How to earn money with a blog is the star topic in the online world. Everyone wants to learn how to turn a blog into an online business.
Whether you have a health, cooking, fashion, photography, or travel blog website, the options are the same and with all of them, you can earn money as a blogger.
In my case, I have been generating income through my online projects since 2010, in all of them I used different ways like earning through blogging, flipping blogs, digital marketing projects, affiliate marketing and freelancing in one way or another, as an income enhancer.
So now I’m going to tell you how I do it, but also how others do it with their projects (blogs that give money). I have applied all the ways that exist in the internet world for monetization. And i am going to share my practical experiences.
There goes the best guide on blogs that make money online!
How to make money with your blog: 10 practical ways
How to monetize blogger is something that will have you obsessed. It is logical that you want to make your website profitable. Who didn’t want to get performance out of their work?
But as I will tell you later, do not think that it is creating a blog and earning money first. Everything takes time.
First, you have to invest your efforts in getting visits. Those readers will become subscribers because with your content you are going to provide them with good value.
And when you already have subscribers and you know their needs, right at that moment, it is when you can consider how to earn money with a blog.
But let’s get down to business.
Starting a blog ⇣ can change your life
It can help you quit your day job and work when you want from where you want and in what you want.
And that’s just the beginning of the long list of benefits blogging has to offer.
It can help you earn additional income or even replace your full-time job.
And it doesn’t take a lot of time or money to maintain and keep a blog up and running.
Unlike when I started, Today it is easier than ever to start a blog. because it used to be a hassle to have to figure out how to install and configure WordPress, set up web hosting, domain names, etc.
But here’s the problem:
Starting a blog can still be difficult if you have no idea what you are supposed to do.
There are so many things to learn including web hosting, WordPress, domain name registration, and more.
In fact, most people get overwhelmed at just the first few steps and give up the whole dream.
When I was starting out, it took me over a month to build my first blog.
But thanks to today’s technology, you don’t have to worry about any of the technical details of creating a blog. Because for less than $10 a month, you can have your blog up, configured, and ready to go.
Read: How to Start a blog
Ways to Make money with your blog
Advertising (Ad Networks)
Some Ad networks which are most popular are:
- Google AdSense (Offered by Google)
- Ezoic
- PropellerAds
CPC Advertising
CPC = Cost per click. In other words, they pay you every time a user clicks on one of your ads.
There are many networks for this type of advertising but without a doubt, the most popular is Google’s Adsense. The “good” thing about this method is that Google chooses the ads for you based on the interests of the user who enters your website.
Not all clicks have the same income, depending on the theme of the ad, more or less is charged.
Earning money with AdSense is difficult at first. Think that for this system to be profitable for you, the key is to attract a lot of traffic to your page.
Read: Google Adsense tutorial
CPA Advertising
CPA = Cost per action. In this way, you monetize the web every time the user performs a specific action. It can be filling out a form, a survey, or registering on a platform. There are many variants.
The commission is much higher than in the case of the CPC, obviously, the click-through rate also decreases a lot.
MaxBounty is an example of a well-known CPA advertising network.
Read: How to earn money with CPA .
Native Advertising
Native advertising has been one of the forefronts of making money from blogging.
There are a few native advertising solutions
- Taboola
- Outbrain (High-quality native ads)
- AdSense (AdSense also offers native ads)
- Mgid
- Media.Net
Private advertisers
Another way to insert advertising in blogs is to locate private advertisers. It is about contacting companies or people who want to advertise a product or service on your website in exchange for a little money (or big money). It is another very common way to monetize a blog.
Normally, these agreements are reached manually. Either you present an offer to the company you want to advertise or they will contact you for this.
Normally you can set your prices based on the size of the banner and the position in your blog. For example, if it is in the header of the home it will be much more expensive than if it is at the end of the sidebar.
In any of the 3 forms of advertising, I suggest you use it wisely. Do not put advertising that has nothing to do with your topic or spammer ads that do not interest your audience. The only thing you would do is scare away your readers.
As I told you before, it is logical that as a blogger you want to monetize, but do not do it at any price. If you put advertising on your blog without any criteria, you will destroy the trust that your readers have placed in you.
Affiliate Marketing
This is one of the ways that I love the most because it was through which I began to earn money with the blog.
An affiliation is a form of marketing with which you monetize the web by promoting products or services that have been created by other companies, factories, bloggers, etc.
If you have managed to create an audience, you can promote affiliate products on your blog. If any of the people you refer to the seller’s website ends up buying this product, you earn a commission on the sale.
The best thing about this is that you don’t have to spend any time creating your own products to sell, nor do you have to support customers. All this is done by the company that markets the product.
The decisive factors for this type of business are:
- Relevance: something that interests your audience very much because it is their number 1 concern.
- Credibility: you promote it because you have tried it and you know it is excellent. You base your judgments on your own positive experience.
- Value contribution: explains how the product/service is used. It includes step-by-step tutorials or even video tutorials if necessary. The clearer and more valuable content you generate, the more you will sell.
- Links: very natural links. You don’t need many, with one at the beginning and another at the end is more than enough.
Keep in mind that whatever way you use to make your website profitable, the key to selling online is trust.
Don’t make the mistake of recommending something just because the commission is high, before you knew it you would have lost your readers. Offer only products and/or services that are worthwhile.
That is the secret of creating a blog and earning money.
Where to find affiliate products?
There are many platforms where companies register so that you can access their products and sell them as an affiliate. Here are some:
- Amazon Affiliate Program
- ShareASale
- ImpactRadius
- Click Bank
- Commission Junction
- Affiliate Window
- e-Junkie
On this page, you can see a bunch of affiliate networks. All the ones on the left.
The platforms that have their own internal affiliate system are Amazon affiliates or World Nomads. You will only have to create a user to register and obtain the links to the products.
Another very useful resource is to work as an affiliate for bloggers who monetize by selling their own courses or books. For this, keep in mind that the best way to do it is to buy their products/services and leave them a good reference.
If you have been their student they already know you. You have already experienced the benefits of these products, so you can evaluate them and write a good review.
By knowing very well what you are going to sell, you can contribute an extra to complete the course and contribute your bit to help this blogger to monetize.
Remember, the more value, the more sales.
Sponsorships (Paid reviews/Sponsored posts)
Once you have generated a powerful brand, whether it is yours (personal brand) or your project (blog or web), you can consider monetization through the payment of sponsorships by third parties, brands, or companies
The agreement can be in various forms. From putting a banner on your website in exchange for a fixed monthly price (this would enter the ads section), to selling a mention on one of your social networks. It could also be the writing of a sponsored post.
Come on, they pay you to advertise a company through your social networks, your articles, or the sale of space on your blog.
Can you pay me to tweet?
Well yes, cool isn’t it?
You put the price, but this must be based on the visits that your blog has, your followers in the networks, and the value of your brand. Although later you can always reach agreements on price variations.
If you ride it well and have a lot of visibility you can earn a lot of money.
When we started we all dreamed of writing a blog and making money. As you have seen it is not impossible to achieve it. Gain visibility, heal a personal brand and your blog will be profitable sooner than you think.
Sponsored Reviews:
Yes, you really can get paid to write reviews. I’m not even talking about boring reviews, but exciting reviews that you enjoy doing when you buy a product.
Keep in mind that while there are many companies that offer to pay for comments and reviews, most are scams and don’t pay a dime.
Here are a few websites to find paid reviews/sponsored content opportunities:
- Famebit (For YouTube channels)
- Izea Pay per post
- Tomoson
- Revcontent
Blogging Trips
Within travel blogs, you can access this type of sponsorship. Normally they don’t pay you, well they do pay, but only for the trip, not in cash. In other words, they invite you to travel for free in exchange for sponsoring a brand through your blog and social networks.
This can be a term of advertisement as paid reviews of hotels, transportation, travel packages, etc. Travel companies pay the expenses of a trip for bloggers to get attention from their readers.
You can accept the trip invitation if you are comfortable, you share the philosophy of the company that organizes the trip and you are going to add value to your readers (this is the key), it is highly commendable to take advantage of this method to make a few trips at expenses paid.
Services
Can you really make money with a blog? How many times have you asked yourself the same thing looking for information on the subject on the internet?
Well, here you have the easiest way to start, offer services.
Have you really never considered selling on your blog something that you know how to do in exchange for money?
You are actually selling your time so it is not a scalable business. However, it is a very quick way to start generating income since you do not need to create a product. You give something you already have, your time, and your knowledge. In the past, I used to offer WordPress, SEO, and Digital Marketing services.
The only problem is that if you don’t have enough visibility and authority, you most likely won’t sell anything. The first thing you have to do is analyze the needs of your audience. Without being clear about that, it is impossible to earn through selling your services. And you must have enough visibility for this.
What is the key to selling a service/product?
I follow a very basic rule of very dummies.
I do not release ANYTHING for sale that my previous readers/subscribers/customers have not previously requested.
The key to earning money with a blog is to detect what your customers need. That is the most important.
Then, to create the service, all you have to do is write your sales page and plan a general outline of what you’re going to do when you’re hired.
Products and infoproducts (digital products)
From now on when I refer to infoproducts I will be talking exclusively about digital infoproducts, not physical infoproducts.
- Infoproducts = information product, knowledge. Examples: book, DVD, file folder, etc.
- Physical infoproduct = book (printed on paper, the one of a lifetime) or face-to-face course.
- Digital infoproduct = electronic book, eBook. Automated Online Course.
Personally, I prefer the latter because you don’t need to create a physical product, plan distribution, management, shipping, etc.
Also, if you manage to automate 100% of the sale and delivery of the infoproduct, you are in the field of generating passive income.
If your idea is to make a blog to earn money and live from it, my recommendation is that you undoubtedly create infoproducts.
You will work a lot to create it, but as we will see later, you will be able to sell that infoproduct for years. It will make you earn money with your blog indefinitely.
Products. Online shop
If you want to sell them through your online platform, I recommend that you use Woocommerce.
Here is a tutorial on how to create an online store with WooCommerce.
Remember that when it comes to earning money with a blog in this way it is important that you take shipping costs into account. Depending on the country where you are and what the shipping costs are.
Dropshipping
This is a technique in which you are in charge of managing customer service, billing, and promotion, while the company creates, stores, packages, and ships the items on your behalf.
Do you really want to know how to make money with a blog and dropshipping?
Invest time in finding a good supplier. The key to monetizing your website with dropshipping is the margins per sale. Do not settle for the first one you find, research and study the market prices.
Dropshipping greatly simplifies all the management and problems involved in an online store, but to make your website profitable you need minimum margins.
If I ever consider creating a store, I would use this method without a doubt.
Infoproducts
This is my favorite way to earn money with my blog.
It consists of creating and packaging your knowledge to sell it automatically. It needs a lot of time to convert your knowledge into a wonderful e-Book, during this period you do not generate income, you are only investing your time to later obtain money. But not before.
The good news: once the course or program is created, you can automate it and sell it for life. It will generate income without you doing anything else.
I will tell you some incredible keys to how to make money with a blog through an eBook or an Online Course:
This takes several months to create an online course. It should completely validate and implement an idea so that the reader can be successful with it,
Make an index with all the topics to be discussed and then record videos explaining the step-by-step of each section.
Create worksheets to facilitate the implementation of the students and set up the digital platform from which to sell. And then work on automating the course.
After doing a lot of effort and spending a lot of time into building a course, the results you will get are: You only have to worry about receiving the money through PayPal and paying your affiliates when appropriate. is it not so cool?
If you are worried about not knowing how to create a blog to earn money, do not miss this post: Complete guide on creating an online course
Examples of infoproducts: eBook, audiobook, video course, online training, template or plugin for WordPress, software, etc.
If you want to store, distribute and sell your own products, from an ebook to a course, I recommend SendOwl. It also helps you to have affiliates that sell your products and thus maximize your sales.
Webinars
Do you want to know how to make a blog and earn money without having to sell products?
If advertising, affiliation, or the sale of infoproducts do not seduce you, nothing happens. There are more ways.
One of them is to monetize through webinars.
Call it video conferencing, live streaming, or web conferencing. Is the same.
It consists of offering knowledge through live video. Attendees, upon payment, can access the online room where you are going to present your “conference” in front of the computer.
All you have to do is prepare 3 things.
The first thing is to write a script on a specific topic. Then you create a PowerPoint presentation or similar. Another option is to carry out the tutorial by navigating from your screen without having to create a presentation.
And finally, a landing page to advertise and sell this training.
What is a landing page?
It is made with a service specialized in these sales pages called LeadPages. I recommend using it if you have money in the future and want to invest in excellent service.
In the beginning, the webinar is presented until you see the face of the teacher. Then the vision of the screen is changed and you see the explanation step by step. Finally, the attendees ask questions. Simple as that.
I give you another idea on how to earn money with a blog combining it with a webinar.
What you do is record the live webinar. Then you only have to convert it to MP4, MOV, AVI, or any other type of video format and distribute it as a training pill. You have just created an info product to generate passive income.
That is, you sell your explanation again, although now it will be at a lower price. The good thing about a live webinar is that after the completion there is a round of questions among the attendees.
A second option to make money with a blog through this method is to offer a free webinar on a specific topic. Then, at the end of this, you sell a paid complementary product on the same theme.
This works very well because if you do it great, people see you as an expert in the topic you just developed, you add value for free and they trust you.
A percentage of attendees will want to pay you to learn more.
Example:
“Free Webinar on Facebooks Ads ”. At the end of this, they sell you a paid course called “ 3 proven techniques to double your income with Facebook Ads in a week ”
Membership
Another way to make money with a blog on the internet is to create a membership site. It is about creating a private community to which you have access by paying a prior fee. This can be monthly, yearly, or whatever you want.
This community can be developed on a specialized online platform such as private Facebook or Telegram group or membership to read premium content on your blog. you are the administrator of the group and you have to take care of giving access to the members after verifying the payment.
Imagine that you sell access to your private tribe for 10 Dollars per month. If every month you have 10 people who pay for this, the first month you get 100 Dollars.
But after a year you would have 120 people who pay 10 Dollars= $1,200. A good salary, or not?
Obviously, to maintain this rate of growth and avoid the casualties of the people who are inside, you will have to provide very good knowledge, more than that, excellent.
But if you are an expert on a subject it can be a very powerful way to earn money with a blog.
Generation of indirect income
When you have an online platform, over time business opportunities and collaborations arise, Sometimes you can look for them yourself, like developing a new idea or product. Or you can ask someone to develop and sell it together.
You will also see that other fellow bloggers will contact you for the same, for promotions or who knows what.
The point is that when you have good visibility, opportunities arise that can generate extra income . They don’t come directly from your platform, but they do find you through your blog.
Works for third parties
Once you’ve developed a strong online presence, third parties may want to hire your work.
Conferences
It is another variant of how to earn money with your blog without having to sell products. The key to this system is that you position yourself as an expert in your sector.
Your blog will be the one that will help you achieve it. Little by little, and thanks to the value that you provide with your content, you will gain visibility and your name will begin to be heard.
At that moment is when you can consider giving lectures.
You have two options:
- Conferences, seminars, face-to-face courses, etc
- Being invited and paid to give one anywhere in the world
Podcast
Another way to make money with a blog is to include a podcast section, and over time, monetize it.
The Podcast consists of the distribution of audio files through an RSS distribution system to which you can subscribe through a program (iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, among others) and offer the user the possibility of downloading these files.
They are mostly audio, but they can also be a video or a combination of both.
vlogging
A complement to your blog can be a video blog or as it is known in the geek world: Vlog.
The vast majority of Vloggers are found on YouTube since this is the largest video search engine in the world with the permission of Google.
The famous “Youtubers” can earn astronomical figures.
How to make money with a vlog?
On YouTube you earn money through advertising, there are two ways:
- Adsense
- “Networks”: large companies that manage the advertisements of their channels and that of their partners.
YouTube takes into account the quality of the video. It values it according to the number of minutes the viewer spends watching the video. Therefore, not only the number of visits is taken into account, but also the quality of these.
Earning money with Youtube is not easy. Getting to have a decent salary much less.
But if you are lucky and you are uploading videos week after week, perhaps over time you can have additional income to what you earn through your blog.
As residual as they are, something is better than nothing.
Read: Make Money on YouTube
Other techniques
In this section, I am going to name several methods to earn money with a blog that are not common or that are combinations of some of the above.
I will also include the most outstanding and interesting ones that are coming through the readers, so if you have one that works and I have not named it, you can place it at the end of the comment thread.
If you are still not sure how to earn money with a blog, get ready. This is for sure.
Donations
Through PayPal, you can insert a type of button called “donation”. Just by inserting a code in your sidebar, you can get your readers to give you their first dollars. The truth is that in the Hispanic market, this does not work very well. You will barely receive a few dollars as a “thank you” for your free content, so it is not the best monetization technique.
However, it is a model with which you can see how your first income comes in.
Sell your blog
There are people who have specialized in this way of making money with blogs.
First, you create it, then you grow the traffic to make it attractive to a buyer, and finally, you sell it.
It may also be that you have generated a profitable portal but you no longer feel like continuing with it. Or you want to sell it because you simply want to save time for new projects.
Portals for the sale of websites:
- Flippa
- Empire Flippers
- DigiFlippers
Niche Pages
This is a typical model to monetize your blog with advertising or affiliate. It is not the only one, but perhaps the most common and the one that works best to automate these two issues.
What is a niche page?
It is a web page that offers content on a very specific topic, the more specific it is, the better.
Normally they have a few articles, 12 or 20, that they try to position on the first pages of Google with Long-Tails. This is how you get organic traffic to get free visits.
You can learn about this method here: Niche Blogging
It is the best-known way to earn money with visits or traffic. If you like or master SEO, creating niche pages will be very attractive to you.
What method do you use that I have not named?
For me, the essential thing is to combine all possible techniques to diversify income, because if any of them fail you have others that bear these losses.
Now tell me some of the ways that I have left in the dark and that you are applying to earn money with a blog.
