Do you want to learn how to make money blogging? Years ago I started paying attention to how bloggers were making money. I studied many different types of successful bloggers to learn exactly how they do it.
Ever since I myself started making money blogging, I’ve been eager to help others learn to do the same. I hear someone talking about their favorite hobby or interest and I’m thinking, “you could totally make money blogging about that!”
When I actually DO say that to someone, they usually look at me like I’m crazy. But I’m telling you, it IS possible. You CAN make money blogging!
So in this post, I’m going to go over some of the ways bloggers actually make money. These are the most common routes to earning blog income that have been working for years and are still working today.
How To Make Money Blogging – The Basics
3 Steps To Make Money Blogging
- Start a blog and create useful, interesting content about a topic that you can demonstrate expertise in.
- Use one (or more) of the methods of earning money with a blog mentioned below.
- Connect with your blog audience through comments, email, and social media to build a relationship of trust.
Ideally, you want to become known as the #1 authority for that topic, and make your blog the #1 place people go to when looking for information and advice.
Ways to earn money on a blog
So, there are three big main methods that bloggers can use to monetized their blogs. Some bloggers only use a single method – nothing wrong with that, although if you can use more than one, it’s generally a smart idea.
Here are the three main ways bloggers can make money on their sites:
#1 – Ads
#2 – Affiliate marketing
#3 – Selling their own products
#4 – Sponsored posts
#5 – Offering services
Now, before you get overwhelmed with all this info, let’s walk through each of the methods and I’ll explain how it all works. The clearer of an understanding you have of each of the three different monetization methods, the better equipped you’ll be to implement them successfully in your own blogging endeavors.
Method 1: Monetizing A Blog With Ads
Putting ads up is the first way most people monetize their blog. There are a couple ways you can make money with advertising on your blog:
- Display ads – these are visual ads created by other companies that you show anywhere on your blog.
- Sponsored content, reviews, & giveaways – this is content you are paid to write about and promote on your blog and/or social media. For reviews and giveaways, companies will often give you a product for free and pay you to write about it. If you do YouTube or podcasting, you can get paid to mention a company or brand in your content as well.
Display Ads
In order to get ads on your blog, all you need to do is have a blog and add a little bit of ad code to it.
You get the ad code from an ad network – which is just a company that sells virtual ad space to advertisers. The ad network uses an algorithm to figure out which ads will fit in well with which website, depending on the content of the website and who is looking at it.
If you’ve ever been shopping on Amazon and then went to a website and saw an ad for what you were just thinking about buying from Amazon, you’re seeing these ad networks in action!
Google has an ad network called AdSense that anyone can apply to join, no matter how much traffic you’ve got.
The downside to joining Google AdSense is that it doesn’t pay a whole lot – but for most new bloggers, it’s still pretty neat to be making at least some money from the visitors to their sites.
How much money does AdSense pay? For a smaller blog getting 500 visitors a day or less, you can expect somewhere in the range of $0.10-$4.00 a day. The amount you earn varies depending on if people click your ads, how long they stay on your site, the time of year, and the topic of your content, among other things.
When can you apply to AdSense? You should wait to apply to Google AdSense until your blog is set up. By “set up” I mean make sure your site has a logo or title, a navigation menu, a few blog posts (maybe 10-20) and at least some information about what the intention of the blog is and who created it.
Think of it this way – if a Google employee was looking at your site, would they be able to see that this is a real blog made by a real person? Or would they think it’s some kind of auto-generated website that a spammer made?
Once you’re accepted to AdSense, you’ll get some code to add to your blog, and once you add it you can start earning a little money every time someone stops by your pages or clicks on your ads.
I personally love making money with ads on my blogs, because of the way that it’s largely passive income. I write my blog post once, and after that, I earn advertising money every time someone goes to that page.
If you want to monetize your blog with ads, it’s worth knowing that there are other ad networks that’ll pay you a lot more than AdSense does. These networks will have minimum traffic requirements, but are worth it for the higher ad pay.
High-paying ad networks include:
Monumetric – Your site must have at least 10,000 pageviews per month to join Monumetric, and there’s a $99 setup fee that you’ll need to pay once you’re approved by Monumetric and their ad partners.
Mediavine – You can apply for Mediavine once you have at least 50,000 sessions per month according to your Google Analytics. Click here to learn more about becoming a Mediavine Publisher.
AdThrive – Blogs that get at least 100,000 pageviews a month are eligible to apply for AdThrive. Your traffic must be primarily US-based as well. Click here to learn more.
BlogHer / SHE Media – This ad network is female-oriented and requires at least 20,000 pageviews a month for blogs to apply. There are a few more requirements you can read about here. They also run blogger conferences for female content-creators.
Media.net – While most of the other ad networks listed here are Google ad partners, Media.net is in Yahoo & Bing’s territory. It’s a great alternative to AdSense. You can read the requirements for Media.net here.
Method 2: Using Affiliate Marketing To Make Money Blogging
If you’ve ever been on someone’s blog and read a notice something like “This post contains affiliate links” then you’ve seen affiliate marketing in action.
Basically, affiliate marketing is when you get paid a commission for referring sales to other companies. So like if you make an affiliate link to an Amazon product, and I click on it and buy something – anything – on Amazon, you’ll get a little commission for helping make that sale.
Aside from the Amazon Affiliates Program, there are a few other affiliate networks you should know about:
These networks allow you to be an affiliate for many different e-commerce sites, although you’ll have to apply to each company individually.
Method 3: Selling Your Own Products On Your Blog
Imagine having your own store that was always open, where people all over the world can purchase your items, even while you sleep?
Thanks to the internet, it’s totally possible.
Both physical and digital products are easy to sell on your blog using Shopify or the WooCommerce plugin. If you just need a way to process payments for digital products, you could use something like Sendowl or Gumroad.
Things like ebooks, printables, planners and calendars are popular digital items that bloggers sell to their audience.
Method 4: Making Money With Sponsored Blog Posts
Writing or posting sponsored content is another way bloggers can earn money. Usually, companies are looking for bloggers who have a strong social following, who post quality content regularly and who fit will with their brand and promotions.
To get sponsored posts, you can either reach out to companies directly via email, or join an influencer program to look for opportunities. These include sites like:
Several other ad networks include influencer programs as well
Method 5: Monetizing Your Blog By Offering Services
Another way bloggers can make money through their blogs is by offering services. People do all kinds of services via their blogs such as SEO auditing, offering virtual assistance, selling photography or written content, teaching courses via video, and more.
Ready To Start Your Money-Making Blog?
Hopefully this post gave you some good ideas about how you can potentially monetize your blog – without overwhelming you!
If you have questions or comments to share, I would love to hear them!