Making Money

7 Profitable Blogging Strategies to Make Money Online

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This post may contain affiliate links where I may make a commission on purchases made through those links. For full details please see disclosure page.

In this post we are going to go over the top 7 ways to make money from your blog!

Making money from your very own website is so exciting, especially knowing the earning potential is completely limitless. But what are the popular ways to be able to actually make money?

The niche you are in will of course have some sway over which monetisation options are best for you. The good thing is that there are multiple ways to monetise your blog so there’s definitely something for everyone!

While there are of course no income guarantees, you should be able to find at least a few options from the list below that suit you and the way you want to make money from your blog. 

Let’s get into the top 7 ways to make money blogging.

There’s such a range in the ways you can truly make money from your blog.

The beauty in having your own blog is that you can choose whichever strategy and whichever monetisation strategy that suits you.

Do you only have to pick one of the options below to make money from your blog? Nope! You can absolutely choose one, a few, or even all the ways listed below.

Choose the combination that’s right for you and your blog, and that suits you as to how you want to make an income.

Remember there are many more ways not listed also! This post is just to touch on the top 7 ways, but there are many more!

The first two on the list I truly believe anyone can implement for you to make money from your blog. 

They are also (in my opinion) the easiest to get started with.

These are Advertising and Affiliate Marketing.

Advertising

This is probably the most widely known way to make money blogging. 

Adding adverts to your blog can help you to make money passively from your blog.

Where Do You Find Adverts For A New Blog?

As a new blog you are best signing up for Google Adsense where you can place Google Adverts on your blog. 

Google Adsense has a very low threshold as to what’s required to get into their program, so it’s perfect for newbies and people with lower pageviews.

You can absolutely stay with Adsense if it suits you so it isn’t only for new bloggers! It’s just the one I would recommend for newer bloggers.

With Adsense Google provides the adverts for you. You can choose where the adverts are placed on your site or you can even let Google choose. Google will automatically place them where they feel they will perform the best so you don’t have to do anything, but they don’t always end up where you may have placed them yourself. 

Experiment and see which performs the best and which is better aesthetically for your blog and your readers.

How Much Can You Get Paid With Adverts?

The amount you get paid from advertising can vary dramatically. 

It depends on which adverts are showing, where they are placed on your website, how many views your site gets and how many people click onto them.

The amount you will get from adverts will go up and down with the seasons too! 

Adding adverts to your website is probably one of the simplest of these 7 ways to make money from your blog mentioned here. Personally I would never purely rely on advertising as an income due to the fluctuations mentioned above so I would always choose at least another one from the other options to compliment it.

Once you grow a larger following and have more pageviews/sessions you can request to join other advertising companies.

With a larger amount of monthly pageviews, you will be able to apply for higher paying advertising. So that’s always something to look forward to as your blog grows!

Some people don’t like the look of having adverts on their blog which is personal preference. I’m happy to have adverts on mine as I’m happy seeing adverts on other people’s!

Affiliate Marketing

This is, hands down, one of my favourite ways you can make money from a blog.

The earning potential is limitless, and is more based on your own efforts, rather than the advertising rates set by an external company.

It is a term used all over the Internet, but is often portrayed as more complicated than it actually is.

It’s one of the ways you can potentially make a lot of money in a short amount of time…

BUT

Be aware that as with everything, seeing real results will most likely take time and effort.

The bigger the audience and the more they trust and respect your opinions and recommendations, the more you will make. 

I have a full post explaining Affiliate Marketing in more detail here!

As a quick run down though…

What Is Affiliate Marketing? 

Affiliate Marketing is when you get a commission from selling someone else’s products or services. 

How does it work?

To start with affiliate marketing, you start by joining an affiliate program with a company or a network that offers these programs. This could be directly with the company such as Amazon, or through an affiliate marketplace such as Clickbank.

The company then provides you with your own unique link that tracks any clicks through and any sales.

You can then share this link on your blog, social media, or other platforms, recommending the product or service to your readers.

Whenever someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission, which is a percentage of the sale!

This percentage will vary company to company and even product to product.

Essentially, you’re getting paid for helping a company sell its products by using your platform to reach more people.

It’s basically a win-win!

Be careful not to promote any bad products though as the last thing  you want as an affiliate marketer is a bad reputation!

Promoting products you use and love is the ideal here as you can openly talk about how much you enjoy them and how they can also benefit others.

Most companies have affiliate programs now!

If there’s a product or service you already love and want to share with your readers, you can check directly with that company’s website and see if they have an affiliate program you can join.

Here’s an example and one anyone with a self hosted blog can do – Share Your Hosting!

If you love your hosting company, see if they have an affiliate pgrogram (nearly all of them do), and then talk about them and why you like them!

This means no matter what niche your blog – there will absolutely be affiliate programs you can join.

If you love your hosting provider – recommend them! 

You already use and love them, so share them with your readers.

 How Much Can You Make With Affiliate Marketing?

The amount you make depends on the company’s commission rate, how big your audience is, and how much your audience trusts you.

One of the best parts of affiliate marketing is that you can sign up to as many affiliate programs as you like. 

Imagine how much money you can make just by sharing products you already love with your audience.

Sponsored Posts

Sponsored Posts are an awesome way to get some extra income from your blog.

This involves working with brands, where they will pay you to talk about a product/service, sometimes as part of a post, sometimes as the main focus of your post.

The brand will pay you to talk about/advertise their product and will most likely then give you an affiliate link to get a commission from all sales made through that blog post also. 

When agreeing to do a sponsored post/paid review, make sure the company has not said you HAVE to say only positive things about their product. All reviews should always be completely honest!

The larger your audience, the more you will get paid by the company, as the more people the post will reach.

Getting asked to do a sponsored post is not something to expect straight away.

Give it time, build up your own brand, website and audience and the sponsored posts should start to follow!

Do your research to work out how much you should be charging per sponsored post too! 

Don’t let yourself be undercharged due to worrying you aren’t good enough.

You are. That’s why they asked you.

Selling Your Own Digital Products

If you are a new blogger, this one will most likely sound scarier than the rest. It doesn’t have to!

There are loads of ways to create and sell digital products so if you are interested in going down this route then absolutely do.

If you’re unsure just now, have a read and maybe keep this in mind as a potential for the future if you don’t feel ready just yet.

This money making option has a few parts to it, but as an overview, you create your own digital products and sell these through your blog or through a site linked to your blog.

This could be through sites such as Shopify or Etsy.

For a more indepth look at Shopify and who it can benfit the most, check out this post here!

There are many different types when it comes to digital products. The types of digital products you can create and sell are things like:

  • E-Books
  • Courses
  • Planners
  • Subscription Websites
  • Worksheets
  • Checklists
  • Other Printables

One of the great things about digital products is that you only have to create them once but can sell them over and over!

Once they are created, your job is then just to promote and share with your audience why they will benefit from your products. If you’ve made a high quality product, this should be fairly simple!

Obviously if they need updated/refreshed then do this, but on the whole once created, you can then profit from them over and over again.

The overheads for these sorts of products are also very low, which means the profit margin here is very high.

This is because as much as you have spent your time creating a product, an unlimited amount of people can then purchase it from you.

If you are a newer blogger or new to your niche and don’t feel you could create a full online course yet, you could try for printables! 

The beauty in selling digital products is that there really is something for everyone, and they will all be unique to you.

Selling Physical Products

For some niches, this option can work amazingly well.

Say for example your blog was about crochet or healthy dog treats. You could absolutely sell physical products relating to either of those topics.

The overheads and time needed can be a lot higher, but that’s not to say it’s a bad option at all.

If you love to crochet and are crocheting all the time anyway, why not sell it too! 

Making products to order can save you ending up with a large amount of inventory, but puts a little more pressure on you to get the products out in the timescale advertised.

You can set up your own online store again through platforms such as Shopify or Etsy.

This income stream won’t suit all website niches. 

But that’s the beauty in choosing the best ways for you to make money from your blog. It’s all personalised to you.

Selling Your Own Services

Selling online services is an amazing option if you can offer a service to a person or group of people.

This could be one-on-one phone calls (for example a coaching call in your specific niche), personalised video tutorials, online consultations or VA services.

You don’t have to talk on the phone to sell a service online either as there are so many options so you can do it as a purely online service if this is what suits you better!

If you are knowledgeable about a specific topic but don’t have a large audience to be able to fully utilise the above other money making options, this is a great way to make money.

You can promote your services on your blog, on social media or on platforms such as Fiverr.

As with the above points, some niches will do better with this than others. 

If you are knowledgeable on a certain topic, you can absolutely consider sharing your knowledge and advice in the form of a paid service.

This is also one of the “quicker” ways to make actual money from your blog – along with selling digital products – as you will get paid for your services there and then. This is unlike money from adverts or affiliate links where you have to hit payout thresholds and then often only get paid the month after again. 

I wrote a whole post explaining what to expect from making money from your blog if you are looking for more information on the topic!

Click here to check that post out!

The last of the 7 ways to make money from your blog is…

Freelance Writing

Like above, if you love writing about a specific topic or topics and don’t have a large audience of your own yet, you can offer your services as a Freelance Writer.

This is where people hire you to write a specific blog post but for THEIR website, not yours.

Freelance writing is different to offering a guest post for another blog.

With a guest post you will still write content for another blog but will include your own information/links back to your own blog.

The bonus about this is that often you can link that post back to yourself/your own website which will also get your blog more exposure, growing your own audience.

With freelance writing/content creation, you provide a blog post you have been paid for, but purely for the other’s site.

If you have a lot of knowledge in a certain area, or if you are amazing at research/understanding and can learn and then craft a helpful and understandable post for different topics, you may want to look into this!

There is also no limit as to how many people you can write for, so time is your only limitation.

With freelance writing it’s often a good idea to reach out to blogs/companies you would like to write for. Unless you offer your writing services on a platform such as Fiverr, bloggers may never know you offer this as a service.

So that’s it!

Those are my top 7 ways to make money from your blog. 

There are many other ways but those are the most popular and simplest – especially when first starting out.

Some are trickier to learn/implement than others, but all can be very profitable. Whether used alone or combining a few options and having multiple streams of income (always recommended!).

One last thing to note is to not undervalue your time and services!!! 

When starting out it can be very tempting to agree to any amount people offer you. And there’s nothing wrong with this in the early days while you’re building up your blog and experience. As you grow, take some time to really figure out your cost and go with this number. Your time is valuable, and only you can decide how much you want to charge. No matter if it’ a coaching call, written content, personalised placed adverts or selling digital products. Work out what numbers suit you and go with these!

I really hope you enjoyed this explanation of the top 7 ways to make money blogging.

Which of these are jumping out at you as the best options for you and your blog?

Have you already started implementing some of the options above?

Which are your favourites? 

Let me know in the comments!

Speak soon!

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