How to Make Money and Protect Yourself Legally as a New Blogger

Interview with a Successful Part-Time Blogger: Learn How Amira is Building a Profitable Blog as a Full-Time Lawyer

Learn how to make money and protect your blog legally as a new blogger!

I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Amira from ASelfGuru.com to chat about how she has created a successful side-gig as a blogger while balancing a full-time career as a lawyer. 

We had an amazing Facebook live interview and for those that couldn’t make it, I decided to post her amazing tips for beginner bloggers on how to make money and keep your blog and you, protected.

UPDATE: I have included the video at the end of this post if you want to check it out! 

1. HOW DID YOU START OUT BLOGGING?

I actually wrote a blog post on how I started my blog in 7 days while working full- time as a lawyer. You can read it here. Basically I started my blog on a whim! I never knew I’d be a blogger.

I always wanted to start an online business because of the autonomy it offers – you can work from anywhere in the world. But I had no idea that blogging could be a viable option until one day, I stumbled upon a YouTube video of two six-figure bloggers.

Their success from blogging inspired me to start my own blog and the very next day, I purchased their blogging course to begin my journey! Once I started blogging, I realized pretty quickly that this was the side hustle I wanted to pursue long term.

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I work full-time as a lawyer so my choices for other kinds of businesses were limited. For instance, I know I couldn’t commit all the way to a traditional brick and mortar type of business.

Blogging seemed like a great option because it had low upfront costs and I could set my own schedule to work whenever I wanted and still make money.

2. HOW DID YOU MONETIZE YOUR BLOG?

I always knew I was going to monetize my blog but I never knew I’d make $1000 blogging in my first month! And the next month, I doubled my income and since then, I’ve continued to grow my blogging business while only working on it part-time.

There are three ways I monetized my blog in the beginning –

• Affiliate marketing 
• Selling my own products 
• Sponsored posts

You can read my first income report here for more details.

3. WHAT DID YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING IN THE BEGINNING AND HOW DID YOU OVERCOME IT?

I found these two things to be the most challenging in the beginning:

1. Finding the time to blog with a full-time job

I honestly didn’t realize how much work blogging would entail until I purchased the blogging courses and started the process. I had tons of creative ideas yet I couldn’t find the time to implement them all!

It was like my mind was on overdrive mode (it still is!) but it was definitely very challenging in the beginning to learn everything about blogging and also do things the right way!

For example, anyone can publish a blog post but I wanted to publish a quality blog post that provided value to my readers while also ensuring it was done right, meaning using the right headers, optimizing your images, creating click-worthy headlines, optimizing your post for SEO, enabling social media sharing, creating pins, etc.

I didn’t realize that there were so many components to blogging and that your work never ends! Even after you get done writing the perfect blog post, you have to now spend the time marketing and sharing it.

All this took so much more time than I had anticipated, causing me to work late nights every week and weekends while still going to my lawyer job the next day.

Because I also created 4 digital products right away, I was quite overwhelmed with the amount of work I had to do behind the scenes! So while I was still learning everything as a newbie blogger, I was also busy creating, launching and promoting my own products.

As you can imagine, I worked around the clock and barely slept during those initial months! But now that my blogging business has started to generate a steady monthly income, I’ve decided to not work as much and create a healthy balance in my life.

2. No work-life balance

Even before I became a blogger, one thing I struggled with was striking a work-life balance! As a lawyer, I often worked weekends and late nights and now when I added blogging into the mix, I completely overexerted myself!

As entrepreneurs, I feel we have too many things to juggle with especially because in the beginning, we are a “one woman show” and don’t have any help from others or simply can’t afford one. It takes time to build a successful business before you can hire people to work for you.

So it becomes challenging to balance everything but as I mentioned above, I want to live in the moment more and enjoy my life in order to be happy with my work

4. WHEN DID YOU FINALLY FEEL LIKE YOUR BLOG VISION WAS ALL COMING TOGETHER?

My blog vision was a hypothetical until I saw the results. It’s so easy to create a blueprint of your future but if you haven’t achieved the results then it’s just a vision waiting to be transformed into action!

As soon as I started making money from my blog, especially from selling my legal templates, I knew I had to dedicate most of my time helping bloggers and online entrepreneurs with the legal side of their business. @aselfguru

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My legal templates started selling without me having to pay for advertising. Till this day, I’ve not spent a dime on advertising my products (although I will in the future). But making money from my blog confirmed to me that I was on the “right track” and that I had turned my vision into a reality!

5. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS YOUR GREATEST SUCCESS SO FAR? 

The greatest success has been creating my own legal product, a Legal Bundle that not only solves a real problem but also helps other bloggers make money!

It’s the best feeling in the world when bloggers who bought my Legal Bundle thank me afterward saying this: 

“I bought Amira’s Legal Bundle this weekend. Had it customized and on my site in less than half an hour! Imagine all the HOURS saved! I could not imagine having to create these pages myself. Money well spent, time well saved!” 

“In my personal experience, it is great working with Amira! She is SO helpful and has made a major impact in my life with tips and encouragement as well. She puts your desires first and reaches full expectations all the time!” 

“If any of you need help with legal pages, Amira is your girl. I purchased the bundle and my pages were finished in probably 15 minutes. So relieved!” 

“It’s so hard to find anything reputable as a new blogger that isn’t a little crazy expensive, when you’ve already spent so much money. I did probably a year and half of research before starting my blog (on everything, not just legal stuff) because the time wasn’t right for me to launch and this is the first good recommendation I’ve gotten that wasn’t over $500. Thank you so much.”

“I just finished personalizing Amira’s legal templates and it was so easy. The weight of not having legal protection on my newish blog was weighing heavily on me and I feel so free now.”

Everyone knows it’s not easy to monetize your blog, so when I created the Legal Bundle, I also made sure to have a generous affiliate program that any blogger could join to make money online.

Until few months ago, I could only imagine making money from my blog but now I’m super stoked to see my affiliates making thousands from my Legal Bundle! It’s such a huge accomplishment to be able to help my fellow bloggers make money from their blog, and I’m grateful for the opportunity!

If you’d like to join my high paying affiliate program for free and earn up to $60 per sale then you can join here.

6. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR LEGAL BUNDLE?

Sure, the Legal Bundle includes my 3 best-selling legal templates + 9 bonuses (valued at $1,175) you need to comply with the law and protect your blog and online business legally!

It includes these 3 templates:

• Privacy Policy template for your website 
• Disclaimer template for your website 
• Terms and Conditions template for your website

As a new blogger, you need all 3 legal templates above for different reasons. These are ALL the legal pages you need on your blog before you launch. You can read more about why they are so important here.

The Legal Bundle is very comprehensive – these are not some generic free templates you find online. Instead they are written to include all the six-figure legal provisions you need on your blog to protect yourself and your online business legally.

At the same time, the Legal Bundle is super affordable and hundreds of bloggers have trusted it going from a feeling of confused and intimidated to being relieved and happy afterward!

7. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO NEW BLOGGERS THAT WANT TO MAKE MONEY WITH THEIR BLOGS?

There are three things you should keep in mind as a new blogger:

1. Be patient and don’t lose hope

Be patient and don’t lose hope if you don’t make money from your blog right away! It’s a process that takes months, so keep going.

Don’t follow my footsteps and be a workaholic. Create a healthy balance especially if you have a full-time job and blog on the side. It can quickly burn you out otherwise, and I’ve experienced that on multiple occasions.

Just believe in yourself and know that you will make money from your blog through different ways such as affiliate marketing, selling your own products, sponsored posts, and others.

If something does not work, change it! You have no idea how many times I’ve changed things whether that’s my free email opt-in form, home page, sales page layout, blog post content, etc.

Change is good! That means you are learning and making things better. 

4. Stop being a perfectionist

By default, I’m a perfectionist and as a lawyer, that has been one of my strengths! It’s important for me to be detailed oriented and spend the time making sure everything I write and submit to court is “perfect” per se.

But as a blogger, I had to stop being a perfectionist because here’s the problem with that – you spend too much time “thinking” and making sure everything is “perfect” that you really don’t take the action that you should have taken yesterday!

For example, perfecting your website and delaying your launch date or spending too much time on the design phase of your product and delaying that launch too!

These are just some of the obstacles we create in our path and impede our business growth! Instead change your perfectionist mindset and start today. Don’t second-guess yourself. Just do it because done is always better than perfect!

3. Protect yourself and your online business legally

Your blog is an online business if you are making money from it. Treat it like a real business from day one and legitimize it! Make sure your website is legally compliant and you have these 3 legal pages on your blog BEFORE you launch! 

The legal side of any business is not to be taken lightly and as a lawyer, I can’t emphasize this enough because I see business owners getting in trouble all the time. Lawsuits are very expensive and can drain your finances pretty quickly!

That’s why I created the Legal Bundle to protect you legally, give you peace of mind and save you tons of headache and time!

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