Having a blog allows you to make money online. It is a great way to have a passive income. Or it can become your business and main source of income.
When you have your online business it gives you more free time, freedom. You can build up your business as you want, travel, work from where & how you want. It has many advantages.
You are the boss of yourself and you manage your life as you want.
There is a number of ways to make money with blogging. Some are easy and some are more difficult but if you work hard you will reach your goal and you will create different sources of income.
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Who Can Make Money With Blogging?
The short answer is everybody. And the long answer is whoever has drive and passion, who is not lazy, who wants to make his life awesome. If you have all of these, then you will definitely make money with a blog.
All you need is a blog website with quality content. Your website should be updated regularly with new posts. Also, having social media accounts is a great helper.
Also Read: What Are Blogging Expenses
Also, having a Youtube channel besides a blog is a great way to create another income source. Apart from that, it can be a new traffic source for your blog.
It doesn’t matter where you live, or how old are you. As long as you know what you are writing about and love it, you can start today. But success won’t come overnight.
You have to look at it as a real business. Work hard, create good content, update it regularly. And after some time you will see the results.
How To Make Money With A Blog
So, if you are interested in and want to start your online business, let’s dive in and see the best six ways to make money with a blog.
1. Advertisement
The first and perhaps the easiest way to make money blogging is an advertisement. It is a simple but effective way. You don’t do anything. Just drop a code snippet on your website and that’s it.
How it works is that you create an account on one of the ads providers. They may require what type of website you have, etc. Then you can create ads.
After creating your ad, copy the code snippet and add it to your website. You can add it to the sidebar, on the homepage, posts, etc. Whenever you like it. After some time ads will appear on your website.
The way you make money with ads is simple. Revenue is depended on views. The more views your page has, the more money you earn. So, you need the traffic to make money with ads.
And how is revenue calculated? Well, you should know five important metrics with ads.
- Impressions
- CTR
- CPC
- RPM
- CPM
Impressions are page views. When a visitor goes to one of your pages, it is one impression, if he goes to another two pages, it’s three impressions, and so on. If you have good traffic, you will earn a decent amount of money.
CTR (Click Through Rate) is the percentage of visitors that click the ad. If more visitors click on ads, the CTR percentage raises and it increases the chance for more revenue.
CPC (Cost Per Click) is the amount of money you make when a visitor clicks the ads and it depends on a number of factors. Different ads have different CPCs, some countries have more CPC than others, etc.
RPM (Revenue Per Thousand) calculates how much money you earn from 1000 impressions and it depends on CTR and CPC. So, higher CPC and CTR mean higher CPM and you earn more.
And CPM (Cost Per Thousand) is how much the advertiser pays per 1000 impressions. Different advertisers pay different amounts. High-paying ads mean more revenue.
You can monetize your blog with Google AdSense. Millions of blogs use it and it is Google after all. Also, another popular advertising service is PropellerAds. There are some others but I prefer these two.
To calculate how much money you will make can be complicated but there are calculators that will help you.
So, advertisement is the simplest way to make money. Revenue won’t be big but it depends on traffic. If your website has good traffic, then you will earn a decent amount of money.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Perhaps the best way to make money is with affiliate marketing. The majority of blogs make money with affiliate marketing. You can earn a good amount of money with it.
For starters, it can be complicated but actually, it is not. But it is not as easy as it is with ads. You definitely need good traffic. And you need the trust. If people think that you are fake, then it is hard to earn with this method.
Affiliate marketing works very simply, and there are many ways to make it work. But remember that you have to work hard. You have to have good content, audience, and be trustworthy.
The way it works is very simple. When you refer a client to a seller you get a commission and rates may vary. Some seller pays more than the others. But you can have many affiliate campaigns and that way you will have many sources of income.
For example, the most famous affiliate marketing program is Amazon Associates. When you register as an affiliate, Amazon will give you special links to products. You can put that links wherever you want – blog posts, social media, emails, etc.
When a visitor clicks that link, Amazon saves the cookie and knows that you referred a buyer. So, when he buys from Amazon, Amazon then gives you the commission. Simple as that.
See the full list of Amazon Affiliate commissions here.
Almost every company has some kind of affiliate program. It can be a hosting provider, online store, WordPress themes & plugins developers, and so on. Depending on your niche you can find these affiliate programs and apply for them.
This way you add another source of income to yourself and passive income increases. But don’t pack your blog with affiliate links. You have to have posts or some kind of content about that product or service and then you can insert a link.
Also, it is not necessary for the buyer to buy the exact product from the link you shared. For example, if you share a camera link from Amazon, visitors can buy something else and you still get a commission. Great, right.
Some affiliate programs have different kinds of commissions. Amazon has a percentage rate but famous hosting provider Bluehost, for example, has a flat commission – it pays you $65 for every referred client who buys one of their plans.
So, if you have a good amount of visitors, you can make money with affiliate links. Just pick good companies with a good product and create content to share links.
As you grow you will see your passive income increase. It just needs some time. Success won’t come in overnight. To start, you can create a couple of top-list posts, insert affiliate links, and see how it works.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money with your blog. Having passive income gives you more financial freedom and more time to make great stuff.
3. Online Courses
Another great way to make money blogging is through online courses. It has become popular in recent years and many people make money with courses. If you know something very good then courses can be a good source of income.
It does not matter if you have a blog, portfolio, or business website. You can add online courses to it and start earning money. And good thing is that it doesn’t have to be expensive.
You can sell courses as cheap as $10 and still earn thousands of dollars. Imagine if you have a $10 course and thousand students apply. You earn $10 000 and that is a great income for a single course.
Another way is that you can create many mini-courses and set a subscription-based price. More courses mean more students and more income. You will have a guaranteed income every month.
And to implement courses on your website is very easy. There are good WordPress plugins for online courses like LearnDash or TutorLMS. You can create courses very fast and easily.
Or you can create online courses with tools like Teachable which allows you to create professional-looking courses for just $29 per month. And another way is to use a platform like Skillshare.
All the methods have advantages and disadvantages. For example, if you have a course on your website or create it with Teachable, you are depending on your traffic. If you don’t have an audience, it will be hard to sell courses.
You can advertise your courses with the help of Facebook or Google ads. You need to invest in order to reach audiences and sell courses. But good thing is that you will have a unique course with unique audiences.
On the other hand, with Skillshare you don’t have to worry about traffic and the audience because millions of people use this platform and your course will be available to the whole world.
The one downside is that you are going to compete with other creators in your niche. Because there are many other creators like you who sell courses. So, you need to have a good course in order to become the best seller on that platform.
As you see there are many ways to create and sell online courses and make money. Either way, it is a great way to have a good passive income.
4. Offer Services
Another way you can make money with a blog is to offer services. Selling services is a popular way to make money. Service is a problem solving and all we have some problems and need to solve them.
So if you know something good and can solve problems for others then you definitely need to create a service and sell it. And a website or blog is a great tool for service promotion.
It does not matter what kind of service you offer. Everybody has some problems. You can offer tech services, writing services, or any other services.
The services list can be unlimited. You can offer writing services, SEO services, web design & development services, graphic design services, and so on. Everybody needs some help and you can be that help.
And having a website or blog is a great promotional tool. For example, if you are a graphic designer, you can create a blog about design and start to gain followers and an audience. Also, a Youtube channel and other social media platforms help.
Then, when you have an audience and people have trust in you, offer graphic design services. Create logos or website assets for them. When you have a couple of real clients, you can add a portfolio to your website for people to see what you can do and how good you can do it.
It is important to have some kind of portfolio because people want to know what can you do. So add your work to your website and add only good ones. You don’t have to include all your work. Just the best ones.
Also, include brands you worked for. It adds credibility to you and people will trust your work more. Trust means more clients which means more income. Services are a great way to have a passive income.
So, whatever you do just create some kind of portfolio, show your work & client list and start offering services to other people.
5. Sell Products
A great passive income source can be selling products. You can sell both digital and physical products via your website or blog. And it is very easy to do with WordPress and Woocommerce.
It is like selling products but you sell products. You can sell downloadable products like e-books, posters, logos, graphic assets, fonts, music, etc. Or you can sell physical products like t-shirts, mugs, phone cases, and so on.
Like in services, you have to build an audience, gain trust, and then add an online store feature to your website and start selling products. It can be a great source of income and help you to increase your revenue.
Many creators do the same. They first create a blog or a Youtube channel and they start creating content. After they have an audience then they offer products they handmade or anything mentioned above.
But it is better to have a specific niche. You have to pick a niche and a specific audience. For example, if you have a blog about SEO and you also write music, don’t sell your music via your blog.
Instead sell e-books about SEO, guides, or you can sell a t-shirt with cool SEO and related designs. Just think about what your audience needs and want to buy and you can make money with your shop.
6. Promote Other Brands
And the last but not the least way to make money with your blog is to create sponsored content. In other words, you promote products for other brands. It can be written content or a video.
It can happen in many ways. You can choose brands in your niche, contact them, and offer a product review. In return, you can get free products, backlinks, affiliate commissions, or something similar.
If your blog or Youtube channel is popular, brands will offer you deals. They can pay you for promotion, give their product for free, and so on. In this way you make connections and you can find business partners, collaborators.
The best way to promote products from other brands is to test them yourself and then create reviews. And the review must be honest. You want to talk about what it is, how good it is, and so on.
But talk in general. Don’t say that it is the best product because they are paying you. Even brands themselves want and honest, unbiased reviews. Tell your audience what the product is and what pros and cons it has.
If you do good reviews and promotions, more brands will contact and offer paid promotions. Slowly you grow your business and become the desired collaborator.
Actually, sponsored content may become your main source of income. Many creators make money only with this method and earn a lot of money with it. You can try it too.
Conclusion
As you can see there are many ways to make money with your website. You can implement all these methods and have different sources of income. But don’t inject everything right away.
Start with advertisement and as your blog grows, add other money-making methods. Register on some affiliate programs, or create products and online courses, etc.
But first, create content, gain trust, have an audience, and then try these methods, and slowly you will see the results. Success requires hard work and passion.
