12 Ways To Make Money Blogging

Blogging has evolved into more than just an online diary. You can actually make money blogging these days, and it can be rather lucrative as well.

If you have not started blogging yet, I recommend that you go with a self-hosted WordPress. Do not confuse this with WordPress.com. A self-hosted WordPress basically means you use WordPress as a CMS (e.g. as a website builder) but you have to find your own hosting company. A hosting company ensures that your website stays online.

Briefly, what’s the benefit of self-hosting against having a free account at WordPress.com?

• You OWN your blog. Opening a free blog at WordPress.com doesn’t give you ownership. They can remove it at any time.

• You are free to customize your blog however you like. You can download as many plugins as you want.

• You are allowed to monetize your blog with whatever way possible. There are no restrictions imposed on ads unlike WordPress.com.

1. Advertising Networks

This one’s the easiest way to monetize your blog, but not necessarily the most lucrative way. It’s passive income nevertheless.

How it works is that you join any of the ad networks and you can insert ads into your blog. There are a few types of ads.

CPM ads – They pay per impression. This means that if your advertisement loads for 1,000 visitors, you get paid for it. The rates are generally low. You can expect about $1 per 1,000 impressions.

CPC ads – They are more common. You get paid for clicks. However, do not ask your friends to click on your ads. It’s easy to get detected and you will be banned from the network.

CPA ads – They pay if your visitors take action. For example, if your visitor clicks on your ad and fills in their details (e.g. email, name).

List of advertising networks:

• Google AdSense – Adsense is perhaps the most popular and the most well-known advertising program among bloggers around the world. How it works is that you need to get your blog/website approved by the Adsense team, which is not easy. Basically you put ads on your page and you earn for each visitor’s click on the advertisement.

• PropellerAds – This is an alternative to Adsense and they pay you for page impressions as well (albeit low), not just for clicks. They offer various types of ads, like banner ads, pop-unders, mobile interstition ads, dialog ads, and so on. The good thing about PropellerAds is you can register within minutes and the minimum payout is $50.

• Bidvertiser – Bidvertiser is also another alternative and the minimum payout is $10. I haven’t tried it personally so I’m not sure if they are reliable.

• Media.net – Media.net is one of the better alternatives to Adsense. They boast a wide range of well-known publishers such as Forbes, Elle and Yahoo.

• Chitika – Chitika is also another advertising program with a low minimum threshold.

• PopAds – PopAds specialise in pop-under ads, i.e. ads that will appear as an additional window behind the main/current page or will appear once you exit from the current page.

• Infolinks – Infolinks is also quite a well-known Adsense alternative. They specialise in ads that integrate better with the page, meaning they are less prevalent.

There are other advertising networks as well, such as AdThrive, Adsterra, Mediavine, Monumetric and so on. Some ad networks are better for certain niches. Do a Google search to see which ad network is more suitable for your blog niche.
Some ad networks also have a minimum traffic requirement.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make a living as a blogger.

The most basic explanation on how it works is:

You promote products or services in your blog post and you insert affiliate links, and someone buys a product or signs up for a service using your affiliate link; you get a commission. There are of course other factors like what is the timeframe in which the person must buy a product after using your link.

Here’s a list of affiliate networks you can join. An affiliate network is like a host for thousands of other companies.

For instance, if you want to be an affiliate for Etsy, you have to go through Awin or Zanox. Basically, affiliate networks manage affiliate programs for thousands of companies. They are like a one-stop center.

• Awin (Affiliate Window) – They require a $5 fee when you sign-up but it will be returned to you as commission. It’s a security measure. They partner thousands of companies including Etsy, Swagbucks, Booking.com, Airbnb and so on.

• CJ by Conversant – They are one of the bigger affiliate networks and have been around for a long time. They also host thousands of companies including ThinkGeek, Bluehost and Hostgator.

• Amazon Associates – Everyone knows Amazon. You basically promote their products and you earn regardless of what your visitor buys.

• ClickBank – Similar with CJ, but they have lots of digital products.

• MaxBounty – A well-known CPA affiliate network. You can earn from survey affiliates.

• ShareASale – They are pretty popular as well, and they partner companies for web hosting, WordPress themes, books, fashion and so on.

3. Sponsored Posts

How this works is that you write a blog post in favor of a company or a brand and in exchange, you get freebies or some payment or even both.

If your blog is huge, you’ll probably get offers even if you don’t seek out. If you’re a new blogger, you may want to join some networks. I have not done any sponsored content yet, so I’m not certain which network is the best.

Here’s a list of some networks:

• Linqia

• FameBit

• Brandbacker

• IZEA

4. Sell Ad Space

The truth is, you won’t earn much from advertising networks these days. They used to pay so much higher in the past.

However, there are so many websites these days that it’s rather saturated.

Perhaps a better way to earn is to sell advertising space to potential brands.

How to get clients?

• You can try BuySellAds or Advertiise. They are networks that pair brands with publishers.

• You can also approach your favorite brands or companies by sending them an email.

• You can also put a blank widget on your blog and say that the ad space is for sale.

5. Open a job board

If you blog mainly on freelancing or work from home jobs or anything related, you can actually open a job board.

I believe there’s a plugin that is suited for starting a place to advertise jobs on your blog. I’m not sure what it is. You can look at Problogger’s job board as an example.

I believe he earns by charging job advertisers by way of subscription. It’s definitely not his main income stream but it’s better than nothing.

6. Sell e-books

You can also sell e-books to your blog readers or to other people. You can re-purpose some of the content you’ve written on your blog.

For instance, if you blog on health, you can combine all of the topics you’ve written and organize it as a book.
If you have no budget, you can make an e-book using Microsoft Word and save it as a PDF. E-book covers can be designed for free on Canva.

7. Sell your services using your blog as a portfolio

Some bloggers don’t engage in affiliate marketing or advertising at all. They use their blogs as a platform to jumpstart their freelance writing career.

A good way to get your blog noticed is to do keyword research and write quality articles. Perform on-page and off-page SEO as well. After some time, traffic should build up naturally. If you’re not an expert in backlinks, then focus on quality writing.

Over time, you’ll get more websites linking to yours if you provide quality constantly.

Some bloggers sell WordPress technical services as well, such as migration of website or website design or even debugging technical problems.

You can also do 1-on-1 consultations via Skype or other similar platforms. Some bloggers need help in traffic growth or even how to build their mailing list. If you’re an expert, you can start selling your consultation services on a per-hour basis.

8. Premium Membership

Another way to earn is to create a distinction between paid members and unpaid ones. You’ve probably seen some sites that allowed only premium members to access certain articles.

This is done in some forums as well like the Warrior Forum.

If you’re churning out articles that are really useful to lots of people, this is a great way to earn. Apart from access to certain articles, maybe you can allow paid members to join exclusive groups or to ask questions personally and so on.

9. Sell products on your blog

Instead of being an affiliate where you only earn less than 10% commission on products sold, why not sell your own stuff?
Like e-books as mentioned above, you can sell other products as well.

You can do drop-shipping where you get the manufacturer to ship the products directly to the end user. Try AliExpress.
It can be anything at all. Watches, accessories, bags and so on.

10. Sell your blog

Some bloggers do this for a living. They build their blogs up to a certain size and they start selling after that.
You can probably earn a few thousand dollars or even much more, depending on how successful your blog is.
I’ve not sold any websites yet but I believe Flippa is the common platform for buying and selling of websites.

11. Events

For more successful bloggers, some of them hold all kinds of events like blog conferences and they teach others on how to grow traffic, blog monetization and so on.

12. Sell courses

You can also sell courses on your blog, like what some bloggers are doing. I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of Michelle from Making Sense of Cents. She has her own course and she’s earning quite a lot from it.

It doesn’t have to be courses on blogging. It can be photography, writing, starting a business or anything else as long as there’s a market for it.

Conclusion

There are perhaps other ways to monetize your blog, but the above 12 are the more common ones and they are proven to be lucrative for some.

Do note that every blog monetizes differently. Some create blogs just for the sake of using Amazon Associates. Others only focus on advertising (e.g. news sites).

You don’t have to follow how other blogs are monetizing exactly, but you can use them as guidelines. I hope this short list on ways to make money blogging has helped you at least a bit, especially if you’re really new to blogging.

As usual, I appreciate all upvotes, resteems and follows.

Thanks for reading.

First few paragraphs from my personal blog: https://www.ordinaryreviews.com/2017/06/03/make-money-blogging/

---