If you’ve ever wondered how to make money blogging, you’ve come to the right place. As a 12-year veteran blogger making six figures a year, this post outlines how bloggers make money.
Things you need to make money blogging
- A blog. Clearly. Here’s how to start a blog if you don’t already have one. It’s the easy part.
- Valuable content. Once you have a blog, write. Draw from your expertise & experience and write informative posts and articles about your chosen topic. Make your content excellent. In order to make money, you must have visitors, but in order to have visitors, you
- must have content worthwhile to visit.
- Relationships. As you create valuable content, start building genuine and sincere relationships via social media, forums & groups, commenting on other blogs and the like. Consider starting a mastermind group. Reach out to people in your niche. Find people who could use the information you provide. Get to know them, interact, be friendly and helpful by offering no-strings-attached tidbits of your expertise. Word about you spreads best via people who know, like & trust you.
- A strong platform. Keep growing in the knowledge of your craft so the
- content you produce gets increasingly great. Use your blog to get exposure, build authority, gain trust and be helpful.
- Streams of income. These are the different ways you can make income as a blogger.
Things you should know about making money blogging
- Much of the money bloggers make doesn't come from blogging directly. A blog is a platform or online home base. After proving their trustworthiness, bloggers use their blogs as springboards to launch other products & services that bring in income. Examples are ebooks, books, speaking gigs, products, ecourses, etc.
- If you want to make money blogging, it takes time, creativity and hustle—a lot of all three—but it's absolutely doable.
- Each blogger has a different combination of income streams. There is
- no "right" way and that's the beauty of it. There are endless possibilities. Find a combination that works for you or make up your own.
- Income streams ebb and flow, so successful bloggers are constantly exploring new ways to make money. The key to making good money as a blogger is to have multiple streams of income. Even small trickles of money coming from various sources over time can add up.
- The best way to start monetizing is to let it happen organically. Hopefully you are blogging about something you enjoy. As you grow, monetize (make money) in ways that would most suit you and your audience. For example, blogging about knitting? Sell knitting patterns. Blogging about fly fishing? Sell your services as a fly fishing guide. Blogging about being a preschool teacher? Sell preschool curriculum.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY BLOGGING
Updated April 26, 2016If you’ve ever wondered how to make money blogging, you’ve come to the right place. As a 12-year veteran blogger making six figures a year, this post outlines how bloggers make money.
This post contains affiliate links.Things you need to make money blogging
- A blog. Clearly. Here’s how to start a blog if you don’t already have one. It’s the easy part.
- Valuable content. Once you have a blog, write. Draw from your expertise & experience and write informative posts and articles about your chosen topic. Make your content excellent. In order to make money, you must have visitors, but in order to have visitors, you must have content worthwhile to visit.
- Relationships. As you create valuable content, start building genuine and sincere relationships via social media, forums & groups, commenting on other blogs and the like. Consider starting a mastermind group. Reach out to people in your niche. Find people who could use the information you provide. Get to know them, interact, be friendly and helpful by offering no-strings-attached tidbits of your expertise. Word about you spreads best via people who know, like & trust you.
- A strong platform. Keep growing in the knowledge of your craft so the content you produce gets increasingly great. Use your blog to get exposure, build authority, gain trust and be helpful.
- Streams of income. These are the different ways you can make income as a blogger.
Things you should know about making money blogging
- Much of the money bloggers make doesn't come from blogging directly. A blog is a platform or online home base. After proving their trustworthiness, bloggers use their blogs as springboards to launch other products & services that bring in income. Examples are ebooks, books, speaking gigs, products, ecourses, etc.
- If you want to make money blogging, it takes time, creativity and hustle—a lot of all three—but it's absolutely doable.
- Each blogger has a different combination of income streams. There is no "right" way and that's the beauty of it. There are endless possibilities. Find a combination that works for you or make up your own.
- Income streams ebb and flow, so successful bloggers are constantly exploring new ways to make money. The key to making good money as a blogger is to have multiple streams of income. Even small trickles of money coming from various sources over time can add up.
- The best way to start monetizing is to let it happen organically. Hopefully you are blogging about something you enjoy. As you grow, monetize (make money) in ways that would most suit you and your audience. For example, blogging about knitting? Sell knitting patterns. Blogging about fly fishing? Sell your services as a fly fishing guide. Blogging about being a preschool teacher? Sell preschool curriculum.
Related: 12 Things to Do Before Making Money Online (the practical nuts, bolts & legalities of making money online)Streams of income used by bloggers
Following is a list of income streams bloggers adopt, broken down into five main categories:Unlike many of the other categories, advertising is all about generating income directly from your blog, website or other digital asset(s).Display Ads
Display ads are graphics or images similar to billboards or ads in a magazine. Typically they are positioned on your site in the sidebar, header, footer or within your content. Sometimes they are referred to as banner ads.Ads on your site are meant to complement your blog's content, making them attractive and relevant to visitors. Advertisers hope that your visitors will then click on those images to explore and purchase the products or services they offer.Display ads are often provided through ad networks. Ad networks are companies that connect advertisers with publishers (bloggers). Ad networks act as a middle man between advertisers and publishers, negotiating partnership details between the two. The ad network takes a cut from the partnership profit. Ad networks are attractive to many bloggers because they take the hassle out of display advertising.Some ad networks, like Google AdSense, are relatively easy to get into and are easy to set up. Other ad networks though, are selective in who they accept. Examples of ad networks are Google AdSense, Blogads, BlogHer, Beacon Ads, Federated Media, Sovrn, (formerly Lijit), Media.net, Rivit and Sway. There are many more, so once you get involved in your niche's community of bloggers, you'll soon hear of others.Can you really make money with Google AdSense?
This is a very popular question, and a good one. Google AdSense is probably the most popular ad network. No doubt you have seen Google AdSense ads as you have surfed the web.Adsense ads come in various shapes and forms. Sometimes they are images and sometimes they are text. They show up in sidebars, headers, footers, within posts and anywhere else website owners choose to display them.Adsense is a good place for beginning bloggers to start if they want to pursue display ads because it's so easy to set up.However, if you want to make really good money with Google AdSense, you either have to be in a unique niche in which advertisers will pay a lot of money for clicks on their ads (hard to find), or you have to have a lot ofHOW TO MAKE MONEY BLOGGING
Updated April 26, 2016If you’ve ever wondered how to make money blogging, you’ve come to the right place. As a 12-year veteran blogger making six figures a year, this post outlines how bloggers make money.This post contains affiliate links.Things you need to make money blogging
- A blog. Clearly. Here’s how to start a blog if you don’t already have one. It’s the easy part.
- Valuable content. Once you have a blog, write. Draw from your expertise & experience and write informative posts and articles about your chosen topic. Make your content excellent. In order to make money, you must have visitors, but in order to have visitors, you must have content worthwhile to visit.
- Relationships. As you create valuable content, start building genuine and sincere relationships via social media, forums & groups, commenting on other blogs and the like. Consider starting a mastermind group. Reach out to people in your niche. Find people who could use the information you provide. Get to know them, interact, be friendly and helpful by offering no-strings-attached tidbits of your expertise. Word about you spreads best via people who know, like & trust you.
- A strong platform. Keep growing in the knowledge of your craft so the content you produce gets increasingly great. Use your blog to get exposure, build authority, gain trust and be helpful.
- Streams of income. These are the different ways you can make income as a blogger.
Things you should know about making money blogging
- Much of the money bloggers make doesn't come from blogging directly. A blog is a platform or online home base. After proving their trustworthiness, bloggers use their blogs as springboards to launch other products & services that bring in income. Examples are ebooks, books, speaking gigs, products, ecourses, etc.
- If you want to make money blogging, it takes time, creativity and hustle—a lot of all three—but it's absolutely doable.
- Each blogger has a different combination of income streams. There is no "right" way and that's the beauty of it. There are endless possibilities. Find a combination that works for you or make up your own.
- Income streams ebb and flow, so successful bloggers are constantly exploring new ways to make money. The key to making good money as a blogger is to have multiple streams of income. Even small trickles of money coming from various sources over time can add up.
- The best way to start monetizing is to let it happen organically. Hopefully you are blogging about something you enjoy. As you grow, monetize (make money) in ways that would most suit you and your audience. For example, blogging about knitting? Sell knitting patterns. Blogging about fly fishing? Sell your services as a fly fishing guide. Blogging about being a preschool teacher? Sell preschool curriculum.
Related: 12 Things to Do Before Making Money Online (the practical nuts, bolts & legalities of making money online)Streams of income used by bloggers
Following is a list of income streams bloggers adopt, broken down into five main categories:Unlike many of the other categories, advertising is all about generating income directly from your blog, website or other digital asset(s).Display Ads
Display ads are graphics or images similar to billboards or ads in a magazine. Typically they are positioned on your site in the sidebar, header, footer or within your content. Sometimes they are referred to as banner ads.Ads on your site are meant to complement your blog's content, making them attractive and relevant to visitors. Advertisers hope that your visitors will then click on those images to explore and purchase the products or services they offer.Display ads are often provided through ad networks. Ad networks are companies that connect advertisers with publishers (bloggers). Ad networks act as a middle man between advertisers and publishers, negotiating partnership details between the two. The ad network takes a cut from the partnership profit. Ad networks are attractive to many bloggers because they take the hassle out of display advertising.Some ad networks, like Google AdSense, are relatively easy to get into and are easy to set up. Other ad networks though, are selective in who they accept. Examples of ad networks are Google AdSense, Blogads, BlogHer, Beacon Ads, Federated Media, Sovrn, (formerly Lijit), Media.net, Rivit and Sway. There are many more, so once you get involved in your niche's community of bloggers, you'll soon hear of others.Can you really make money with Google AdSense?
This is a very popular question, and a good one. Google AdSense is probably the most popular ad network. No doubt you have seen Google AdSense ads as you have surfed the web.Adsense ads come in various shapes and forms. Sometimes they are images and sometimes they are text. They show up in sidebars, headers, footers, within posts and anywhere else website owners choose to display them.Adsense is a good place for beginning bloggers to start if they want to pursue display ads because it's so easy to set up.However, if you want to make really good money with Google AdSense, you either have to be in a unique niche in which advertisers will pay a lot of money for clicks on their ads (hard to find), or you have to have a lot of traffic (hard to get, especially for beginners).For these reasons, I don't recommend AdSense (or display advertising in general) as the main pursuit for new bloggers.
This post is very thorough so I’ve put together a cheat sheet as a quick reference. It’s free to Useletter subscribers (the Useletter is my regular email packed with extra up-to-date tips about social media, blogging, making money online, etc.) Want the cheat sheet and bonus pack?
