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re you wondering how to monetize a blog? While blogging is an enjoyable hobby for many, it’s also a great way to make money online.
You’ll also be happy to know that making money from your blog is easier today than it ever has been before.
So, maybe you’ve already started a blog and have been writing awesome posts for awhile now… but you’re still making zero dollars?
It’s time to change that! But how do you do it?
In this post, we’ll show you how to monetize a blog and make money online with 15 proven and profitable ways.
Let’s get started!
1. Start Affiliate Marketing
If you’re wondering how to start a profitable blog, you should look into affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways bloggers make money. With affiliate marketing, you promote the products of other businesses. Every time someone purchases the product via one of your affiliate links, you earn a commission.
So, say your commission is $5 for every sale. If 100 people buy the product by clicking your affiliate link, you make $500—cha-ching!
The easiest way to find products to promote on your blog is by joining affiliate programs like:
Sign up and browse through affiliate sites like these to find products you can promote. There’s pretty much an affiliate program for every industry or niche; fashion, food and drink, education, health, and more.
It’s best to choose products related to your blog’s niche. By choosing products that are related to your niche, you know that your audience will be interested in them and more likely to buy.
For instance, if your blog is about fitness, you should promote fitness-related products like athletic wear, exercise equipment, and so on.
Once you’ve created your affiliate site and started getting traffic, you can use OptinMonster to unlock even more affiliate revenue.
For instance, Top 6 Digital created this exit-intent optin to promote their affiliate links and increased their revenue by 30%!
To learn more about how to make money with affiliate marketing, check out our ultimate guide on how to start affiliate marketing.
2. Advertise on Your Blog with Google Adsense
Advertising is usually what first comes to mind when you’re thinking about how to blog for profit.
An easy way to monetize your blog with ads is by using Google Adsense. Google Adsense is a program run by Google that displays advertisements on websites. When a visitor clicks on an ad on your site, you make money.
The ads that will be shown on your blog are targeted to the site content and the audience.
For example, the types of ads that show up on the travel blog Adventurous Kate are travel-related. Here’s one for honeymoon tours:
Plus, adding Google Adsense to your blog is super easy. Once you’ve set it up, the ads display automatically.
You can also track how much Adsense coins you’re making and which ads are performing the best with a tool like MonsterInsights.
3. Sell Ad Space Directly
While Google Adsense is easy to set up, the amount of money you can earn is limited. So, you might want to consider selling ad space on your blog directly.
By selling ad space directly, you get to set the price. Instead of getting paid a small amount for each individual click on an ad, you can charge a flat rate for an ad on your blog. By charging a flat rate, you can get more money and it’s easier to manage than tracking clicks.
To find businesses willing to buy ad space on your site, you can create an Advertise Here page on your website or use a platform like BuySellAds to connect with companies.
Selling ad space directly is a bit more difficult to manage than Google Adsense because you’re responsible for negotiating the pricing, coming up with the terms and agreements, managing invoicing, and all the other details.
But, you can make the process a bit easier by using a tool like AdSanity. AdSanity offers simplified ad management for WordPress. You can easily insert ads on your site, track views and clicks, and more.
Want to get paid for writing a blog post? If the answer is yes, then accept sponsored blog posts!
A sponsored blog post is a popular way way of blogging for profit. In a nutshell, a company pays you to write about their products on your blog. They may even write the post themselves, so all you have to do it publish it.
If you have a great-looking blog, a consistent blogging schedule, and engaged readers, many companies are willing to pay big bucks for you to promote their products or services.
To connect with companies offering paid opportunities, you can join blogger networks like:
You can also reach out to brands directly to see if they’d be interested in partnering with you.
Put together a media kit using a tool like Canva. With Canva’s pre-made templates, you can put together a stunning media kit in no time.
Your media kit should include details about your audience demographics, traffic to your blog, social media following, and other stats that would be appealing to advertisers. Then, send your media kit to companies you’d like to work with.
But remember, bloggers in the United States must comply with the FTC’s Endorsement Guidelines by letting readers know loud and clear that a post is sponsored. So, make sure to include a message like “This post is Sponsored by XYZ company” at the beginning of the post.
Now, let’s take a look at another way you can blog for profit.
5. Get Paid for Writing Reviews
Getting paid for writing reviews is similar to accepting sponsored guest posts.
With paid reviews, you can try out a product, write a review about it on your blog, and then get paid!
Of course, you want to write reviews for products that are relevant to your blog niche and your audience. For instance, if you blog about budgeting, reviewing budgeting software and apps makes more sense than reviewing vacuum cleaners.
And like sponsored posts, you can reach out to brands directly or you can use a platform like PayPerPost to connect with companies that would be interested in paying you for a review.
6. Turn Your Blog Into a Membership Site
Have you ever considered turning your blog into a membership site?
Your most loyal fans will be more willing to pay to read more of your content because it’s just that valuable to them.
When you turn your blog into a membership site, it’s like locking your content behind a door; only people that have the key (a paid subscription) have access to it.
Users can pay a one-time fee to get access, or you can charge users a monthly subscription so that you can get recurring revenue from your blog.
Using the best membership plugins, you can easily turn your blog into a membership site in no time.
We recommend MemberPress, an all-in-one membership plugin.
MemberPress is easy to set up, offers powerful access rules that let you decide exactly what pages or posts users can see, lets you create beautiful pricing pages, and more.
7. Create a Private Forum
Instead of turning your entire website into a membership site, you can create a private forum that people have to pay to access.
A forum is basically a page on your site where members can discuss different topics with each other and get one-on-one advice from you.
Having a forum is a great way to increase engagement and build a community around your blog. Plus, with paid subscriptions, you can create a revenue stream for your blog.
You can easily create a private forum on your website using a WordPress forum plugin.
8. Write an Ebook
Selling ebooks is another popular way bloggers make money and it’s a great source of passive income.
Passive income is income that requires little to no effort to earn and maintain. When you write an ebook, you only have to write it once. Then, you can sell that ebook over and over again to your readers.
But, if you want your ebook to sell, it needs to be good.
Most importantly, the topic of your ebook needs to be interesting to your target audience. For instance, blogger Sarah Mae wrote an ebook based on a question about forgiveness she often gets asked by her readers.
But you can also simply create an ebook that your audience will love by transforming one of your most popular blog posts into an ebook.
For more tips on writing an ebook that will sell, check out this guide on how to make an ebook.
Next, let’s find out what other types of digital products you can sell on your blog.
9. Sell Other Digital Products
Aside from ebooks, you can also monetize your blog by selling digital products like templates, printables, WordPress themes, video tutorials, audio recordings, and the list goes on. If you have a skill and the digital product is useful to your audience, sell it!
Here’s how the scrapbooking blog ScrapGirls does it, they sell scrapbooking templates and printables their readers are sure to love.
To sell digital products on your site, you can use Easy Digital Downloads.
Easy Digital Downloads is a plugin that makes selling digital products a breeze. It includes features like a shopping cart, customer management, discount codes, and more.
10. Offer Online Courses
If you have something valuable to teach your audience, you can turn your expertise into online courses that your readers can pay for.
You don’t even need to be an “expert” to teach an online course. As long as you have some knowledge in a subject that you can share with readers, you can sell online courses on your blog.
For instance, if you blog about cooking, you can sell video cooking lessons to your audience.
Cole’s Classroom is a great example of a photography blog that monetized by selling courses:
You can sell your course in a downloadable bundle or you can use a learning management system (LMS) plugin. Here’s a tutorial on how to create an online course on your WordPress site.
11. Host a Paid Webinar
Hosting a webinar is a great way to promote your blog and showcase your expertise.
A webinar is like a live video training session or online course with a question-and-answer period at the end. So, it’s a good way to interact with your audience as well.
You can use free webinars to promote your existing products or services if you’ve already monetized your blog using another method. Or you can sell tickets to the webinar itself, if you have valuable information to share.
Want more tips on how to run a successful webinar? Check out this guide on webinar marketing.
12. Make Money with Coaching
Do you have valuable skills and the ability to teach them to others?
Then you should consider monetizing your blog by starting a coaching service.
Coaching is all about giving paying clients 1-on-1 advice and tips. For instance, a blogging coach can give their clients advice on how to get more traffic or build their email list faster.
Your blog niche will determine the type of coaching you can offer. For example, if you have a fashion blog, you could offer coaching and consultations to help your audience develop their personal style.
You can coach people over the phone, or by email, video chat, or instant messaging. Here’s how to create a booking form so your clients can set up their first session with you.
13. Start Freelancing to Earn Money
Using your blog to promote your freelancing services is another popular way to make money online.
With freelancing, you don’t have to spend time or money creating a product ahead of time to sell, you simply offer your services.
Think you don’t have any services to offer your audience? You’d be wrong! As a blogger, you’re already a skilled writer, so you can offer freelance writing services to businesses. Blogging is how many freelance writers get their start.
You can also get freelance jobs for graphic design, social media managing, bookkeeping, web design, and much more.
To send invoices and collect payments from your clients, you can use a tool like FreshBooks.
14. Monetize with Merch
When you go to a concert you usually see a merch table selling band t-shirts right up front. But did you know that you can monetize your blog with merch too?
Plenty of bloggers sell blog merch like tshirts, hats, phone cases, and other physical products with their blog logos or slogans printed on them.
For example, Evie Chapman, who blogs about coffee, sells fun coffee-inspired merch items like this:
Your biggest fans would love to support your blog by rocking your merch.
You can follow this tutorial on how to create an automated t-shirt shop on your WordPress site, or look into getting started with drop shipping. With these options, there’s no need for you to manage any inventory or ship the products yourself.
15. Accept Donations
If your readers love your content, sometimes they’ll just give you money if you ask for it.
When you’re providing entertaining and valuable content to people for free, there’s nothing wrong with asking for donations. Even popular websites like Wikipedia ask for donations from their users.
To collect donations from your readers, you can create a donation form using WPForms.
Bonus Tip: Build an Email List
There’s one more thing you should do if you want to make money blogging—build an email list.
The #1 regret most bloggers have is that they didn’t start building a list sooner!
Having an email list will help you:
- Boost affiliate marketing revenue
- Generate sales of your ebook
- Get more webinar registrations
- Drive more signups for your online course
- Sell more merch
- And more
With email marketing, you can promote whatever you’re selling directly to your audience. The people that subscribe to your email list are the ones most interested in what you have to say, making them the people most likely to sign up for your course or buy your ebook.
So, how do you build an email list? Start by creating an optin form popup on your website with OptinMonster like the one below.
These high converting optin forms will help you build your email list quickly.
For more tips, check out this post of quick and easy hacks to get more email subscribers.
FAQs About Making Money From Your Blog
Still have more questions about monetizing your blog?
Here are some popular questions our readers ask us about making money with blogging:
How Do Beginner Blogs Make Money?
People that are just starting out often wonder how to make money blogging as beginners. But, the best part about blogging is that anyone can start blogging and make money.
You don’t need to have a super popular blog with lots of traffic to make money, all you need is a few readers. Of course, your revenue will start out small but as your blog grows, your revenue grows with it.
For many of the methods above, the more traffic you have, the more money you make. So check out this tutorial on how to get more traffic to your blog to unlock your blog’s full potential!
In the meantime, you can still monetize your blog even if you don’t have much traffic. Offering a service like coaching or freelancing is one of the best ways to get started, since you only need a few clients to make money.
Which Blog Site is Best for Earning Money?
Choosing the best blogging platform is an important step if you want to monetize your blog.
Many blogging beginners are tempted to choose a free blogging platform like WordPress.com to save money. But with a free WordPress blog, you actually can’t monetize your blog or website.
We recommend using WordPress.org. With a WordPress.org blog, you have full control over your site, which means you can monetize it in any way you choose.
For more details on the difference between the 2 blogging platforms, check out this WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org comparison.
Then see our guide on how to start a blog to get started with the best platform.
Which Types of Blogs are Most Popular?
According to data, the most profitable blogging niches are credit cards, mortgages, finance, loans, and a few others. But for most people, trying to start a blog in one of those niches won’t work out.
Instead, you should choose a blogging niche that has the potential to be profitable, and is also a topic that you’re passionate about.
When you’re passionate about the topic, you’ll be more motivated to keep working on your blog. Plus, your passion will shine through your writing, which will help readers connect with you.
The monetization methods listed above will work for almost any niche, so there’s no reason to force yourself to write on boring topics.
How Much Does a Blogger Earn Per Month?
The amount of money you make as a blogger depends on a lot of factors: how you’ve monetized your blog, what niche you’re in, how much work you put into it, and more.
Blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, and it can take a lot of time and effort before you can make a substantial income from your blog.
How Do I Start a Successful Blog?
Starting a blog and making money sounds awesome, right? But if you’re new to the world of blogging, you might be thinking “Where do I even begin?”
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!
Check out our step-by-step guide on how to start a blog and make money. This guide will walk you through the process of starting a new blog, from picking a blog topic to writing your first blog post.
That’s it! Now you know the best proven and profitable ways to monetize your blog. So, pick one and get out there and start making money with your blog today!
Want to attract more readers to your blog to increase your money-making potential? Then take a look at our post on how to promote your blog.
Keep reading the article at Blog Tyrant. The article was originally written by Ramsay on 2020-01-15 08:00:28.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.