How Much Time Does It Take To Make Money Blogging

One of the biggest obstacles that all bloggers face, is finding time to do it. Kids, outside jobs, everyday life and even other hobbies can all get in the way of a blogging career.

As you consider starting a blog or turning the blog you have into a source of income, it’s important to know the time commitment you are facing as you become a blogger that blogs for profit!

I’ve been blogging for over 11 years, and each year my time commitment has been different. This year I put the most time into my blogs and have seen the most income. You truly get out of it what you put in!

But what is the minimum? How much time and effort do you need to put into a site to start seeing (financial) results.

Here’s what we’ve seen to be the starting point to business blogging. Of course, you can work harder to see more results. Becky and I both work full time on blogs and earn more money working from our homes than our husbands were making working outside the house. But to do this, we were working almost as many hours at home as they were working outside the house! That is a huge time commitment, but it also yields huge results!

As you get started, here is what you would need to do in a typical blogging work-week.

– Write 3 blog posts (minimum) –  The time per post depends on your own speed but let’s give 1 hour per post for a beginning blogger. 3 hours

– Create Images For Blog posts – For three posts you will need a minimum of 6 images, though 3 per post allows for one image to be optimized for each social media share site. Square for facebook, verticle for pinterest and a 560×292 size for link shares. (Tips for making the best blog images here) 3 hours

– Social Media Promotion – hours a week 3.5 hours – 5.5 hours a week

• 5+ minutes a day pinning – your content and others = 35 minutes/week
• 4 tweets a day (links and non links) = 25 minutes/week
• 2 Instagram posts a day = 35 minutes/week
• 5-10 Facebook shares a day = 2-4 hours a week

– Sharing to other Facebook pages  – 30 minutes a week – as your Facebook page is growing, take the time to share your posts on larger facebook pages that allow sharing (find the list of big pages that allow this here). Here are some posts to help your content be chosen to be shared by the big pages!

– Blogger Education – This one is often overlooked, but so important! Spend at least 1 hour a week investing in your biggest asset for your business…yourself. Commit to learning something new about blogging each week. Read a book about blogging, take our blogpreneur course, or even schedule a coaching session to get a wealth of tips specifically for you about how to optimize your site!

Minimum total – 11 hours a week

If you are looking to make a business out of your blog, then expect to start spending a minimum of 11 hours a week on your blog. Some of these times will get faster as you go, for example I can write a post in much less time than an hour these days, but I also post to my site more than three times a week! After you have established a good number of pageviews and you are ready to focus on monetization you’ll also need to add the following to your blogging schedule

– Applying for sponsored posts – Search out sites that will connect you with brands and pitch brands yourself. 1 hour week 

– Writing Sponsored Content & Affiliate Posts –  Your sponsored posts should be in addition to your minimum of 3 non-sponsored posts a week, whenever possible. 2 hours a week 

– Networking & Education – Working and brainstorming with other bloggers is absolutely invaluable! Also, the more advanced your blog gets, the more you have to learn! So make sure you spend more time learning and even helping/teaching smaller bloggers. 2 hours a week

– Newsletter focus – While creating a mailing list is important for even a beginning blogger, it becomes an essential piece of the puzzle when you start monetizing. Create a great newsletter freebie, and begin sending weekly updates to your followers. 1 hour a week (for the newsletter creation, 5 hours to create a good freebie and set up the newsletter account itself).

We are again dealing with minimum hours spent, but you can expect to tack on at least 5 hours a week when you shift your focus to monetization. You are now at 16 hours a week. More can more can be added to this to help your blog grow. If you increase the number of posts you put out each week your pageviews can grow substantially, but that costs more in time to the tune of 4+ hours for an extra 2 posts a week. If you’ve been blogging awhile and have old posts that need updating then you can tack on an additional 2 hours a week to work on optimizing old posts for SEO and updating images.

If you get your regular posting schedule up to 5 posts a week, then that means you are opened up to more sponsored post opportunities and can increase your time spent there as well.

Yes, you will get faster at writing and learn ways to maximize your time spent in each place (like listening to podcasts while editing photos or working on a good blogging schedule. Even as you implement these tips you will learn how to maximize every hour spent on your blog which will help you grow!

This might seem like a lot of time spent blogging, and it is, but the rewards are amazing if you stick with it and work hard to build your business. Even though many of those hours will be essentially “working for free” before you begin to make a good income on your site, think of it as a work internship. For many careers you spend time learning your craft and practicing it before you get paid a full salary to do the job. Blogging is very similar. It is definitely worth the time put in, if you stick with it and are willing to learn!

How many hours do you spend blogging each week? Join our Facebook group and let’s talk about it!