How to start a blog and other jobs for people with felonies to make money without the hassles
I’ve got a cousin that spent time in prison and have talked to a few other people with felonies. Finding a good paying job as a former inmate is almost impossible. Not only do you have to battle rumors from co-workers but some industries like finance won’t even give you an interview.
The typical jobs for ex-cons are barely minimum wage and manual labor. The Minnesota State Colleges education board lists jobs like tire repair and freight handler before you can even think about moving up to glamorous jobs like roofer and short-order cook.
Is it any wonder that three out of four inmates released from state prisons end up locked up again within five years?
I’ve been working for myself for years now but only just thought about this the other day. Starting a blog or another work from home strategy could be the perfect job for former inmates.
Why Starting a Blog is the Best Job for Former Inmates
Check out our full list of work from home jobs for other ideas but we’ll be focusing on building a website or blog for this article.
It struck me the other day that a blog might be a great option for people with felonies because:
- There are no background checks or suspicious bosses.
- With a little help, you can start a blog while in prison and have it making money by the time you get out.
- One of the biggest problems for new bloggers is the time it takes to get started. That actually turns to an advantage for inmate blogs.
If you get released with conditions that you get a traditional job, you might still have to work part-time somewhere else. Your blog is still going to be making extra money. Show your P.O. how much traffic it gets and how you make two or three times the money on your blog compared to that shit job at the Waffle House and he might just release you to work from home.
It took me about five months to start making money on my blogs. By the time I had been doing it a year, I was making over $1,000 a month part-time. Less than two-years into blogging, I’m making over $3,000 a month.
And that’s nothing. I know people that have been blogging for just a few years more than me and are making five-figures a month.
The best part is that you can start your blog while still in prison if you have someone on the outside willing to help with the website.
The first thing you are going to need is a web host, a company that holds your website and delivers it to visitors on the internet. We’ll walk through how to start a blog as a job for former inmates but click on the link below to get started with your website.
Click to get a free website name and a 30-day money back guarantee from Bluehost
How to start a blog from prison
This article has more detail on the process of starting a blog and making money but we’ll recap the big points here and add some info to start a blog from prison as an ex-con job.
You first need to pick a topic for your blog, something you can talk about and post on the site. You may have to spend some time in the library, learning about an idea but your blog can be part of that process.
Say you want to blog about fitness and getting in shape. It’s a huge topic for bloggers and one in which you can make good money. You can’t just write about exercising all the time, you have to get further into the topic. So you start reading books about dieting and nutrition. You can make a blog article about each chapter so you’ve got stuff on your blog as you’re learning.
There’s a saying that the three most profitable topics on the internet are health, wealth and romance. That means websites around health or fitness, investing or personal finance, and relationships are your best bet at making money on a blog.
Again, you don’t need to be an expert already to start your blog in one of these topics. If you read some of the shit that passes for blogs on the internet, half the people on the web probably know less than you do already.
You’re going to need help if you are still in prison but this is really the best time to start a blog. You can be writing up your articles and mail them to your person on the outside to post on the blog. Most bloggers struggle to write an article or two a week. If you post an article a day, your blog is going to blow up and get tons of traffic, traffic that will start making money by the time you’re out.
Here’s how it works:
- Have the person on the outside click through this link to get your blog started on Bluehost
- Check out a few websites in your topic to get ideas on putting the blog together
- You can get someone on Fiverr to set up your blog for $5
- Write out an article on your topic of at least 700 words each day (more on this below)
- Each week or so, mail your articles to your person on the outside to schedule on the blog for one article per day
The way you bring people to a blog is by writing regular articles for the site. You can write on just about anything. Take a look at some other blogs in the same topic if you need ideas. I’ve found one of the easiest ways to write is just by reading through a book. You review each chapter in an article. You end up learning the topic and can write other articles on it and you save your readers the time of reading the book.
Most of a blog’s readers come from Google search and Google loves frequent content. This is going to be one of your biggest advantage over other bloggers. If you can write one or two articles every day for the blog, you’ll get tons of visitors from internet search and will make more money than you know how to spend!
This free six-month blogging cheat sheet will get you started with how to make your blog successful. The biggest thing is just to get started and putting articles on the site regularly.
Start your blog six months or more before you get out of prison and you’ll be making money when you get out. Your blogging income will grow every year and you’ll have one of the best jobs for people with felonies.
How to Make Money on a Blog for People with Felonies
Making money on a blog, whether you’re a former inmate or not, is a combination of a few strategies.
- Advertising is going to be your first income from the blog because it’s easy to get started. You sign up for a Google Adsense account and just start putting ad boxes on your blog. When someone clicks on an ad, you get a commission. It won’t be much at first but can grow to a few hundred dollars a month.
- Affiliate sales are just like advertising but you only get paid if someone buys the product on the advertiser’s website. I make about half my total blogging income on affiliates, up to $2,000 in some months. These are pretty easy to do also but you need more visitors so it will take a few months before you start seeing any money.
- Sponsored posts are articles that someone else writes and pays you to put on your blog. It’s usually an article from an advertiser and they’re hoping a reader clicks through a link on the article and buys something. You can make anywhere from $100 to $500 and more on each sponsored posts. Advertisers usually want your blog to be getting more visitors before they will pay for this so it will probably be a year before you get many offers.
What makes blogging one of the best jobs for people with felonies or people still in prison is the fact that you can give these strategies time before you really need to start making money.
Most bloggers start out but then quit after a few months because they aren’t making much money. Starting a blog in prison means you don’t need to make money immediately and can just spend a few months building the blog.
If you need more help figuring out how to make a blog work, there are video classes on Udemy that will help you with everything from starting a blog to writing articles.
Don’t wait too long. A big part of blogging is just getting started and getting articles on the website. You won’t make money immediately so the sooner you start, the better.
Click here to get your blog started in less than an hour with Bluehost
Follow this process for starting a blog in prison and you could have a great source of income by the time you get out. It’s one of the best jobs for people with felonies because there is no education required and you don’t have to interview for it. It’s tough getting a job after prison but even tougher getting a good paying job as an ex-con. Blogging will let you build your income while still inside and have money ready by the time you get out.