When you first get started blogging, you may have no intention of making money from it at all. If that’s the case, that’s completely fine! You don’t have to monetize your blog immediately and there are many reasons why you might choose not to ever do so, including having an interest in blogging as a hobby or wanting to focus on other aspects of your business right now.
But if you do plan on monetizing your blog down the road, here are some simple ways you can do so without compromising your integrity or going against the blogging standards in place today.
1) Affiliate Programs
Most affiliate programs pay either per lead (e.g., you refer someone who buys something, and get a commission) or per click (e.g., you send traffic to a company’s website, and get paid if that traffic results in a sale). Affiliate programs for blogs can offer anywhere from 10%–75% commission on sales generated by your site. The first step is choosing an affiliate program. While there are many out there (some good and some not so good), it’s important to stick with reputable companies that have been around for at least a few years as they will likely be around in an industry downturn as well as an upturn.
Here’s a detailed guide to making money as an affiliate marketer.
2) Ad Networks
If you’re still driving a lot of traffic from social networks, you may want to look into monetizing your blogs with affiliate marketing. In a nutshell, by using an ad network, like Google AdSense, or one of its competitors like Amazon Associates or ClickBank’s Marketplace for example, you can earn money for every visitor who clicks on an ad that is displayed on your site. If you have experience using WordPress and CSS/HTML code (or even if you don’t) you can create simple banners that link out directly to different companies.
3) Sponsored Posts
If you regularly write about a topic that would be of interest to a company (and you don’t mind advertising on your site), you could consider writing sponsored posts. These are paid posts where companies pay you for a post including their product or service. It’s usually pretty obvious when these are sponsored because they will include sponsored by in a disclaimer at the top, and often pay more because readers know that these aren’t just random posts. Of course, these also won’t work for every site, so if you have an advertising-heavy audience you might not want to bother.
4) Webinars
Webinars are a great way to monetize your site because you can sell products, services, and information through live events. Once you set up your webinar, it’s important that you promote it well so people know what they are signing up for. Offer giveaways or discounts if people sign up for your webinar. Another good thing about webinars is that they allow for Q&A sessions; this creates more engagement with your audience and will attract more customers! You can also gain trust by offering tutorials on how to do something online. For example, if you have an ecommerce store, offer free shopping cart design tips in exchange for email addresses or follow-up sales. The best part of webinars is that once you create one, you can repurpose it into a video and upload it to YouTube. This allows you to reach even more people who might not be able to attend your live event. Remember: The key to success when using any of these methods is consistency and persistence! Don’t give up after one try—keep trying new things until something sticks!
5) Merchandise
Many bloggers make money by selling merchandise associated with their blogs. T-shirts and mugs are probably the most common kinds of merchandise sold online, but you can also create your own line of products, such as stickers or coffee cups. If you have enough traffic coming to your site, there’s a good chance you can monetize your content through merchandising—even if it doesn’t directly involve affiliate marketing. And don’t forget about mailing lists: Many bloggers collect email addresses from readers and then sell them on email lists to advertisers or sponsors that want access to an engaged audience. Selling emails is considered spam in many places and could cost you your list so be careful how you use it! (For more information on managing and protecting your mailing list, check out our recent post Your Mailing List: What You Need to Know.)
6) Create an e-book or course
If you’re someone who wants to have a career in blogging, then creating your own ebook or online course can be a great way to bring in some extra income. You can teach people things they are interested in and get paid for it. Using your existing following (whether it’s 5,000 subscribers or 500,000), you may be able to create a course and sell it. For example, an influencer with 10K Twitter followers may be able to easily sell a $500 home study course on how to make money blogging for those with blogs already.
We should also note that you can monetize your existing content through affiliate marketing as well by partnering with specific brands of products we will discuss later on! This is another way to generate revenue without having to create any new content yourself. However, if you really want to become an authority within your niche, teaching your audience how to do something they don’t know is a great way to do so. Plus you can ask them directly what they want to learn more about. There is no better market research than asking customers what their pain points are and solving those problems for them!
Conclusion
There are a few methods for monetizing your content: display advertising, affiliate marketing and sponsored posts. The type of monetization you choose will vary depending on your audience. Display ads tend to work best if you have a more niche audience and more time-sensitive revenue models (like AdSense) might be better suited if you’re looking for long-term revenue. In addition, check out whether or not your company has affiliate programs in place for specific products or categories—that could offer an easy way to start generating revenue right away. You can also look into paid sponsorships with big brands that want to reach your readership directly.
