Are you looking to make money online from blogging? You’re not alone! Every day, more and more people decide to start blogging as a way to make extra money while they work their way up the corporate ladder, or just set out on their own entrepreneurial adventures.
If you’re serious about making money online from blogging, though, you need to know what you’re doing! Here are eight easy ways to make money online from blogging that I guarantee will work, if you know how to implement them correctly!
1. Advertisers and advertising income
Selling advertising on your site can be a good way to earn some extra money, especially if you’ve got a popular site or social media following. You can set up Google AdSense or use other ad networks that don’t take much of a cut of your revenue.
You will want to avoid putting advertising on pages with sensitive information. The less attention you bring to yourself and your competitors, the better off you’ll be. You might also consider offering affiliate marketing links for products you like.
This is a great way to get paid for recommending products without having to sell them directly. Just make sure you’re not linking to anything spammy or inappropriate before going ahead.
Don’t forget about other types of content that could work well as an advertisement, such as quizzes and infographics! Check out our guide on how to create viral content for more ideas!
2. Advertise Affiliate Products
Affiliate marketing is a huge online industry, and it’s easy to become involved in. To get started with affiliate marketing, first you need to decide which products or services you want to promote. Then, use your blog as a platform for promoting those products or services.
Promote them on your own site or advertise them on other sites that are relevant and appropriate for your niche.
You can either link directly from within your content, adding text such as Read more about why I love ABC product here at appropriate points in your content and linking out within that context so readers will know what is being discussed; or else create sponsored posts where you provide an honest review of some new product or service that isn’t getting much attention elsewhere.
Either way, once people click through to your site they’ll be able to find lots of information and reviews about different products—and if they like what they see, they might even make a purchase!
3. Sell your own eBooks and digital products
Have a knack for words? You can make money selling your own eBooks, art or photography. Customize and sell T-shirts and other products with your designs on them. Look into Fiverr and Etsy to get started.
Even if you just have an idea but no finished product, you can still get started by using crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter or GoFundMe—but keep in mind that it’s going to be harder to raise money when you don’t have a tangible product or service yet.
Just be sure not fall prey to any fly-by-night companies offering quick fixes and enormous returns. If someone seems too good to be true, he probably is. As long as you stick to trustworthy crowdfunding sites and people, though, it’s possible to make a little bit of cash within your spare time.
4. Selling your own products or services
Platforms like Shopify, Etsy, and eBay make it easy for you to set up a store and sell your product (or products). There are also physical sites that specialize in selling certain products. For example, you might create a shop on Amazon that sells only cookbooks or on Target where you can only sell cell phone accessories.
You can also try an advertising network like FlexOffers or ClickBank in order to promote someone else’s product. On these sites, there’s no limit as to how much money you can make from selling other people’s stuff!
And if those don’t work out for some reason…well…there are even more ways to make money online! If you think all of these methods seem too time-consuming, there’s one more option: Simply offer your expertise to others by becoming a consultant or offering yourself as a freelance writer.
While getting started with consulting will take longer than implementing some of our ideas above, once you’ve built up multiple streams of income (more on that later), adding additional income streams is relatively painless.
Here’s another way to look at it: If you invest time and energy into creating additional income streams today when you need them most, why wouldn’t you continue doing so tomorrow?
5. Ask visitors to pay you for reading your content
You can easily make money online by showing ads to your site visitors. If you have a good-sized readership, you could make more than enough money from advertising alone.
For example, if you have 200,000 page views per month and ads on your site are generating about $30 per thousand page views, then that’s about $6,000 in earnings—just from ads. You’ll need to track how many clicks and impressions your ads get (using one of several services or simply writing it down) in order to calculate how much you’re making per ad.
But assuming around 30% of visitors click on an ad (an extremely high rate), you’ll be able to bring in around $1 for every person who visits your site. That may not sound like much, but it adds up quickly!
6. Paid surveys, focus groups, studies
If you live in a metropolitan area and are willing to travel, you can sign up on sites like e-Poll or IPSOS, which will pay you (sometimes significantly) to participate in market research.
Typically these surveys pay $10–20. Survey sites let you pick your own responses, so if there’s something that doesn’t pertain specifically to your life, but might come up for someone else (or in other countries), fill it out anyway; most people don’t mind that kind of thing.
You can usually find them by searching surveys + [city name] on Google. If there are paid surveys offered via email spam or pop-ups, delete them immediately without filling out any information whatsoever. They’re scams, plain and simple. It’s also possible to make money with focus groups, although they aren’t always easy to get into.
Focus group studies generally pay between $50 and–100 per session and last anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours. The catch is that you have to be selected as part of a group—and sometimes there are hundreds of applicants for each session/study!
And remember: just because you’re getting paid to take part in a study doesn’t mean you’ll be able to write about it later—your data belongs solely to whoever is paying for your time (which isn’t necessarily fair). That said, focus groups can be fun ways of meeting new people while earning some extra cash.
7. Promote other people’s products.
Even if you don’t plan on making money with your website, that doesn’t mean you can’t look for ways to make some extra cash. Affiliate marketing is one way bloggers can generate revenue from their site.
You can do affiliate marketing by adding links in your posts or through advertising with companies like Amazon Associates or Google AdSense. You can even sell advertising space directly on your site (check out sites like Mediavine).
For example, if you have a fitness site, you could link up with a protein powder manufacturer and earn money anytime someone purchases anything off their website after clicking through one of your links.
The point is: There are many different ways you can use your site and original content to make extra money, so think creatively!
8. Review products/websites/apps
Do you have a knack for writing reviews and promoting products? Get paid for it by using affiliate marketing sites like Google Affiliate Network or ShareASale. You’ll earn a commission for every sale you generate, which will help pay your blogging expenses.
Because of their high conversion rates, affiliate programs can be very profitable — even if you only have a small subscriber base. Reviewing different types of products is also an easy way to make money online from blogging.
Look for niche communities that would benefit from your insights and write about them on your site. You can monetize these pages with display ads or via affiliate links in order to make more money online from blogging.
