13 Ways to Make Money Blogging
13 Ways You Can Make Money Blogging: 2024 Guide
Most people start blogging to make money or make a difference.
Many people may even have both of these underlying reasons behind their blogging journey. I’m sure most of you have similar intentions.
Maybe you want to replace your 9-5 with your blogging income. Maybe you’ve devoted your life to taking care of your kids and want to help with the family’s finances without returning to an office life. Perhaps, you have pre-school aged kiddos, and you simply want to avoid extreme day care costs. So, you’ve decided to work from home on your own terms, doing what you can, when you can. Or maybe you just want to get rid of debt and start living your life, instead of drudging through it. If some or none of these apply to you, maybe you just need another source of income to be a little free-er financially. (That’s the reason I started this blog!) Whatever the reason may be, many of us bloggers have similar goals — to make money doing something we enjoy.
So, let’s talk about making money blogging.
But first, I want to set one thing straight: Blogging is writing, but I am NOT implying that you make money ONLY by writing. This is the age of social media and platforms.
If you’re someone trying to make money only from writing, I’m not saying it’s impossible, only that you’re looking for advice on the wrong website. I don’t know a thing about making a full-time income with writing, but I do know how to supplement your income with the use of your writing AND how to build this to a point that it replaces your full time income.
How to Make Money Blogging
Let’s take a look at the different ways you can create revenue streams with a blog.
Ideally, you’ll be using multiple revenue streams to make money with your blog, so try to mix and match a few of these that make sense to you and your situation.
1. Affiliate marketing
2. Digital products
3. Online courses
4. Membership
5. Coaching/Consultation
6. Paid newsletters
7. Freelancing
8. Sponsored posts
9. Newsletter ads
10. Live classes, workshops, and speaking gigs
1. Affiliate Marketing
Let’s define affiliate marketing. An affiliate is someone who sells a product or a service on behalf of someone else, and through this promotion, may receive a commission for each sale they bring.
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to start making money blogging. If you have a blog on your own domain and platform, it will be a lot easier for you to get accepted into various affiliate programs.
Once you’ve joined an affiliate program, create a content strategy. For example, I’m an affiliate for Siteground websites and hosting, Quickbooks accounting software, Stan Store, Re.Direct sales funnel management… and more! I'm also a network marketing partner with Monet, which has been a dream!
Why did I select these? I use them, and I love them! Each of the affiliate partnerships I have established contribute to the success of my business, whether it has to do with lead generation, travel, accounting, sales fulfillment, or anything else that I do to make money. I share the things that help me with others, and may get a commission for sharing.
I often post on social media and blog about topics that relate to these products, and share the products’ affiliate links — a unique link provided to me by a merchant that they can track for sales. This makes the affiliate link relevant and it doesn’t look spammy.
Here’s a sample SiteGround affiliate sales report (If you can bring 15 sales per month, at $100 per sale, you could be making $1,500 easily!
The best part about affiliate marketing is that you do not have to make the product, provide support, or maintain quality. It’s all done by the product owners. All you have to do is write relevant blog posts, social media posts, and share your link! You will of course, need to bring traffic to your blog, which you can do with Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and good old SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)
Pro tip: If you’re looking to scale your affiliate income even further, then use YouTube videos to make short tutorials featuring your affiliate product, and then leave your affiliate link in the video description.
2. Digital Products
Selling digital products is another easy way to start making money with your blog. The best digital products are those that are somehow relevant to your blogging niche.
For example, I write about online business, blogging, content marketing, email list building, etc.
My readers are often small business owners who need digital products for their businesses, such as media kits, pricing guides, ebooks, workbooks, social media graphics, etc.
So I decided to start a shop where I sell ebooks and Canva templates that help people make money in the online space. My shop houses products that my buyers can easily customize or sell themselves.
You can check out my courses for reference and inspiration (and maybe help out this blogger and buy a thing or two?) Here are some things I’ve seen bloggers sell in their online shops:
· Website themes and Sales Funnels (WordPress, Squarespace, etc.)
· Printables (planners, calendars, business plans, etc.)
· Templates (documents, social media graphics, infographics, etc. made with Canva, Adobe, or something else.)
If you’re interested in learning to sell these types of products, like I do, feel free to check out my online course (Digital Wealth Builders)
3. Online Courses
If you find a topic that your followers love, then you can expand on it and bundle relevant topics to create an online course. In fact, online courses are some of the best ways for a blogger to make money.
I created my course — Digital Wealth Builder — after I wrote a blog post on the topic and suddenly my organic traffic from Google went through the roof! That was my indication that people wanted to learn more about making a side income online. So, I made the course and it remains my top money-maker to date.
Other bloggers and online business owners have found similar success with online courses. For example, blogger, copywriter, and novelist C.S. Lakin of “Live Write Thrive” sells online courses alongside her blog. She has multiple courses related to fiction writing, as that’s her niche. You can create an online course easily using a third-party platform such as:
· Skool
· Kajabi
· Or Re.Direct
4. Memberships
You can create a membership site to generate revenue from your blog. There are plenty of ways to do this.
· You can use a plugin such as MemberPress to lock certain blog posts and pages behind a paywalled membership.
· You can create a member-only newsletter (more about this in its own section below).
· You can create a member-only community (I set this up for a client once on WordPress, using BBpress for a forum and MemberPress to manage paid subscriptions.)
I have mine set up through Stan Store, so I can send out my monthly newsletters using Stan Store, with no additional fees.
5. Coaching/consultation services
Let’s say you’re a fitness expert with a private practice. You could blog about health and nutrition and sell your coaching or counseling services through content marketing.
The way content marketing works is that you blog about a topic to establish your authority. When your readers start to trust you and your knowledge on a certain matter, they’ll be more willing to buy from you. Whether that’s an online course, an eBook, or your services, you can always use blogging to promote what you’re trying to sell.
To give you an example, let’s say you’re a therapist and you blog about mental health. You could leverage your blogging to sign more clients.
If you’re a personal finance blogger, maybe you can help your readers with their monthly budgeting. Why not offer a Zoom session and make some money by helping your readers with your expertise? Let’s say you offer an hour-long session for $150. If you can secure just two sessions per week, that’s over $1k per month!
6. Paid newsletters
Paid newsletters are rather lucrative these days. If you can get a thousand subscribers to pay you 10 bucks per month, that’s a full-time income right there!
The problem arises when new bloggers with no existing followers turn to paid newsletters from day one. They expect quick growth but that’s not really how it works. All new bloggers and writers have to grow through the process of building an audience. There’s no going around it.
As long as you do not mind slow growth, paid newsletters (that you offer for free in the beginning, until you have a few hundred subscribers) can eventually become a good source of income, depending on your blogging niche. Some niches are naturally more lucrative than others.
Traditional blogging, however, can bring in money more quickly. You can start selling things on your own platform without forcing people to pay a monthly subscription fee, which can be more appealing to some readers. But, if you write in a lucrative niche, then paid newsletters are definitely worth it.
7. Freelancing
You can use your blog to sell freelance services too. It works best if you’re offering services in your niche. Consider these:
· C.S. Lakin offers manuscript critiques in her blog where she writes about fiction writing.
· I offer SEO blog editing services and Social Media Growth Coaching Sessions
· Zulie Rane offers freelance content writing and ghostwriting.
These freelance services do not have to be writing or editing-related. Think about what your skills are and what you can offer.
For example, aside from editing, I’ve also built sales funnels and websites for people, to help them grow their audience quicker and start making money.
8. Sponsored posts
Sometimes, brands will want to work with you directly to promote their products. This is different from affiliate marketing. In affiliate marketing, you partner with a brand and use their affiliate link in your website, newsletters, or elsewhere as you see fit, as frequently as you want.
But with a sponsored post, you write an entire blog post where you share something about that brand/product, and they pay you a one-time fee. Sometimes brand will reach out to you about a partnership. or, you can cold pitch a company yourself. There are also websites that connect bloggers with potential sponsored post partners.
I will frequently partner with other social media influencers to help promote my products using ads, and that has been lucrative for our business.
9. Newsletter ads
Aside from sponsored blog posts, you can also sell ads in your newsletter. Since my newsletter is free, I have introduced an ads section where my readers (or anyone, really) can put a small ad (text-only) promoting whatever they want eyeballs on. I do not recommend newsletter ads for paid newsletters because people are already paying you for your emails, so further trying to sell something may come off as annoying.
10. Live classes, workshops, and speaking gigs
Once you establish yourself as an authority in a certain field, you might be able to offer live classes, workshops, or even speaking gigs. If you have a skill that you can teach, you can easily leverage your blog to sell in-person or online workshops and classes. I’ve taught Social Media Growth workshops via Microsoft Teams! If you have an audience, these live workshops can be a lot of fun, and profitable too!
Pre-Requisites for Making Money with Blogging
To start making money with blogging, you need a few things.
· A blog niche.
· A blog set up the right way with user experience in mind (pay attention to good, clean design)
· Blog posts full of quality and value.
· A strategy to drive traffic to your blog.
· An email list of engaged subscribers who believe in you and your work.
Let’s tackle each of these briefly.
A blog niche
People read blogs to find a solution to their troubles or get information they’re interested in.
Now, people will tell you that there are some popular blog niches that are supposedly the most lucrative: Health, Wealth, Relationships, and Personal Development.
I believe that in order to make money, you need to tap into the right audience.
Sure, a common topic such as “personal finance” or “fitness” may be easier to deal with in terms of driving traffic or finding products within those niches that will sell.
However, that doesn’t mean that you cannot have a bit of an unorthodox niche AND be successful at the same time. Find something that truly fits YOU and your brand.
Find a topic you love, and then give it a twist. Do not just talk about the thing you love, but find a way to talk about it in such a way that you are solving some kind of problem within that topic.
A blog set up the right way
There are plenty of blogging platforms. I only suggest one, self-hosted WordPress. The reason is that it is the best platform for incorporating multiple income streams. I suggest you set up your WordPress blog with SiteGround hosting company as they are, by far, one of the best hosting companies on a budget AND recommended not only by yours truly, but also by WordPress.org itself!
Blog posts full of quality and value
People spend money on those whom they trust.
To make money blogging, you need to prove to your audience that you’re worth investing in. And for a blogger, the best way to do so is through blog posts.
Do not withhold information from your audience. Give them all you’ve got because that is how you build authority and establish trust, and trust = money for a blogger.
Spend time learning how to write a well-structured blog post. Then, provide tremendous value within each blog post to demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.
A strategy to drive traffic to your blog
Different people favor different things when it comes to a strategy for driving traffic to a blog.
Some people are really good at utilizing Twitter (X) or Instagram to drive traffic. Others know SEO very well. While others have great connections and networking skills and know how to get people to link back to their content.
If you do not have a specific skill to drive traffic already and you’re just starting to learn, I advise you to start with Pinterest. It is a visual search engine and optimizing your content for Pinterest is much easier than say, optimizing for Google.
An email list of engaged subscribers
Let’s say that I’m in a bind and need a few hundred bucks pronto. All I have to do is send an email to my list of subscribers, offer a discount on one of my products, and I’ll make that money in just a few hours.
I was only able to have successful course launches because I have a thriving email list.
An email list is a blogger’s best friend.
Whether you make money with affiliate marketing, or by selling your own courses and products, or by offering services, your subscribers are your biggest fans and they’ll be the first ones to invest in you!
Do not neglect or put off building an email list. You should be doubling down on your email list from day one.
You will need to put in a lot of work first to build authority and credibility.
Do not expect to just set up a blog and start making money. It will take time. So, I advise that you learn to enjoy the act of blogging. If you’re blogging solely to make money, then you’ll find it a lot harder to keep at it and do the kind of work that it takes to build a successful, money-making blog.
So, now that you have a better idea of all the different ways that you can make money from your blog, which one(s) will you apply?
Resources
Here are some other resources for those who want to expand your online money making prowess:
Free Canva & Chat GPT Branding Guide (enter code AIGUIDE at checkout, and you'll get it for free)
A Done for You Shopify Store with Marketing
Free Guide: Digital Products for Any Niche
Free Guide: Faceless Digital Marketing for Beginners
Free Guide: Introduction to Master Resell Rights
Free Guide: Introduction to Affiliate Marketing
Free Guide: Instagram Pro Planner
And don’t forget, your purchase of Digital Wealth Builder now will secure this course for you, forever!
Even if my pricing model changes in the future, nothing will change for you.
This is cool for everyone who gets in before we add our Kindle Publishing Module!
Through trial and error, I’ve found what works and what doesn’t.
This page contains affiliate links, meaning, I may get a commission if you purchase
through my links, at no cost to you.
