How To Make Money Blogging (The Practical Guide for 2023)
How To Make Money Blogging (The Practical Guide for 2023)
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- Can you make money blogging?
- What are the various ways to make money from blogging?
- How much can I earn?
- Can I talk about my life and make money?
- What should I blog about to make money?
If you are asking any of the above questions, well you have come to the right place. In this mega guide to make money from blogging, you will learn all the aspects that will help you get started.
These methods are based on my 14 years of professional blogging experience. I have also shared screenshots of payments of a few income streams to give you a wider perspective.
A few years back, blogging was just another hobby that some people did in addition to working full-time jobs. Today, blogging still functions in that way, but a lot has changed.
In 2023, blogging has become a profitable online profession, and people at large start a blog to get into this noble profession.
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How much money can you make from blogging?
Just like any profession (Doctor, Lawyer, financial advising), there are different levels of bloggers who are earning anywhere from $1000-$2 million a year. I make close to a million dollars a year with the help of blogging.
How much money you can make depends solely on a few factors such as:
- Which niche you are picking?
- How much time you are dedicating to learning and implementing?
- How much traffic do you drive to your blog?
- What digital marketing techniques do you implement?
There are various other factors like consistency, your network, personal motivation, and goals that also contribute a lot.
However, niche and your digital marketing skills alone can help you move really fast in the field of blogging.
What are the ways bloggers make money (Various Income streams)
There are various methods that you can use to monetize your blog. Depending upon your level of blogging and the kind of blog, you could pick the method that matches your style. Do check the end of this article to get the answers to many important questions asked by bloggers like you.
- Ad Networks like AdSense, Ezoic
- Direct Advertisements
- Affiliate marketing
- Native Advertising
- Paid reviews/Sponsored posts
- Sell Digital products (eBooks, Blueprints)
- Launch an Online Course
- Offer Online consulting
- Offer Services based on your skills
Apart from the traditional forms of advertising, you can work on other monetization tricks. Instead of just adding ads, work on adding value for your advertiser.
1. Ad networks: (Beginners)
There are ad networks that are the simplest and most widely used method for monetizing a blog.
The two Ad networks which are most popular are:
- Google AdSense (Offered by Google)
- Ezoic
- PropellerAds
You need to have a blog to get approval on these ad networks. They show ads automatically based on the context of your article and also based on user interest. Most of the new blogs use these methods to monetize as it gives recurring income. Since the ads shown are of high quality, they don’t affect the user experience.
If your blog is having less than 300 views/day, then there are other ad networks that are listed here that you can use. However, your goal should be to get AdSense or Setupad approval as soon as you could.
The below screenshot is from my AdSense account to give you a clear picture of earnings:
If you are using contextual advertisements and are not making enough that way, you should try moving to direct advertisements or affiliate advertisements.
2. Affiliate Marketing: (Most profitable method): Intermediate + Advanced
Affiliate advertisements are one of the best ways to make money since a single sale will make you a lot more money than a single click on a contextual ad.
This book contains all the secrets of affiliate marketing that no one wants you to know. It could enable you to make up to $1000/month in passive income with the help of affiliate marketing
It’s something most bloggers are using these days and one of the most profitable avenues to make money from a blog.
In below screenshot you could see affiliate income from one of the programs:
That is more than a million dollars, and I have not spent even a single penny on paid ads.
I have already covered affiliate marketing in depth:
- What Is Affiliate Marketing?
- How To Start affiliate marketing business
- How To Select The Right Affiliate Program
And of course, ShoutMeLoud’s affiliate marketing eBook.
Here are some of the popular Affiliate marketing marketplace that you could join:
- Amazon Affiliate Program
- ShareASale
- PartnerStack
- ImpactRadius
- Awin
- Commission Junction
Another great thing about Affiliate marketing is, that you can use this technique on any blogging platform such as BlogSpot, Wix, Squarespace, Medium, or even LinkedIn. However, I prefer self-hosted WordPress, as it gives better advantages over other blogging platforms.
All you need to do is, share your unique affiliate link of the product you are recommending, and when someone makes a purchase, you will end up earning a huge commission on the sale amount.
Affiliate marketing is the way, how a lot of bloggers are making millions of dollars every year from their blogs.
If you are wondering how much money you can make from affiliate marketing, below is my first 5-year earning report on affiliate earnings:
- My 5-Year Affiliate Earnings
3. Sell your own eBooks: (Intermediate)
If you notice, the business model of top bloggers has to do with selling their own products such as an eBook.
All you need to do is pick a topic, compile an eBook on that topic, and put it on sale on your blog or on Amazon. Once you are used to this process, you can earn a decent amount of money by selling eBooks online.
Moreover, having your own product to sell is the best thing that you can do to generate passive income.
You can compile your articles into a well-structured book and sell it on your blog or on other platforms such as kdp.Amazon.com to earn money. This will also give you the credibility of becoming an author.
I have created three such books and have been selling them on various platforms. Here at ShoutMeLoud, I use EDD WordPress plugin to sell books and you can see an example listing here.
One of my most popular books “Affiliate marketing Book” is also being sold on Amazon and this is adding recurring income.
You can use a freelancing network like Fiverr to get someone to design a book cover.
You can also consider selling physical products on your blog using WooCommerce.
Here are 3 guides that you can refer to learn more about launching your book:
- 13 Useful Software’s Help You to Create Your First E-book
- The 7 Most Popular Platforms To Self-Publish Your Ebook & Make Money
4. Native Advertising
Native advertising has been one of the forefronts of making money from blogging. Especially, news and jobs kind of blogs can make a really high income with Native advertising.
There are a few native advertising solutions that are worth your time and effort of implementation.
- Taboola
- Outbrain (High-quality native ads)
- Mgid
- AdSense (AdSense also offers native ads)
5. Launch online course (Membership site): Advanced
- Can you convert your textbook into a video format?
- Can you add the checklist, downloadable templates?
- Can you create a 1-2 hour video course?
If your answer is yes, then this method is definitely for you. Thanks to technology, now launching an online course are easy for anyone and if you are giving the unique course, your chances of reaching $ 1 million goals are really high.
To sell your online course. Here is a screenshot of ShoutUniversity, where you can learn WordPress, Affiliate marketing, and AdSense by just watching videos.
You can use platforms like:
- LearnDash (WordPress)
- New Kajabi
- Teachable
To create and sell your online course.
6. Direct Advertisements (Intermediate)
There’s no question that AdSense is the best advertisement program for bloggers, but it has some limitations. The biggest limitation is the amount you get paid per click.
If you manage to grab direct advertisements, replace those AdSense units with direct ads instead.
The best way to get started with direct advertisement is by trying different networks and adding a page on your blog called “Media-kit or Advertise with us” to get new deals. Here is an example of the ShoutMeLoud advertisement page.
You can also use a plugin like WPAdvancedAds to manage the ads.
The best way to do it is, create a professional email address like hello@domain.com using Google apps.
(Optional) Then use HubSpot free CRM to set up the process. The below workflow is what I use here at ShoutMeLoud to handle such inquiries.
You can set this up on Hubspot free CRM and this will improve your workflow in a great way.
Here are a few articles to check out:
- 5 Best Tips To Find Direct Advertisements For Your Blog
- What Advertisers Look For In A Blog
7. Sponsored Reviews (All level)
Paid reviews are a great way to boost your monthly income. You can quickly make $10 or more from a small review post. I personally make a minimum of $1200 from every review at ShoutMeLoud.
When doing paid reviews, there are a few things that you need to take care of:
- Paid Review: Good, Bad, or Ugly
- Should You Do A Paid Review Or A Free Review?
Here are a few websites to find paid reviews/sponsored content opportunities:
- Famebit (For YouTube channels)
- Izea Pay per post
- Tomoson
- Revcontent
8. Run campaign for brands: (Intermediate and advanced)
This one is perfect for any type of blog with an established audience base. You could help brands reach the target audience by running the campaign for them. For this, you will be doing a brand collaboration, running webinars, and even paid Ads, or making videos.
You will see an increased number of blogs doing it with various brands. Keep an eye on this type as it’s already becoming one of the hottest ways to monetize a blog.
9. Services
Based on your skills, you can offer various services. Depending on what are you good at, you can offer content writing, logo creation, SEO, and so on.
In the past, I used to offer WordPress, SEO, and hosting related services. Offering services not only help you to make money but also gives you more use cases that help you hone your skills. I have had a time when I was earning more than $2000/month only by offering services.
In fact, launching your own services is pretty easy. All you need to do is create a page on your blog and list the services that you are offering. Make sure to place the link of that page in your blog navbar and prominent space for maximum visibility.
Make it easier for your audience to contact you and inquire more about your services. As you deal with your first 2-3 clients, you will have ample ideas to improve the sales process of your services. In fact, you will be able to automate some of the things like payment and follow-up.
Can you blog about your life and make money from blogging?
This is another growing form of blogging where a lot of people talk about their day to day life and create a community around it. You may have seen a lot of them on YouTube as a Video blogger and you can do the same on the blog or even on YouTube.
Some of the popular topic for this kind of blogging is:
- Lifestyle
- Fashion
- Travel
- Motivation
- Entertainment
The key here is to keep it entertaining, add value and create a community around your brand. Depending on your style and consistency, you could mint a lot of money with this strategy.
A lot of beginners also ask, should I focus on blogging or vBlogging?
Well, it’s a good idea to have a mix of both. Producing video content (Recording, editing, and publishing) is time and money intensive, whereas creating text content takes lesser time. Having a good blend of both techniques will help you to grow faster and start significant earning sooner.
Gone are the days when we bloggers were only dependent on AdSense to make money from blogging. Now we have many more ad networks and monetization methods available which we can have increased the income potential from a blog to a great extent.
If you have been using these traditional methods of making money from your blog, it’s time to revise your blogging business plan. Make some new tweaks, change the design, and optimize the marketing aspects of your blog.
FAQ’s about How to Make Money Blogging
I’m living proof of someone who can make a handsome living with
blogging. A lot depends on how consistent and persistent you are. In my
case, I was working almost 14 hours every day for 4 years to reach this
stage where I’m earning more than $40K/month from blogging.
As
the online space has matured, now there are more opportunities to make
money via blogging. The only thing is, you need to be consistent for
almost a year before you start making decent money to quit your job or
to plan your life on blogging income.
In case you don’t want to blog about your life and wondering about the
best topic from the blog monetization perspective, here are 4 factors
that you should consider.
Passion: Things that you are already
passionate about or have an interest in. This thing doesn’t have to be
something you are learning at an academy or at your job, but it could be
as simple as something that your friends, family, and others call you
to take your opinion. For example, Cars, Food, Finance, Travel. Take a
pen and paper, and label it as “Passion list”. Now, list down every
topic that you think you have an interest in and you could blog about.
Traffic and trend:
You would want to ensure that there are decent traffic and interest in
the topic that you have discovered by creating your passion list. Trends
will give you an idea if this topic is growing or dying.
Trends.google.com is a free tool that let you gauge the traffic trend of
any topic.
Monetization: The 3rd factor that will
help you to find profitable blogging idea is an option for monetization.
You need to see how you plan to monetize your blog. Is it going to be
Ad network such as AdSense or is it going to be Affiliate marketing? To
give you a perspective, “Whatsapp” as a topic is growing really fast and
you may be passionate about it, but monetization sucks. Even with high
traffic, making money is negligible.
Competition:
This is the last but not the least factor. If you are getting into a
competitive niche, you will find it hard to stand out and also outrank
existing big players. I don’t mean to demotivate you but if you have a
choice between 2-3 topics, pick the one with medium or low competition.
If you end up picking a broader niche, for example, fashion, in a
competitive niche, it would just take a few extra months to ace it. So,
you need to keep this in mind when looking at the competition.
I suggest you browse more articles of ShoutMeLoud to get a clear understanding of picking up a niche.
Your advertisers could be sitting at a different part of the world and there are 5 popular ways by which you can receive payment from all over the world. These are also popular ways by which these companies pay.
PayPal
Payoneer
Wise
Wire transfer (Your bank)
CoinBase (Crypto payment)
Once you start making money, it’s a good idea to have an account on all
the above websites which let you receive payments. They are all free to
join and easy to use. You can also use these above services to pay
freelancers or virtual assistants in the future.
There are a lot of ways you can make money from blogging, but I would recommend not overwhelming yourself and instead implementing them one by one.
All the above ideas work great, and you should find out what works best for your specific blogging niche.
Here are a few more articles that will help you to make money from your blog:
- How To Make Money Without Google AdSense
What strategy do you use to earn money from your blog? Let me know in the comments below.
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