Thousands of writers and creatives worldwide are already making a living from blogging.

Aren’t you?

If you’re an aspiring blogger looking to earn money writing about the things you love, here’s your guide to pursue your passion while earning big time.

I’ve been blogging from 2013, and all I can say is, blogging is incredible.

If you have a huge passion in any particular field, and you know the basics of writing, it’ll be fairly easy to grow your blogging career.

I’ve tried and tested almost all of the monetization techniques out there.

All of these monetization techniques work great, only if you know what method to use at the right time.

Let’s discuss one-by-one:

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing enables you to earn a commission for promoting the products/services of another company or person on your blog.

The majority of my online income comes through affiliate marketing.

The main goal of affiliate marketing is to offer value that would benefit the readers and then promote relevant affiliate products.

It is an easy way to make money blogging as you don’t need to create your own product, instead promote other affiliate products relevant to your blog content.

I would strongly recommend you first go by affiliate marketing route, before creating your suite of products pouring in the efforts.

If you are wondering how affiliate marketing works, here’s how:

• An advertiser or company agrees to give you a specific commission when a customer makes the sale of their product or service through your site.
• Your site will contain links that will direct the reader to the website of the seller where they can make their purchase. Affiliate links can be placed directly in your content, or you could use banner ads.
• Once the reader uses the affiliate link to buy a product or service, you will get a percentage of that purchase.

Research: The first step is to do extensive research to identify which products you want to promote. You are most likely to know which niche to focus on after checking out competitor sites and doing your due diligence.

Overall, research will help you identify a profitable niche that is going to make you money consistently.

If you already have a niche, you need to identify the top-performing pages on your site and look for places where you can promote your affiliate products.

Marketplaces: An affiliate marketplace is a site that connects advertisers and other vendors with affiliates. The marketplace is responsible for establishing easy communication channels, making affiliate links and payment processes more efficient.

If you are looking for products to promote, here are the best affiliates marketplaces that will give you access to numerous affiliate products:

• ClickBank: ClickBank is very popular and is a great place to look for affiliate niches. They have digital offerings like online courses and e-books which somehow do better than physical products.
• JVZoo: If you are in the internet marketing niche, you can consider exploring products on JVZoo.
• Amazon Associates: If you review Amazon products on your blog, you can get started by joining the Amazon associates program.

There are also various other affiliate marketing marketplaces like ShareASale, CJ, Impact, and other in-house affiliates.

If a product owner does not have a publicly announced affiliate program, you can always reach out to them, and the chances of them set you up a private affiliate program will be more.

Advertising

One of the most common ways to make money is through advertising on your blog.

This is the most preferred revenue stream for first time bloggers because it is relatively easy and does not require copywriting skills.

Google AdSense is one of the easiest pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platforms. This program is also popular for placing the CPM Ads.

With Google AdSense, you need to put the banner on your site and Google will display ads that are most relevant to your site.

You’ll not have direct contact with the advertisers, but you can earn passive income—especially if your blog grows its readership and authority.

To increase your ad earnings, find your way to Adwords and check the cost-per-click of the keywords.

The key is to know how the competition is and how much the click costs.

This way, you will identify some worthwhile keywords that marketers pay high for, target them in your blog posts and thus boost your ad earnings.

Online Courses

Are you an expert in a particular field or you have a skill that you can confidently teach to other people?

You will be surprised at how many people are willing to pay to learn from your skills or expertise.

There is no better way to monetize your skill and share your knowledge than through online courses. Because, once you setup your course funnel, it’s more or less a passive income.

Some great platforms that you can use for your online course creation include Udemy and Teachable.

Once you identify a skill you want to teach, you need to research the course ideas, determine the angle, and validate the idea with your prospect students. This will help you ensure a target audience for that course.

Info Products

Are you looking to make a large profit margin with your blog?

If so, then you need to consider information products. Information products involve selling information or knowledge through eBooks or online courses. It requires less initial investment compared to creating say SaaS or physical products.

As a blogger, you probably have a lot of knowledge in a specific field. You can make money by turning this information into a product. Even if you don’t have a unique skill, you can begin with something you are passionate about.

You can choose to sell information products digitally through some platforms like Teachable, Thinkific or Udemy. You can also consider offering your readers to download it from your site. No matter what platform you use, learn the basics of online sales funnels as funnels are a great way to sell info products from your blog systematically for maximum conversions and effectiveness.

Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts are, without a doubt, one of the best ways to earn money through blogging. Though very profitable, not many bloggers talk about it.

What is a sponsored post?

Well, a sponsored post is a content you write regarding the brand or product/services of a company, and they pay a fee for that.

A vital tip is to stay true to your audience when publishing sponsored posts and ensure that they provide real value to your readers. As long as you provide genuine value to the readers and adopt an SEO strategy to get ongoing organic traffic, you’re good to go.

Examples of Bloggers Making Money With Blogging

Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn is the owner of Smart Passive Income. He teaches readers proven strategies to optimize their online businesses for passive income.

When he was fired from his job in 2008, he used his knowledge from the LEED exam to launch an eBook and created an info product.

He then began his Smart Passive Income blog where he talks about passive income and shares his experiences.

Smart Passive Income has become very successful over the years thanks to affiliate marketing and selling info products. Also, recently, he launched the Smart Podcast player, which generated $9,646.70 in December 2017.

In the same month, 25% of revenue was collected from course sales while 63% came from advertising.

He regularly publishes his income reports on his blog.

Also read: How Does Pat Flynn Make Money? The Smart Passive Income Business Model Explained

Alex and Lauren from Create and Go

If you are one of those people who believe that blogging generates no money, then you have not heard of Alex and Lauren.

These two are the founders of Avocadu and Create and Go which generate revenue of $75,000 a month.

Initially, Alex was a personal trainer, and Lauren was an accountant.

However, they were both dissatisfied with corporate life, and this is when they decided to try an online business.

Currently, this couple makes money from their blogs through the selling of their eBooks and courses.

They also generate revenue through ads and affiliate marketing. The couple also attests to the power of Pinterest which has helped their sites grow further.

Kristin Larsen from Believe in a Budget

Kristin Larsen is the author of Believe in A Budget and co-creator of Pinterest Presence.

In 2015, Larsen began her blog Believe in A Budget which is a personal finance site.

The blog made under $100,000 in the first year. However, this changed when she started using Pinterest, and the monthly page views of her blog drastically increased from 5000 to 230,000.

Kristin managed to achieve success because of multiple income streams.

Her income comes from affiliate marketing, ads, and courses. She also sells her products and gets traffic through Pinterest and Google.

Bottom line

Whether you are passionate about writing or you are trying to earn a living from blogging, the above tips and examples come in handy.

Just find what works best for you, your blog readers and what doesn’t.

Also, be sure to build a relationship with other bloggers, sponsors, and affiliate marketers to develop your network which is your net worth and further promote your blog.

I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any doubts, make sure you leave them in the comments section.

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