How to Earn Money Blogging: 5 Top Tips to Monetize Your Blog

This is a guest post by Sarah Saker. She is a business coach and freelance writer. In this post-Sarah explains how to earn money blogging using 5 consistently well-performing monetization techniques any blogger can apply. 

Creating a blog is the easiest part. You’ve built a website, constructed informative landing pages, and have started posting regular content. You enjoy blogging — otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it. But are you reaping the full benefits?

Did you know there are millions of bloggers on the web actually making money from their writing on a daily basis? There are many easy ways to monetize your blog that you can start doing today.

Make Money Blogging via Affiliate Marketing

This is one of the most popular forms of advertising on the internet. It works for a huge percentage of blogs, regardless of industry. Making it a perennial best way to earn money blogging. Product reviews are a common form of affiliate marketing with a proven track record.

In order to get set up, research affiliate programs related to your niche market. For example, if you own an outdoor blog perhaps you could write a tent review and promote an affiliate tent at the end of the article.

This kind of affiliate advertising offers you a commission from any sale that takes place as a result of your recommendation. Recommendations are not the only way to earn commissions — you can also utilize banner ads and text link ads that connect users directly to the product’s page. This is a useful affiliate website that can help you get started.

Pay Per Click Advertising (Google AdSense)

This can be an extremely profitable form of advertising that works primarily by getting paid when a user clicks on an ad you place on your website. Google AdSense is probably the most widely used provider on the internet, but there are others out there as well.

This service works by providing you with a code that you insert into your site which creates an ad. These ads will show up in various places on your website. In the header of your site, on a sidebar, or within posts themselves.

You make money blogging when people view and/or click the ad, get paid varyingly higher rates depending on your type of content, and can even earn based on the users actions after the click takes place.

There are two ways to make a substantial passive income directly from Google AdSense:

1)  Impressions — This directly correlates to page views. For example, every 1,000 page views earn you a set dollar amount.

2)  Clicks — Every time a visitor clicks on an ad on your site, you get paid.

How much you make depends on how much traffic your site generates and how many people click on ads. The amount of income often depends on the value of the product being advertised.

For example, advertising an expensive financial service will probably generate more income than advertising for a single product, such as a pair of jeans. Thus you can increase how you earn money blogging by selecting more profitable blog topics or even starting new blogs.

One thing to note here is that you cannot click on your own ads — you will be penalized. Google does a lot of the work for you by handpicking ads that will work best on your particular website.

Earn Money Blogging with Text Link Ads

This form of advertising involves placement of ads within a body of writing on a page. If you are writing about a certain kind of pet food, you can insert ads that would refer viewers to specific pet food products. In order to install these kinds of ads on your website, you will need to enroll in a specific product affiliate advertising program, such as Amazon Affiliates.

The benefits of these ads are that they tend to be more subtle. They are not likely to turn readers away from your website. You can also buy or sell text link ads directly to earn money blogging by contacting people who would like the links. It’s important to disclose such interactions on your side. If you create a page offering these services on your blog, companies may even contact you outright looking for a text link ad.

Courses/Services

Hosting online courses is a great way to earn some additional income. Especially if the goal of your blog is to educate users within a certain realm. Rather than providing users with your valuable insight for free, arrange for them to register for a paid online teaching course.

You can do this via a membership route (if you intend on having more than one online course, for example) or a one-time fee. Courses can be sent via emails over a set period of time or downloaded all at once so that students can work at their own pace.

For example: If you’re an expert blogger you could sell a course on “How to Become a Blogger in Under 10 Days”. You could offer a discounted rate for users that choose to become members of your program or a flat, one-time fee.

Another approach to this is to host a live workshop or webinar. This is a great way to engage users in real time. You can make money blogging by charging for a virtual seat during your presentation.

Conclusion: Appearances are Everything

The secret to blog monetization success is to have a legitimate website that impresses. If your website is unattractive, unorganized, and lacks quality content, you will have a hard time getting visitors to come to your website. And when it comes to monetization — traffic matters. You can utilize all of the advertising platforms in the world and not see a dime for your efforts.

Make sure you put effort into building your website from the ground up. For instance, having a catchy domain name is a useful way for people to recognize and subsequently remember your brand. You can create a unique domain name on GoDaddy or HostGator. You can now also get a free domain name when you make a WordPress website if it’s your first time signing up for web hosting.

Another valuable tip is to post consistently useful content. This last tip is one of the most important to maintaining a healthy blog which helps you earn money blogging. If you don’t have time to write all of this content yourself, you might want to think about implementing guest blogging.

Guest blogging means reaching out to other writers to accumulate content for your website. You can open your site for submissions. Publish the highest quality submissions. Ensuring you have an endless supply of content to keep your website looking fresh.

Did those top tips help you understand how to make money blogging? We hope this post serves as your initial blueprint to monetize a blog, so you can wake up each morning and enjoy checking the blog stats a little tiny bit more with your first cup of coffee. Our authors have been through it all in blogging — ask us anything that didn’t make sense or that you’d simply like to chat more about!

Sarah Saker is a business coach and freelance writer. She specializes in helping SMBs setup processes for customer support and predictable growth. When not writing or coaching, Sarah can be found on her (small but growing!) family farm. Connect with Sarah on about.me/ssaker for coaching or writing help.