One of the first questions people often ask when discovering the world of blogging is how do bloggers actually make money? The right question & instead of spending a lot of time explaining it to myself, I thought I’d share 8 ways bloggers make money and just post them here. 😉
Monetizing your blog doesn’t require all that extra. Some bloggers even make a living from the essentials of a blog… One thing bloggers need to make money is a blog. 😉
If you do not have a blog yet, I use and recommend Bluehost & WordPress, for less expensive hosting and easy WordPress integration, visit Bluehost here.
For more information on starting a successful blog, see my step-by-step guide to getting your blog up and running.
Affiliate Marketing
One of the most popular and easy ways to make money with blogging is affiliate marketing. This monetization method involves selling the products or services of others through your blog post and earning a commission on it.
This way, you add a product link to a blog post and recommend it to your readers. And when anyone clicks on that link and buys a product, the commission is yours for your benefit.
But how do you get that special link?
For this, join the company’s affiliate program.
You can search for such companies online using keywords such as company name followed by ‘federal program’. Some companies have their own affiliate programs on their website while others join a network where other companies are also listed.
Examples of specific income-generating programs:
Amazon: Getting started is very easy, and the money is good. It may not generate the greatest profit, but if you look at Amazon’s worldwide reputation, you can expect revenue from it.
GetYourGuide: If your blog works in the tourism and hospitality industry, it’s a great way to do it. They also provide services in many parts of the world to improve leadership capacity. You can also try Booker.com and Viator.
Skimlinks: If you don’t want to go deep into technology or are new to the blog, you can go with it. They will give you the code you need to embed on your site, which automatically converts a blog link into a related link. Comes with Chrome extensions.
Commission Junction: It is also a large affiliate marketing company with thousands of different products listed here, serving a wide range of industries. Other similar sites you can try are Avantlink, Pepperjam, and Awin.
Check out this post to check out the 35+ affiliate program to join today
Pro Tip: Consider choosing high quality communication products or services related to your blog niche. It will save you from annoying your readers with random products that have nothing to do with what you write on the blog because it pays you well.
Sponsored Posts/Brand Partnerships
It is very common among video creators and Instagram sponsors who are sponsors and product sponsors. This method of making money has been associated with influencers in recent times, but long before the advent of Instagram, bloggers also used this method to make money on their blogs.
Sponsored posts are different from affiliate marketing as a blogger is somehow paid to review or write about a particular product, service or company.
Typically, this payment is made by offering free products or a one-time payment and this depends largely on how far you are from your blogging journey or previous technology.
Product partnerships or Brand Embassies are a very long version of this. 😉
This can include a lot of articles, social media posts and can get into real long-term plans.
While sponsored posts often incorporate individual product or service, product ambassadors are long-term partnerships with companies and businesses that you have approved as influencers and bloggers.
You will find product ambassadors in many industries, but they are a common place for makeup, jewelry, photography, etc. easily.
While your social networks and other platforms may not be very important in many of the ways in which bloggers make money mentioned here, it can be very beneficial when it comes to sponsored posts. If you have a large following in a particular network, you can use it to your advantage to earn higher money or simply protect more partnerships.
If you do not have the following social media, don’t worry, traffic to your blog and your email list could also be very important for business owners… and the appropriateness of this. 😉
Sell Digital Products to Your Audience
Sometimes the best way to solve problems for your audience is not through a portable product but with software and digital downloads.
Clay Collins got the idea for Leadpages through his blog where he wrote about improving landing pages. When Clay started offering free landing page templates they found that people wanted more from them.
They wanted to do it the way you wanted, mix it with their tools and even do crash tests so you made Leadpages. The business now has $ 38 million in revenue and generates $ 25 million a year.
If you have other skills, other than just blogging and building ebooks, don’t let them go to the trash. If you know how to code you can create software or WordPress plugins and sell them to your existing audience.
Even if you don’t know how to enter the code, you can still hire an engineer. Omar Zenhom of Webinar Ninja has created the first version of his product with freelance developers at Freelancer.
You can also sell digital products such as templates, themes, and audio recordings to your audience if this will help them solve their problem.
For example, Relaxing White Noise sells audio tracks that help their listeners relax and fall asleep. Luxe Lens sells Lightroom and Photoshop photographers. Gear camera camera Shotkit sells Lightroom for commission.
You can even sell print like Jennifer’s lifeismessyandbrilliant that sells digital editors and stickers on her blog.
Sell Physical Products to Your Audience
One way you can make money with your blog is to sell products directly to your audience. Some bloggers even go from selling just a few items and opening ecommerce websites full next to the blog.
For example, the famous e-commerce store Beardbrand, started as a blog where founder Eric Bandholz wrote about beard grooming before he started selling Beardbrand beard cleaning products.
Eric has turned his beard blog into a business venture in New York Times, Inc., Shark Tank and now makes over $ 100k a month.
Eric is not the only one who finds that selling products to your audience is a great way to make money with your blog.
Matthew Inman of Oatmeal makes about $ 375,000 a year by selling jokes related to the jokes he pulls on his blog.
Both Eric and Matthew can make money with their blogs this way because they have built a dedicated community that really wants what they have to offer.
If you are already building an audience, one of the most profitable ways to make money is to sell products directly to these people.
They trust you and as you care for them you may know more about them than most manufacturers and retailers.
Shari Lott started Spearmint Baby as a women’s blog and as she grew her online presence she began to learn more about what her mother’s audience wanted.
Shari launched Spearmint LOVE, an ecommerce store selling children’s clothing and less than five years later it grew into a $ 1.5M business in 2016.
If you already have an audience, then start paying attention to their problems and see if you can sell something that will help them solve it.
