If you are into blogging, you would have definitely come across thoughts on how to monetize your blog and make some quick bucks out of it. Making money out of blogs and websites is also one of the widely discussed topics among professional bloggers and digital marketers in this century. Whether it is a personal blog or a professional product-review site, people are always looking for (new?) ways to monetize their content.
If you really have a very good blog with quality content for your readers and it can provide value, then, it can definitely be monetized. But before you jump on the bandwagon, remember that your blog is going to be your business from now on. From just a few dollars to more than you can even imagine, you can easily make a decent living out of your blog’s income.
Now, here are various monetization methods you can use to convert your blog’s traffic into a steady source of income.
Table of Contents
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you do not sell any products directly but instead promote other products or services and earn a commission for each sale you generate. It is one of the most popular and highly successful methods for monetizing a blog. Usually, you are given a unique URL or a set of links to promote the products on your blog and when someone clicks through the link and makes a purchase of the recommended product or service, you are paid a commission (a percentage of the sale made).
For example, if you are a fashion blogger, you can easily promote high-end fashion clothing & accessories, cosmetics, perfumes, etc. on your blog. And since people are already interested in your content, there are more chances for them to use your affiliate links to make a purchase of the products you are promoting.
Skimlinks, VigLink, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Rakuten LinkShare, ClickBank, Amazon Associates, and eBay Partner Network are some of the most popular affiliate marketplaces. For the best results and conversions, try to promote only the products which you have used or tested.
Advertisements
On most of the popular news and magazine sites, you would have definitely noticed advertisements being displayed on the site’s header, sidebar, or in-between the content whether you like it or not. This is one of the oldest forms of advertising which is still popular today. There are different types of advertisements such as display ads, banner ads, frame ads, pop-ups & pop-unders, etc. Some advertisements pay you based on the number of clicks it receives (CPC) whereas others such as CPM pays you based on the number of impressions it receives.
Google AdSense, Infolinks, BuySellAds, Media.net, Amazon Native Shopping Ads, and BidVertiser are some of the most popular advertising networks for publishers.
Sell Content & Services
You can sell digital content such as downloadable ebooks or guides, posters, online courses, art pieces, recipes, music, videos, etc. or you can also offer services depending upon your interests and expertise. For example, I offer services such as creating and setting up a complete website on my blog. You can check it out over here. Like that, you can also set up a custom ‘services’ page on your blog so that your readers can hire you to get things done.
This is easily one of the easiest ways of generating a passive income from your blog as you needn’t create new content each time a purchase is made.
Accept Donations
If your content is really valued by your readers, you can ask them to donate you a small amount of money to make you keep going and continue the good work. As a blogger who spends some time researching products & services and writing reviews, I don’t feel shy by asking people to buy me a cup of coffee. You won’t know how much your content is valued until you really ask for a donation. Sometimes you may even get a huge donation if there’s luck on your side and people find your content really useful.
There are many sites out there that purely rely on donations from readers for their survival online. These donations are usually used to pay for the hosting and domain renewal costs and for upgrading the hardware & software of the content creators (the bloggers), etc. Try to get rid of advertisements on your site before you are going to ask for donations. This is because you can explain to your readers that you solely rely on their donations to run your site.
Conclusion
Thus I hope that you found this article helpful in getting to know about the easiest methods you can implement to monetize your blog traffic and make money online. If you liked this post, I’m sure you’ll also love reading my post on how to growth hack, and drive traffic like a pro to your blog or website.
You told about 4 Easy Ways to Monetize Your Blog and Make Money Online. I love and I am interested in earning money by blogging. But I am not expert about SEO. I know how to build a WordPress website. I also know about keywords research. I can complete on-page SEO by Yoast plugin. But I do not know how to do link building. Without link building, a keyword will not rank. So I needed more help from a SEO specialist/ I became much happy. Thanks for this post. I am waiting for your next post.
Hey Jeremy, thanks for taking time to leave a comment on this post. I’m happy that you found this post useful. And with regards to link building, here’s an article from Moz on the same. It’s pretty much detailed and definitely worth reading if you’re totally new to it.
Anto! I had to comment once more. I was exploring the option of linking your page to others! And I was just in time for Neil Patel’s webinar on Advanced Customer Acquisition which is extremely helpful! Thanks a tonne!
Hey Ramyani, don’t ever feel shy to leave out comments on my blog – it’s what that makes me keep going. It gives me a total sense of satisfaction when people say that they deem information on my blog useful. You’re totally welcome for your feedback.
This article was very useful for me being a new affiliate of a great program.
Glad to hear that Gerald. Keep visiting for more such useful posts!
I want to make money by Affiliate Marketing. Now what should I do? Thank you so much.
You may want to check out my article on getting started with affiliate marketing. Hope that helps!
Every blogger must know this, sharing it on Facebook and Twitter!
Thanks for sharing!
Awesome Post!
I’m a true believer that you can turn any hobby into a side income. All it takes is a little dedication and ACTION. If you don’t take action, you’ll never make extra money from home.
Hey Amine, I totally agree with your point – if you are dedicated and can take proper action, then you can easily monetize your hobby as a side income. But without proper action, it will be a waste of time and talent.
I thought this was an extremely helpful post. I have a creative humor/spiritual blog.(I found you because you are a new follower! Yaaay!) I cherish all my followers and many have become part of my virtual community. My dedication as a humor/creative blog writer is to my followers. If I include ads on my blog, I fear this will deter from the heartfelt, sincere tone bloggers feel when they read my posts. Any thoughts on how to combine ads with a blog’s heartfelt sensibility?
Hey Cathi, you’ve got a nice blog and it is definitely worth following. Keep up the good work. Displaying advertisements on your blog is just an option but since it’s hosted on WordPress.com, it is against their Terms of Service. What I mean by ads are the banner ads you see on almost all websites on the internet. It is just one of the many options for monetizing your blog. Not all blogs perform well with advertisements. To make some meaningful income from these advertisements, you need to have at least 15,000 page views per month. If your blog gets that many hits per month, you can apply for WordPress.com’s in-house advertisement program called ‘WordAds’.
But I would suggest you give a shot at affiliate marketing. It is allowed on WordPress.com blogs as long as your blog is focused on creating content and not driving traffic to these affiliate sites alone. I’m pretty sure you use and come across many products which you use in your daily life. You can start with that and review the product on your blog or just write an article on how that product helped you in xyz situation or something. You can start with Amazon Associates and expand to other affiliate programs as you get a grip on what affiliate marketing really is. Monetizing your blog should in no way affect your blog’s sensibility. It is essential for any blogger to make up for the time, effort and money they put into their blogs.
Hi Anto, thank you so much for your detailed and very kind response. I have one more question based on what you wrote. As you suggested, I will begin affiliate marketing. It will work well with my blog. MY QUESTION: How do I connect with Amazon Associates to be sure Amazon is aware I am writing about their products? Is there someone at Amazon to speak to or a link on this topic? Thanks!
You’re welcome Cathi, I’m glad my reply was of some help to you. Amazon Associates doesn’t work that way, you should first apply to their affiliate program and they will review your site. Most of the time they will approve your site as long as your content is good (i.e., not spammy). Once you are approved you will get access to all their affiliate marketing content and tools. Using these tools, you can grab the affiliate link of any product available on Amazon and start promoting them instantly. Commissions for each product vary depending upon the product category (link). Once someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase for any product on Amazon (within 24 hours as it’s the affiliate cookie’s lifetime), you will be credited for it. Once you meet the minimum payment threshold, the payments will be sent to your account automatically. Hope that helps!
Hi Anto, Yes! This is extremely helpful! Thank you so very much for your time. I look forward to reading new posts on your blog. Have a great day! Cathi
Hey Cathi, glad you found it helpful. I’m always happy to help. If you’ve got any doubts, you can always reply to this comment or use the contact form on this blog to send me a message.
Very helpful. Thank you for sharing Anto😊
You’re welcome Joy, glad you found these blog monetization tips helpful!
Hi Antony,
Your article has been helpful. I would however like to ask you an question related to affiliated marketing that i need answered in order to process further in this matter of monetization.
I am a blogger from UK who has been engaged with his blogs for more than a year actively, but the only monetizing methods i have been using were adsense and infolnks. I have generated quite the audience and earned a lot of followings on my socials but the income generation is not cutting it on a level where i can sit back and maybe enjoy a little peace.
I want to integrate with affiliate marketing but the issue with idea it self is i have no insight on the programs that are out there available for joining. I applied for a bunch too but got refused. My content is mostly UK focused so it would be great if you suggested a local program that i could work with and compatible with wordpress.
I came across this program that is providing those kinda stuff but it would be lovely to have some suggestion or maybe insight on it if possible. revglue .com/free-wordpress-plugins here is the address of this revglue company that is offering free CMS and selling data of so many stores with 100% commission rate.
Any sort of suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
It was very helpful. Thank you so much.