Category: Work From Home

Years ago, I would hear that people were blogging for a “living” and I always wondered HOW are they making money?  How does blogging give them a substantial enough income that they can live on it?

Blogging has changed my life.  It has paid off our student loans, paid off cars, credit cards and we even bought a new camping trailer, yay!  It has also sustained our family through a career transition for my husband.  So, if you are like I once was, and are wondering how you can make money blogging, this is the right place for you.  There are a lot of revenue streams, but I have outlined the most popular sources of income for bloggers.

If you are interested in starting a blog, you can find step by step instructions on how to start a blog for really cheap!  You can start a money-making blog for as little as a few dollars a month through my special Bluehost link discount, so hurry and take advantage of this opportunity before it expires!  In order to make money blogging, you want to have a self-hosted blog, which means buying a hosting package.  You will even receive a free domain if you sign up for hosting with this new deal.  In order to maximize the money you can make, you need to be self-hosted.  So, if you are interested and want to start a blog, I can walk you through it.

1. Ad networks like Google Adsense and others are a great place to start.  They are easy to use, have great analytics and reporting and will be a perfect first step in making money blogging. To get started, apply for an account (that is after you have started your blog.  You need to have a domain name and hosting, which you can get here for a very special discount for my readers.)  Once you have been approved by Google Adsense, you create ad blocks.  You choose the size, color, font, etc. and then you literally copy and paste the ad code into your website.  There are plugins (I like ad inserter) that make it especially easy.  You can choose where to place your ad block (in your post, on the sidebar, at the bottom, in the header, etc.) Take some time and look through different programs to find the one that fits you best. AdSense is common, but you may find one you like more. The way Adsense works, is that advertisers go to Google and sign up with Google Adwords.  They then place the ad on your site, and when someone clicks on an ad, you get a portion of that click.  It is called PPC (pay-per-click) advertising.  Google gets a cut and you get a cut.  And it is a win-win.

2. If you want a bigger portion of the profit and are willing to put some extra leg work in, then you could consider direct advertising. There are a few ways to go about this, but you’ll need to have a pretty good base of followers and traffic before you start searching for direct advertisers.  This version of advertising is a little bit more work, because you have to find the advertisers yourself, but you then get 100% of the agreed upon rate for your advertising.  Some bloggers choose to have a set monthly rate for certain sizes of advertisements, while others track performance and charge based on clicks, customers, etc.  Find companies that don’t directly compete with your brand, but are very complimentary to your blog niche and reader base.

3. You could also work with affiliates on your site to get some extra money out of your blog. Affiliate programs are pretty simple and used by quite a few bloggers. Pretty much, you endorse or write articles about why you like a certain product in hopes that your readers will go out and buy that product. The more followers that use your link to buy the product, the more money you get from the company. While this is a good way to make money, there are a few guidelines I would suggest if you do this. First, don’t endorse all sorts of products just so you can make lots of money; endorse quality products you actually like and use. If you don’t, your viewers will know and you run the risk of losing your audience. Secondly, be open and honest that you’re an affiliate for a certain product. Make sure your reader knows that and don’t force the product down their throat—that will get obnoxious quickly and, again, your audience could diminish. If you like the product and really do want others to know about it, then you should feel excited and confident to begin the affiliate program!

4. Some companies will actually pay you to just do a product review; you don’t even have to be part of an affiliate program. This is really similar to affiliate marketing, but instead of promoting and endorsing the product on your blog, you simply write a review about it. Tell your audience what you liked about it, what you didn’t like so much, and why you prefer that product over other similar brands. Again, make sure to be honest and straight-forward with your readers. You don’t want them investing in your word and then getting upset when the product isn’t as good as you said. Don’t sacrifice immediate cash for long-term followers and trust.

5. Actually, you actually don’t even have to have your own blog to make money off blogging. Sound crazy? Well, it’s not. If you love writing, but all the other marketing aspects of a profitable blog don’t interest you, you can be a freelance writer. You can send your material to blogs you think would be interested in publishing your content. It may take a while to build up a reputation as a freelance writer, but once you have it then you can get a pretty solid income from it.

6. Ghostwriting is a little different; instead of having your name posted to all the articles that you submit to blogs and get published, your name won’t be seen (hence the “ghost” part of ghost writing). Pretty much, you can be employed by a blogger to write content for them and they just assume it as their own. You can actually make this a part-time (or even full-time) job, especially if you work for numerous different bloggers. It can kind of be hard to get into this business at first (unless you personally know a professional blogger), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it! If you’re a really good ghostwriter, you can make up to $50 per article you’re assigned, and some articles take less than an hour to write. That’s a good deal!

7. If you’re a successful blogger, why not become a successful author too! You can actually repurpose your old blogs and sell them as books (or, more likely, e-books). Of course, you’ll need to reformat your blogs to fit into a professional looking book, but if you have content that people want quick and constant access to, you can make some good money off this. Some really successful bloggers have made over $70,000 in a week from e-book sales, so it obviously works. If you’re having problems selling your blog content, then you can made a related e-book to your blog and then advertise it on your blog! It’s similar content that your followers love and you have a platform that gives free advertising. The perfect combination!