How to Make Money Blogging: A Proven Beginner’s Guide

Wondering how to make money blogging? Have you ever thought about how bloggers actually make money?

In this post, I will be discussing the 5 main ways that most bloggers make money with a blog.

This post may contain affiliate links.  Please see my disclosure page for more info

Can I make money quickly with a blog?

Before I get into the 5 main ways to make money with a blog, I want to make sure that we are on the same page.

Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme by any means. 

It’s not something you start today and tomorrow the money starts rolling in tomorrow.  I never want to put that false notion into your head or for you to think that blogging is easy.  If it was, everyone would be doing it and living the life of their dreams.  

In reality, it takes time to build up your blog.  You are building a business, so you have to treat it like one. You need to put in a lot of effort before you will begin to see any type of profit from a new business. It takes dedication and consistency day after day, week after week.

If you need predictable money immediately, then blogging (or typically any entrepreneurial venture) is not right for you.  

Blogging can definitely make you really good money down the line. The rate at which you are able to monetize depends on things like:

• The amount of time you are dedicating to it
• How consistently you are putting out quality content
• Your knowledge of your ideal reader’s pain points
• How efficiently you are at getting people on your email list and building a relationship with your audience.

There is a lot of strategy and hard work involved, but I am here to tell you that if you have a solid foundation, the right strategies in place, and are consistent, you can kill it with blogging.

I have been able to make both a huge impact and income with both my blogging businesses.  The things I have been able to do through my blog have been amazing! 

I have been able to:

• Stay home with my kids
• Get a children’s book contract with a traditional publisher from my blog in the parenting space.
• Pay off loans.
• Take nice vacations
• Help people across the globe!

When you are making an impact and doing something you love that also makes money, there is no better feeling!

Okay now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive into the various ways that you can make money blogging.

1. How to Make Money Blogging: Ads

The first way to monetize your blog is with ads. I want to be honest with you, ads are my least favorite way to make money with a blog.  I really don’t monetize with ads​ on my blog, but there are several bloggers that successfully do this.

Ads are definitely the most passive way to make money with your blog.

You put them on your site, people click on them and you get some money; however the amount of money you will earn will vary greatly depending upon the:

• Type of ad it is
• Network you are working with
• Niche you are in
• Time of year it is
• How much traffic you get to your site

You may make a few pennies per click, all the way up to $1, $2, $3 per click. 

Your blog will need a lot of traffic to make any kind of significant income with ads though.

If you are just starting out, you likely aren’t going to be very profitable with this strategy for a while.

In addition, I think ads can really interrupt the user experience on a site. If you have ads throughout your blog (especially flashing ones) it can take away from the visual appeal of your site and the user experience. If you want people to sign up for your freebie or click on your affiliate links, remember that ads are competing for your reader’s attention.  

In my course, Blogging Business Blueprint, I teach my students to build a relationship with their audience by getting them on their email list first. If people are clicking on ads on your site, it then takes them away from your blog which eliminates the opportunity to build a relationship with them.

A click on an ad will make you pennies. Getting someone to click on certain affiliate links or to sign up for your freebie can lead to a much bigger payoff in the end.  

Now that’s not to say that you can’t put a few ads on your site if you want to try it out.

I am all about diversifying your streams of income and testing different monetization strategies to see what works best for your business. 

2. How to Make Money Blogging: Sponsorships

What is a sponsorship?

A sponsorship is when a company pays you to write a review of their product or service. 

You can reach out to companies or as you grow, sponsors may reach out to you.  You can also work with a network that acts as liaison between you and other companies.

A sponsor either pays you or gives you a free product in exchange for sharing it with your audience.  

You want to make sure that you are giving an honest review and staying authentic to your audience and brand though. If you don’t love a product, don’t work with a sponsor just for the money.  It’s not worth it. 

Please never recommend something that you don’t personally use and love.  That’s just icky and you risk losing the trust of your audience. 

If you decide to work with sponsors, choose ones that align with your brand and vision.

Lastly, sponsors want to grow their reach by introducing their company, products, and/or services to your audience. This means you need to have a good size email list and/or traffic coming to your site for them to be interested in working with you.

This is why sponsorships may be a good strategy once your blog is established and is another reason why blogging is a long game.  It takes time to grow a following and build up traffic.  

Now, let’s move on to the third way to make money blogging and that is with affiliate marketing.

3. How to Make Money Blogging: Affiliate marketing 

Affiliate marketing is a good way for new bloggers to dip their toes into making some money with their blogs.

Affiliate marketing means that you are selling other people’s products or services through links on your blog.  You recommend products and services that you use and love by linking to them. Then when someone clicks on your affiliate link and purchases something, you earn a commission.  

There are affiliate programs for every niche. You can type in a keyword or business related to your niche in a Google search and put ‘affiliate program’ after it to see who offers them.

There typically aren’t any requirements to become an affiliate for a company, other than filling out an application. Once you are approved you will get a special link to share and if anyone purchased something through your link, you will get a commission.

Commission can range from 1% to over 50%. It just depends on the program and what they offer.  I am part of some affiliate programs that make me 3% all the way up to 55%. 

As I mentioned you want to make sure you are being authentic and honest with your audience by only sharing products and/or services you have used/currently use and love. You really can’t give an honest review of something you haven’t tried.  

Amazon Associates is a popular one that a lot of new bloggers sign up for because the majority of people shop at Amazon. It is an easy way to start making a few dollars here and there, because they likely have a product related to your niche that you can recommend. 

It is one of my income streams, but I can tell you Amazon affiliates commission is one of the lowest I have seen and it requires you to make a sale within your first 90 days I believe to stay in the program, so make sure that your blog is generating traffic before applying to the Amazon referral program.

4. How to Make Money Blogging: Services

One of the quickest ways to inject cash into your blogging business is to offer services. This could be in the form of coaching or consulting, done for you services like graphic or web design, virtual assistant tasks related to bookkeeping, social media, editing, etc.

Whatever your niche, there is a type of service you could offer to speed up the process for someone else.

Time is money and people pay for speed and convenience.

PROS:

This is a great strategy for beginners who are building their blogging businesses.  It allows you to build trust with your customers and get great results for them, which can lead to referrals and repeat business.

For example, I did a lot of WordPress backend work for people when I started this blogging business to get some cash to reinvest in the business.

CONS:

You are trading time for money. This is not a passive income stream.

You are technically working for someone else and their schedule.

Services can work well in the beginning to inject some cash into your business, but if you truly want a more flexible lifestyle and passive income then you will want to eventually focus primarily on the last way to make money which is …

5. How to Make Money Blogging: Your Own Digital Products and Courses

This is where the magic happens! Offering digital products like ebooks, printables, and especially online courses is the most profitable way to monetize your blog!

Check out the digital courses & products I offer here.

Once you truly understand your audience and their pain points, you can begin to create products to help them solve their specific problem.

You will want to get your audience’s feedback before putting a ton of time into creating content for something like an ebook or a course with pre-selling and a beta course, but this is where the big money comes in.  It’s allowed me to make over 1k in one day

It is 100 percent possible to earn an amazing income from your blog if you put in the hard work and have the right strategies in place.    

Diversifying is key

The best way to build a profitable blogging business is to diversify your income. Figure out which monetization strategies work best for you and use a combination of them. 

You don’t want to put all your eggs in one blogging basket.  Some months will be better than others for certain types of income. Having different streams of income will prevent that feast or famine type of business. It will also help ensure that you have a more predictable income from month to month.