5 Ways To Make Money With Your Blog

You’ve been working hard on your blog, and now you want to make money on it.

I get it - it’s only natural.

And the fact is, there are people making money on their blog - thousands in fact.

But for every one of them, there are another 4 people who are not making money on their blog (seriously, 81% of people never make more than $100 on their blog).

But it doesn’t have to be you.

There are a lot of ways to earn a buck. I’ve written about over 500 ways to make money online myself.

But that’s a pretty long list - so here are the 5 most common and likely to be successful ways you should be considering:

1. Take Donations

We all have to start somewhere, right?

And what’s easier than simply putting up a PayPal link on the side of the blog and accepting donations.

Some people might say this is tacky, but it’s entirely up to you what you do with your blog.

After all, most likely you’re producing valuable content for free. If people don’t want to donate, they don’t have to, but maybe they do?

2. Monetize Your Email List

The money is on the list, or so they say.

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to make money from blogging is to build up a list and market to them.

For example, if you use AfterOffers, you can usually get paid up to $1 per subscriber, which isn’t bad if you’re getting 10s of subscribers a day. I personally earn around $100/month on my blog through AfterOffers.

But if you properly monetize your list, a subscriber can be worth much more than $1.

I have read articles where bloggers wrote that a single email subscriber is worth over $15.

Of course, just having them on your list is rarely enough - you have to have something to market to them.

Also Read: How to Create and Manage an Effective Newsletter?

Which brings me to my next point:

3. Affiliate Sales

One of the primary ways bloggers earn money is through affiliate sales.

The model is simple - if you refer a customer to an affiliate partner, they give you a commission, sometimes as much as 50%.

This works very well because there are thousands of products out there with affiliate programs, much more than any one person can produce.

Basically, there is almost always a product with an associated affiliate program that can be promoted if you need one.

A common tactic is to build a resource page filled with all of the tools you promote so that people can see in a one-stop shop what they need.

This is how Pat Flynn, for example, earns the bulk of his cash.

Also Read: A Trustworthy and Best Performance Affiliate Marketing Network

4. Display Ads

Although display ads have been on a steady decline in recent years, they still have some life left in them, especially in particular niches.

One niche that is heavily monetized by display ads is the food blogging niche.

Why?

Because display ads require loads of traffic to earn money, and only some niches have that level of traffic (think the biggies like food, fashion, etc).

This probably doesn’t sound like much, because it isn’t, but it is completely passive.

There are dozens of paid media platforms, though the most well know is probably Google Adsense. You can be up and running in a day and earn money tomorrow through this. 

5. Sell Your Own Product Or Service

In my opinion, the Holy Grail is to sell your own product.

Why?

Firstly, you get 100% of the sales (as opposed to an affiliate program).

Secondly, it’s fantastic for branding (assuming it is a great product, which it should be).

Lastly, you have complete control over how you choose to market it and what you decide to do with it year after year.

Some popular choices in this category are:

●     eBooks

●     Courses

●     Coaching

Though that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.

I have seen some bloggers charge $2k per hour through their coaching sessions, so this is definitely not to be overlooked!

Also Read: Extend Your Business Sales with iDevAffiliate Affiliate Tracking Software

Conclusion

It is possible to earn money from blogging. It is even possible to earn a full-time living.

Difficult? Incredible. Possible? Yes!

So what’s required to get started?

Three things:

Traffic. Authority. A Product.

If you have these three things, you can start making money. If you’re missing any of them - it’s time to get cracking!

David Schneider is an experienced content writer and business blogger.