If you’ve been thinking about: “How to make money with blogging online?”, It’s best to understand that there are several ways a blog can be monetized.
The best way how to monetize a blog will depend on several factors including, what type of blog you have, what’s niche it’s in and which direction your blog will take in the future.
If you’re thinking of getting into blogging as a way to make money good on you! Read on.
In the following paragraphs we’ll spell out some easy ways to make money from blogging so you can get started and earn income online in the near future.
Table of contents
Things to consider before monetizing your blog
Ways to make money from a blog
- Ads
- Sponsored content
- Renting space
- Affiliate marketing
- Selling products
- Offer consulting or coaching services
How to make money from a blog without damaging its reputation
- The quality of content counts
- Ads type
- Ads frequency
- Affiliate links disclosure
Transparency builds trust and rankings
Things to consider before monetizing your blog
Before you start monetizing your blog, it’s important to make sure your blog has a good amount of traffic and a loyal reader base. Blogs usually take a while to gain momentum, maybe six to twelve months but don’t give up whatever you do. Be persistent.
It’s rare to jump straight out of the blocks and be winning straight away, only professionals will do that.
There’s a need to consider legal or ethical issues involved with monetizing a blog, such as disclosing sponsored content or properly using affiliate links.
Besides traffic, you might find that some blogs are more difficult to monetize than others, Keep this in mind especially when thinking about those in the following categories:
Niche blogs:
Blogs that cover very specific or obscure topics may have a smaller audience, which can often make it harder to monetize.
Of course there’s are also very broad and popular topics like dogs, cats, health and relationships that can be niche’d down into that will still have a good number of followers that can provide revenue.
Personal blogs:
Personal blogs that focus on the writer’s experiences and thoughts may not have a clear focus or target audience. This could leave a blog starving for monetary nutrition. Know who your audience is first.
Sharing experiences about home cooking or how the park down the road has great swings for kids may be good information but might not be the information that people are looking for so these sorts of topics can make it more difficult to monetize as well.
Although some bloggers have made fortunes narrating their personal experiences to a loyal fan base many instrumental bloggers will use well research topics that reach out to lots of people looking for specific information. This is key …or using keywords. More about that later.
Blogs with controversial or offensive content:
Blogs that contain controversial or offensive content may be less appealing to advertisers and may be more difficult to monetize. Some blogs with political, religious, and arbitrary opinionated content might fall in this category even if the intent is not to generate controversies.
It’s good practice not to generate topics like these on any blog unless the blog deals specifically with such controversial matters.
Ways to make money from a blog
The following are the most common ways to monetize a blog:
Ads
Displaying ads on a blog or website can be an effective way to monetize the site, but it requires a strong understanding of the target audience and the types of products or services that they are interested in, as well as a solid strategy for finding and working with advertisers.
There’s nothing worse than reading a story and having irrelevant ads being a distraction to the reader.
It is also important to have a system in place for tracking and reporting on the effectiveness of these types of ads. Google Analytics does this type of work.
You can sell advertising space on your blog to companies that want to advertise their products or services. You can do this through advertising networks such as Google AdSense, Mediavine or AdThrive
Some bloggers have found that reaching out directly to companies interested in buying advertising spaces in their site pays more than using advertising networks, although it might require more time finding the right advertisers ,
Some blogs can be very beneficial for both blog owner and advertiser, That’s a win – win.
Sponsored content
Sponsored content is a type of advertising in which a company pays a blogger or website owner to create content that includes a promotional message or product placement.
The type of content is typically written in a way that is consistent with the style and tone of the blog or website, but it is clearly identified as sponsored content so that readers are aware that it is a form of advertising. Hey! It’s income as well.
Sponsored content can be an effective way to monetize a blog or website because it allows the owner to create content that is of value to their readers in a specific niche or category while also generating revenue.
Under certain laws it is important to be transparent about the sponsored nature of the content and to only work with companies and products that are relevant and of interest to the blog’s audience.
Sponsored content can take many forms, including sponsored blog posts, sponsored social media posts, sponsored product reviews, or sponsored video content.
Through relevant, honest reliable reviews of products some bloggers have found a good balance between sponsored content and audience readership.
There is no end to the blogs where the author relates their experiences with a specific type of products or service by giving honest and best reviews of the pros and cons of said stuff.
Renting space
Renting space on a blog or website is often called rank and rent and it involves creating a niche website or blog, making it rank in Google through search engine optimization techniques (SEO) and leasing or selling the website’s traffic to advertisers or businesses.
This is a strategy that works best in niches related to local businesses, such as. a dentist operating in New York, a roof repairer in a local town or some other type of trade or handy person. You get the drift?
These businesses or individuals might be interested in renting space in a website that ranks for words such as “best dentist in New York” or “roof repairer in New York” or even purchasing your traffic as leads.
The rank and rent strategy can be an effective way to monetize a blog or website, but it does require significant investment of time and effort to implement and grow traffic to, as well as a strong understanding of how SEO and online advertising work.
It is also important to continuously produce high-quality content and maintain the website’s ranking in search engine results in order to keep both traffic and revenue continuous and optimized.
Usually those who want to use that as their preferred monetization strategy will create several websites in the same niche and try to make them all rank together. A little like monopolizing but isn’t that what commerce is about?
Affiliate marketing
Earning commissions by promoting products or services from other companies on a blog and linking to those products or services using an affiliate link has made many bloggers very rich.
It’s not always easy to see the potential but believe me the possibilities are huge!
When a reader clicks on the link and makes a purchase the blogger earns a commission from the business offering the product or service that gets bought. There is no extra cost to the buyer.
These have been an industry standard for years, Think Booking.com, Amazon or Uber eats, they are all affiliate sites collecting a commission on the purchases made.
Here’s how affiliate marketing works in three simple steps:
- A company creates an affiliate program and provides affiliates with special links (called “affiliate links”) that they can use to promote the company’s products or services on their own website, social media channels, or other online platforms. This is called a hyperlink
- An affiliate promotes the company’s products or services using their affiliate links. When a visitor clicks on an affiliate link and makes a purchase, the clicked link provides an Affiliate ID number and they earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer.
- The company tracks the sales made through the affiliate’s marketing efforts and pays the affiliate a commission for each of the products or services bought.
Affiliate marketing can be a useful way for companies to reach new customers and for affiliates to earn income by promoting products or services they believe in. It is important for affiliates to disclose that they are participating in an affiliate marketing relationship. This is required by law in many countries.
Selling products
Once you have established yourself as an expert in a certain field you’ll find it easy to sell products or services to your audience. These could be your own products or services or those of another party.
Selling courses and eBooks or even arts and crafts are some ways bloggers have come to monetize their blogs.
It can be a fun and easy way to do what you love and are good at and at the same time create an income by sharing with others.
Offer consulting or coaching services
Do you have expertise in a particular area? Perhaps you can offer consulting or coaching services to your readers through the pages of your blog or website.
By creating high-quality content related to your field and establishing yourself as an expert you will build trust with your audience and find it easier to offer consulting or coaching services to them.
Here are three steps to do that effectively:
1. Showcase your past work
Share the results of your hard work with your audience, enrich your blog with pictures,
videos, and data to show the positive impact of your work.
2. Ask your clients for an honest review
A review is the word-of-mouth of the digital era! Ask your clients for an honest review that you can publish on your website.
3. Optimize your content for conversion
This can include adding calls to action, such as “Book Now” or “Sign Up,” buttons, links or calls throughout the website, as well as making the booking process as smooth and user-friendly as possible.
How not to damage a blog and its reputation
That’s right, the wrong monetizing strategy for your blog can affect your blog’s reputation in a number of ways! The last thing anyone needs when blogging online is failure or for their blog to disappear in to obscurity.
Here are a few things to consider when preparing a monetization strategy for your blog:
The quality of your content counts!
If you focus too much on monetization and not enough on providing valuable and high-quality content to your readers, your blog’s reputation may suffer greatly. Be relevant and be readable.
It’s important to strike a balance between monetization and providing valuable content to your readers. Remember Google takes note of how people react when they visit. Relevant quality content is what people search for. Make yours work.
There’s nothing worse than finding yourself being bombarded with advertising when all you’re seeking is some quality info.
Here’s our take on the best way to monetize your blog without doing damaging to your blog
Ads type
If you display ads that are irrelevant or inappropriate for your blog or website’s content or audience, your readers may become annoyed and bounce right out of there’s frustrated. This could negatively impact your blog’s reputation and possibly lower your search engine ranking results.
Remember, relevant quality ads to prevent bad experiences or quick bounce rates
Ads frequency
If you show too many ads, your blog may become cluttered and difficult to read, which could also negatively impact your reputation and give your visitors a reason to exit quickly. Spammy ads may incur a Google penalty.
Affiliate links disclosure
If you use affiliate links, it’s important to disclose that you are using them and to only promote products or services that you truly believe in. If you promote low-quality or cheap and nasty products, your blog’s reputation will suffer over time.
It’s far better to offer quality and help your visitor gain a pleasant experience rather than a bad one by being spammy.
Transparency builds trust and rankings
Overall, it’s important to be transparent and honest with your readers, it’s also important to speak in your own natural voice. People understand that blogs need monetization at times, it’s how the little person survives and grows. When the right monetizing is coupled with quality and naturalness readers have a tendency to hang around for more
There’s a very real need to ensure efforts do not negatively impact the quality and value of your content, this is paramount.
That said, monetizing your blog can be very easy and extremely rewarding. Once you carry out your monetization strategy correctly you’ll see that making money from a blog is a great source of stable passive income and requires low maintenance. That in itself makes it worth pursuing.