Can you really make money blogging? Yes, it’s possible to make truckloads of the green stuff. The good thing for you is that there is a lot of money to go around, and plenty of opportunity for you to grab your own slice of the pie. Don’t worry, there’s no voodoo or secret society that you need to join to get started. I’m going to walk you step-by-step through the various strategies and methods that the top bloggers use to make money with their blogs.
I want to first emphasize that in order to succeed with making money by blogging you need a couple prerequisite mindsets: ambition, passion, persistence, and consistency. Adopt these blogging traits and remind yourself frequently that they are necessary components to becoming a successful blogger. One last thing you will want to know is that you need traffic and visitors in order to make money blogging, if no one sees your content – you have no way to monetize your blog.
If you want to make money blogging, you have many different strategies your disposal. However, I believe there are six primary ways you can make money that have a proven track-record for generating income:
Advertising Networks
Ad networks can be one of the easiest ways to start making money with your blog. You simply place a piece of code on your blog and relevant ads will display alongside your content. There are hundreds of advertising networks for you to choose from that are completely free to join. You make money when one of your website visitors clicks on an ad or there are even networks that pay you each time your ad is displayed.
Pay Per Click (PPC) Ad Networks
There are several companies that pay you when every time someone clicks on an ad. While the amount of money you make per click varies wildly depending on your topic and the advertisers whose ads are displayed on your site – this can be a very lucrative and passive way to generate income. There are several large companies that operate on the pay per click model:
- Google AdWords – The big player in the pay per click arena is Google’s AdWords program. With AdWords you simply need to sign up for a free account, place some pieces of code on your website, and relevant text ads are then displayed on your blog. Google draws from their large pool of advertisers to display the ads and their algorithm automatically matches advertisers who are relevant to your site’s content.
- Yahoo! Publisher Network – Yahoo’s solution is very similar to that of AdWords. While not near as popular as Google’s, it is a viable and excellent alternative.
- Chitika - A hybrid of an affiliate program (which we’ll cover in a moment) Chitika can be a great option to monetize your blog. In addition to text links, they also offer you the ability to pull in product advertisements on your site.
Affiliate Programs
An extremely lucrative way to make money with blogging is to use affiliate marketing on your blog. With affiliate marketing you are promoting products for other people or businesses, and when someone purchases a product through a link or banner on your site – you make a commission. This is my preferred method of blog monetization because of the substantial money that can be made if done correctly. Thousands of companies have affiliate programs that you can sign up to for free. To get started though, I would recommend checking out some of the larger affiliate networks. These large affiliate networks aggregate different companies’ affiliate offers and make it easy to promote various products. With affiliate networks you don’t need to sign up for each individual companies’ affiliate program, you simply join the network and you then have access to hundreds or thousands of products. A few of the most popular affiliate networks are:
Your Own Services & Products
If you can create products and services that relate to your blog’s topic, you have a leg up on the competition and can really capitalize on your blog’s money-making abilities. Whether you are selling services, tangible items, or digital products, you can reap the rewards of setting your own pricing and making more profits. In addition, if you have a product that can be promoted by affiliate marketers (like we just discussed above) you can leverage their marketing expertise to help you sell your product.
This route for making money for your blog is one of the most time-consuming methods – but the benefits can far outweigh any of the other ways you can make money blogging… it can be extremely lucrative.
Paid Blogging
Personally, this is my least favorite method as you are trading time for money and are often only paid once for your efforts. I favor putting the effort and energy into your own blog, but there are many people who have gone this route and been very successful. There are several ways you can be paid to blog:
- Reviews - Companies like ReviewMe and PayPerPost allow you to write about a particular topic and be compensated for your writing.
- Paid Blogging on Other Sites – Companies are constantly on the lookout for quality bloggers. If you love writing and don’t want to pursue the path of creating your own blog, this option would be perfect for you.
- Article Writing – While article marketing is different than blogging, I wanted to include it because so many people have had success with this strategy. You simply write articles (paid or for ourself) and submit them to the major article directories in order to drive traffic to a certain site or blog.
Direct Ad Sales
While this is not really a great way to make money for those beginning a blog, it can be a very good source of income once you start seeing some traffic to your site. If you sell ads directly to advertisers you can set the price that you are wanting and if you approach it correctly, you can create recurring income because many advertisers will stay with you month-after-month.
The tough part of direct ad sales is that it can be very time consuming if you’re trying to actively sign up new advertisers. From ad management to billing and reporting, selling advertising direct to an advertiser requires a lot of work and dedication in order to ensure they stay on and are pleased with their results.
Which method should you use to make money?
There is no right or wrong way to monetize your blog – only differences in the amount of income you can generate. I highly suggest trying at least a couple of these methods to see which is the most successful at generating revenue for your blog. Each blog and topic will perform differently and the only way to see what works best is to continually test your strategies.
Whatever ways you choose to try to make money, there are a few tips that can help you maximize your earnings:
- Make sure the ads are relevant to your blog
- Don’t spam or devalue your blog with garbage products, posts, or ads
- Continually test different services and methods
- Don’t give up
I guarantee that one of these ways can make money for your blog. They have been used to generates millions of dollars for bloggers and can be used to help you craft the lifestyle you’ve always wanted. Hopefully this post has started you down the right path and helped you get started.
Enough persistence and you will succeed!
Two of the most important mindsets that’s in your list in order to make money blogging is persistence and consistency. Once the initial passion dies down, the new blogger must decide to keep blogging (persistence) and to blog continuously (consistency). Unfortunately, this is why most blogs’ lifespans are relatively short.
Great post on different monetization methods to use for your blog. A great list for beginners to advanced bloggers.
Thanks for the compliments and I have a strong belief that those are the two reasons (consistency & persistence) that people fail to make money online. It’s sad to see and hear, because most of the time all it takes is some sticking with it to prevail and succeed.