Yes, the good news is you really can make money blogging! In fact, there are many ways to make money as a blogger. It’s all a question of your blogging strategies and methods. Some bloggers make a few quid here and there, others get rich through blogging, while others again, make no money at all from their blog.
This post will explain 5 great ways to make money as a blogger:
- The 4 step formula (choose a nice, build a site, attract traffic, earn revenue)
- Use side widgets to promote products and services
- Display ads
- Email marketing
- Sponsored blog posts
The Simple 4 Step Formula
The following formula isn’t just the overall best way to make money with a blog but even one of the best ways if not the best way to make money online in general.
Here are the steps involved:
- Choose a niche
- Build a website focused on that niche
- Attract organic traffic (though content creation)
- Make money (mostly by using affiliate links on the site)
Here is an explanation of this process in more detail:
- Choose a niche: It all starts with whatever the focus of your blog is going to be. If you currently have a blog then you will already have a niche. The best advice about choosing a niche is to forget about which niche you think pays most and focus on a niche YOU LOVE. That’s what will get you through to success in the long-run. It’s far easier to persevere as a blogger if you are passionate about what you are writing and sharing with other people on the internet. Any interest you have can be turned into a business because there are always products and services you can promote with affiliate marketing.
- Build a Website: You’ve decided on your niche (hopefully something that genuinely interests you). All you need to do for the next step is build your website. If you already have a site, good for you. If not, here is a resource you can use that shows you how to get one up and running in 30 seconds! Fastest & Easiest Way to Build a Website.
- Attract Organic Traffic: The wonderful thing about a business-focused blog is that it can attract organic traffic from the search engines. Imagine the potential! You generally have two ways to get traffic/eyes on your offers: 1) you pay for it. 2) you earn it by quality, targeted content creation. For advice on putting good content together, you can refer to this article on a content creation checklist.
- Earn Revenue: And now the fun part! This process usually involves monetising your website using affiliate links. Here’s a very quick rundown and example: Within your blog content, you can insert links to products that you recommend to your readers. For example, let’s say you are blogging about camping and you mention a fun activity you could do on a camping trip which is drone flying. You could then include an affiliate link to a drone you particularly recommend. Affiliates earn money every time they successfully get a customer to buy a product via their link. Many affiliates focus on digital products with recurring subscriptions, thereby increasing earning potential.
Using Side Widgets to Promote Products
This is a great strategy because whoever lands on your site cannot avoid seeing what’s there on the side widgets, no matter which article they’ve come to read.
I have another site where I promote my own religious ebook by featuring it on the side. If clicked on, the person will be taken to the site where the ebook is sold and if they buy, I get paid.
It’s all simply a matter of going into your site’s back office and creating the widget with the link to your promotion.
There are all kinds of things you could sell or promote on your blog’s side widgets.
Using Display Ads
You can sign up to various ad promoting sites that will pay you to put ads on your site (well, you are actually paid for clicks on ads displayed on your site).
Display ads are a way for any content creator to earn money from their work.
However, it only makes sense to sign up to an ad display service if your site is currently getting a decent amount of traffic.
Google AdSense is the most popular display ad service but there are others as well such as:
- Ezoic
- Taboola
- Mediavine
- & others
Some pay more than Google AdSense but may require you to be getting a certain amount of visitors per month to your website.
If your site is doing well, then by all means sign up to AdSense or some other platform. They won’t pay much but depending on how many people your site reaches, it could bring in some good money.
Email Marketing
It’s always a great idea to make use of email marketing if you run a blog. Email marketing is not an instant way to make money but it’s all about the follow up emails you will send to those who end up on your business email list.
As the saying goes, ‘the money is in the list!’ Over time, you will get more and more people onto your email list and you will send out bulk-mail providing information and promoting products and services.
To do email marketing properly, you’ll need an autoresponder and of course you’ll need to learn the basics of how to use it.
Most autoresponders have a free version which will allow you limited access to the tool.
Some examples of email marketing autoresponders include:
To get people on to your email list, there are various strategies you can employ. Some people use a lead magnet which is like a free offer of something in exchange for the person’s email.
Also, people typically just have a main offer like an online training course and to register for it, people need to give their email.
Alternatively, a blogger can simply have a side widget which says something like, ‘Subscribe to Updates.’ Readers who want to be notified of future blog content then have the option of doing so by giving their email.
The image below is an example from one of my other sites of an email sign up form:
Sponsored Blog Posts
Our 5th way to make money as a blogger is to make use of sponsored blog posts. A sponsored blog post is where a brand or company pays you to write a blog post for them so that they can extend their reach and online presence.
Let’s say your site starts doing really well and gets an average of 10,000 visits per month, then you could charge about $300 for one blog post.
Again, this strategy depends heavily on how big and influential your site is. Basically, the more traffic you get, the more potential you have to make money with all these 5 strategies.
– Other Resources
>> Further information on Affiliate Marketing.