Making money blogging is not an imaginary idea, it’s real and thousands of bloggers around the world are making money through their blogs one way or the other. Today I am going to show you how to make money blogging in real-time.
Blogging can be a very rewarding career and a better avenue for you to voice your passion and opinion about a particular subject out for people to read and gain more insight about the subject. Blogging can be a legal way to make money either as a full-time blogger or for those who see blogging as a side hustle. If you are passionate about your niche and have made your website habitable for your audiences by giving them valuable content and you have gathered enough traffic to your blog as well as building a community of followers by building your email list.
Then;
You can use your blog to make cool money and the moment you are making money with your blog, you are no longer an ordinary blogger but an entrepreneur, a business owner because your passion is earning you a living.
You’ve probably heard many things about blogging but I will show you the sure and legitimate ways of making money with your blog with examples. Once you use your free content to attract visitors to your blog and you earn their trust, then you can start monetizing your blog.
But if you’re after a quick way to make money – blogging isn’t the answer because, blogging takes time, creativity, consistency and diligence to bring money to your pocket.
Before we dive into how to make money blogging, let’s look into what blogging is all about and how to get started.
What Is A Blog?
I will go with the blog definition by Macmillandictionary
A blog is a website containing short articles called posts that are updated regularly. Blogs are written by people about their own opinions, interests and experiences, daily life, or about a particular subject.
What you are reading now is an article on a blog.
What Is Blogging?
Blogging is the process of maintaining and adding new entries and content to a blog. Constant posting of pictures, articles, videos and audio into a blog is what is regarded as blogging.
See blogging as a creative way of converting your ideas, thoughts, views, opinion, and knowledge into the written expression for others to have access to them and learn from your depth of knowledge.
Table of Contents
The Bedrock of Making Money with Your Blog
Making Money blogging is the easiest part of blogging but you need to take these five hard parts listed below serious. I can see it in you, you want to start making money blogging, you want the secret of many bloggers how they made their money online and you want to copy their style and make your own money too.
You need to be properly equipped with the right knowledge to get started with blogging before you can make money. Although we are here to learn how to make money blogging, I need to tell you what you need to put in place as a foundation for building a successful blog. You may not make any money with your blog if the following steps are not properly put in place.
Now, let’s discuss 5 things you need to put in place before you jump into making money through your blog. Failure to do any one of them properly may result in you not making any money through your blog as these steps are the bedrock of how much you make with your blog.
Setup Your Own Self-Hosted Blog
This is the first thing to do, getting a unique platform for your blog. I always recommend WordPress.org for a beginner and not techy person. Hosting your own platform gives you an edge over renting a place with the most popular blogging platform out there such as Blogger or Worpdress.com. With your self-hosted platform, you can customise your blog the way you like and for your target audience.
Setting up your self-hosted blog entails series of steps but I won’t go into the details in this article, but I have got you covered with a comprehensive step by step guide on how to start your own blog without any stress. (The post contains everything you will ever need to start your own blog without looking elsewhere for any other info.)
How to start your own blog covers the following topics:
- How to register a domain name
- How to sign up for hosting
- How to setup WordPress
- How to publish your first blog post!
- And many other guides you need to build a clean and responsive blog all by yourself.
Choose A Niche For Your Blog
Choosing a blog niche requires brainstorming about what area of the topic your blog will cover. A blog niche is a specially selected topic that you will build your blog content around. Although, there are millions of blogs with a wide range of topics, in most cases, those blogs contents are not written by one person.
As a beginner, you really need to pick a blog niche, the topic that your blog content is going to base on so that your readers will know what to expect from you. And you need to carefully choose the topic because the internet is full of different blogs and articles. You need to find what you really good at, a topic that you can write about for the next 20-30 years without losing focus. It should be a topic you love to do or talk about or an experience from your previous career or feats you’ve achieved over the years.
You need to choose topics people are searching for, a topic with search traffic potential. Choosing a topic people searches for online will earn you passive traffic on search engines which in turn will lead to your success. So, choosing the right blog niche could be a deciding factor that determines the success and failure of your blog. So, choose carefully!
Start Publishing Contents That Converts
Now that you created your website and choose a niche for your blog, it’s time to make your blog a valuable and knowledge resource palace on the web so that people will keep coming back to your blog for more.
Creating content is the most challenging aspect of blogging because it’s only content that will attract a new audience, and then retaining people for future posts. This is where you turn your creative experience and knowledge into content for people to read or watch. Your contents don’t necessarily need to be in text format, it can be images, videos, audio or infographics. Although, Google and other search engines rank blogs with text higher than any other format alone. So, you should balance your videos and images on your blog with text for search engines to rank.
Remember, blogging is a business and in a business environment, you must give something out in exchange for money. That’s why your blog should be filled with great content; a blog without content is like a car without fuel. And expecting to make money on a blog with poor content is like waiting for a train in an airport.
You are writing for humans and not machines, try as much as possible to avoid ambiguities in your content. Make your content meaningful, insightful and easy to read for your readers. And ensure it’s free of spelling and grammatical errors; you can use an online tool like Grammarly to check your content for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
Build Organic Traffic to Your Blog
Now, that you have built your website, chosen a unique niche and your blog is full of great content. The next thing to do is start building organic traffic to your blog.
Every online business owners need virtual visitors, the people that genuinely interested in buying what you are selling or read from you always. But most times bloggers get overwhelmed on how to go about generating viable traffic to their blog.
For you to be getting traffic on your blog certain things need to be put in place such as:
- Performing technical SEO correctly:
- Getting your On-page SEO correctly.
- Putting your Off-Page SEO in order.
I will not go too deep into that today but Dan Shewan explained extensively how to drive organic traffic to your Blog
Build A Community Of Loyal Followers
Now that traffic has started coming from different corners to your blog, it’s time to build a community around your blog and make yourself a brand name because it is only When you have audiences that love your content and you retain them that’s when plans to make money get easier.
Building a community around your blog simply means, to create a group of people that will follow you, interact and stick with your content and finally buy from you. It takes time to create a loyal community around your blog but honestly it worth the time and the best way you can create a community of loyal followers and buyers is through building an email list.
One of the best ways you can quickly grow your email list is by offering freebies on your website. Create valuable content such as e-books, podcasts, videos or locked posts and allow people to subscribe using their email before they can have access to such valuable content. But be careful when asking people to subscribe to your email list; don’t bother them with too many details, like asking for their Names, phone numbers, addresses and sex. Of what use are those details to you? You only need their email address except in rare cases where you want to personalize emails that will be sent to them.
Another way to build a community of loyal followers is by getting social. Make your presence known on social media that have your audience, share your content, promote them and reply to every comment people drop under your post. Some comments might not be positive as expected but try to be diplomatic and reply as their review too counts. After all, they drop by to say something. Their criticism may be the only push you need to be better than your competitors.
If you have done everything listed above properly and correctly, then you are ready to make money with your blog. Below are the sure methods of turning your blog into a money-making machine even while you sleep.
Now, let’s talk about 9 amazing ways of making money from your blog.
Make Money By Selling Ads Space
Selling ads space is a great way for publishers to earn money from their blogs. You can either sell advertisements directly to companies on your blog or make your blog available for popular ad networks such as AdSense or Adthrive by signs up and have the ads placed on your blogs. The amount of money a blogger can make from ads depends on factors such as niche and traffic on the website. The more traffic you have determines the more money you make.
Related: How to Make Money From Google AdSense
The ads can be placed on any part of the website but based on stats, it better to place ads:
- Within the blog post, after a certain amount of paragraph
- Under the navigation menu but above the content
- To the left of the blog title
- Below blog content in the form of a native ad
- All whitespace areas on your website
Personally, I prefer renting out ad space directly on your website than relying on an intermediary like Google AdSense to do it for you. It’s more lucrative to rent out your Ads space, though it is more tedious selling Ads directly than using Google AdSense. Instead of just adding a bit of code to your website, you will have to negotiate price, reach an agreement and terms, and take care of managerial work like invoicing.
How do Ads works?
Ad networks placed ads on your website based on your content and visitors. The advertisers pay the website owners based on the type of ads on the website such as impression called (Paid per impression) or Per Click known as (Paid per click)
Paid Per impression: With this type of ad, the advertisers pay you based on the number of people who have seen their ads on your website. On this type of ad, the viewers don’t really need to click the ads for the website owners to be paid. It’s based on the impression; how many times have the ads been seen.
Paid Per Click: In this type of ad, the website owners get a small amount of money each time the ads placed on their websites get clicked by the site visitors.
Who can use Ad networks?
Yes, of course, you can make money through ads such as Google AdSense if you have enough traffic. The more traffic you have the more money you make with ads networks.
- AdSense is better placed on multi-niche websites like News portal, Magazines, or any other site that covers a wide range of topics with enough traffic.
- Forum Websites
- Fashion Websites
- Recipes Websites
- Websites that offer free online services.
- And a single niche website with enough traffic per month. If your blog generates up to 50,000 to 100,000 monthly views. You can give AdSense a chance.
Tips For Making Money With Ads
The first you need to do to make money with ads is to have great content on your website, content that converts and that people want to read, watch or buy. Another thing is to have a large number of monthly traffic. Large traffic on your website will put more money in your pocket. As a matter of fact, we have many ad networks that will not consider your request if you don’t have up to one million page views per month.
Make Money By Selling Your Own Products
Most successful bloggers made their money from selling their own products and services. People think bloggers only make their money online by selling ads, that’s not true for most successful bloggers. Bloggers make their money by selling their own created digital products, educational materials, memberships or subscriptions services, e-books, and sometimes selling physical items on their websites.
You can make money with your blog by creating your digital or physical products and place on your website for sale. Selling digital products and services is a very lucrative business online with a rewarding experience among bloggers. The most common and easiest type of products and services you can offer online to your audience is to create and sell e-books, online courses and videos.
But before you start creating stuff to sell on your blog, ensure you have built a community of followers with sizeable traffic on your blog as I mentioned earlier because the more followers and traffic you have the higher chance of earning money with your products or online course.
Then ask yourself the following questions:
- What type of product can I create?
- Would my audiences buy the products?
- How much would I sell each product?
- Is my site secure enough to sell online products?
- What payment gateways would I use to collect money?
You need to do visibility studies about your intending products and how to go about it and the chances you have over the competitors. Ensure the products you are about to create is what your readers and your community of followers would love to read and buy.
I will classify the products and services you can sell on your blog into two categories:
Digital Products:
These are products you can sell online that don’t have any physical form or material. The products in this category are software, e-books, videos, audios, membership programs and subscriptions.
Digital products are the easiest and least expensive product to sell for any bloggers and entrepreneur because you don’t have to worry over where to store the products or worry about inventory and customers received their products almost immediately without thinking about logistics. You can just sit behind your computer with an internet connection and start earning money by teaching what you know how to do best.
Examples of websites in this category are:
Backlinko– SEO training for more traffic and sales
Blog Mastermind– Step-by-step blog program by Yaro Starak
I am an advocate of having your own site, sell your digital products instead of using third-party marketplaces. That way, you have direct control over the relationship with your customers. To sell your digital products online you can use WordPress plugins like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Download they are very easy to use even for a non-techy. Digital products and online courses can be charged in a one-time payment or a recurrent fee, maybe monthly, it all depends on you.
Physical Products:
Physical products are the products that you could touch, feel, and see such as apparel, electronic gadgets and other physical items that can be shipped to customers after-sale physically.
The entrepreneur uses their space online to create different kinds of products for their readers ranging from custom print design to electronic gadgets. There are countless ways you can sell a physical product on your blog because we live in an increasingly diverse marketplace. You can sell physical products on your WordPress blog by using the WooCommerce plugin linked with a payment platform.
And if you are not using WordPress, other e-commerce platforms like Shopify can aid you in selling your items online and deliver to your clients on their doorsteps. So, you see in every niche you choose, you can make something out of it by selling your own product be it digital or physical. All you need is to look at your audience and discover what products they need from your blog. If you are a good graphics designer, you can create stock graphics, logos, Social media headers and lots more on your blog and sell. And you can as well sell videos tutorial and guide on your own blog, just ensure it meets the need of your audiences.
Tips for making money by selling your own product:
You really need to understand who your audiences are, what are their needs, and desires and how can you help them? Then make yourself an authority in your niche and gain their trust.
Create a community of loyal audiences by growing your email list and engage with them because 40% of those that will buy your products are those in your email list.
Remember, it’s not about where you stand now it’s all about where you are going. Start with small products and grow big.
Make Money By Promoting Affiliate Links
Affiliate marketing is a process of recommending other people’s products or services for an income. In a situation where you don’t have any product of your own to sell on your blog, you can promote an affiliate product. Affiliate Marketing is a quite easier and lesser challenging method to monetize your blog.
You’ll get paid a commission by referring others to a product/service using a special link. Although the commissions are paid to the blogger in a percentage of the sale or a fixed amount per sale or lead, the more people you refer, the more money you make. You can also display banners for the affiliate products, but the best way is to write engaging content about the products and services, but be careful to promote products you have used or familiar with as any false recommendation can tarnish your own image.
As a blogger, you can look for companies, bloggers or influencers in your niche that has an affiliate program and applies for their affiliate program or joins affiliate marketing networks to find affiliate programs within your niche. The reason you need an affiliate program within your niche is because of your audiences, as you can’t be running a health and lifestyle blog and be promoting electrical appliances on your blog.
Once, you have an affiliate program within your niche, head to their website, register and wait for approval, the moment they approved your request. You can start writing reviews and recommendations about their products and services using your affiliate’s link to earn your commission.
Here at Scribeage, we have made a bunch of money promoting people’s products and services. Most of the commission we earned comes from recommending companies we like and use their products such as Whogohost and Hostgator and Divi Theme (Affiliate link) for our readers.
I have been following Discountshub a start-up affiliate e-commerce website in Nigeria recently; they promote only affiliate products on their site. It’s an e-commerce website but every product on their site is affiliated to different e-commerce stores around the world and they are making cool money through their affiliate links. Once you see a product on Discountshub and you click to buy the products it will take you to the original seller, if you buy from the original vendor, they make a percentage from your purchase.
Another good example is Valentine Okoronkwo of Passive Secrets who has made money through an affiliate link on his blog; I am a lover of his blog posts because he always writes extensively on the sales funnel.
Tips for making money with Affiliate Marketing
The numbers of affiliate marketing opportunities within your blog niche are countless with so many companies offering a mouthwatering percentage to bloggers that will help them spread the good word about their products and services.
Before you can be successful with affiliate marketing, you need to build a better reputation online with your blog and grow your email list very well. If your people trust your judgment and reviews about a product or service they will buy through your links. But know that the best way to earn money through affiliate links is to write contents and reviews that convert about the products and promote the content yourself.
NOTE: Though, you have the right to choose the products or services to be promoted but ensure you recommend the products you have used and show them to your visitors and let them know you make an affiliate commission when they buy such products.
Make Money By Offering Coaching and Consulting Services
We live in an era where people now crave more knowledge ever than before, people want to learn new things, they want to change careers, they want to understand their chosen field better than what they learnt in school, some even want to refresh what they have abandoned before.
Offering coaching and consulting services online, your blog acts as a classroom where you display your expertise for your audience and attract new clients every day. You can make money online by sharing your expertise with others. Take, for instance, if you are a relationship expert, you can offer a relationship service on your blog to guide people on dating, relationship, divorce, childcare and marriage, and if your services are good and working for your audience they will recommend your service to others and even share your free content on their social media handle.
Also, if you are an expert in sales, social media, content marketing, Copywriting or Digital marketing. You can offer a consulting service to clients, be it corporate bodies or individuals to help them grow their brand faster.
You can consult for startup companies, by discussing their problems and provide an overall solution to those problems. Once you help fix their problem, you will surely get paid. Your charges may vary, you may charge per session, hour, day, month and you can even charge per annum.
Steve Harris a Nigerian business coach, is a good example in this category he has made Millions of money coaching people about business and start-up.
Tips for making money with offering services and coaching
First, establish yourself as an authority in your chosen field and build your followers very well. Next, you need to brainstorm about your audiences’ needs, problems and desires. Then, ask yourself is there anything you could do to satisfy their needs?
Map out ways to deliver your solutions to their needs and desires, reach out to them about your services with your price clearly stated. Don’t quote too high with your prices and don’t sell yourself too cheap, you should know the worth of your services and the value you are given.
Finally, make your online coaching session more fun and super valuable so that the participants will enjoy, learn and recommend your service to others. Now, start your own blog and place your content there, your audience will pay a premium for service. Put together a range of packages you can offer: No matter your niche, you can offer a personal coaching service that can help your audiences maximize their potentials and you can make a living out of it.
Note: It takes time, effort and money to make a business work. Coaching and consulting services online may require some effort to get it right.
Make Money Through Content Editing and product Reviewing
If you possess good communication skills, excellent writing and editing skills with interpersonal relationships with other team members that can bring about a good user experience for individuals or organizations. You can make money editing content for companies and reviewing their products, your job is to check the content that a writer has created either on the web or print media, research on it to make align with the goals of the organization, edit the content to boosts user engagement.
Content editing and product reviewing is one least known way of generating money online, you can help other bloggers in editing their content before they publish it on their platforms. You can rewrite content for industries and companies on their website and social media pages; you can as well review their products and publish the review to boost user engagement about the brand and the company at large.
In 2017 I reached out to a guy online for in-depth reviewing and editing of some part of a website I was building for a client, he agreed for a fee. He did a fantastic job editing the contents and he got paid without delay. Remember, I met him online. So as a content editor you don’t need any physical office, and you don’t need to be tied to one place by one company, you are a freelancer so to say. All you need is your virtual home which is your online presence where you display your skills through presentation, evaluation and analysis on your blog posts.
Once you are well known in your field, organizations and relevant businesses will come by for a review of their products or services for a fee, the review can be published on your blog or the client’s blog. As a content editor, there are enormous opportunities for you to make money online.
You can write and edit content in the following area:
- Blog Posts
- Podcast
- Rewriting Contents
- Ghostwriting
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Captions
- Press Releases
- Speech Writing
- Website Pages Writing
- And lot more…
You can as well reach out to platforms like Wordapp to take your content editing job to another level. You don’t have to wait for Job with Wordapp; the job is always available for you.
Tips for making money with content editing and product reviewing
Be established as an authority in content editing and product reviewing, work on your blog and create a community of followers for yourself.
Make your fee available on your blog, you can charge per page or word, the choice is yours. But when you review a product ensure to clarify that your review doesn’t guarantee positive changes to their products so that you won’t be in a mess.
Make Money by Becoming a Freelance Writer
Another way to make money blogging is through freelancing since you’re already an authority in the field. You can start earning an income by offering your skills and expertise as a freelancer. Though freelancing is time-consuming, you may not have time to attend to yourself along the way but you will make your money.
Freelancing is a way of writing articles or content for others, it can be for individuals or companies and you don’t really need an initial capital or office to start, all you need is writing skills and you begin to make money.
With freelance writing all need you to do is to connect with clients that need your service to write on a particular topic on their blog posts. Your job may not be limited to blog posts alone it could software documentations, white papers, brochures, case studies, e-books and a host of others, many companies don’t have time to put the documentation together hence they out-source it to the freelancers. Typically, you will be assigned topics or material to work on via email or through other mediums. Get the job done on time return it to the clients or post it on the client’s website and get paid.
There are many firms and media houses around that are looking for a freelancer who could write for them for a fee. Depending upon your proficiency and whom you are writing for, you could be writing articles, product related content, blogs, sales copies, newsletters, medical posts, law cases and many more. The opportunity is enormous!
Related: How to Make Money Writing Emails
Colin Newcomer is a typical example of a freelance writer I have seen. He has made a name and money for himself through freelancing. His articles are about anything WordPress and he has written for many big websites like Blogginwizard, Smartblogger, Grammarly and Elegantthemes
Elna Cain of Innovative Ink is another freelance writer that I cherish her style of writing and follow her blog very well. She has made money in thousands of dollars writing and coaching others on how to write.
Tips for making money with freelance writing
First establish yourself as an authority in your chosen niche, build a community of loyal followers. Launch out to the public about your service in freelancing and ensure you deliver what you promised.
Fix price for your service and don’t compromise on what you charge but always give value for what you are paid for. Freelancing is not limited to writing alone, you can freelance in any skills of yours.
Make Money Through Speaking Gigs
Another great way to make money blogging is through speaking engagements. Once you’re being recognized as an authority in your chosen niche through your blog posts, it won’t be long before you start receiving invitations to speak at conferences and lectures all around. Speaking at events is highly profitable as you decide how much you charge per speech, you can charge as high as $50,000 or more per speech especially when it involves companies that need your speech for products sale.
Although speaking engagement may be a little tasking as it involves enough preparation and confidence, it can be mastered as no one was born orator. Every great orator knew in history practice and perfect their oratory skills. You too can.
Tips for making money with speaking gigs
Being an authority in your niche may not be enough, you need to build a social community of loyal followers, grow your email list and always engage your subscribers with your new ideas.
Before you go for any public speaking, ensure you are well prepared for the topic given as most of your audiences are talented people in that field. After preparation, practice over and over again so that you can deliver your speech in powerful and articulated ways that resonate with your audiences.
Grow your confidence. Confidence is the bedrock of every public speaker, you may be good at what you do but if you lack confidence, you may not deliver at all.
Make Money By Creating A Membership Website
Before you can make money through a membership site you need to be seen as the go-to authority in your niche and you must build a community of loyal followers because those followers are the ones to consume your content and still refer other members.
Membership sites are a website where people pay a fee to join to have access to whatever services you offer. Creating a membership website is as easy as ABC now, with a lot of plugins out there to help you get started. With a membership website, you can offer exclusive content that can be found on your blog alone.
For Instance, if you’re a trainer or you blog about keeping a healthy lifestyle you can set up a gym membership site where you can charge each member a monthly fee to have full access to your video tutorials on how to lose weight. Membership sites give your audience a learning curve on how to achieve a certain goal easily than what they can find somewhere else.
The opportunities for membership sites are endless because membership sites simplify work for members and make life easier for them. Regardless of your niche, you can set a membership around your niche. A baker can set up a membership website to teach his or her audience how to bake and decorate cakes using the latest trend in the industry. Are you a tailor, pianist, or dancer, you can set up a membership site and be teaching people full courses in your choosing field?
Tips for making money through a membership site
Brainstorm about the membership idea you can set up by taking into consideration your talents, skills, experience and interests. Decide on what content you will offer and how it will be delivered, is it in PDF, video, or through other formats? Many membership sites make it easy for all members to learn easily by delivering content through every available format so that everyone can be carried along.
Map out the tools you will use in creating your membership site; if you are on WordPress you can use a plugin like Memberpress
Make Money With Sponsored Post Or Social Content
Sponsored content is a situation where a blogger gives out space on his or her blog to companies to promote the content created by the blogger about the company’s products. This type of content typically looks like any other content produced by the blogger but with a tag (sponsored)
While Social content is given out some space on your social media handles like Facebook page or Instagram pic to promote a company’s products or services to your followers. Most companies like to work with bloggers and vloggers with millions of followers to promote their content in their space because they know the blogger’s voice and authority will influence people to buy their products.
The only setback here is that your blog and social media handle needs to be established with great content with a multitude of followers before you can start working with companies and industries for sponsored content. You really need to be an influencer and authority in your niche while you keep loyal followers glue to your content always.
Tips for making money with Sponsored Content
Be an authority in your niche with a good number of followers. Promote content related to your niche alone; remember your readers need to be taking care of first. They are your true worth, ensure you provide them with exceptional valuable content and don’t compromise.
Time to Make Money
I have just shown you nine easiest but sure ways you can turn your blogs into a money-making machine. But you need to understand that it’s neither magic nor quick get rich schemes of making money online. It takes time and a lot of strategies to make money blogging.
First, you need to put a responsive and self-hosted blog in place, make your blog a better place to be on the web by filling your blog posts with great and unique content and create a community of loyal followers and make your blog a brand name.
Then, sit down to study your audience and their needs, provide solutions to their needs and get paid for them. As simple as eating Biscuit! Remember that in business no one will offer you money if you don’t give anything in exchange. As we all know, “if you don’t breathe out there’s no way you can breathe in”.
Finally, don’t compare your growth with others, some blogger starts making money from 3 months of blogging while it took some more than 6 months. Work within your pace and know that there’s always a waiting period before every snapshot. So, you need patience for blogging to generate money for you, all you need to do is find a lucrative niche, put a plan in place, write some awesome content and get your blog out there, start growing your email list in no time you will get to the top.
If you’ve been blogging and making money, leave us a comment below to let us know your best ways of making money with your blog. And if you’re new to blogging let us know your views about all the ways itemized above.
Very insightful and proven online money-making tips.
Segun has been instrumental in turning around the fortunes of Discountshub.
Well done Scribeage!
Thanks for your comment sir, glad to hear that coming from you.