Many people are turning to the internet to supplement their income. There are many reasons for this. Some people want to pay off their bills, or earn some money towards a vacation. Others desperately want to get out of a 9 to 5 job they hate. This article will focus on how to make money from a blog.
Since you are reading this post, I am going to assume that you are interested in making money online. The good news is that it is very achievable. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands that do it daily. You can too.
I will explain the various ways to monetize a blog. Before I do I will go over some basic requirements.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
Before getting into specific ways to earn income from your blog there are a few things I want to go over:
A Blog: I assume that you already have a blog. At a minimum you will need a free blog. Eventually, you will need to get your own domain and hosting.
Don’t worry, getting a domain and hosting are not expensive.
If you do not have a blog yet, or if you do not yet have the skills needed to build one, don’t worry. It is very simple to put up a blog. There are tons of tutorials and videos on how to do it.
In fact, here is one:
I will point you to some additional resources later on in this post.
Traffic: Regardless of the way you chose to monetize your blog, you will not make a dime if you do not have traffic. What does that mean? It means that you need to have a loyal and sizeable number of readers that read the content of your blog on a regular basis.
The way to do that is to create original and helpful content that will attract readers. The more content you create, the more chances you have of attracting a loyal following.
As the content of your blog increases, you gain more trust from the search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo) and they start showing your content to more and more folks.
The next item is not really a thing you need. It is a mindset that is absolutely necessary if you are to ever have success online.
Not a get rich quick scheme: Making money online, however you decide to monetize, is a lengthy process. It requires long hours of work. It also takes many months to start seeing any results at all.
A lot of people fall for the glitzy sales pages that promise hundreds of dollars of revenue by “push button” or “done for you” gimmicks. There are no “Secret Formulas”. These are all scams that basically tarnish the reputation of online marketing.
You have probably fallen for these scams before. I know I have, multiple times. But eventually, I figured that there are no shortcuts. Just like any other business, online businesses require work. A lot of work.
So be ready to put in focused effort every possible time you can. Have faith in the process. If you do, you will be rewarded with passive income and a sense of accomplishment like never before.
With that out of the way, let’s look at ways to earn some money from your websites/blogs
DISPLAY ADS ON YOUR BLOG – SIMPLE
This is a simple way of monetizing your blog. You basically get some code from the merchant and you add it to your blog. When someone reaches your blog and reads your content, they will also see a block of ads.
Google adsense is the most well known program for this model. There are many others out there.
Pros
This is very easy to implement. All you do is copy some simple code into your blog posts and that is it. Relevant ads will get served to your readers. You will get a small amount of money each time one of your readers clicks on the ads.
Cons
The commision per click is extremely low. Depending on the keyword, it could be in the low cents.
You will need a ton of traffic in order to generate any meaningful income.
Another issue is that you need to apply to these programs and without an established site, chances are you will not get approved.
While I do not use this method, it is quite effective. There are people making a good living displaying ads on their sites. They enjoy the simplicity and the fact that they do not need to do any marketing at all!
OFFER FREELANCE SERVICES – BE YOUR OWN BOSS
This is a big one. People use their blogs to launch service businesses all the time. Whether you believe it or not, you have many skills that people will pay for. You can absolutely capitalize on this and make a great living doing something that you are good at and enjoy. Become a Freelancer!
Freelancing is the wave of the future. I don’t have the stats handy but they say that in the next 10 years, freelancing will become a large part of the economy. It will become the norm.
And why not? I see the appeal. You work from your house when you want to. You control the flow and pace of work.
Do you like to write? If so, you have a very marketable skill. Web owners often turn to freelancers to help them create content. As of the time of this blog, it costs well over $50 for a professionally written article that is 1000 words! Now imagine you got 2 of these per day. How about 5 per day? It ads up!
Do you know coding? Same thing with this skill. You can help people solve problems with their websites. You could help people create automation that will make their businesses more efficient.
The sky’s the limit here
Pros
You control the amount of work that you have. You work from the comfort of your home (or a coffee shop down the street, or a beach in Spain….) on a schedule of your choice.
Cons
It can be hard starting out. You need to establish yourself and build a clientele.
The other drawback is that you are still getting paid for doing specific work. This is an online income opportunity but it is not passive.
AFFILIATE MARKETING – PASSIVE INCOME
Affiliate marketing is a model where you get paid a commission when your readers make a purchase from a merchant’s website.
It is one of the most popular ways of monetizing blogs on the net today. This is because the model is clean, simple and tested.
Notice I said simple, not easy.
The appeal of Affiliate Marketing is that you (the blog owner) do not have to deal with inventory, shipping or customer service.
Your job is to offer excellent solutions to your readers’ problems. Those solutions could be physical products or digital courses.
As an example, you may have a blog that deals with dogs. Specifically, it may be geared to dog behavioral issues. After doing intensive research, you have found that a certain collar is very effective in stopping barking. During your research you also found that there is a certain digital video course that is excellent in stopping dogs for barking. Chances are that both of these “solutions” have an affiliate program.
If you have a great blog with lots of useful content, you will have cultivated a loyal readership.
They will trust you. When you offer them the collar as a recommendation, many of them will click on your link and be taken to the merchant page to make a purchase. Each time one of your readers buys one, you get a commission.
Similarly, you recommend the digital course. The same process happens. Your readers click the link on your blog. They get taken to the merchant site and download the course. You get a commission.
This is my favorite way to monetize my blogs. It is extremely effective and it can be very lucrative.
You need a few skills in order to correctly implement affiliate marketing with your blog. The next section will offer some excellent resources.
THE BEST AFFILIATE MARKETING TRAINING
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. All you need is the correct guidance and basic knowledge to make it work.
I belong to a community of affiliate marketers whose sole purpose is to help each other succeed.
You can join this community for Free and see what it is all about.
You will have access to 20 step by step video and text courses that will take you through the steps of picking a niche, creating a blog and adding content to it. All for FREE
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I hope that you found this article helpful. Please leave me your thoughts and comments in the section below. I would love to chat with you.
To your affiliate success,
Mike
Thanks Mike for being honest about it not being easy making money on line. It can be hard work sometimes. I appreciate the options you’re giving, because I hadn’t thought about freelancing yet. I need to check that out. I agree on you about the affiliate marketing training: that one is a winner.
Thanks for your comments Bianca! Wealthy Affiliate training is excellent. It has a ton of step by step content and can take a complete novice from niche selection to monetization. Other than affiliate marketing, freelancing is an excellent way of making money from a blog. It is not passive, but it is a very effective method nonetheless. Please let me know if I can help in any way.
Some useful information here. It is always hard to separate the scams from the legit methods of earning. Although a good rule of thumb is if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. There is no legal way to get rich quick. People have been trying to find one for centuries. It has led to many a scam artist getting rich off those that think they can get rich quick. It takes hard work to make money even online. Once people recognize that it becomes easier to spot the scams.
Hi Maryann! You are absolutely spot on. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. Nothing can take the place of patience, hard work and implementing a good plan. It is possible to make money from a blog if you follow a proven blueprint and if you are willing to put in the work. Thanks for your comment!
I’ve been trying to monetize my blog through affiliate marketing too! My blog is about four months old but to be honest I haven’t managed to make a penny. But, yeah, as you said, this is not easy. I’m still putting a lot of effort into it and I believe I will eventually get through this sandbox.
By the way, I particularly like the way you say the limit is the sky! 🙂
Hi Crystal! Stick to it! Your hard work and patience will be rewarded. It is not unusual to make little for your time investment at the beginning. But once the income starts coming in, it will start to snowball in accordance with your increase in traffic. You are on the right path. Help your readers every day and the rest will come. Thank you for commenting on my blog!