Do you love blogging and want to earn some extra money? Blogging is a low cost business idea with the potential to earn thousands of dollars per month. This guide shares how you can make money blogging, with 11 sources of income used by professional bloggers who earn a full-time income through their website.
How to Make Money Blogging
- Choose a profitable niche
- Build an email list
- Write sponsored product reviews
- Sell ad placements
- Join an affiliate marketing program
- Offer services
- Sell digital products
- Sell physical products
- Create a community Membership
- Monetize YouTube Videos
- Produce a Podcast and Get a Sponsor
How Much Money Can Bloggers Make?
The potential of blogs is virtually limitless. Well-established bloggers like Ryan Robinson, who blogs about blogging, can earn upwards of $30,000 per month. Adam Enfroy, who began blogging about the blogging business in 2019 as a sideline, generated $1.5 million from his blog just two years later.
Bloggers can’t just pull Benefit from monthly income. Marketplaces like Flippa list blogs for sale, many of which come with hefty six-figure price tags. Bloggers get paid when their creative project is purchased.
Unfortunately, not every blogger can make millions through their website. The earning potential of your blog depends on two factors:
- Your niche. Do people spend large sums of money on products in your industry? The software industry, for example, can be lucrative as many companies pay recurring commissions. Bloggers can earn small amounts each month, long after the customer has made the purchase. (More on this later).
- Your monetization strategies. Some blog monetization methods are off the table for new bloggers who want to stick to their core values, such as not getting paid to post content they that you do not agree. This can affect short-term earning potential.
How long does it take to make money blogging?
Blogging is typically a side job that people take on with the hope that, one day, they will be able to quit their day jobs. However, the time it takes to generate substantial income varies from blogger to blogger.
Some with an entrepreneurial mindset earn their first $100 online in just a few months, like Brittany Berger, founder of Work Brighter, who started making money almost instantly. Berger created a simple $20 digital download, which she promoted in her weekly newsletter and on her newsletter subscription page. “By starting so early in the life of the blog, I was able to convert a large chunk of the audience,” he says.
“I think that waiting to release something until you have a larger audience can end up creating more pressure.” for yourself, so I’m glad I experimented with a small product when my audience was small.”
Mushfiq Sarkar is another blogger who started posting at his full-time job in 2008. Although Mushfiq doesn’t had prior marketing experience, says, “I left my job in April 2021 to focus on The Website Flip because it was growing significantly and I was more passionate about growing this website and writing blogs.”
Now, the blog generates significant revenue despite being only a few years old: “I launched it at the height of the pandemic in April 2020. A lot of people knew me by name, but not that I was an active blogger or someone covering the industry. I started making money pretty quickly, in a month or two.”
11 Ideas to Make Money Blogging
Looking for a creative side hustle that generates extra income? Whether you’re starting a new blog or growing an existing one, here are 11 ways to make money blogging.
1. Choose a Profitable Niche
A niche is a specific topic within a broad topic, such as vegan recipes. By choosing one for your blog, readers create an association with your site. They know exactly what they’ll get when they visit, which improves your chances of being their first port of call when seeking advice.
“Before monetization, it’s all about quality and experience if you want to stand out, ” says Mushfiq, founder of The Website Flip. “First, figure out what your niche is and why you should be writing about it, and shape yourself into who you are on that topic. Once that happens, you will build a following over time. Monetization follows.”
You’ll find bloggers making money in a wide variety of niches, from business software to pet accessories. Not all niches are good, though.
A profitable blogging niche meets three criteria:
- It’s something you’re skilled at or interested in. Blogs consistently need a lot of content of high quality to build an audience and monetize yourself. Not only will it be more fun to blog about something you have a genuine interest in, but it will also increase the likelihood of making money. It’s easier to stick with a hobby we enjoy.
- Low competition. Popular blogs, brands, or forums in your niche indicate that others are making money in it. Similarly, perform a Google search to assess keyword ranking difficulty. It will be more difficult to generate organic traffic if big-name brands (with even larger marketing budgets) dominate the first page of search results.
- Monetization potential. Look at monetization opportunities. for each niche on your shortlist. Do companies in that niche pay to advertise their products on other blogs? Are there many affiliate programs selling products in that industry? Both are telltale signs of a profitable blogging niche.
2. Build an Email List
To make money from your blog, you need loyal readers who will value your recommendations.
One of the best ways to do this is by creating an email list for your very own blog When someone opts in to receive news from your blog, they are given permission to reach readers in a place more sacred than all others: their inbox.
“Email marketing It is by far the most lucrative sales channel for me. . I no longer even try to sell directly from other channels, but instead direct people from social media, collaborations and SEO to my email list,” says Brittany Berger, founder of WorkBrighter
Encouraging blog visitors to Sign up for your mailing list using a popup box.The goal is to get any first-time visitors to opt-in to receive news from you by using an incentive, such as:
- Lists free verification
- Resource lists or recommended products
- Blog content packaged in PDF (such as printable recipes)
Once they have registered , continue to foster that relationship with educational or entertaining content. You’ll build an audience ready to buy products from your recommendations.
Take it from Lily Ugbaja, who initially started her blog FindingBalance.Mom “because I wanted to stay home with my son, do something I love and continue g making money.”
It took Lily two weeks to make money from the blog: “I used emails to promote my pipeline and relevant affiliate products with tripwires and Facebook groups. Add lead magnets to your site so people sign up after reading your article. Instead of a hit page, you share a unique offer: a low-end product at a super low price, $7 in my case.
Even though the blog gets less than 1000 page views per month , says Lily, her first month ended with over $100, and soon after, $100 turned into “a few thousand” each month.
“Think of your blog as a means to an end rather than the end.” itself,” says Lily. “The most successful bloggers monetize with products and affiliates, and those streams don’t convert without some serious planning. Build funnels, build them backwards. Start with a product you want to sell, then create blog content that supports sales of that product” .
3. Write Sponsored Product Reviews
Every business wants social proof to show their customers that their products are worth buying. One way to get it is by paying bloggers to post reviews.
Contact your favorite brands and ask if they’re interested in sponsoring a review on your blog. If you use the product outside of the purpose of the review, this tactic essentially costs nothing. You simply get paid to share your opinion on a product you already own.
This monetization strategy gets a bit murky, though. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently fined Fashion Nova $4.2 million for suppressing negative reviews, even though they were allegedly requested by an outside service.
The FTC has a whole new set of guidelines that will affect e-commerce merchants and ultimately bloggers who get paid to write sponsored reviews.
Avoid putting your blog in trouble by:
- Disclose if you have incentives to write the review. If you are paid to post a review, for For example, include the following disclaimer in the introduction of your article: “I was paid to write this review and may receive a commission if you purchase this product.”
- Be honest. Share the good and the bad to help readers make an informed decision about whether to buy the item you’re reviewing.
4. Selling Ad Placements
Businesses are willing to pay bloggers for ad placements on their websites. Lend them otherwise unused space for a fee.
There are two routes to building this income stream for your blog:
- Deal with companies individually. Find companies in your niche and ask them if they they would be interested in advertising on your site. It’s the most time-consuming approach and you’ll need strong trading skills, but if done right, it can make the most money.
- Use an ad network. Prefer the hands-off approach? Platforms like Google AdSense, Mediavine, and AdThrive claim space on your blog and handle advertiser billing. Simply insert your code on your site and get paid to display ads.
For Emily Brookes, blogger for Emily May, display ads are the most lucrative sales channel for my blog. “About 60% of my blog revenue comes from display ads,” she says. “Ads make me consistently earn money every month, even when I haven’t posted any new content.”
To make advertising a substantial source of income for your blog, driving website traffic needs to be a priority.
Ad networks like Google AdSense pay per 1,000 impressions (CPM), with the average CPM for display ads hovering around $1.25. The more people are exposed to ads on your blog, the more money you will earn.
Both Mediavine and AdThrive also require bloggers to meet minimum page view requirements before applying to join the network. It is an investment that will pay dividends in the long run. Monica Lent, founder of Not a Nomad Blog, generates the majority of her revenue from this type of blog advertising.
Afoma Umesi runs her book blog, Reading Middle Grade, on the side. “I had no experience and started blogging as a hobby before seriously deciding to monetize the site,” he says.
“I needed something passive, so I chose ads and affiliate links. I don’t want to make or sell products or digital services right now and I’m not a big fan of sponsored posts so the ads fit the bill, all I need is traffic.
Reading Middle Grade currently makes between $800-$1,000 per month , three quarters of which come from this type of advertising. Afoma says: “Don’t be afraid or ashamed to use ads. They are inconvenient for some users, but if you provide value and use them sensibly, most users hardly notice the ads.”
5.Join an Affiliate Marketing Program
Affiliate marketing is the process of recommending products to your blog audience. You will receive a commission when they buy the product using your link personalized.
This is a great income opportunity for bloggers, since the content you share will already be influencing their purchasing decisions. Turn your blog into a hub of educational content and you’ll build the knowledge, like and trust factors needed to make a sale.
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to create your own products. Connect to an existing eCommerce business and become a virtual seller for them. There’s no need to worry about producing marketing materials, shipping products, or dealing with customer service.
To make money blogging using this method, join an affiliate marketing network like ShareASale, AWIN, or ClickBank. Browse programs available in your industry, apply to join, create custom links, and track affiliate earnings through the dashboard.
You can also look for expensive affiliate programs from merchants that sell expensive products, such as electronics, jewelry, or software. Bloggers earn hefty checks when they recommend those articles to readers. Shopify affiliates, for example, earn 100% commission on the first two payments of any subscription plan.
6. Offer Services
A natural byproduct of building your audience means more people associate your name with the blog topics you write about. That’s a great way to build authority, something people look for when hiring people to complete a service.
“If you’re in the B2B space like me, consulting is a great revenue generator. If you have some experience and people actually read your content, what kind of consulting can you do for them? It’s a high-income, low-commitment way to make money blogging,” says Mushfiq, founder of The Website Flip.
While running a service-based business is time-consuming, it can be a quick way to make money online. Demand a higher hourly rate and find high-paying clients by using your blog content as a way to demonstrate your expertise.
Examples of services you can sell along with his blog include:
- Consulting services
- Graphic design
- Freelance writing
- Virtual assistance
- Classes or workshops
Save time scheduling appointments and accepting payments with apps like Acuity and Calendly Promote your service through the blog, either as a standalone landing page or an ad on your bar side, and start booking new clients.
Related: 12 Things to Sell on Shopify (Other than Physical Products)
7. Sell Digital Products
Digital products are a more scalable way to make money selling things along with your blog. Unlike service-based businesses, you don’t trade time for money. And unlike selling physical products, there are no shipping or manufacturing costs.
You can create digital products once and sell an infinite number of them through your blog; hence the phrase “build once, sell twice.”
- “I decided to add printables, and soon other digital products, to diversify my income and put more control in my own hands. So far, I let readers decide how much they’d like to pay for my printables, which is why the revenue numbers haven’t been crazy. However, I have registered more than 800 downloads, so I am very proud of that. —Dylan Houlihan, founder of Swift Salary
Find out what digital products your audience would buy by using a reader survey asking, “What problem do you need help with that the blog isn’t here for?” solving for you?The answers can reveal ideas you can package and sell as:
- eBooks
- Printables
- Workbooks
- Online Courses
Benjamin Houy has run the blog French Together full-time for eight years Part of the blog’s monetization strategy includes digital products, particularly the French course , which generates 90% of the blog’s revenue.
“Ads and affiliate links can be great monetization strategies depending on the niche, but building a product is easier and more profitable than you think. most bloggers think,” Benjamin says. “Your product doesn’t have to be the absolute best product ever when you launch it. s, it just has to be something that your audience finds really useful and is happy to pay for.
“Selling your own product is awesome because you can improve it based on people’s feedback and you don’t have to worry about it. affiliate programs being discontinued or more and more people using ad blockers.”
8. Sell physical products
Does your blog have a cult following? Loyal blog readers quickly turn into rave fans, eager to support their favorite influencer. Help them do that, while generating revenue for your blog, by selling physical products.
The print-on-demand model works well for small blogging businesses, since you only pay manufacturing costs when a reader purchases. a product. . There is no excess inventory, storage fees, or high startup costs when manufacturing bulk products.
Use a service like Printful or Printify to create personalized products, such as:
- Mugs
- T-shirts
- Stickers
- Posters
- Tote Bags
- Phone cases
Looking for inspiration? Her First $100K sells merchandise with messages that are compatible with your target readership. You’ll see phrases the blog is known for, like “Smash the Patriarchy” and “Financial Feminist,” on branded tote bags and T-shirts.
Prefer something more practical? Start your first online store and treat your blog audience as your initial customer base.
One of the world’s most infamous beauty brands was brought to life by the founder’s blog. Emily Weiss shared beauty tips on her blog, Into The Gloss, and built an audience of loyal fans. She later developed a skin care line that served readers of the blog. That was the starting point for Glossier, a $1 billion-plus beauty brand.
Richard Belton is another entrepreneur who took this approach. He has been writing about maple syrup on his blog, Kaito Ridge, for nearly eight years, using the site as a way to generate income through Amazon affiliate commission.
However, Richard recently changed his blog’s monetization strategy and took control of the site’s revenue potential by opening his first Shopify store. “I’m in the process of directing my articles, blog posts, and informational posts to link to my own Shopify store to reduce reliance on Amazon,” he says.
Read more: How You Can Make Passive Income in 2022
9. Build a community of members
Give your most engaged readers a VIP experience, one for which they pay a small fee in return.
This type of community is an important part of social connection, something especially important in an increasingly online-first world. Communities have not only been shown to improve mental health, but 52% of shoppers will spend more on brands (or blogs) with shared values.
Take it from Michael Keenan, who runs a community of members in conjunction with the Peak Freelance blog: “If you want a steady stream of income for your blog efforts, create a membership program. You can offer exclusive content like manuals and courses, special offers, even a Slack channel like the one we offer for Peak Freelance members.
“Set your membership fees on a monthly or annual basis. Provide a small discount for those who pay annually. This gives you a nice cash injection that you can use to develop new content and products for members.”
10. Monetizing YouTube Videos
Did you join an affiliate program? in an attempt to monetize your blog? Expand your reach, and subsequently your income streams, by diversifying the content you create. Let’s dive into the different ways to make money on Youtube as an expansion of your blog content.
Add video marketing to your list to maximize affiliate commission Some 88% of people have been convinced to buy something after watching a branded video Make it your tutorial, review or tour and you’ll be rewarded when a viewer buys on the back of your recommendation.
Increase the dollars you make through your blog by treating each piece of content as the basis of a video script.Record yourself talking about the same topic, then edit the video and upload it to YouTube.
L he bloggers behind A Beautiful Mess, for example, posted a YouTube video demonstrating how to create built-in shelving. The video description directs people to the blog article, which contains affiliate links to the products used in the tutorial.
This strategy works for several reasons. First of all, not everyone enjoys reading content online. Some people prefer to watch videos. You are potentially alienating thousands of people by producing only written text.
Secondly, Google and YouTube are the two most popular search engines in the world. Sharing content on both platforms increases the likelihood that your target reader will find you and therefore buy products you are affiliated with.
For some queries, Google’s algorithm pulls videos from YouTube on the search engine results page (SERP). The first thing you’ll see on the SERP on “how to groom your dog at home,” for example, is a YouTube video on the subject.
The best part? An active YouTube channel expands your earning opportunities.
The platform comes with its own set of monetization features, including the YouTube Partner Program, which is available to vloggers with 1,000+ subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. Once enrolled, YouTube will display ads before the video loads. You’ll get paid every time a viewer views it, a great way to supplement your blog income.
More Info: YouTube Affiliate Marketing: 7 Pro Tips for Extra Income
11. Produce a podcast and get a sponsor
Speaking of alternative formats, podcasts are more popular than ever. More than half of US consumers have listened to a podcast, up from 33% in 2015.
But episodes don’t just fill time on the morning commute. Studies show that 53% of listeners will search for more information online after hearing about a product through podcast endorsements. Another 35% will start a conversation with a friend about the item in question. Both of these points make them attractive propositions for brands looking to expand their reach.
Capitalize on your audience’s attention by producing your own podcast. Record yourself speaking about a topic in your niche and syndicate each episode to a streaming platform like Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Approach brands in your niche with sponsorship opportunities. Sell ad space and give businesses a shortcut to reaching their target audience in exchange for a sponsorship fee.
This podcast revenue calculator shows a blogger with:
- 10,000 episode downloads
- Four new episodes every month
- Two ads (one pre-roll)
…can add more than $16,000 per year in revenue.
The downside to this podcast approach is that it can be expensive , both in terms of time and money. It takes time to build a relationship with a new audience. You’ll also need equipment, like a high-quality microphone and editing software, to produce the podcast itself.
But if you get it right, there’s the potential to add another lucrative source of income to your podcast business. blogging.
Turn Your Blog Into A Money Maker
Building a blogging business is not a linear process.The best revenue generator depends on your niche, the relationship with your audience, and the content formats you are producing. Focus first on creating great content and loyal readers, then experiment with these monetization tactics.
.