Ways to Make Money With Your Blog

Many people start a blog with the hopes to make money from it someday. It’s totally possible to make a full time living from your blog and so many bloggers are currently doing it. Some are even making 6 figure incomes from blogging!

Here are some of the ways you too, can make money with your blog.

Ways To Make Money With Your Blog

This post may contain affiliate links. You can read more about affiliates in my disclaimer.

What you need to start a money making blog

Before we get into ways you can make money with your blog, let’s talk about some of the things you’ll need to do just that!

A Self Hosted Blog

Before you can start making money with your blog, there are a few things you may need.

First, and super important, it’s always best to be self-hosted. Many ad networks and affiliate programs require you to have your own site in order to join their programs. Brands may also require it for sponsored posts. If you’re planning to sell products or services of your own on your site, you definitely want to be self hosted. A self-hosted site also makes you look more professional and shows you take your blog seriously, which can help with sales and conversions!

If you’re not self-hosted yet, or if you are and looking to switch, I highly recommend using Siteground! I use Siteground for this site and my other one, Alexandra Quinlann, and I love it! It’s easy to set up and use, their support team is always incredibly helpful, and they even do site transfers so moving your site is super easy!

Legal Pages On Your Site

You’re also going to want to make sure your website is legally protected, and it should be whether you’re trying to make money on your blog or not.

For your site to be legally protected it needs to have a privacy policy page, a terms and conditions page, and a disclaimer page. These pages should be written by a lawyer, that way you can ensure you’re 100% legally protected. This is especially true if you’re selling anything on your site, you don’t want to get sued!

Instead of paying a lawyer who knows how much money for legal pages, I used this legal pages bundle that was created by Amira, a lawyer and blogger of A Self Guru. You pay one time, they’re super easy to use and customize, and you get lifetime access to these three legal pages, which you can use on multiple sites. And most importantly, your site will be legally protected!

Check out some of the other things you might need to start a money making blog.

Now let’s get into some of the ways you can make money with your blog!

Affiliate Marketing

As a blogger, chances are you’re already talking about and sharing some of your favorite products or services with your readers, so why not get paid to do it? Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money with your blog. And many bloggers out there are making a full time income with it!

In super simple terms, affiliate marketing is when you promote a company’s products or services in exchange for a commission on a sale. (For example: a beauty blogger might include an affiliate link in their post reviewing a skincare product they enjoyed. When a reader clicks on that link and purchases the product, the blogger will make a commission, or a certain percentage of the sale, without any additional cost to the consumer!)

Affiliate marketing is a great way for beginner bloggers to make money because, depending on the program, you don’t need much to get approved. Some programs allow you to sign up just for having a blog! Super cool! Other programs might have requirements like number of views, a self-hosted site, or a specific type of content. The best thing to do is read the rules and requirements of the program before signing up, to make sure your blog meets them.

Some popular affiliate marketing programs:

• ShareaSale (my personal favorite!)
• Rakuten Advertising
• CJ Affiliate
• Awin
• Amazon Affiliate

A few tips for affiliate marketing:

• Only sign up to be an affiliate for a brand, company, or product you’d actually recommend. (Trust me, your readers can tell).
• Don’t over-promote. Use affiliate links when and where they make sense.
• Always read the rules of the program and the company you’re signing up to promote within the group.
• You can also share affiliate links on social media and in your email list! (Only if the program allows you to, this is why reading their rules and terms is important!)
• Check to see if your favorite bloggers who sell products or services have an affiliate program and sign up to promote it!

Join ad networks

When you join an ad network, you’re allowing ads to be displayed on your website. Depending on the ad network, you’ll either get paid per click or per view. Some programs also determine payment on a specific number of views, so for example $5/1000 views or something along those lines.

Ads aren’t exactly the best way to make money with your blog, unless you’re getting a lot of traffic. Payouts are usually low, especially for ad networks that have no minimum page view requirement. And speaking of page view requirements, some ad networks might not let you sign up unless you get a specific number of views per month.

The number one reason to consider using ads on your blog, is because it’s passive income. Passive income is income generated without you having to do anything. You don’t have to do much, outside of driving traffic to your blog, in order to get paid for having ads on your site. And your goal is to always have traffic to your site, so you were already doing that anyways!

All in all bloggers are on the fence about ads. Some swear to never place them on their site, claiming they take away from the content and annoy readers. Others use ads on their site and continue to get tons of page views and engaged readers. Some wait to put ads on their blogs until they reach the page view requirement for higher-paying platforms.

If you’re thinking of putting ads on your blog, take some time to weigh out the pros and cons and do some research on which program works best for you and your blog!

Here are some popular ad networks:

• Google AdSense
• Media.net
• Ezoic
• Mediavine

Paid Sponsorships

A paid sponsorship is when a brand pays you for a post or other content featuring their products or services. Often times, brands will find and reach out to bloggers that fit their campaign, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pitch to brands you want to work with yourself!

If you do pitch to brands, keep in mind that some brands are looking for specific requirements for campaigns, so don’t be discouraged if you get denied a few times. It happens to all of us!

Whenever you’re doing a paid sponsorship make sure a contract is provided, to protect you legally and to also map out exact requirements for the content, that way there’s never any confusion.

Also, don’t be afraid to negotiate on payments. It never hurts to ask a brand what their budget is or to tell them what your rates traditionally are for a sponsored post.

Not sure how to find sponsored content? Here are a few sponsorship/influencer networks you can join:

• Activate By Bloglovin
• Fohr
• AspireIQ
• Clever

Sell digital products

Many bloggers create and sell their own digital products like eBooks or courses and it’s one of the best ways to make money with your blog!

The reason selling digital products is one of the best ways to make money with your blog is because it can become passive income! Besides promotion and applicable updates, you won’t have to constantly be working on the product. Your time would be spent on advertising and promoting, and you’ll have more free time to explore other income avenues!

There are so many different topics and subjects you can create a course or eBook on too. This is an income avenue that can be beneficial for so many different blogging niches!

A few helpful tips and things to keep in mind when selling digital products:

• Make sure you know and understand the topic of your digital product well.
• Decide on the price. Take into account how much work has been put into creating it, what kind of information is being provided, and competitor’s prices.
• Figure out how you’re going to sell it. Will it be on your site? Or will you sell it on a site like Amazon or Etsy?
• Choose a hosting platform that you’ll you use for it (Like SendOwl, GumRoad, etc)
• Decide how you’re going to promote it. Will you pay for ads or set up an affiliate program for it?

If done correctly, launching a digital product can easily help you bring in consistent income with your blog!

Sell Services

If you’re really good at a specific thing, you can offer your services to other bloggers or businesses. Selling services on your own site is great because you get to choose your rates and what you offer! You have full control over everything, which is ideal. But there are a few things to consider before selling services on your blog.

First, determine what kinds of services you’ll offer. There are so many different things you can do, but you want to choose things you know enough about. People are paying you for your expertise, experience, or results you’ll give, so make sure you can deliver!

Some services people sell on their blogs include:

• Blog Management
• Social Media Account Management
• Audits
• Graphic design services
• SEO Services
• Virtual Assistant
• Programming/Coding Services

When it comes to selling services, you’re also going to want to do some price comparisons, (tip: take a look at what other’s who offer the same services are charging). You don’t want to over-charge, because that might not convert well. And if you under-charge you won’t be paid what you deserve for all of your hard work! It’s all about the middle ground!

You also want to factor in how much money you want to make from services. You can break this down on a monthly or yearly basis. So if you want to make say, $5,000 a month from services alone, you have to determine how much each service will sell for, how many clients you’ll take on, and how much of your time is needed to reach that goal.

Once again, selling services on your blog can be extremely profitable, but make sure you take the time to consider what you’ll need and how much work you’ll have to put in before launching!

Sell Merchandise

Selling merchandise is another great way to make money with your blog! Depending on your niche, and how engaged your audience is, you can make a lot of money and do fairly well selling products or merchandise.

You can create and sell custom items yourself, or you can choose to use drop shipping to create and sell your products.

When deciding on prices to charge for merchandise, you’ll have to determine costs of materials and supplies or warehouse fees, shipping costs, and any other fees you might have to pay. There may also be a start up cost to consider.

You can also choose to sell your products on Etsy or a similar site. This allows for more exposure, but you may have to pay a fee on each sale.

Here are some ideas for merchandise to sell:

• Custom Art (stickers, paintings, cards, etc)
• Mugs
• T-Shirts
• Notebooks/Planners/Journals
• Books
• Phone Cases
• Jewelry
• like, literally anything!

Offer Memberships

If you have a large or engaging following, or you have exclusive content to share, you can consider selling memberships on your blog.

You can create a membership portal directly on your site, provide content to members via email, or use a platform like Patreon to share exclusives. There are a number of different ways you can set up a membership program on your blog, do some research and come up with a great way that works for your readers.

Whether you find success with having a paid membership program or not depends on your audience size and how engaged they are, what kind of content you provide, and what your blog niche is.

If you choose to set up a paid membership program for your readers, make sure to include content worth paying for. This should be content they won’t find anywhere else, behind the scenes exclusives, or content that will benefit them in one way or another.

Sell services on Fiverr or Upwork

Similar to selling services on your own blog, you can also offer your services on sites like Fiverr or Upwork. These are freelance platforms and people use them to search for services or offer services to others!

There are, however, pros and cons to using platforms like these.

Depending on the platform, you may have to pay a fee or they might take a small percentage of every sale. There are also so many people offering services, that the competition might be high.

But the reason using a platform like this is good is because of exposure. Your services will be seen by people who may not be reading your blog, which can really help you boost your sales and build a portfolio!

You can also provide services on both your website and on a freelancing platform, bringing in more money. Just be sure to only take on jobs you can do, and to not overwhelm yourself with too much work!

Making money with your blog is absolutely possible but it does takes work, strategy, and the right mindset to do it. If you work hard, implement strategies, and get out of your comfort zone, you too can make money with your blog!

Want more blogging tips straight to your inbox? Sign up to the Blogging Babes Email List! (PS sign up right now for a Blog Post Ideas freebie!)

Read More:

• 9 Things Every Blog Post Needs
• 3 Major Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Blog
• 7 Things You Need To Start A Money Making Blog