How I Started My Blog From Scratch (And Then Quit My Job!)

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When I first started my blog, I was still working full-time as a wedding photographer.

I actually loved my job – until we had our first baby. After she was born, I quickly realized that my work hours (the evenings and weekends) were the only time our little family could be together. And I was missing it.

I was a new mom that was completely worn out trying to work two full time jobs (stay-at-home mom AND photographer). I was exhausted and felt like I was failing at both things.

Then we found out we were pregnant with our second.

I knew from the pit my soul that I couldn’t continue to do what I’d been doing anymore. My husband and I made the difficult financial decision for me to significantly cut back on how much I was shooting.

And so I started my blog…

There I was. 30 weeks pregnant with our second, and googling “how to make money from home.” And I decided to start a blog.

I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know what a hosting provider was. I had almost zero techy knowledge. But, I was full of hope.

My husband and I are DIY’ers out of necessity. We’ve always been on a budget. He’s handy. And I constantly want to make things beautiful and can’t leave well enough alone. So I thought – why not share what we are actively doing anyways?

I knew there were people out there making real money at blogging. I didn’t have hopes of making tons of money or anything, but I did have hopes that it would help to supplement a little of my missing income. Or maybe pay for one of our bills.

My pie-in-the-sky DREAM was being able to pay for preschool for our children. That was it.

So I started my blog in the tender phase of postpartum. I somehow fumbled around and figured out how to get it up and running.

And then I blogged while a newborn slept on me. And I blogged after I tucked my toddler in at night and watched The Office re-runs.

And then I got my first paycheck.

I wasn’t consistent, I definitely wasn’t doing it “right,” and I was doing the bare minimum, for sure. But by golly, I somehow made my first $10 and I hadn’t had to leave the house to do it. I felt like I’d won the lottery and showed my husband as if I’d brought in a cool million dollars.

That first payout set a fire under me. Because if I could make $10 knowing absolutely nothing… what could happen if I actually learned how to do this?

I started to actually invest in my blog by learning how to do it better. I got incredibly lucky and landed on Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies course late one night in my research. This course… I will never not recommend it. It taught me so much about using Pinterest as the visual search engine that it is, in a way that I simply wasn’t doing before.

My Pinterest traffic exploded.

I eventually saw my first $100 payout in a month. And then $200. And then $300. And then $400. And then I started to make enough to take over the payment of one of our monthly bills. I’ve never felt more accomplished in my life!

Eventually I hit 20k/monthly visitors to my site and was able to apply for a mid-tier ad company. This, alone, doubled what I was making on my blog.

And I paid for our son’s preschool. The only goal I had in the beginning.

A year later, I reached 50k/monthly viewers to my blog (enough to apply for Mediavine – which meant premium ads and higher earnings). This is where I knew the bigger bloggers to be, making substantial money at this.

My income doubled again, and I completely quit my photography job.

But here’s the part I want to be transparent about.

What I did – 2 1/2 years to get to Mediavine level – is considered “slow growth” in the blogging world. There are ways to do this so much faster.

Why I was “slow growing”:

It came down to the fact that I wasn’t using my blog to its fullest potential. While I was seeing good growth, I was missing out on tons of income opportunities because I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.

So I invested in a Google SEO course, something I had never DARED to tackle. SEO had always felt too techy and scary, and just not for me.

Within 6 months of implementing what I learned, my traffic boomed again. And so did my income.

I realized then that there was a whole world of ways to monetize my blog that I was just sitting on, because I didn’t know what they were.

The truth is I had no idea what to pursue. There were so many bloggers selling different methods and ideas. A simple Pinterest search for “blog tips” overwhelmed me.

It was hard to navigate who was selling actionable and realistic information.

I invested in more than a few of these courses and realized that many were “gatekeeping,” and that I had just thrown money at something with very little return. Many were selling broad ideas and checklists, but not giving the bread and butter of what it actually took to make it happen.

So I just started trying things. Throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks, as they say. And when an idea flopped, I tried something else.

Last year, my small blog brought in $60k. A full time income.

I am still actively growing and learning.

I am honest about trying and failing, but I’m also honest about what’s truly working. I have built a blog that earns me substantial passive income, from the ground up.

I can take time off whenever I need to, and work when I’m able. My family is my priority, so most days you will find me hanging out with my kids (I’m 24 weeks pregnant with our third as I type this).

Where I find myself now has surpassed what I ever dreamt that I could build.

But. BUT. I still mourn those first few years of motherhood, where I spent so much of my time floundering and missing out on where I actually wanted to be.

So I created the blogging guide that I needed when I started.

After everything I’ve learned the hard way, the idea came to me to put out a guide to include everything I wish I had been given at the beginning of my blogging journey.

I literally wrote it for the woman I was then. Without a clue where to start, but so darn hopeful that I could. Willing to put in the work, but not sure what to pour into (or to invest money in).

So I filled this guide with everything I know about blogging.

All the things I’ve muddled my way through and done the leg work for you on.

How to start your blog from scratch. Who I recommend as your hosting company. Who I’d purchase a theme from. How to choose what to write about. How to move traffic to your site in a way that works. How to take great photos (from a professional photographer’s perspective). Alllll the way down to how to make money in the non-obvious ways that seem difficult but actually aren’t. I am going into detail about everything. You can find everything I’ll walk you through here.

It’s 64 pages. It’s nothing to be trifled with.

I also give you templates that I wish I had at the beginning, as well as different ways to think about things to get creative juices flowing. I even include my exact “pitch e-mail” that I send to potential sponsors. (That sounds scary, probably – it’s not!).

I am not an influencer, and you don’t have to be either.

You won’t find me on Instgram, TikTok, or even Facebook. I blog pretty quietly, and that’s how I like it. I am not an influencer, so I shine at walking you through the ways that you can do this without a large social media following.

Anyone that I get a chance to talk with about my blog, I am adamant about the fact that they could do this, too! Anyone can do this – with the right tools and mindset. I firmly believe that.

And if you’ve made it this far into this post, I have a feeling something in your gut is saying, “This might be the thing.”

I’m here to tell you, it really may be. All you need is a clear path forward and the gumption to keep working at it.

In my guide, “A Comprehensive Guide to Creating & Monetizing a Blog: How I Earn $5k+ Monthly,” I’m giving you all the tools, insider information, and guidance I wish I had had when I started.

OR

I’ve worked so hard to make this a valuable resource, and I truly believe it is.

I am honestly and truly rooting for you! I promise you, if I can do this – you can too.

Courtney