When I started Fantabulously Frugal almost one year ago I didn’t think there was any way I could make any money off of the site, and I certainly didn’t go into it with that as a goal.  This site was started purely as a hobby – a way to fill my time once I completed grad school.  Slowly though I began realizing that there were some ways to make money from the site.  Not a lot of money, but a little bit here and there.

Everything I learned about monetizing Fantabulously Frugal I learned through trial and error, and through finding little tidbits about programs on other websites as I went along.  I am going to try and lay everything that I know out here over the next few days and possibly weeks, and hopefully some of you will be able to make a little bit of extra spending money from your own site.

There are two big things I want to warn you about before we get started:

1. If you start a blog for the sole purpose of making money, you’re not going to make any money.  It’s as simple as that.  Why?  Chances are if you start a site for the sole purpose of making money then you probably won’t be willing to put forth the time and effort to make sure that your blog is something that others want to read.  It’s going to take months and months of hard work before you see any sort of monetary gain.

2. Most blogs will not make much – if any – money until you have a sizeable readership.  This is why you should really care about your blog’s topic.  If you start a blog with the sole purpose of making money, people are going to see right through you.  But if you really care about your topic and put a lot of time and energy into developing good blog posts, the readers will come.

Though those are two different points, they work together.  The number one way to increase your readership is to write good content, and depending on your blog’s main topic, to write frequently.  Once you are writing quality content on a regular basis and networking with other bloggers {check out sites like 20 Something Bloggers, or set up a page for your blog on Facebook}, the readers will come.  The more readers you have visiting to your site, the more money-making opportunities you’re going to have.

I can’t wait to share with you what I know, beginning tomorrow, and I hope you’ll all provide feedback as well!!