5 Ways to Make Money Blogging
It is crucial to comprehend that each method used to generate income through blogging has its pros and cons when it comes to initiating a profitable blog.
Ads are generally the least profitable option, although they are considered the simplest to establish.
Setting up online courses is often the most challenging task, yet it generally yields the highest revenue.
When considering a method, it is important to think step by step and establish realistic expectations for the amount of money you can earn from it.
In order to increase your blogging income, it is important to diversify your monetization strategy and establish multiple sources of revenue. This will help protect against potential downturns.
The blogging industry frequently undergoes changes, including shifts in algorithms and audience preferences. It is advisable not to rely solely on a single platform or strategy in this dynamic environment.
First, we will begin with the 9 most commonly used methods to generate income through blogging. Next, we will proceed to discuss the specific strategies that can be employed to establish these techniques and optimize your achievements.
1. Online Courses
If you are already blogging, you can easily broaden your services by selling online courses to your readers, essentially utilizing your existing platform for teaching purposes.
Courses offer bloggers the chance to delve further into their knowledge and expertise, as well as monetize their experiences, strategies, and recommendations.
You might be wondering, why would someone choose to pay for a course when they can easily find a vast amount of information online at no cost?
The answer is straightforward: Individuals are willing to pay for outcomes. By condensing relevant information and organizing it into a strategic plan, people can achieve results more quickly compared to searching through the vast expanse of the internet.
Your course will be paid for by your audience because they have a desire to learn from you and have confidence in your expertise and personal encounters.
Bloggers offer courses at prices ranging from $10 to $1,000.
The most money we have made from blogging has come from selling our own products, particularly courses.
How to Make Money Blogging With Online Courses
If you want to earn more money by selling online courses, consider implementing the following strategies.
Decide Where and How You Will Sell Your Courses
The choice of the appropriate platform for selling online courses depends on your desired marketing and sales strategy, given the multitude of available options.
There are two alternatives.
- Sell your courses on your own: Our favorite platform for this is Teachable.
- Sell your courses on a marketplace platform like Skillshare or Udemy.
By selling your courses on your own blog, you possess complete flexibility and authority over various aspects such as your product, marketing and sales strategies, affiliate program, pricing, and other related matters.
One drawback is that you are responsible for promoting your courses independently and utilizing your own audience to make sales.
Marketplace platforms have existing user bases in the millions and provide a wide range of courses, numbering tens of thousands. Udemy, for instance, boasts a user base of 49 million.
By selling your courses on these platforms, you gain access to these audiences; however, you do not have control over setting the ultimate price of your courses, as the platforms often conduct internal sales and lower the course price to $10-$12.99 at their discretion.
If a sale is made through the platform from traffic generated by it, not by you personally, you will usually receive only 10-30% of the course price, while the remaining amount is retained by the platform.
Both methods have been successful in generating monthly incomes of over $10,000 for bloggers.
Using a marketplace platform can generate a significant flow of passive income; however, the platform is highly competitive.
Record High-Quality Course Videos
While this may sound obvious, it is important to clarify that when I refer to “high quality,” I am not suggesting the pursuit of perfection using costly equipment and software.
Update Your Courses Regularly
Ensure that your course information is continuously updated to avoid students feeling the need to seek refunds due to outdated content.
The significance of this varies across different niches, but advancements in technology allow for potential changes in any blog niche.
Courses on online business typically require more frequent updates compared to language learning courses, as the former is subject to constant changes while the latter is more abstract in nature.
When creating your course, it is important to consider the step-by-step thinking and ensure the content remains evergreen by avoiding specific dates or other elements that could make it outdated.
Offer Discounts and Bundles
After creating and publishing your course, the next step is to attract visitors to your sales pages and ideally convert them into sales.
In order to encourage customers to make purchases, one strategy is to provide discounts on your courses. You have the option to introduce a grand opening discount exclusively to your email subscribers or offer a recurring discount within an email funnel.
To effectively utilize discounts, it is important to ensure that the offer has an expiration date in order to generate a sense of scarcity.
One method to enhance the total sale amount is to combine several courses into a single package at a discounted price.
2. Display advertising
You have most likely come across digital advertisements for cell phones, credit cards, and other products while browsing the internet. In addition, companies have the opportunity to place ads on your blog by participating in programs like Google Adsense. With this program, you have the authority to choose the types of ads that will be displayed on your blog and their specific placement on the page. Consequently, you earn money whenever a reader clicks on these ads.
It can be challenging to estimate your potential earnings, but this comprehensive guide on how to monetize with Google AdSense can be of assistance. Here’s the basic concept: if your website receives 2,800 views in a month and 1.5% of visitors click on a display ad, you will have approximately 42 clicks. Assuming the advertiser’s bid is 75 cents per click, you can expect to earn around $30.
Joseph Hogue, author of “Make Money Blogging,” states that receiving a $30 or $50 check can serve as sufficient motivation for new bloggers to persist with their blog and eventually reach higher payouts.
How much money can you make from blogging? Here’s what Google says
Google reigns as the supreme ruler of content, specifically your content. It holds the power to determine if prospective readers can discover your content through a search, and subsequently compensates you for displaying its advertisements on your blog.
Google is also aware of your earnings from your blog through their content earnings calculator, which determines the amount of money you make based on the traffic you generate.
The following content categories determine how much Google believes you can earn annually from ads on a blog in North America with 50,000 monthly page views. Here are some examples.
The cost for sports is $2,538.
The expenditure for arts and entertainment amounts to $3,372.
The cost of autos and vehicles is $5,520.
The combined cost of beauty and fitness is $7,806.
The amount spent on shopping is $8,400.
The cost of travel amounts to $8,460.
The total amount spent on food and drink is $8,598.
The financial amount is $19,278.
The more money you make, the bigger your audience, of course.
3. Repurposed blog content
If you’re already creating content, why not repurpose it? Transform your blog posts into chapters for an e-book that can be sold on Amazon.
According to Hogue, self-publishing may not lead to wealth, but it can be a great way to generate passive income. This implies that once you compile and publish your content on Amazon, you can mostly disregard it and simply receive occasional payments.
Furthermore, you possess the ideal platform for marketing, which includes a pertinent audience – your blog. On his personal finance blog, PeerFinance101, Hogue promotes his e-books focused on investing and passive income.
If you can break it down into a step-by-step process, rephrase the text below without changing the meaning. Additionally, please do not include any new information or leave out any information. Alternatively, if your content is suitable for video format, explore ways to earn money on YouTube.
4. Affiliate marketing
If you frequently talk about products in your blog, consider exploring affiliate marketing. For instance, if your blog focuses on smoothies, you can include a link to a particular blender available on Amazon within one of your posts. If a reader clicks on the link and purchases the blender, you will receive a commission.
Hogue suggests that by making a single purchase, you can receive a varying amount of money, ranging from a few dollars to hundreds. To discover advertisers and products suitable for your website, you can become a member of an affiliate network like ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, FlexOffers.com, Rakuten Marketing, or Amazon Associates.
Affiliate marketing is a lucrative source of income for numerous bloggers. Hogue earned approximately $2,000 per month from two of his blogs in 2017 through this method, but he is aware of individuals who generate tens of thousands monthly using the same technique.
This method is most effective for blogs that have a high level of traffic. The greater the number of readers, the higher the chances of someone viewing the post, clicking on the link, and making a purchase.
5. Sponsored content
Using this approach, companies remunerate you with a fixed amount for publishing a post promoting their product. For instance, either you or a blender manufacturing company would generate a post on your smoothie blog featuring a particular blender. This post might incorporate a hyperlink directing readers to a website where the product can be purchased.
If your blog doesn’t have a significant amount of traffic, finding opportunities for sponsored content might be challenging. However, Hogue suggests that authors of low-traffic blogs should still request a minimum of $100 if given the opportunity. If you are responsible for creating the content, you can ask for a higher amount. Once your blog gains a larger audience, you can ask for several hundred dollars per piece.
Opportunities for sponsored posts can be found on ad networks or by contacting potential sponsors directly. It is also possible to receive unsolicited emails that offer cash in exchange for a sponsored post.
Not everyone is suitable for this tactic. According to Hogue, some bloggers feel uncomfortable promoting a product for monetary gain as it gives them the impression that they are simply acting as a spokesperson for a corporate sponsor. Hogue recommends only endorsing products that you have personally tried and genuinely believe in. Additionally, it is important for the products to be relevant, therefore avoid expressing excessive praise for a carpet cleaner on a smoothie blog, unless you have a tendency to frequently spill your drinks.
