Make Money Blogging: How to Get Started

Do you want to make money blogging?

It’s a question that many people ask themselves when they start their blog. And often, a beginner will get quickly overwhelmed by all the options available to monetize a blog.

In this post, we will cover how to start your blog with monetization in mind, the best ways to earn money by blogging, product creation for bloggers, ads on blogs, affiliate marketing and collaborations.

The best way forward is to find the combination of these that works best for you.

Can you really make money blogging?

It can be hard to believe that you can quit your job and blog full time, but it is possible; many, many people are doing it. Earning money from your blog takes a lot of hard work, strategy, and patience, but the rewards are well worth it.

People love blogging because the startup costs are low. However, what most people won’t tell you is: if it were easy, everyone would be successful!

People ask me how I make money blogging all the time. I’ve been blogging since 2011 for reference, and it has changed my life in so many ways. Not only has blogging changed my life, but the WAY I blog has changed over the years as well.

It can be hard work at times—most of us have day jobs while we first grow our blogs—but it is really worth it.

If you don’t quit, you can’t fail.

So: do you make money blogging? Definitely.

There are many ways to monetize a blog, but the three most popular strategies are product creation (selling products like e-books or courses), ads, and affiliates.

How to make money blogging for beginners

The first step to making money blogging is to decide what you want your blog to be about.

Whether it’s writing about something you love (travel), talking about products that are relevant for your audience (beauty) or creating helpful how-to guides, you need to choose a focus.

Two big tips here that most other blog posts for beginner bloggers miss:

1. Make sure it’s something you’ll be excited about in the long run, because blogging takes time and effort.
2. Make sure it’s a topic where you can envision HOW you want to monetize. Is it a blog with high traffic potential where you can earn ad revenue? Or a high traffic blog that sells affiliates? Or maybe you have a course idea, and want to leverage the blog for sales, or even a service you want to provide. What you want to AVOID, is writing about anything and everything without focus.

Set up for success

When you are starting your blog, it’s important to set up with monetization in mind from the very beginning. What platform you choose, what content you post, and your overall plan should all bear in mind your income goals. Make a plan that you can stick to and then execute it.

Before you apply any monetization strategies, be sure you have a successful blogging base. What does that mean?

1. Make sure you are writing engaging content that your readers love
2. That you are consistent about posting fresh new material on a regular schedule, and
3. That you have a way to collect readers’ email addresses.

The Most Effective Ways to Make Money Blogging

Product Creation

One of the best ways to make money blogging is to create and sell your own products.

If you have an audience that trusts and loves you, selling something they will enjoy can be very lucrative. Make sure that whatever product(s) you decide to sell are relevant for the topic of your blog. This could be in the form of an e-book, a course, or even physical products. You have complete control over the pricing and can set your own profit margins.

There are many people who make money blogging by creating their own products. There is nothing wrong with selling other peoples’ products, but product creation tends to allow for the most scalable income, and isn’t as dependent on traffic volume as some other methods.

To decide on your first product to launch, try finding an idea that is both relevant to your blog and something you are interested in. Make sure it’s not too difficult or time-consuming for you, because then you won’t be able to maintain it properly.

There are many different types of products on the market today.

Usually, the best products to start out with are digital courses and e-books. These both have high profit margins, which is especially important when you are just starting out.

The best way to launch a new product is in a beta launch. A beta launch is when you run a presale at a great price, before you have created more than a plan and the first pieces for your product. Then it’s completed as people go through it. There’s really no sense going to all the trouble of creating a huge product before you know whether your people are going to be interested in it or not – with a beta launch, you can test you product before you invest a lot of time in it.

For a successful beta launch, make sure you have a great sales page and even better promotional plan. Make it known to your audience that the product is coming soon, and that they will have the opportunity to shape the content with their feedback and questions. Make sure you listen and respond to what they say!

Ads: Make Money Blogging with Ads

Many bloggers monetize their blogs by placing ads on them. The advertiser will pay you per view, or per click, or both.

There are many different types of ads, including simple text links, sponsored posts that look like regular blog content (with a disclosure at the bottom), or even native advertising, where the ad is the same style as the blog content.

Make sure to check with your blogging platform first on how they handle ads, and what types of advertisements are allowed.

Typically, it’s best practice to only include one or two ads on each page of your blog (if at all). If you have too many different kinds of ads running concurrently, it can be confusing for your readers and may even lead to them leaving your blog.

Also, make sure that the ad is relevant to the content on the page.

Affiliate Marketing

This strategy focuses on creating relationships with other brands in order to sell their products or services through your website. You’ll post your unique affiliate link on your website and social feeds. Whenever someone clicks through and purchases a product or service, you earn a percentage of the sale—usually between 5%-30%.

Some bloggers have a lot of success with affiliate marketing; these folks usually have a lot of traffic, and are in niches that have access to high-paying affiliate programs.

If you are interested in making money from affiliates, it’s critical that you have a solid understanding of affiliate marketing strategies and how they apply to your unique blog.

Collaborations

Many brands will pay bloggers and influencers to review their products, share photos on their social feeds, etc.

In order for this to be lucrative, you’ll need to have strong traffic and a reasonably large social following.

Also, beware – lots of brands offer free products or even vacations in compensation for your services. While there isn’t anything wrong with that, it won’t pay your mortgage. Make sure what you are doing is worth your time and effort.

Conclusion

There are many ways to make money blogging, but I’ve found that the best results often come from product creation. Make sure you have solid traffic and a good following before jumping into affiliate marketing or ads.

Make a plan, and don’t be afraid to tweak it (or change course entirely) as you grow and learn.

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