How to Make Money from Blogging
Anyone can successfully make money from blogging, but it takes time, energy and consistency to see results. This quick guide on how to make money from blogging will take you through some of your many options with how you can start seeing results from your blog. If blogging is something you are interested in but don’t know where to start, head over to my article of How to Build a blog in 7 Easy Steps. That will give you the building blocks and basic knowledge on how blogging works, and how building a website isn’t as complicated as you might think.
Making money from blogging doesn’t have to be a long unsuccessful slog through the trenches as long as you are consistent. Think of some of the biggest brands in the world; you see their advertising every where. Blogging is the same, you must treat your blog like a business where what you put into it is what you will eventually get out of it.
How to Start a Blog
The easiest part of making money from blogging is building the blog itself, but before the money can start rolling in you need to put in a bit of ground work to make your blog worth reading. I suggest you read my introduction into search engine optimization (SEO) first. There’s no point having products to sell or affiliate links to advertise if Google isn’t referring readers to your website!
Selling Products and Services
A lot of successful bloggers make their money from selling online courses, ebooks, templates or Lightroom presents; anything that can be digitally downloaded.
Depending on what your niche is there is a world of digital products out there that you can make available to purchase from your living room chair. You could sell sewing patterns, online courses for marketing, or even Pinterest templates if that is really your thing. There is a market out there for everything, you just have to discover it.
But not all of us have the knowledge or capacity to be able to sell such products, which is where the following two online money making options come in to play…
Affiliate Links
Affiliate links when it comes to blogging are unique URL’s that help businesses keep track of referrals and can attribute sales to purchases made through those specific URL’s. In Layman’s terms this means that if any reader clicks on an affiliate link on your website and they make a purchase, you can earn a small percentage of that income generated.
Affiliate links are a way you can recommend products and services you trust and believe in and are relevant to your blogging niche. For example, LoveYaGuts.co.nz has affiliate links for Viator, Get Your Guide and Booking.com.
What do Affiliate Links look like?
Affiliate links can be as simple as a hyperlink; linking you to the specific product or service as written in the paragraph, For example if I was to suggest you book a rental car to pick up from Auckland Airport, it would look something like that.
Or affiliate links can look like fancy widgets like below, this is my affiliate link for Viator recommending you trips in and around Auckland:
How do I Set Up Affiliate Links?
An affiliate link is a URL unique to that blog or website, set up by an affiliate program. You can’t simply grab a URL from any website, link it to your blog and hope that money comes rolling in. Each affiliate link has a unique code that lets the affiliate program know where that traffic came from. Think of it like you’re a door to door salesman; an affiliate program gives you the product to take to your neighbours house to sell, each time a neighbour makes a purchase through you, you get a small percentage of that income. Simple, right?
There are hundreds of affiliate programs out there you just need to find the ones that suit your niche. Below I have listed the ones I use or can recommend, remember I run a travel blog so if you’re niche is beauty, children or something completely different, these affiliate programs might not work for you.
Travelpayouts
TravelPayouts is one of the best all-in-one travel related affiliate programs. Travelpayouts include affiliate links for all the big travel websites used around the world. It is simple to sign up and even easier to use, with over 50 programs all varying in different payout schemes you will find something that works for you.
MOZ
Moz is a top tier SEO tool, it helps with keyword research, track your blogs performance and content optimization. A great thing about Moz is that it also offers an affiliate program, allowing you to advertise the very product you trust and believe in from personal experience.
Advertising
Showing adverts on your website is the simplest ways to make money from blogging as readers aren’t required to make a purchase through these ads, all they have to do is click on them and you earn. However it isn’t always the most lucrative. Blogging advertising range in value from small programs like Google Adsense to cutting-edge plugins like Mediavine.
These blogging advertising programs do all the work for you in regards to showing targeted advertising on your site, all you have to do is copy a link into your HTML code and away you go.
Google Adsense
Google Adsense is where a lot of bloggers start when it comes to making money from blogging. It’s a simple strategy and helps you get to ball rolling with understanding how blog advertising works. However it pays in cents (I’m talking like 5 cents per click), and sometimes the advertising can be a bit left field; nobody wants foot fungal cream advertised on their site. But when you’re a new blogger you’re going to take what you can get in order to make money from your blog.
Mediavine
Mediavine is one of the biggest online advertising agencies, but one of the hardest to get into. They have strict requirements that you need to meet before you can even be considered for their program. In the blogging world you will often see comments from other bloggers celebrating that they got into Mediavine, this is because their blog has finally reached over 50,000 sessions a month. Mediavine is the king pin advertising agency and getting into this program means you have reaching success when it comes to making money from blogging.
