Now we come to the fun part…

Thank you for sticking with me as we go over the basic steps to help you get ready to capitalize on your efforts. It takes a lot of time and effort, but trust me, it’s worth the investment in the long run.

To be honest, there are dozens if not hundreds of different ways to make money.

I wish I could tell you that I checked them all, but I didn’t. And after years of experimentation, there are about a dozen left that have stood the test of time and generated life-changing income not only for my own blog but for hundreds of others I know. For this reason, in this guide, we will only focus on the most reputable, proven, and widely applicable monetization channels.

And what I can tell you is that these twelve best ways to make money blogging (which I personally used and succeeded in) helped me turn this blog into a source of monthly income.

These are proven methods used by the most successful and popular blogs you’ve heard of.

Make money blogging by getting paid for the content you create.

The first general topic we’ll cover in this guide is getting paid for your content. This is the easiest and fastest way to start monetizing your blog. Of course, this is why so many bloggers use this monetization channel.

The important thing here is to stay true to your blog, your expertise, and your target audience at the forefront of everything you create.

Let’s dive in!

1. Sponsored Blog Content

 

Sponsored content is a proven investment for brands of all kinds and works wonders in the right scenarios. This makes it a win-win of the many ways to make money blogging. Time and time again, this method has proven to be effective not only for advertisers but for you as well.

What is sponsored content? This is when a company pays you a fee in exchange for writing an article about them or a related topic where their product, service, or brand is highlighted as a useful resource for those of your readers who want to learn more.

This is one of those great deals between a blogger and an advertiser where you both really benefit from the relationship.

When sponsored content is done well (and not just ads), it looks authentic, unique, and free of hype. In my opinion, if your sponsored post doesn’t provide real value to your readers, you’ve already gone astray.

You’ve already established a trusting relationship with your audience, which is why they trust you to recommend products you know and believe in. This is why I always recommend staying true to your audience when creating sponsored content.

So how do you get sponsored? If you run a popular blog with high traffic, you may already have sponsorship opportunities flooding your inbox. If that doesn’t sound like your current situation, let’s talk about what it takes to make deals on sponsored content.

To get started, identify a few products and their companies that are perfect for your niche.

Having a media package is extremely important not only to attract the right business but also to set your prices in advance. In the next section, I’ll walk you through how to create a media package that will attract and sell to the right companies.

Bonus: How to Create a High Converting Media Kit

If you’re going down the advertising and sponsorship path, you’ll need a media suite that provides advertisers with key metrics and information about your audience to help them decide if their sponsorship is worth the investment.

Here are the main elements you should include in your own media kit in order to find quality sponsors:

1. A little word about myself. After all, you and your blog are the product. Why should sponsors invest in you?
2. Breakdown of your readership. Who is your audience? What is their demographic? What are their interests? What are they buying?
3. Your traffic report. It’s here  What does Google Analytics do? You will need to display the number of page views so that advertisers know how many people they are going to reach.
4. advertising opportunities. What do you sell? Advertising spots? Promotional blog posts? Advertising on podcasts? Partnerships? Advertising mailing? All of the above?
5. Prices. It can be intimidating at first, but if you make sure your pricing is right for your audience size (and engagement rate), then you’re on the right track. Check out other media kits from bloggers in your specific industry to see how they rate their features and how you compare them.

Make sure your media kit is clear, concise, and visually appealing. Advertisers will want to download it and keep it until they decide if they should spend money on you.

2. Affiliate programs

 

 

Let’s talk about affiliate programs. Joining (and promoting) most affiliate programs is probably easier than looking for blog sponsorship if you ask me.

Companies that already have affiliate programs built-in are ready and willing to pay you money in exchange for referring readers to your blog, which means you don’t have to look for sponsors or invest time building your own product before you start making money.

But in order to generate significant income through affiliate marketing, it usually takes a fair amount of traffic to your blog first.

What are the best affiliate programs for bloggers?

The best way to make money from affiliate programs, of course, largely depends on the niche in which you work. Here are some of my top blog affiliate programs:

• Amazon Associates
• creative live
• Udemy
• Bluehost
• Shopify
• Hubspot
• and more…

I know that there are many options for affiliate programs.

In order not to overwhelm this channel, my advice is to focus on a few (proven) affiliate programs that are closely related to the content you’ve created and know your audience wants more.

 

3. Advertising on blogs

Displaying ad space is perhaps the easiest (and fastest) way to make money.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this in a bad way. I mean, simple ad space is a centerpiece when you’re first starting out – and that’s the first channel I’ve personally handled. But since it is relatively easy to make, it is also the cheapest financially.

For example, a simple (photo) blog ad can generate $200 to $300 per month based on approximately 30,000 readers per month.

The 7 Best Ad Networks for Bloggers

Here is my selection of the best ad networks to rate on your blog:

• MediaWine   (All topics)
• Carbon Advertising   (Business, Design, and Development topics)
• PropellerAds  (All Topics )
• Google Adsense  (all topics)
• Taboola   (All topics)
• BlogAds   (all topics)
• Media.net  (All topics)

4. Sell Online Courses

 

Do you have a skill that you can teach others? Do your readers look to you for your expertise in a particular field?

Monetize this skill by creating an online course and you’ll start making money in no time.

The best part? Creating an online course can be as simple as shooting a series of short instructional videos that teach your blog readers how to do something meaningful based on your own blogging skills, experience, and success. If you are good at something, there are people who will gladly pay to take advantage of your experience and speed up your learning.

 

5. Physical products

Well, well… I know that you probably started a blog because you think: “I don’t want to deal with physical products, Thierry. I just want to write and make money blogging without creating products or sending packages all day long.

And I understand it. Personally, I don’t (any longer) sell physical items on my website, but hear me out on this one because a lot has changed in the last few years.

You no longer need to keep your own inventory – you can ship your products without having to print your own shipping labels or store cardboard boxes. This relatively hands-off approach makes selling products a very attractive way to generate income today.

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a business model that you can use to start an online store without even having your own inventory.

After you make a sale from your blog, your supplier (the warehouse that packs and ships orders from sellers) will deliver your items right to your customer’s doorstep, for a fee, of course. But you never have to worry about storing, packaging, or shipping your products.

If you want to sell physical products, let’s take it one step further… You don’t even have to create your own products anymore.

Here are some examples of private-label products you could sell:

• Vitamins, protein powders, and nutritional supplements
• Yoga pants and sportswear for women
• Backpacks, speakers, chargers, and other travel accessories (if you’re a travel blogger).
• Makeup and beauty products
• more

6. Run the software tool

 

Software and other digital products in this vein are not limited to things like WordPress Themes. Other examples include things like:

• Mobile applications
• productivity tools
• Email Marketing Service Providers
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools
• Even video games

 

7. Sell your own services

Selling your time, skills, and experience as a service is pretty closely related to selling online courses. However, when it comes to selling your services, there is one major difference from selling courses: you work either one-on-one or in a small group with a client to provide assistance or customized results.

Also Read: On-Page SEO Techniques for High Rankings on Google in 2023|VikasGaurav

The services you can sell (among many other ways to make money online) include things like:

• Business consultations on an hourly basis
• Designing logos on sites like 99 Designs or Dribbble.
• Support people on a monthly plan
• Writing text or content for a blog for brands
• Editing Podcasts and Using Your Audio Engineering Skills
• Creation of search engine optimization projects for online brands
• Building websites or software tools for established businesses
• If you have a skill, it can be offered as a service…

8. Write (and sell) e-books

 

9. Launch a virtual summit

Virtual peaks require a lot of work, but this work can lead to crazy profitability. A virtual summit is a live (or pre-recorded) event focusing on a specific topic with several guest speakers. This is why I constantly emphasize the importance of finding your tribe.

10. Business Partnership

 

When you have a growing blog, you have an audience.

And when you have an audience that keeps coming back for what you have to offer, you create unique business partnership opportunities to further monetize your audience.

Business partnerships can transform in many ways, so it’s hard to explain just one of them.

Business partnerships can be as simple as partnerships, as we’ve covered above.

11. Sponsoring podcasts

If you’ve been thinking about how much you need to start a podcast…

Well, now is your chance. It will be a lot of fun and can help you a lot.

Of course, when you’re just starting out, you probably won’t be able to achieve the same sponsorship rates because your show probably won’t have thousands of listeners tune in right away to hear what’s being said.

It takes time to go from choosing the best podcast platform to launching your show and building an audience. However, if you’re already successful in creating content and getting loyal readers to your blog, you can launch your podcast with a bang by mass-marketing it to your existing readers.

The best part about choosing to start a podcast as a way to make money is that it can be a relatively small effort once you have the tools and process (compared to writing massive epic blog posts all day long).

12. freelance

 

Freelancing isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely a good option when you’re still deciding how to make money blogging.

As we mentioned earlier, if you’re an experienced writer (or at least enjoy it enough to improve over time), you can start freelancing to share your experience with clients who are willing to pay.

How are you going to make money blogging this year? Action points

What do you think of your blog? Are you ready to take action and monetize your blog?

Your speed of action will be the biggest determinant of your success. Not all of the ideal business planning blogs in the world are going to shake things up.

So my call to action for you today is this:

• If you haven’t already, start your blog now
• Decide if you will follow the longer-term path to making money blogging.
• Start taking small steps towards building that asset by imagining yourself or bringing it to life today.

It will take time (months) to go from starting a brand new blog to learning how to make money blogging, but the effort is well worth it.