How To Make Money With A Blog

Are you a new blogger or entrepreneur? Are you thinking about starting a new blog? If you are, something you should seriously think about is how to make money with a blog.

This post contains affiliate links.

Blogging takes a lot of time, hard work and dedication, so unless you are blogging strictly as a hobby, you’re going to want to get paid for your efforts.

But before you can make money with a blog, you need to do the following:

1. Start a blog if you haven’t already.

If you need a little help I would highly recommend you check out my post How to Start a Blog in which I run through the 7 basic steps you need to take to get up and running. It’s really not as hard as you might think!

2. Create useful, evergreen content

My post What is Evergreen Content and Why You should Care explains why you want to provide evergreen, high-quality blog content that people will want to read for years to come. It takes time to build that content, but it’s going to be this wonderful content that drives traffic to your site and makes you money.

3. Build engagement with the readers that come

Sounds easy doesn’t it! Blogging is a lot of hard work. My advice? Start blogging because you are passionate about something + you feel that you have something to share with others. Making money, serious money, from blogging takes time.

Table of Contents:

• How to make money with a blog – 5 Ways.
• How much money can you make from a blog?
• Which blog platform to use to make money?

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How To Make Money With A Blog – 5 Ways

Here’s how to make money with a blog… there are 5 main income streams, with a number of possibilities under each:

1. Affiliate Marketing
2. Sponsored Posts and Partnerships with Companies
3. Create Your Own Products – digital and physical.
4. Advertising
5. Services

1. Affiliate Marketing.

Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or company to your readers and you earn a small percentage if the reader purchases that item. BTW: This has no additional cost to the purchaser or the seller.

There are several ways to obtain affiliate earnings.

-Promote something you know and love. When I wrote my ebook “How To Start A Blog: Everything You Need To Know To Create And Start A Blog”, I asked a few of my clients to help me promote my book. A number of them wrote blog posts, and earned affiliate money too.

-Provide real reviews. You should always be real and honest with your reviews. Share what you like, how you use it, why you love it, etc.

-Publish tutorials. Readers want to know how they can use a product. If you show them how to use it, how it can benefit them, and how the end result looks, they find this very helpful!

Other affiliate programs you could belong to:

Amazon Affiliates – any size site can obtain an Amazon affiliate account. This post will walk you through the steps on how to become an Amazon Affiliate!
RewardStyle – this is mainly for the fashion + home décor bloggers.
Commission Junction – has a number of companies to choose affiliate programs from.

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money blogging. I love it because you can create just one blog post, which can potentially still earn you money years down the road. Note: You’ll still need to maintain the post and keep generating traffic to it. But it’s great to know that you can earn a great living promoting products or companies that you use and enjoy.

Affiliate marketing is one of the top three ways that I make money blogging at Your Marketing BFF.

Do you want to know how to become an affiliate for other brands? You’ll find your answer at the bottom of this post HERE.

2. Sponsored Posts and partnerships with companies.

Sponsored posts and partnerships is how many new bloggers begin to make money blogging.

This form of blogging income is when you partner with a company and advertise their product and/or brand on your blog.

You can approach brands that you like and love, but companies can also find and reach out to you directly. As a new blogger, I’d suggest you make a list of brands/companies you would like to partner with and send them an email. Don’t be afraid to pitch them an idea and tell them how they’d be a good fit for your readers.

3. Create your own products.

If you really want to be in control of making your own money blogging, create a product to sell to your followers.

There are so many products you could create and sell on your site.

Digital Products

A number of bloggers create and sell their own digital products. Digital products are great because there’s no overhead and really low risk. Plus, they don’t require inventory space, or shipping, and can be distributed quickly and easily!

Here’s a few examples of digital products that bloggers create…

1. E-books. Essentially these are self-published books written as downloadables.
2. E-courses. Teaching others what you know and sell it again and again.
3. Printables. These have become quite popular and are designed to be printed. They might be planners, calendars, cheat sheets, party invites, worksheets, gift tags, etc.
4. Online Classes or Workshops. Teaching, but in a live setting.
5. Premium Content. This is content that others must pay for, in order to have access.
6. Membership Sites. A combination of teaching and community. This might be a membership site you host yourself, or something as simple as a closed Facebook group. I have a membership site for bloggers called BLOG EDU, which you can learn more about (or join) HERE.
7. Photos. A number of photographers sell their photos online as prints you can take and have printed or simply stock photos that can be printed or used online in sites and social media platforms.
8. Software, Themes, Plugins or Apps. These are great for the techy person who loves (and knows) code. I love Fat Mum Slim’s Little Moments fun photo editing app!

Want to know what my first digital product was? My ebook “How To Start A Blog: Everything You Need To Know to Create and Start A Blog” which generates sells every month.

My ebook is currently one of the top 3 ways that I make money blogging.

Physical Products

Some bloggers like to sell physical products. Here’s a few examples…

1. Books. A few bloggers have become traditional published authors due to their blogs. Bloggers like Carrie Green with her book “She Means Business” and Emily Schuman’s “Cupcakes and Cashmere at Home”.
2. Manufactured Products. Some will find a manufacturer to make their idea a reality, like Joy Cho of Oh Joy! Note: products can be profitable, but can get complicated with manufacturing, keeping inventory, shipping, returns, customer service, etc.
3. Handmade Products. From t-shirts, to furniture, to wreaths and pieces of art. A number of bloggers sell their handmade products from their own websites or sites like Etsy.
4. In-person Classes, Workshops, Special Events and Conferences. People love having an in-person experience with bloggers that they love and follow.

There are so many options, pick one (or two) that are right for you!

4. Advertising.

A great way to add advertising to your site is through an ad network. An ad network is a company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements. Thus, you would place ads on your site, providing another income stream from your blog.

There are a number of ad networks available. Here’s just a few options:

-Google Adsense is a place to start putting ads on your site if you’re a beginning blogger – just know that you won’t really make much money.

-MediaVine requires at least 25k sessions/ month and ideally 100k sessions/ month to get you approved with all of their ad partners.

–Once you hit over 100,000 pageviews a month, you can sign up for AdThrive. If you’re able to get into their network, you can make some pretty decent money.

5. Sell/Offer Services.

Selling your own service offerings is also a great way to make money with your blog.

Our clients love when we share them in a blog post and it is a great reminder to our readers that we offer more than free advice, we offer a number of products/services too!

Selling services (website design, logo design, branding, consulting) is one of the top three ways that I make money blogging at Your Marketing BFF.

How much money can you make from a blog?

This answer varies greatly. A small percentage of bloggers make millions of dollars a year. Others, like me, make a sizeable full-time income. Some bloggers make less, and some make no money at all.

Not too long ago I shared ‘How 8 Bloggers Are Making Thousands Every Month‘. This post shares a variety of blog income levels, and was a way to show you that even if you’re a new blog, you can start making money. Don’t be discouraged, majority of bloggers start at $0 per month and over time worked their way up to thousands every month.

Which blog platform to use to make money?

Hands down, a self-hosted WordPress (wordpress.org, not wordpress.com) blog platform is the blog platform to use to make money!

The reason is, when you use a free service, you don’t have as much control over your blog. A self-hosted WordPress blog is my #1 recommendation. If you want more reasons why you should go this self-hosted route, see my ‘Choosing The Best Blog Platform’ HERE.

Whew – we’ve gone over a lot of important information! Whether you’re a new blog or a seasoned blogger I want you to know that you can make money blogging, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Making money, serious money takes time, and making sure you’re on the best blog platform to make money is key!

Cheers to learning how to make money with a blog, and to your future financial blogging success!