Have you been looking for how to make money from a blogging site? Then you’ve come to the right place, as our in-depth guide will take you through everything you need to know.
Many people, like you, have considered starting a blog or maybe you’ve already started a blog as a way of earning some extra money. But you’re still not exactly sure how you can make money from your blog, or maybe it hasn’t worked out for you yet and you need some help.
Either way, we are here to help anyone looking for help and support to getting your blog up and running, and finally making money for you…
The biggest misconception people have with monetising an online blog is the time it actually takes to make money with it.
Anyone can create a blog these days, it actually doesn’t take long at all. In fact, you could have your own website up and running in just a couple of minutes. But without traffic to your blog, there is no chance of actually making any money.
If you’re brand new and are looking for help building your own passive income stream with a blog, then you might benefit from our 7-Day Passive Income Bootcamp where we take you through every step of building a blog in a passion you have, and getting it to the point of making money…
Blogging is a great way of making money online, but like I said you need think about this as the long game. Whether it is a hobby blog or a business blog, you’ll need to invest time and effort into it to get the right target audience to come to your blog, so that you can use some of the monetisation methods we will discuss in this blog post.
Table of Contents
How to Make Money with a Blogging Site in 2021
The method you use to monetise your blog will depend a little on your niche and your target audience. If for example, you are working on a food blog and are promoting a load of recipes, then you will probably depend more on display ads, over promoting products as an affiliate.
On the other hand, a blog focused on the latest tech will focus more on promoting products via affiliate marketing.
But we’re going to go through the different methods, and then you can always use some or all of the methods. But if you’re still not sure after reading our blog post, then drop us a comment in the comments section and we will help you out!
Monetise with CPC or CPA Ads
This is a common way of making money as a blogger. By placing ads onto your website, you can earn money when your readers take a specific action. You can normally include ads in your sidebar, or ad networks like AdSense automatically include it on your website.
Let’s go through the different types of ads there are:
- CPC/PPC Ads: CPC stands for Cost per Click, normally called Pay Per Click. These are ads where you earn money if a reader clicks on the ad.
- CPM Ads: CPM stands for Cost per (1000) impressions. You will earn money for every 1,000 people view the ad on your website.
- CPA Ads: CPA stands for Cost per Action. Simliar to CPC, check out my full guide here.
Most bloggers will start out with Google AdSense. It is the easiest network to get started with, especially as you do not need a large audience to get started. There are better networks out there like MediaVine, however you need to have like 25,000 page views a month to be able to apply.
Like we said in the beginning this is not a get-rich-quick route, but MediaVine gives us a realistic idea of how much traffic you will need to earn a decent amount of money from blogging with Ads on it.
Google Adsense works in a similar way to most Ad networks, they choose what ads to display on your blog (trying) to stay relevant to your content and the reader that is on your blog.
There are similar ad networks when starting out like Chitika, Infolinks and Media.net. But you know when you are in a good place, when you can apply for networks like MediaVine.
Things to Consider:
- You will normally have to apply to join Ad networks, and you may get rejected if your blog is too new or has questionable content on there
- Make sure you check the settings, In Google Adsense, if you do not select the right content setting, you can end up with inappropriate content on there that can affect the trust factor with your readers
- Don’t have too many ads. Ads are ok, but there is a point where there are too many ads on a blog and it can look saturated and put people off. If they are not reading your content, they will not see or interact with your ads for you to make money
- You need high levels of traffic for this to be a decent return
Sell Private Ads
Ad Networks are all well and good, but they are not the only option you have when it comes to selling ads. If you have enough traffic, you will actually find that advertisers may come to you directly rather than going through a middle man.
The alternative is that you can contact advertisers yourself. The advantage of having no middle man, is that you can set your own ad rates.
Selling private ads can come as banners, buttons or links. You can also earn money writing sponsored posts where you write about an advertisers product or services.
Making money will vary depending on the route. For example, a sponsored post will be a one-time fee and hosting banner ads will be a monthly charge.
Another way of earning money is by selling sponsorship space in your email newsletters too.
Include Affiliate Links Within your Content
Affiliate Marketing is the perfect partner for a blogger, it is by far the way most get started with making money online. If you have enough traffic for ad networks, earning money from affiliate marketing will actually be much higher than from ads.
Here is my full guide on how affiliate marketing works, but in short here goes:
There are 3 parties, when it comes to affiliate marketing. The owner of a product or service, the potential buyer and you the affiliate.
People research products and services before making a purchase, they land on an authority blog (Yours) about that subject. They read a useful article that helps them to a decision, they also find a (affiliate) link to the product too. They follow that link and make a purchase. You are rewarded by the owner of the product, as a percentage of the sale price.
That same route can work thousands of times and affiliate marketing is a great way of helping people earn full time incomes from helping people.
You might still be unsure, but consider that Amazon is the world’s largest online marketplace and has used affiliate marketing from the beginning. It saves companies millions in advertising money and also means we can earn money from the online world.
Affiliate Marketing is our favourite way of earning money online, we also love how you can start a blog in whatever subject or niche you actually want to. Think about what Amazon sells, it can mean your blog can help people in a subject you already enjoy and you can engage in that niche as much as you like and earn money from it.
Please note, again i must stress. This is not a quick route, it can take months to get to a point where you are earning money from a blog with affiliate marketing. But if you can utilise both affiliate marketing and ad networks, you might be surprised when you get to the point where you are earning well from both.
Amazon is just one option, there are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there.
With Affiliate networks, like Awin also offer you an option where you only need one login to have access to plenty of affiliate programs.
If you would like to learn how to be successful in Affiliate Marketing, we highly recommend the Wealthy Affiliate training platform. It offers training, tools and expert support to ensuring you get started in the right way with affiliate marketing.
If you would like to learn more, read our Wealthy Affiliate review.
Sell Digital Products
If you would rather earn money without advertising other people’s products on your website,or are considering another income stream. You could consider selling digital products, including:
- eBooks
- Online Course/Workshops
- Images/Videos/Music for other bloggers to use on their own blog
- Apps, WordPress plugins or WordPress themes.
A key thing many get wrong when it comes to selling digital products is making sure it is relevant to your readers. There is no point writing eBooks about making money online if your blog is about photography. It is often best to listen to what your readers are actually after before investing the time in creating a digital product.
Sell Memberships
Another option to making money on your blog is by selling memberships to exclusive areas of your website. Consider a career blog might charge $10 per month, this gives users access to their job board. Or a startup business blog, might sell memberships to their forum for people to get personalised advice about their business.
But, this will only work if you are offering a membership that is more valuable than anything someone could find for free elsewhere. People will only pay if it is going to be a benefit to them. Make sure it is valuable and it is a reasonable price.
Use a Blog to Build Your Credibility
If you have credibility as a blogger, it can lead to you being able to earn money from all of the ways we have discussed in this post, it can also lead to other opportunities to earn money.
Let’s be honest, for your blog to be taken seriously and be put at the top of the search results you need credibility. In common circles, this would be described as an authority site where a reader will visit it and it oozes trust.
If I can trust the website owner, I am going to be inclined to spend more time on it. That is the basis any blog should be striving to achieve, as this is what leads to conversions and money making opportunities such as Ads, Affiliate Marketing, selling digital products or memberships.
But there are also other opportunities when you have built up that credibility and authority, especially if you become a recognised figure in that industry. Imagine someone who starts a blog in the finance industry and becomes an authority in that industry. It can lead to people approaching you to co-author a book on debt management, or speak at conferences or even run training days for employees of companies.
Becoming an credible authority in your niche opens up many possibilities when it comes to making money. There is no reason why you could not start a blog and after time, utilise all of the ways we have gone through in this post. I know that is one of my goals with this blog.
There are also opportunities to actually sell a profitable blog for a considerable amount of money too.
Putting Blogging into Context
Whilst there are multiple ways of monetising your blog, many more than we have listed here the biggest factor you are going to have to take into account is the fact that is it is not a quick route to earning money. You will need to put in a lot of time, effort and work hard to actually make your blog profitable.
To earn money from a blog, you need traffic. Traffic will only come to a blog that offers high quality content that helps them, and then only when the search engines have invested their trust in you to get your blog onto the first page of the search results.
If you think when you search online, how many times have you scrolled down the search results and gone to page 2…?
This takes time, and it also depends on how often you are posting content, the length and quality of your content. For example, I did not start getting decent rankings with this blog until it was 6 months old.
Most bloggers do not see any income in the first six months, that is being realistic and is a key thing to keep in mind. People need to be able to find your blog, like what they read and interact with your blog to be able for you to make any money.
Tips to Remember
Here are some tips on how you can make sure your blog is on the right track to getting that all important traffic and earning you money.
Creating High Quality Content That Helps
You will often see people saying you need high-quality content on a blog, but what does that really mean? Well, for a start I would suggest you focus on content that helps answer a question. Think about why you have landed on this page, you are looking for ways to make money from your blog. But, if you found a page which didn’t help you would you consider it high-quality?
The other factor to consider is people do not want to be sold to. This is especially important if you choose to follow the affiliate marketing route. People are searching online for help around purchase decisions, not sold to. They may already be thinking that they want to buy that product, but their research is aimed at understanding all aspects of it. If they land on a review written by a blog that has just focused on telling them how awesome the product is and is very obvious it is just to get a sale, it will definitely put that person off that blog.
Another factor to consider with blogging is the art of writing for one person. You are writing an article to help one person find the answer to their question. If you remain too broad, it won’t feel personal and is a factor as to whether people stay on your blog or not.
Is Your Blog too Broad?
If you have already started your blog, or are considering what to choose as a subject for your blog one of the factors that means you will struggle to monetise it is your niche is too broad.
Getting organic traffic from the search engines is where your money-making opportunities comes from. But if you start too broad, you will be competing with some authority websites and find it harder to get top rankings in the search engines.
The narrower a niche you pick, the better you will find it to get those all-important rankings.
Let’s use an example, many people like the idea of health & fitness blogs. But if you targetted health and fitness in general, you would find it immensely difficult to chip away at the thousands of blogs already in that industry.
Now, if you narrowed that down to “how to lose belly fat”, you would find it much easier to build an authority in how to lose belly fat.
You could focus on: fitness programs, health drinks, exercise, your own story.
People would buy into it – many people search for ways to lose belly fat, but you would also target those who are working towards a six pack, getting fit again, etc.
But by just focusing on one small sliver of an industry allows you to get rankings in the search engines and allows you to build up an authority in “losing belly fat”. Once you have that authority, you can start to open up different fitness elements and build up to a broad segment of the market. But as you are doing it from an authority position, it won’t matter as much as you already have the rankings and the knowledge to build it.
Be Social
I don’t just mean sharing all your content on social media, you need to build a social presence and also reach out to others in your industry. Build relationships with sponsors, affiliate partners and other bloggers. Spending time on forums, like Wealthy Affiliate’s community helps build up relationships with other bloggers or affiliate marketers. It also leads to building up your knowledge and ensuring you are in the best place to offer high quality content and monetising your website.
Be Realistic About Timescales and The Effort Required
The last tip I will leave you with is being realistic. Many bloggers come into this knowing it will take time, but they do not really understand what that timescale is. The main reason, there is no hard rule on how long it will take. Some start earning a few dollars after a couple of months. Some do not see any revenue for a year, but have better results because of it.
But then, there are some who give up just before their blog realises its potential and walk away thinking blogging doesn’t work.
I am going to be honest with you, this blog is just over 6 months old and it has only just started to get organic traffic from the search engines. But, then again i have had some excellent training from the guys at Wealthy Affiliate that has ensure my blog gets the best start.
But, I need to put in a lot of time and effort each week to make sure I keep growing my blog and that it keeps building up that authority and keep building it.
Blogging is a great way of expressing yourself, with great ways of monetising it. But do not think that you will be earning enough money straightaway. As long as you remain positive and get the right guidance, you will succeed.
Do You Need Help & Support?
I love blogging, I love helping people and I want to leave you with an offer of help. Done correctly, blogging is an awesome way of earning money. But if you have started a blog and do not feel like you are on the right path, I want to be able to help you get onto the right path. If you are planning on starting a blog and want to ensure you start correctly, I also want to be able to help.
I found that when i first started out with blogging (more specifically affiliate marketing) I would not have been in the position i find myself if I had not had the training and support that Wealthy Affiliate offered. I have been a member of Wealthy Affiliate for a couple of years now and am in a position where I help people get started with blogging or affiliate marketing.
If you are finding it hard to monetise your blog, it might be you need to go back to basics and learn what you need to do to ensure your blog is on the right track.
Kyle, one of the owners of WA offered some great advice when i first started out and that is to never stop learning. As soon as you stop learning, you begin to miss steps and that can lead to your blog not making any money.
Wealthy Affiliate offers a free starter membership, so you can check them out or you can read my Wealthy Affiliate review. But you will gain access to training, support and access to me via personal messaging on the WA platform too.
There is no reason why you cannot build up an authority blog that earns good money via all of the options in this post, but if you get the wrong advice or lack current high-quality training and support you will invest a lot of time and effort with nothing to show for it in a year or two.
If your blog has been going for a few months and not seeing the kind of results you were expecting, you can definitely turn it around. But only if you check out where you might be going wrong and fix it now.
If you are looking into how to start a blog on the right foot, then again WA is a great place to ensure that happens.
Go through the 10 free training lessons with a free WA starter membership and see what they have to offer, read more in my WA review and ask as many questions as you like in the community of like-minded entrepreneurs all looking to help people with their blogs whilst making money from it too. You will also gain access to a free website via a free starter membership.
If you still have any questions, then please write them in the comments below and I will definitely get back to you and give you an answer. Thanks for taking the time to read my article, if you would like to share any experiences please write them in the comments.
Nice article there on how to make money from blogging site.
I know many that are searching for how to make money online will find this article helpful and follow all the tips to follow in the article.
Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme where you make money overnight, I always say this to many that are new to blogging or who want to start blogging. It takes time to make money on it. But with time and commitment, success is achievable in the long run.
Hey,
thanks for checking out my blog. You are right, blogging is a great way of earning money online but not quickly. It is all based on the traffic, and your blog being helpful and relevant to the people who visit it. That is what will determine whether it becomes profitable or not.
thanks
John
I’ve been an affiliate marketer for years now. I have participated in several programs like clickbank and many others and I’m currently working on Wealthy Affiliate. To me wealthy affiliate is the best affiliate marketing program there is and it’s both beginners and professional friendly. Affiliate marketing is a great work as partime business
Hey Dhayours,
thanks for checking out my blog. Affiliate Marketing is a great way of monetising a blog, and Wealthy Affiliate offers some great benefits to those looking into monetising a website. But they also have great training on all methods of monetising a blog.
all the best
John
Now it is a very impetuous world. I want to find a project that gets rich quickly, but I don’t want to work hard. In the end, I often fall into the trap of being cheated. There are still some people who are willing to learn, but there is also a misunderstanding. After learning success, they can start to make money. Learning to learn is also unsustainable and give up.Thank you, when I saw your post, I joined the WA soon, accidentally joined the blog link of another foreign blogger, and then returned to Google to search for the WA project, found your post, introduced It’s so detailed, thank you very much, it’s really useful.
It is a common trap people fall into thinking that it is possible to get rich quick via the internet. But in reality, any job or business needs blood sweat and tear put into it to make it successful.
Blogging can earn a lot of money for people, but only the people willing to work hard for no initial return.
Wealthy Affiliate is an honest, down-to-earth program that teaches people the right strategies to get started and earn properly from blogging. But you need to commit.
thanks
John
Dear John,
Thanks a lot for another insightful and helpful post with loads of valuable information. To be honest, every time I read your post I get great and helpful insights.
I am a full-time blogger working from home and your post means a lot to me. Indeed, Monetizing our blog plays a vital role. At the moment all I am doing is just writing content and focusing on one affiliate product so your post is an eye-opener.
Not tried any CPC or CPA Ads, Heard great stories about MediaVine and love to work with them but I don’t have enough traffic. So gonna start from Google Adsense.
Added selling private ads on my to do list. Having our own product is amazing, Just now I have completed my eBook and planning to sell it on my site.
Your Tips and suggestions made me to think more and I am going to implement what I learned from your post. Also I am bookmarking your post for future reference.
Wishing you Great Success!
Paul
Hey Paul,
thanks for checking out my blog. Glad you found it useful. The best way is to have multiple streams of income, just in case one of them stops making you money or the affiliate product you are promoting closes.
Well done on launching your own ebook, that is on my to-do list.
All the best with the ebook, let me know how you get on.
thanks
John
I have never heard of MediaVine before. I’m not up to 25k views a month but its definitely a goal of mine! Right now I use Google Adsense and affiliate links.
What’s the best way to go about selling ads. Is this something I can do from Awin?
Thanks for your tips. My monthly views are slowly going up. But its too slow for my likings!
Hey Hollie Rose,
thanks for checking out my blog. It always feels too slow, but as long as you remember the bigger picture and what you your goals are, you will achieve it. I know you will.
Awin is an affiliate network, you could sell ads via a network like Adsense or get in touch with companies in your chosen niche and offer your ad space to them. you might find this article from smartyads useful:
https://smartyads.com/blog/3-most-effective-ways-to-sell-ads-on-your-website/
all the best
John
Tons of value to be found on this post on how to make money from blogging sites.
You laid it all out clearly and showed series of examples that helped emphasize your various points. This guide will be very useful for me
I have known Selling of Private Ads and Including affiliate links are great keys to succesful blogging.. I am just getting to know about other tips you listed in the article. Thanks for the eye opener
Hey Ola,
thanks for checking out my blog, glad you found it useful. Gem and I are always looking at ways to help people.
All the best
John
Apart from the outlined points what other ways can money be made as a blogger?. As a blogger its was the lack of original and well researched articles that almost cost me my blogging carrier. Thought in the long run its very lucrative, the beginning is always very demanding. This article has done justice to a good number of new bloggers nightmare. Thank you for this wonderful article.
Hey Olalekan,
thanks for checking out my blog. You have hit the nail on the head there, the beginning is the hardest part to weather. If you can stay focused during this stage and keep going with writing articles and engaging in your niche. You will see it out to the point where it is earning you money and you find people are engaging with you back.
All the best
John
Hope bloggers are benefiting here? as it is said that Affiliate advertising is an online marketing medium, in which an advertiser pays a blogger to promote the advertiser’s products or services on the blogger’s site. Some of the mechanisms include search engine optimization (SEO), e-mail marketing, paid search engine marketing (PPC-Pay Per Click), display advertising, and content marketing. At the same time, affiliates can also appropriate less traditional advertising methods. An example would be publishing reviews of services or products.. Some Retail Affiliate Advertising Programs are Amazon associate and EBay. This post had really give us understanding on how bloggers can monetize there blog page and also generates traffic to there blog by considering some important factors of choosing the related content for their blog and understanding the whole process before taking actions. I will strongly suggest Wealth Affiliate training course, it will also be of a greater use, because am a testimony of that great platform. This is a wonderful post indeed, but we know the process is not a quick wealth strategy?
Hey,
thanks for checking out my blog. Affiliate Marketing is a great starting point for many bloggers, which can lead to good traffic that will lead to being able to utilise some other method of monetisation.
thanks again
John
So far, in my website anyway, ads have made me very little. But I’ve only been at around the 600 visitors per month range recently, so I’m not surprised. I’ve heard from several that until you’re over 1,000 visitors per month you’ll only get pennies for your effort.
As far as AdSense staying relevant, I find that to be far from the truth if you’re not monitoring them closely. Every other day I log into Google Ads to block a bunch of ads that have absolutely nothing to do with my niche. I’ve checked the settings too. Bottom line: If you want all ads to be relevant, it’s up to you to make that happen.
I haven’t had private advertisers come to me yet… but I can’t WAIT for that!!
My affiliate links have only now started to earn me money, after a year and 4 months. You’re definitely right… you can’t go into this work thinking it’ll make you rich in a few months. Long game it is…
As for authority, I find that the more you make yourself VISIBLE to visitors, within your content, the more you’ll build trust with them. I use photos and YouTube videos that I create to do this, and it’s been working great!
Hey TJ,
thanks for checking out my blog and sharing your experiences too. You have a good point where ads come in, you need people to actually see or interact with them to make them worthwhile.
Adsense is a good starting point, but the long term aim should be to go with a pro site like MediaVine. You can control what is put on your site better and ensure they are not putting the wrong ads on your site too. But you need the traffic to do this.
Videos are a great way of expanding your blog, it is a direction all bloggers should be taking.
Glad it is all coming together for you, keep it up!
John
Like I’ll always tell my students, the surest form of making money these days is through affiliate marketing.
In affiliate marketing, you need to first of all learn the basics of blogging and strive hard to develop yourself as an excellent blogger.
Create a niche or discover one for yourself. Let passion be your compass and before you know it, you’ll be earning hundreds of dollars in no time.
If one is looking for a platform to start his affiliate marketing career, Wealthy Affiliate is the recommended platform
Hey Sammy,
thanks for checking out my blog. Affiliate Marketing is a great way of monetising your blog. It allows you to also build up an authority about a particular niche where people will seek you out for advice.
Learning the basics, or even following the basics is sometimes where bloggers are falling down. Wealthy Affiliate offers awesome training, great support and tools to make sure you stay on the right path.
thanks
John
When a question arises whether to go for service ( 9 to 5 work ) or business? Most people choose service as it gives security, steady income, less hour working & minimum headaches. But Business is far more advantageous to service as it gives you money in proportion to your hard work, mental satisfaction, and no boss. The only thing it requires is an investment.
In my opinion, earning money via blogging is best as:
1) You can start while serving somewhere ( Part-Time )
2) No huge investment is required.
3) You can start on your own likings ( Choose a subject that you like the most )
4) You can work from home – Anytime & From Anywhere
5) Great satisfaction as you are telling the people throughout the world about your mastery over the subject.
Thank you, John & Gemma, for writing this article about How to make money by blogging. Especially warning the people that this way is not a get-rich-quick way. Thank you for emphasizing people for the hard work it requires.
Also, Thank you for promoting a Wealthy Affiliate platform as it simplifying the way to reach people all around the world.
Hiya,
thanks for checking out my blog. You have listed the benefits of starting a blog very well in your list.
Gem and I are always looking at ways to help, and Wealthy Affiliate does exactly the same for those willing to put in that hard work.
all the best
John
I think blogging is a great way to earn money from home and the good thing about a blog is that it can be monetized in various ways. The most important thing is traffic. As soon as a blog starts getting traffic then the ways to monetize the blog becomes countless.
Two of the favorite ways I use in monetizing my blog is through promoting affiliate products and also adsense. Like I said all that is needed is traffic and as soon as that coming you would be amazed at the way your income would start to multiply
Hey Jay,
thanks for checking out my blog. You are right to an extent, traffic is really important. But relevant content is also really important when it comes to affiliate marketing.
all the best
John
Hi John! Thank you for sharing Mediavine with your audience. We actually measure sessions rather than pageviews in our application process, so our application threshold is 25k monthly sessions. We talk about why here on our blog: https://www.mediavine.com/pageviews-dead-miley-cyrus-killed/
If you have any questions for us, please email us at publishers@mediavine.com
— Susannah at Mediavine
Hey Susannah,
thanks for taking the time to check out my blog. I appreciate that information, i will gladly update the information.
thanks again
John