The end of the year is a great time to reflect, examine, and set new priorities for what’s next, which makes it the perfect time to do a review of your blog business.  If the word review makes you shiver and think of your end-of-year teacher eval meeting, where you have to prove to your administrator that you’re an effective teacher, don’t sweat it. This is your business, and you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. If it helps, this is not just a review, but also a clean-up, a chance...

With a new year, comes new possibilities. Looking forward is so important for content creators, but rarely do we give ourselves time to do it. If I’m totally honest, I haven’t been good about giving myself enough white space to think about my business for several years.  When Side Hustle Teachers started, I didn’t expect it to become so popular so fast. I really had to keep my nose to the grindstone and fix the little issues that sprang up… seemingly one right after another. It didn’t leave...

As we approach 2023 - man, that sounds weird to say - I realized that I have been blogging for 10 years!  I don’t actually remember the date, so don’t be expecting an anniversary party or anything, but I made my first money as a blogger in 2012. Holy crap, that’s a long time. In those 10 years I was able to grow a successful mom-lifestyle blog that paid off my student loans, let us buy our cars with cash, and put me on track to pay off our mortgage in 15 years instead of 30.  I also sold...

With the holidays approaching, you may find yourself noticing lots of posts popping up with gift recommendations and wondered if they really boost revenue (they do!) and how you can make one for your own blog. A well done gift guide can be a fantastic way to increase your affiliate income. But a poorly done gift guide can actually damage the trust you’ve built up with your audience. So before you go on your virtual shopping spree and start seeing dollar signs in your eyes, let’s talk about...

Know, like, and trust. You may have heard those words before - you may have heard them from me - and thought, “That’s great… how do I do that?” Even though we live in a time when we feel highly connected to people we only know from the internet - I have friends I’ve never met in my online due date group - you still have to put effort into forming authentic, human-to-human relationships. Today I’m sharing 5 practical strategies to connect with your readers: Be Yourself Nothing turns people...

Burnout is nothing to joke about. It’s real and it is vicious. Blogger burnout has derailed many potential entrepreneurs and we don’t want that to happen to you. The good news is that you can avoid this all-too-common phenomenon with a little planning, and a lot of self-monitoring. Here are 4 tips to maintain a healthy schedule and avoid burnout: Start as You Intend to Continue We all know that when you first start a new venture you want to throw your whole self into it. This is normal,...

This question came to me from someone in the Side Hustle Teachers community, and I wanted to answer it here because it’s something a lot of people may worry about. Here’s the question: “I want to start a blog, but I’m worried that my students will find it. What should I do?” My question is, why? Honestly, I understand the sentiment, but I also know that there’s no reason to be concerned about this. Yes, if we put ourselves out there, our coworkers, students, and families might discover...

Guest posting, also called guest blogging, is a process in which a blogger creates content for another site in order to build backlinks, expand their audience, and strengthen their authority.  Early on in the world of blogging, guest posts were a hugely popular way to increase your search engine optimization (SEO) and grow an audience. In fact, anyone could write a 300-word post, share it on any other site, and boost their blog’s standing. It didn’t even have to be a good post. However, in...

Once you tell people you’re thinking of starting a side business, you will find yourself presented with all sorts of opportunities. In fact, one of the most frequently asked questions in the Side Hustle Teachers Facebook group is, “what should I do for a side hustle?” And believe me when I tell you, if you post that question, you will get hundreds of responses. In reality, there’s more to picking a business model than just picking something other people have found success with, especially...

When you’re first building your blog, you’ll make some design choices about the aesthetic of your site. You’ll choose colors and fonts, and maybe a simple logo, and you’ll run with it. But at some point along your journey, you’re going to decide that everything about your site is wrong. You’ll decide that your colors are hideous and your fonts are unreadable, your logo is annoying… and maybe even the name of your site is all wrong. This is normal. It happens to everyone. The truth is that...

We are so lucky to have Denise Duffield-Thomas back with us this week for round two, talking about money blocks that hold teachers back from making money outside of teaching. Of course, there's not a lot we can do about our teaching salaries - that's pretty much set in, well, not stone, but contract -  but we can help ourselves make money in other ways.  Denise says it’s understandable that teachers have a tough time making money from a side hustle because we’ve always been part of a system...

This week is special because I’m joined by money mentor, Denise Duffield-Thomas and we’re talking about 2 things that teachers find challenging; maintaining an abundance mindset and applying that to pricing for your business Abundance is something that teachers struggle with in many ways. There never seems to be enough… anything.  Not enough supplies.  Not enough time.  And certainly not enough money. We feel stretched in a million directions and there’s not even enough us to go around. ...

SEO, when implemented properly over time, can provide a major boost to your blog traffic and your overall income. For each blog post you write, you need to have a clear, repeatable, SEO process to make certain that you’re maximizing search engines. Follow the steps below to fully optimize every blog post you create. Strategies for improving every post’s SEO 1. Write for Your Target Audience It’s tempting to try to write posts that appeal to a broad audience - because you don’t want to limit...

Search Engine Optimization, SEO for short, is an essential piece of any blog growth strategy, but it generally has an air of mystery around it.  There are lots of definitions floating around - some that seem to contradict each other - that use a lot of buzzwords and tech-speak and don’t really clarify anything. Add to that the fact that SEO is a long-term strategy, and it gets even fuzzier. It can take months for SEO work to pay off, so there’s nothing we can even point to and say, “Aha!...

Last week I shared my system for tracking income and expenses, but knowing where your money is coming from, and where it’s going to, is only part of the process. Most likely - if you’re like the vast majority of business owners - when you start to track your income and expenses you’ll likely notice that very little of your income (if any) is going to you! That’s what today is all about. What’s Profit? I’ve mentioned before that in my first month of blogging I made $2.11, but what I didn’t...

When I started blogging I did everything I could to avoid looking at any numbers other than page views. For months I was “too busy” or I “forgot” to update my income and expenses report, so it just didn’t get done. This is a very common mistake that a lot of new bloggers make and it’s usually for one (or both) of 2 reasons:  You know that in the very beginning you’re likely not making as much as you’re spending or you’re just making a few dollars, so you stick your head in the sand to...

Passive income is often seen as the holy grail of the side hustle. There are many - especially online - who present themselves as passive income specialists, lying on a beach all day, sipping fruity beverages, and listening to their phone cha-ching to alert them to new sales.  If that sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. For a long time passive income was dangled in front of people as a “set it and forget it” method of making money. Just do X, Y, and Z, then sit back and watch...

At this moment there are an unprecedented number of educators looking to get out of teaching. It’s a sad, and more than slightly terrifying, prospect, to be sure. But it’s also understandable…  I’m not going to start in on the state of education right now, because that would lead down a pretty dark rabbit whole. So let me just say, I get it If you’re one of this group, you might be wondering how a blog can help you in this pursuit. In fact, that’s one of the questions I get from community...

A blog is a quick and ebay way to start marketing an existing business OR start making money while you decide exactly what your business is going to be.  In terms of building authority, establishing and strengthening relationships, and providing a platform through which to sell, blogging is extremely cost effective. That said, one of the biggest questions people have is, “How much is it going to cost me to start a money making blog?” Can I start a blog for free? Let’s first start with what...

What should my blog be about?  That’s one of the first questions you have to answer when starting your journey into blogging. And it’s one that many people get stuck on. Of course, your blog niche can be literally anything. The only limit is your imagination. But this can be a little intimidating, right?  Anything seems like a lot to choose from. So today we’re going to talk about the 11 most popular blog niches for teachers. This list is by no means exhaustive, and there’s no rule that...

When it comes to your blog audience, there’s no denying that size matters. While your blog traffic is not the most important thing when it comes to profitability, you’ve got to have someone to sell to. And if you’ve ever felt that your blog isn’t growing fast enough, you’re not alone. Before we start, remember that you don’t need a huge audience to make a profit from your blog. When you have a well-defined, focused niche, your audience might not be as large as others, but they will convert...

When I started blogging, and told people about it, I heard a lot of, “Yeah, but how do you actually make money with a blog?” At the time, I will admit, I had no idea. But I knew it was possible, so I kept going. Even a couple years later when I was featured in a CNBC article on people making 5 figures through their side hustles, my dad called me up, completely befuddled. “You make $10,000 from that blog of yours?” he asked. When I told him it was actually more than that, I’m pretty sure I...

As of this writing, there are over 600 million blogs on the internet. That’s a lot. However, not all are active and not all are profitable.  Why? There are a number of reasons blogs don’t make money, but the most common are these 3: It’s a hobby blog. The blogger started it just for fun and never intended to monetize it. Fair enough. Blogfade. In this case the blogger fully intended to monetize their blog but was expecting it to be quick and easy. When it wasn’t, they gave up. Bad...

The internet is full of blogging advice, and a lot of it is really useful. Unfortunately a lot of it used to be useful, but became outdated 20 years ago, and some of it is just plain wrong. So how does a budding blogger discern the difference? Well, it’s not easy - because it all looks legit - but I’m going to break down some pieces of advice you may stumble upon that you can just ignore. Bad Blogging Advice #1: Post Every Day I admit, I fully did this, and I very nearly quit blogging...