How Many Blog Posts Does It Take to Make Money?

I have been blogging for over ten years, and not a single year has gone by without someone asking me, “Can you make money doing that? How many blog posts do you need to make money?”

To which I’d say, I would have made a lot more had I published this Q&A-style post back in the day. 😂

Join the countless people who have asked me this question, all of whom I have answered the same way over the last decade:

It depends.

IT DEPENDS!!!!!

One more time: It depends!!!

One more go??

It de-pends!

Now, realistically? Let me give you my favorite short answer: 75 posts.

The long answer? Read more below.

How Many Blog Posts Do You Need to Monetize Your Travel Blog?

Some travel bloggers monetize with 150 published posts. Some with 50. Some manage 4-figure monetization in six months, while others take two years.

My best record? 7 posts. Or was it 3? (Anyway, it was thanks to getting the site up and running fast and monetizing with AI tools like automatic hotel boxes and affiliate links, thanks to Travelpayouts.)

The most realistic answer is none of the above. Your earnings come down to several factors:

• Your strategy (what kind of posts are you publishing? how often?)
• Your writing (are you a decent copywriter or do you kinda suck? sorry…)
• Your affiliate programs and how you include them (goes back to strategy)
• Your trustworthiness (the whole E-E-A-T thing)

And so much more, but I digress.

So… Is the Answer 75 Blog Posts?

Why do I suggest 75 blog posts?

Well, I’ve had eight blogs in the last ten years:

• my first; a cat blog, est. 2014 (still own)
• castor oil + natural beauty blog (sold!)
• Tennessee destination blog (selling?)
• a 9–5 sister travel blog (on hold)
• my travel blog (hello, Bucketlist Bri)
• my second travel blog (konnichiwa, Nomad in Japan)
• an abandoned tropical travel blog (wait, is that it?)

I feel like I’m missing one. 🤔

Anyway, between these blogs and the 100+ blogs I’ve helped monetize through my course, the average success for monetization, as in, “I’ve hit [at least] 4 figures from blogging!” is around the 75-post mark.

I know, right!

Most often, I’ve seen my blogs really rack up traffic around the 30-40 published post mark. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Again, it really ALL depends!!

What’s unique about 75 is that this amount will roughly translate into a year. Give or take. Could take you 3 months if you were publishing like a mad person (or had a team).

But the solo blogger will average 1-2x posts per week, missing a few here or there.

So, a year into your blog building, you’ll see great traffic leaps and, with that, income leaps too.

But, again, this is just me theorizing here! You could already be at 100 blog posts and still see $0 in income. And if that’s the case, yikes! Lol. You’ll want to seriously reconsider your strategy and/or writing. Probably both.

So, 75 is a good benchmark just to see where you’re at. If you have an upward trend in Search Console, you’re already earning, then that’s a great sign.

If you’re not… time to pivot.

My Final Thoughts: Give Yourself a Year

In short, give yourself a year of consistent publishing (consistent in that you don’t publish all 75 at once and then disappear for 9 months to give birth to a new project).

Give yourself a year. Give Google a grace period to figure your website out. Give yourself some breathing space.

If you keep going, you literally cannot not see some traffic or income.

But, are you building upon solid foundations? Are you writing or blogging with clarity and intention?

It depends…

Where are you currently in your blog journey? Are you under or over the 75th blog post—and, what’s your traffic/income look like?