12 Easy Ways To Monetize Your Blog

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In a world where content is king, it makes sense that a blog can bring in a whole lot of cash. It’s the ideal virtual space for making money both actively and passively.

However, monetizing your blog isn’t as simple as posting content regularly or telling readers to buy products you love. To successfully turn your corner of the internet into a source of revenue, you need a blog monetization strategy.

In this article, we’re going to share 12 ways you can make money from the valuable content you create and share online. 

Your blogging journey starts now!

Set Yourself Up For Success

First things first. 

Before you look at ways to generate active or passive income from your blog, you need to do some groundwork and build a foundation. In doing so, you’ll create a plan to work from and have a clear direction that will guide your decisions.

Do your research

You need to think about your blog as a business with a marketing strategy. Behind every successful business and marketing strategy is one core element. RESEARCH.

You need to conduct extensive market research to identify your core demographic and target audience. Your audience and market will overlap as you’ll market to a specific audience on various media platforms while targeting your desired market. Knowing who your audience is and what market they fall under will expand your reach and drive more traffic to your blog. 

To identify your target audience and market, ask yourself:

  • What do I want my blog to focus on?
  • Who do I want to read my blog?
  • Are there blogs I consider competitors?
  • What does my ideal reader look like?
  • What do other blogs do to attract readers?
  • Can I create content that resonates with my target reader and demographic?
  • What are the best ways to reach and connect with my audience?
  • What value can I offer readers?
  • Can I establish myself as an authority?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you can make data-driven decisions that guide your actions.  

Pick your niche

Successful bloggers choose a niche they’re an authority in—or, at the very least, have an interest in and some knowledge of. You can pick a niche that aligns with your profession, ties in with your hobbies, or a topic you’re passionate about. 

For example, if you’re an accountant, you could start a financial blog that simplifies money management. If you’re an avid cook, you can focus on trying new recipes; if you’re into health and fitness, you can share your insights and learnings. 

While it’s true that you can monetize any niche, it also helps to select a niche that’s popular but not over-saturated. 

Food, personal finance, and lifestyle are among the most lucrative niches today. Other popular niches include digital marketing, travel, and so-called “mommy blogs.”

Finding a profitable blog niche ties in with doing your research. You need to know what type of content you want to create and who your audience is. From there, you can pick your niche and refine it. 

By refining your niche, you’ll narrow your focus even further. If you opted for personal finance, you could target entrepreneurs. If you chose cooking, you could focus on a specific cuisine or culinary style. Or, if you opted for health and fitness, you can work on weight loss or muscle building. This effectively creates a niche within a niche that you can establish yourself in.

Be intentional with what you choose and ensure that it’s something you’re interested in. If you do this, your content will reflect it, and you’ll establish yourself as an authority on the topic. This will build trust with your readers and keep them coming back for more. 

Create a content strategy

Without a clear content strategy, your blogging efforts will lack cohesion and focus. Creating a content strategy provides guidance and helps you to maximize the impact of the content you create.

To create a strategy, you need to:

  • Define goals
  • Focus on content ideation 
  • Identify keywords to target
  • Create a content calendar (be sure to include special days/events/occasions that relate to your niche)

Remember to create content that speaks to your audience. That means speaking in their language and targeting topics they’ll resonate with.

Refine your SEO strategy 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial for driving web traffic to your blog and ensuring you rank highly on Google and other search engines. You can work on your SEO strategy in conjunction with your content strategy, but you need to be aware that SEO is always changing. 

Start with a clearly defined strategy that includes keyword research, a link-building plan, image optimization, and a regular posting schedule. Ensure you stay updated with the latest SEO news and changes to adjust your strategy accordingly.

Check out this guide on SEO basics for more details on how to create a solid SEO strategy.

How to monetize a blog with:

Once you’ve followed the above points, you’re ready to learn how to monetize a blog. 

Depending on your niche, you can choose from the following monetization methods. Also, you don’t have to pick just one method. You can combine several to maximize your revenue potential.

1. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative ways of monetizing a blog. All you need to do is sign up with an affiliate program that aligns with your blog. You’ll receive a commission for referrals for whatever you promote.

Becoming an Amazon affiliate is one of the most popular options for anyone starting a blog from scratch. The Amazon Associates Program is designed to help content creators monetize their web traffic and earn commission from qualifying purchases. 

However, it’s not just Amazon that offers an affiliate marketing program. There are 1000s of different companies doing the same, covering every niche from home decor to education, travel, and finance. 

A blog with affiliate marketing is the ideal entry point into monetization, and it allows for plenty of scope for growth. You can refine your affiliate marketing strategy over time and add new affiliate products as your blog gains traction. 

2. Google Adsense

If you want to know how to monetize your blog quickly and easily, sign up with the Google Adsense program. Once signed up, you’ll make Google ads space available on your blog, and advertisers can bid for it. 

The highest bid earns the right to advertise on your site, and when a website visitor views or clicks an ad, you get paid. This is a great way to make passive income. The higher your blog ranks, the more valuable your ad space becomes.

You’re not just limited to Google AdSense either. Many other ad networks, like Mediavine, can pay more cash per ad view/click. 

However, the more lucrative an ad network, the more requirements they have. For example, you’ll need a certain minimum number of monthly site visitors to sign up for some of these networks.

3. Webinars & Courses

Selling digital courses or access to webinars is a great way to profit from your blog. You can publish regular blog posts that tie in with your niche and offer paid-for digital content that adds extra value.

Courses and webinars can cover many topics, whether practical advice, expert insights, or the teaching of valuable skills. Creating courses or webinars takes time and effort, but once ready, you’ll establish revenue streams that require little to no further input.

4. Coaching

In the last few years, online coaching services have become incredibly popular. You can use your blogging platform to sell coaching packages or consulting services that fill whatever niche you’ve selected. Some options include life coaching, fitness and weight loss, career coaching, and business development. 

The best part about this is that you can decide how to monetize your blog based on your level of engagement. You can offer once-off sessions or ongoing programs that require regular check-ins. This gives you the flexibility to work part-time or to create a fully-fledged online business.

5. Selling eBooks

Selling an eBook on your blog is a great way to generate money from day one. If you can write a book that aligns with your usual blog topics, you can sell it for a hefty profit. 

eBooks don’t have any publishing costs, so they’re almost pure profit. You can sell fiction or nonfiction eBooks depending on your niche, but non-fiction that teaches people a skill is always going to be the most popular. For example, if you have a cooking blog, a recipe eBook is almost a guaranteed winner. 

6. Selling Digital Products 

We’ve already covered webinars, online courses, and eBooks as options for how to monetize a blog. But there are so many other digital products you can sell on your blog too.

Freelance bloggers often sell SaaS or software products they use directly to loyal readers. This ensures that readers get to use a pre-endorsed product, and bloggers can generate revenue from sales. There’s also the option of selling digital art—not necessarily NFTs—but rather digital artworks such as stock photos or designs. 

Digital products can also be PDFs and other downloadable documents—they don’t have to be complicated. For example, if you have a fitness blog, you can easily sell downloadable workout plans.

7. Selling Merchandise

If you have a great logo, a brand that’s gained traction, or are a graphic designer, you can easily sell physical products on your blog too. You’ll have access to thousands of leads who you can turn into potential customers and can either create your own merchandise or sell merchandise that you’ve sourced from other vendors.

Some personal blogs have created their own brand that sells highly sought-after merchandise. 

Wait But Why? by Tim Urban is an excellent example of one of the many successful blogs that have taken this direction and created a source of revenue from selling on-brand merchandise.  

8. Offering Subscriptions or Memberships

If you have blog content that you think your readers would pay for on a regular basis, subscriptions or memberships are an excellent way to go. Much like Patreon or Instagram Subscriptions, you can charge a fee for exclusive content that lets you connect at a deeper level with your more engaged blog readers. 

This ensures that you generate monthly revenue and have a steady stream of income that’s easy to build on. It also helps you to create an email list that can help you with email marketing (more on that later!). Enhance your email marketing efforts by incorporating an efficient software solution for emails, streamlining your communication strategy, and maximizing engagement with your audience.

9. Accepting Donations

With crowdfunding being so commonplace, there’s no reason why you can’t opt for this as a blog monetization method too. 

Whether you have a fitness blog or post product reviews, asking your readers to hit the donate button isn’t going to do any harm. And you may be surprised by how many people want to contribute to your creative endeavors.

It’s easy to integrate credit card or PayPal payments into your site or to link to other payment gateways that facilitate international transactions. As the saying goes, if you don’t ask, you don’t get!

10. Selling Ad Space

If your online content gets a lot of attention or you have viral content that keeps you ranking highly, you can sell your own ad space. You can follow a similar format to Google AdSense and sell spots on your blog to whichever company aligns with your brand. 

This takes a bit more admin and management, as you’ll have to provide a contract and set up a billing system. Fortunately, there are plenty of contract and invoice templates available online to streamline the process. 

You can also accept sponsorships in lieu of money and advertise a company or brand that supplies you with a product or service. If you have a travel blog, you might get sponsored by a suitcase company and can trade ad space for baggage. Just ensure you’re transparent with your readers about who’s sponsoring you to retain their trust.

11. Charging For Sponsored Blog Posts 

Blog owners with high-ranking blogs are in an excellent position to charge for posts. Whether for link building, to encourage organic traffic, or for other marketing purposes, sponsored posts are a great way for other brands or companies to form partnerships with sites that have authority.

You can charge for a piece of content that you publish, or you can create the content yourself and charge for the post. Not only do you benefit by earning money for the privilege of posting on your site, but the additional content can also boost your blog traffic and improve your SEO rankings. 

12. Email Marketing

Email marketing is an excellent monetization strategy that allows you to generate income directly from your blog. You’ll need to build your email list to make a success of this, so it’s a good idea to ask readers to submit their email addresses if they want to stay in touch.

Once you have an email subscriber list, you can send out regular emails marketing your products, merchandise, or any affiliate offers that are currently running. 

Turn Your Popular Blog Into A Revenue Stream

You can earn a full-time income from your blog content if you monetize it properly. 

The good news is there are many ways to make your blogging journey profitable. This article covered twelve techniques anyone entering the blogging business will find very valuable. Do your research, find a profitable niche, and work on the monetization strategy that best suits you. Happy blogging.

About the author

Nicholas Prins

I'm the founder of Launch Space. We work with global companies helping them scale lead generation through SEO and content marketing. Head over to the homepage to find out more.

By Nicholas Prins