If you’re interested in making money through blogging, I’m here to guide you in a whole new way.
I’ll unveil some remarkable examples of websites generating millions of dollars annually and showcase some fresh sites earning over ten thousand dollars per month.
Not only that, but I’ll also explain precisely how you can achieve similar success.
So let’s dive right in.
6 Best ways to monetize your blog
As a blogger, there are numerous ways to monetize your blog and turn it into a lucrative venture.
However, if you’re starting from scratch, it’s crucial to follow a practical and predictable monetization model.
Blogging presents a fantastic revenue stream that opens up various income opportunities, such as content creation, affiliate marketing, and display ads.
Relying heavily on a single income stream can be risky. If something happens or traffic drops, it could be quite nerve-wracking. Therefore, having multiple income streams is essential.
Let’s go through some of the main strategies to make money with your blog.
1. Running ads
When it comes to monetizing your blog, running ads can be a viable option, although it does have its requirements.
To make money with ads, you may need a certain level of traffic. In fact, ads are often considered a last resort for monetization, especially for articles targeting audiences who are not ready to make immediate purchases.
Take recipe blogs as an example. They might have an abundance of ads since visitors often stumble upon their articles while searching for recipes on Google.
Although these readers may not be inclined to buy something, the blogger can still monetize their visit through ads.
Let’s explore some examples of sites that effectively monetize with ads, ranging from large players to smaller bloggers:
Big Sites with High Ad Revenue:
- BuzzFeed: With its popular articles and Instagram content, BuzzFeed made over a million dollars through ad revenue last year, despite operating at a loss.
- Life Hacker: This site effectively uses right-hand side and in-content ads to generate substantial ad income.
- TechCrunch: Utilizing various ad placements, including top banners and sidebars, TechCrunch capitalizes on ad revenue opportunities.
Smaller Sites with Effective Ad Strategies:
- Running in a Skirt: This site provides a pescetarian diet guide for beginners and monetizes through ad placements at the top, side, and bottom.
- Spend with Pennies: Another example, Spend with Pennies, monetizes recipes like the perfect pot roast with ads placed throughout the content.
To implement ads on your blog, you can join an ad network such as Ezoic or Google Adsense, which allows you to customize ad density, positions, and types to suit your preferences.
By selecting a WordPress plugin and tweaking some settings, you can easily integrate ads into your site and start generating passive income.
Keep in mind that ad revenue is directly related to your blog’s traffic. Revenue per thousand visitors (RPM) is a crucial metric to evaluate your ad earnings.
Blogs with broad, less monetizable content might have a lower RPM, around five dollars per thousand visitors.
However, niche blogs, like those in the finance industry, may achieve RPMs of around forty dollars or more.
While ads can be an effective way to monetize your blog, it’s essential to focus on growing your traffic to maximize your ad earnings.
2. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is, without a doubt, my favorite method of monetization because of the control it gives over your content strategy.
Its straightforward setup involves creating transactional “best of” posts, product reviews, and roundups, each acting as a mini business on its own.
By optimizing these articles, refining affiliate links and partnering with suitable companies, you can turn them into substantial revenue generators, earning up to five figures per month and beyond.
The power of affiliate marketing lies in its close connection to search intent. People actively search for specific products, and your role as a mediator between their search and the purchase can lead to significant affiliate revenue.
Let’s explore some examples of successful affiliate marketing sites:
Articles, such as “Best Home Security Systems” from ThisOldHouse.com and “Best Outdoor Rugs” from Tom’s Guide, demonstrate the formulaic approach to affiliate marketing.
These sites utilize comparison tables, clear differentiators, and strategically placed buttons to maximize affiliate link clicks and boost revenue.
Using a templated format, you can effectively monetize different niches. For instance, “Best Bug Zappers” by TheFamilyHandyman highlights how you can integrate affiliate links into articles about home and lifestyle products.
The key to success with affiliate marketing is diversification. Blend various monetization models, including ads and affiliate links, to optimize your earnings.
Over time, your content library will directly correlate to your return on investment, and with proper strategies, you’ll see significant returns.
3. Sponsorships
While we often associate sponsorships with podcasting and YouTube, blogging is also a powerful platform for securing sponsorships.
Here’s how it works:
If your blog ranks on the first page of Google for valuable “best of” product roundup posts, you can directly charge companies for sponsorships instead of relying solely on affiliate marketing.
Consider traditional examples like the Tim Ferriss Show, which has podcast sponsors featured on its website.
Similarly, your blog can attract sponsors who want to be featured alongside your high-ranking and valuable content.
Sponsorships are a common practice in the blogging world, particularly for big media sites like Nerdwallet.
These sites rely on sponsorships as their primary source of revenue and often have dedicated sales teams to manage such partnerships.
For smaller bloggers, sponsorships can naturally follow once rankings and traffic increase, leading brands to reach out for inclusion.
A sales-driven approach is essential for managing sponsorships, but even smaller bloggers can implement this strategy.
By ranking for transactional posts and selling individual sponsorship spots, bloggers can secure sponsorship revenue.
Additionally, as traffic increases, selling direct advertising spots becomes a viable option.
4. Digital products + memberships
Digital products are tangible creations that you offer to your audience, which can include courses, e-books, templates, and more.
Although it’s not always advisable to start with this monetization model if you lack a substantial audience, it can be highly profitable with a significant profit margin once you have a dedicated following.
Creating a digital product requires effort, so it’s often better to wait until you’ve built an audience who would be interested in purchasing your offerings.
In the digital product and membership space, the trend is moving towards coaching, community engagement, and personalized support.
Courses alone may not suffice anymore; you need to go beyond and provide active assistance to ensure your students achieve real results. For instance, host live Q&A sessions and provide guidance.
Let’s take a look at some examples of successful digital products:
- Charisma University: This product focuses on building charisma, featuring a long sales page with various modules and bonuses for enhancing leadership and storytelling.
- Marie Forleo’s Copy Cure: A course on copywriting, offering a seven-day writing class and other valuable content.
- Mark Manson’s Courses: Mark Manson, a renowned author and vlogger, offers courses on various topics like building a better life, resilience, emotional mastery, relationships, and purpose.
To excel in this area, it’s crucial to build a personal brand and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
This process takes time, which is why we first cover affiliate marketing and ads to establish a foundation before diving into digital products and membership.
5. Consulting and coaching
Consulting and coaching are monetization methods that can offer high-profit margins, but they require your direct time and expertise.
With consulting, you provide specific services to clients and charge a premium fee for your expertise.
This could involve SEO consulting, link building, or other specialized services related to your niche. For example, you can charge up to $5,000 a month for SEO consulting, depending on the niche and the value you provide.
Coaching, on the other hand, involves guiding and mentoring individuals or businesses to achieve their goals.
You can offer private coaching sessions or group coaching programs, charging clients for personalized support and guidance.
These coaching services can also command substantial fees, depending on the value you deliver and the demand for your expertise.
Let’s explore some examples of successful consulting and coaching practices:
- Consult with Ben: Ben Molla, a real estate investor, offers private phone calls for $2,000 to provide expert advice and consultation in his niche.
- Nerd Fitness: This blog offers in-person personal training with personalized coaching services for a fee.
- Tom Ferry: Tom Ferry’s coaching program, “Eight Levels of Performance,” offers consultations for $1,299 per month.
These examples demonstrate the potential to leverage your knowledge and skills to provide value to clients and charge accordingly. Consulting can be like running your own agency, where you offer services to replace the need for a worker in the client’s company.
Coaching, on the other hand, focuses on empowering clients to reach their goals and often involves building a community around your coaching program.
This can be highly rewarding and impactful as you guide individuals on their journey.
As you consider consulting and coaching as potential monetization methods for your blog, think about the unique value you can offer in your niche and how you can price your services based on the results and expertise you provide.
With time and dedication, these methods can become significant revenue streams and enhance your online presence as an authority in your field.
6. Personal brand
A personal brand blog can generate a solid income, starting from zero and reaching up to ten thousand dollars a month through methods like affiliate marketing and ads.
As you grow and expand your audience, you can venture into platforms like YouTube and social media, further establishing yourself as an expert and teacher.
Personal branding is a near-perfect approach to building a successful online business.
It allows you to transcend the limitations of a niche-specific blog and provides the potential to scale your business to new heights.
For instance, creating a blog under a specific niche like “theecommerceguy.com” might have limited your growth potential, but by building a personal brand blog, you have the flexibility to explore various avenues and expand your reach.
Starting with a personal brand blog allows you to leverage your expertise and knowledge while building a loyal following.
Over time, this leads to a snowball effect, where your revenue and influence continue to grow exponentially.
Monetizing your blog requires dedication and persistence
It may take months of consistent effort before you see substantial revenue, but by staying committed and implementing the right strategies, your blog can become a true online business with a steady stream of income.
To achieve success, focus on good keyword research, creating topical maps, building authority, and consistently producing valuable content.
These are the essential elements that will help you create a real blogging business.
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