Let’s get real for a minute. If you are reading this guide it is likely because you plan to monetize your blog. Sure, there are people that are into blogging for the mere hobby feature (and that is great!). But, if that were you, I’m guessing you wouldn’t care about all the nitty gritties. Instead, you’d open up a free platform (no need to self-host if not monetizing) and not care about all these little details. After all, it would be a hobby. However, if you have plans for your blog to be profitable, then let’s get down to the basics of blogging for profit and how bloggers make money!
* Affiliate links are included in this post. All this means, is that if you click on one of those links and purchase something, I may receive a small commission. However, you will not pay a penny more- promise!
Blogging income is basically broken down into only a handful of methods. With that said, as simple as that may sound, each method can grow in complexity quite quickly. That leads us to the general money-making breakdown and how bloggers make money…
Affiliates.
This is where you promote a certain product that you believe in. Then, when others purchase that product (off of the link you used to refer them) you receive a commission. This will NOT cost your readers (the ones doing the clicking ) a single penny more, but it will make you a profit. An important note to point out here is that you ONLY want to promote items/products/services that you use and would highly recommend to your best friend. If you are promoting for the main purpose of profiting, your readers will see right through this and you will lose the most important thing… their trust!
How to get started with affiliates.
Does becoming an affiliate and promoting products for income sound like something you want to do? Great! Now is where it gets a bit more cumbersome. You can’t just reach out to a company and say, “Hey, I want to be an affiliate for you.” (I wish!). Instead, you need to do some digging. Certain companies have their own affiliate programs (i.e. Oriental Trading, Ultimate Bundles, etc.), while others you apply and connect to through a larger network that links you to several companies at once. These networks act as the middle man. They provide a large number of brands and then you work through them to represent said brand (i.e. Share-a-Sale, Amazon Associates). My favorites networks starting out (and the ones I’d recommend joining) are Share-a-Sale, Amazon Associates, VigLink, CJ Affiliate, Impact Radius, Ultimate Bundles, etc.
Sponsored posts.
A sponsored post is where you write a dedicated blog post (or social media post) for a product or service and they in turn pay you (or provide you with free product). This is as a result, often times a larger payout than an affiliate sale. However, it is a one-time profit, whereas an affiliate link stays LIVE and makes passive income with time. It is also important to keep in mind that you don’t want to turn your blog into a sponsored post collection as you will risk losing your readers’ trust. With that said, I’d make sure and have non-sponsored posts intertwined with all sponsored ones.
How to secure a sponsorship.
There are three ways in which you can secure a sponsorship.
- You can reach out to a company directly and ask if you can do a sponsored post for them (i.e. cold pitch). You will want to do this by locating the media person for each brand and reaching out via email or tweeting at them via Twitter.
- You can join sponsored post networks like Collective Bias and Massive Sway and apply for campaigns that fit your niche.
- Or, you can wait and be approached by brands to write for them (likely won’t happen until larger page views or social media growth).
Ad networks.
Ad networks are another way bloggers make money. Partnering with these companies is a way to implement ads on your website. Essentially the ad companies rent space on your website. When someone views or clicks on the ad, you in turn make a small percentage of money. As you can imagine, the higher the pageviews, the higher the income. The more pageviews you get, the higher and better ad agencies you can apply for. I would recommend applying for Google Adsense as soon as you hit 1,000 pageviews/month. You will likely hang out with them until you achieve 25,000 unique sessions/month, at which point I’d then recommend switching to Mediavine.
Selling your own product or course.
This seems pretty self-explanatory, right? With that in mind, know that this option is often most time-consuming but also most rewarding if you do it right. From courses, digital media, to physical products, etc…. the options are endless. About two years into my blogging career I started selling my own physical products (shirts) and have loved the journey! Unsure of exactly where to start, I relied on famous blogger, Ruth Soukup’s help and purchased her “Product Launch Playbook”. While this item is only available for short stretches of time once a year, you can get on the waitlist here if you are interested. I would highly recommend it!
Want more?
And there you have it, the core elements to how bloggers make money! Want to learn about more of my secrets? Check out my “The Ultimate Blogging Ebook” which is a FREE ebook I created chalked full of 9 printables and TONS of information! Find it here.
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