set up a blogging schedule per month if that suits you better. Meaning you can choose to post 4-8 articles per month instead of just having a set number every week.

Once you get to a point where you are past the 100th blog post, you can choose to taper down to maybe 1-4 articles a month. BUT it is important that you have already established enough traffic coming in before you decide to decrease the number of posts you are creating.

How Many Blog Posts Before Traffic Comes In?

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Generally speaking, you will need about 30 blog posts on your site before you start to see any organic traffic.

This is what the people over at Income School call a “seed” of your site. You plant the seed with 30 blog posts and build on top of that and let it grow.

This is why a lot of people actually post every day for 30 days, to begin with, and then start to go down to a few articles a week.

However, do not expect thousands of people to run to your site the first month just because you have 30 articles. This is in no way a guarantee that your blog is going to go viral.

This simply signals to the algorithm that you are creating content and that your site can start to get indexed.

What you can expect to see is maybe 1-10 views in the first few months. You will start to see more traffic coming in every month but it can take anywhere from 6-12 months before you start to see thousands of views on your blog.

What’s good to keep in mind is that the more your blog grows, the more the search engines will trust you. So this process will take less time and you can start to see new blog posts ranking even after a couple of days or weeks.

How Often Should I Blog To Make Money?

On average, you should be posting new articles on your blog at least once or twice a week in the first 6 months.

This sends a good sign to the search engines that your site is active and that you are pushing out content regularly.

If you can post more than that, especially in the first 6 months of your website, then that is going to be even better.

However, make sure that you are doing the correct SEO work so that your site will be fully optimized for the search engines.

You also have to make sure that you are making good quality content.

Once you see that you are starting to get some views, you can start to look at ad platforms that will display ads on your site and start to monetize your blog.

Google AdSense is very popular for beginners so that is a great place to start. However, I even recommend looking into Ezoic since they have now opened up their ad platform to smaller blogs via their Ezoic Access Now Program.

It allowed me to start monetizing my blog when I only had 200 views per month.

How Many Posts Should A Blog Have?

A well-established blog should have between 100-200 fully optimized blog posts on it. Usually, this takes anywhere from 1-2 years to build up, depending on how often you post articles.

This is just enough where the search engines trust your site and you should already be ranking high for keywords. Meaning if you post any newer articles, they will rank quicker.

With this many blog posts, you can start focusing more on turning your blog into a passive income stream where you will only need to go in and update it every now and then.

Through the guys over at Income School and the great analytics they’ve shared, they noticed that sites that have around 200-500 blog posts actually start to taper off in revenue and sometimes even have a lower EPMV (Earning Per Mille Views).

Showing us that in some cases, less means more.

If you find that even after 200 articles you still have a lot that you want to share, then consider making a separate website where you will be able to niche down even more. That way, you will be able to fully optimize that website as well and eventually double your income.

How Many Views Do You Need On A Blog To Make Money?

making money online

You generally want to have at least 1,000 views on your website per month if you want to start making any affiliate sales or money from display ads.

However, there are of course exceptions to every rule. We have seen sites with much fewer views make some affiliate sales.

With display ads, you can expect to make anywhere from $2-$35 with 1,000 views but this depends entirely on your EPMV (Earning Per Mille Views and how high that is for your site. I have had EPMVs go as high as $122.

However, if you want to make a substantial income that you can actually live off of, then you will need at least 10,000-20,000 views per month. That is where you can start to see blog incomes of $1,000 and upwards. There are several ways that you can make money as a blogger so that you can increase your revenue.

I suggest you read more about growing your EPMV if you want to see how to increase your income.

How Long Does It Take To Make $500 Per Month Blogging?

You can expect it to take you around 11-12 months to make $500 from your new website.

I know it sounds like a long time!

But time flies by when you are building a website. Before you know it, you will hit the 1-year mark.

The great thing about blogging is that your income increases very quickly once things start to hit the algorithm. So you will notice that it will start to almost double every month.

This is why it is also important to have your affiliate products, email lists, and ad networks set up so that you won’t miss out on any monetization opportunities.

How Long Does It Take To Make $1000 Per Month Blogging?

On average, it can take you around 13 to 14 months to make $1000 dollars online.

However, I found that if you found the right affiliate products and worked to increase your EPMV, you can make that amount a lot sooner than you think.

That being said, you will need around 20,000 views if you are just relying on ad display or low-commission affiliate platforms like Amazon.

If you find higher-paying affiliates, you can easily make $1000 dollars with 5,000-10,000 views.

For example, I have an affiliate that pays $30 per sale. Usually, you can expect a CTR (Click Through Rate) of about 2%-3% in online marketing.

If my site gets 10,000 views, about 200 people will click on my affiliate link. Of those 200 people, 4-6 will make a purchase.

Bringing in about $120-$180 for affiliate sales alone.

Now pair that with an EPMV of about $40-$45 and you can easily make $1000 dollars that month.

Final Thoughts

Blogging is definitely one of the most overlooked side-hustles and most people don’t even realize how lucrative it can be.

But it does take work and frankly, it is not cut out for everyone.

It will require you to put in effort without seeing much results in the beginning. But in today’s world of TikTok and instant gratification, most people just don’t have the patience to see it through.

In fact, many throw in the towel before they have even reached their peak.

If you do not enjoy creating written content or SEO, then blogging may not be the way for you.

However, if you are looking to make a long-term and fairly passive income stream then owning a website or blog is going to be a great investment of your time and effort.