When I first got started blogging I really had my doubts that this method of online business could generate ‘that much income’. Well I was wrong!
I had been trying to make a living from what I love on YouTube more specifically for years, and I was struggling. Then it took me years later to start a blog around one of my passions and start creating content.
That was 10 months ago and now my blog earns $1000 monthly and that number continues to grow every month, which is super exciting. But how does my blog make money exactly?
And I have not even scratched the surface when it comes to taking full advantage of monetising my blog. So there are other ways to make income that I am currently working on.
These methods for making money from a blog are what I do and aspire to do with my blog. They require very little time to maintain once setup and mostly passive income once everything is established and running smoothly.
- Affiliate Marketing
- Advertisement
- Sponsorship
- Selling your own physical or digital products
- You could sell your blog
And so much more, but these five are all I am interesting in pursuing for my own blog. But lets get into the details and let me explain how you can make money from these different method. I will share how I made income from these streams!
Okay so first before you worry about making any money you need to start a blog and start publishing relevant content that people are searching for on Google and have a low competition to search volume ratio.
So pick your niche and start writing. It is important to avoid writing about your life and what you did today. No one is searching for “what did codey eat today”. I am not saying don’t include some personality into your articles but the topic needs to be around a search query.
How do you find these article ideas you ask?
You want to write at least 30 helpful articles where there is a gap in the market. In other words, say if you search a term into Google around your niche and;
- The question is not answer properly
- A forum shows up as one of the top results
- You click through to some of the top posts and they do a bad job of addressing the query. Have under about 1,000 words
These are all signs that you can fill a space and start ranking for search terms.
When you are starting out as a new blog. It is hard to rank for super competitive keywords like, “how to lose weight fast”. As you can see it is searched around 450,000 times every month. (Also it is important to not trust this volume number, I have write articles that get 1,000 pageviews/month that the tool said only get only 50) Yes that is heaps of traffic. But look who you are competing against to get top 10…..
Now I am not in the weight lose and dieting niche but I know that these are super authoritative websites that have been around the block for awhile. Expecting to write a article addressing this very broad search term is really a waste of time if your main goal is for it to rank.
Now maybe weight lose is a bad example for this. But lets see if we can find some more niched down article ideas that are addressing more specific problems. That is a good tip!
Think about what ‘very specific’ problems people are having in your niche that they might type into google
I suggest you install ‘Keywords Everyone’ onto your computer. It is a free Chrome or Firefox plugin. That will show you more keyword data on the search page to give you better ideas.
But you want to look at what people have asked. And this is where the blog article ideas start to come. In some niches these questions might be less competitive enough to start writing but in this niche it is competitive out here!
And as you can see Keywords Everywhere also has some suggested search to. So your best bet is to go through as many of these searches and assess using the three criteria that I mentioned earlier. To decide weather or not the article is worth writing.
You will get lucky and find some search terms that are under served and this is where you can come in. Now have a look at this search term I cam across for example in the DJ niche!
Look at that! It makes me feel so good inside. As I know if I start a DJ blog I could rank for this term. “Turntable for scratching” is search around 800 times per month and the first result is Reddit and another forum in third result. This is a article idea I would be writing for a new blog!
Once you find a decent amount of these articles and write them then you will start to get traffic to your blog. And the money is in the traffic. So now we can talk about the different income streams and how to make money, practically.
Affiliate Marketing With A Blog
Okay I really like the DJ niche for explaining how you can crush blogging and make some nice income! So for affiliate sales I like to write “Best X for Y” blog articles. So for example we can take the idea for the ‘turntable for scratching” term and we could realistically write a few articles around this term. But when it comes to affiliates you are selling other peoples products. So a article titled something like; Best 10 Turntables For Scratching.
If you are in this niche because it is your passion and you love DJing then you might already own a turntable that is great for scratching that you can recommend. But if not, no stress. There is a way around it.
When I started my blog in cycling I was writing articles like the ‘best bikes’ and it is hard to go out and buy 10 x $1500 bikes for a blog article when you are starting out. So instead I did my research on each item and also talked to people who have used that product before and ask their opinion on it.
You can do this reading online product reviews on Amazon and putting them in your own words. I also like using Facebook groups in your niche and writing a post in there asking people what is your favourite turntable for scratching? Some of the groups are very engaged and I have gotten 100s of comments just on one post. They essentially are writing the article for you.
You have the peace of mind that the content you are putting out there is authentic as it is proven by actual people recommending it and makes for a helpful article.
So if you write a article with 10 of the top turntables for scratching and write detailed about each product and what works and doesn’t work for each. Trying to help the reader as much as possible make a purchasing decision. You are not lying and saying buy this when really the product is crap. Make the reader come to organic conclusion then they will click through and purchase a item and this is where you earn commission from the referral.
Best to start with Amazon Associates. I didn’t realise this when giving the example but these scratching turntables are actually a good price range for affiliates. This Numark PT01 Scratch comes in at $149.00 on Amazon. So that means you would make around $7.50 to maybe $12 per turntable sale.
Also you want to avoid just only writing Best X fo Y type articles and only do these money articles. In the beginning stages of your blog you want to answer questions and write more helpful articles that have nothing to do with best product intentions.
So writing detailed guide posts like; Turntables For Scratching – Everything You Need To Know or a shorter blog post around 1,000 words that answers a specific question like; Can You Scratch On Any Turntable?
Look at that! The snippet does not even answer the question exactly. It is more about how to scratch and the next result down was a forum. So there is so much potential in this niche it is awesome!
I also use Avantlink for affiliate marketing. This platform allows you to signup to a large range of different brands and businesses affiliate programs.
As you can see just today I woke up and made three affiliate sales on Avantlink. Totalling $69.79 USD in profit. all I did was write a bunch of articles and add my affiliate link and after some time it is passive income!
I really want to motivate you to do this and start making money! I am not bullshitting you this stuff works! Also I started out just like you as a beginner 10 months ago, this can be you if you put in the work!
My blog where you see these earnings is still only small and I cannot wait to see how much it will be earning when it gets more and more traffic. Just for reference it is at about 20,000 pageviews per month.
But here again, look this is Amazon Associates affiliate earnings fro the past 30 days. See $232.80 just selling other peoples products. All you have to do is write a helpful article that directs your traffic to monetised links and boom!
Advertisements
This is the other income stream I earn from my blog! So again I only have two ways my blog is making money at the moment. Later I will explain my plans for the next income streams for blogging.
Putting ads on your site is rather easy and straight forward. You can start monetising your site withs ads from the starts with Google Ads if you want. but I don’t! I held out until my site reached 100 visitors everyday and signed up for Ezoic and after getting accepted the site was making about $2 every day with ads.
Really recommend that you set yourself that as a ads goal for your blog to hit around 100 visitors everyday on your site to then start advertising.
The guys over at Ezoic set everything up for me and I didn’t really do much to monetise. But first you want to wait till you get the traffic then all ads income really is a switch of a button and you will increase your blogs earnings overnight.
Again for some motivation my blog is currently making around $267.91 every month with ads setup.
Selling ads on your blog is such a great way to earn income. It is especially important to select the ‘right’ niche. As advertisers will most likely pay you better money as your audience is targeted to their potential customers.
Sponsorship
Bloggers all over the world make money from sponsorships! I am yet to make any! I have not tried yet. But as your blog grows you might want to consider reaching out to brands you really love and what sync in harmony with what your blog is about. And send out sponsorship proposals. This is what I am working on as we speak.
My plan is to reach out to brands and ask if they can send out demo bikes that I could review. My tactic here is to add value to their side of the deal. Yes they give me a bike, that I will give back anyway. But I am giving them a review, which is going to get them brand awareness. In the form of a blog post and Youtube video. This is a win-win! As I will get discovered on Youtube for people searching of the bike and this will grow my brand and audience while it also gets exposure to the brand and make them sales.
Plus I love bikes and getting a free bike to ride around on is perfect for me. Now I have no intention to chart them. But once I build a relationship and deliver some sales results for them. Then we might charge for our time to create the content and film and all that.
You could also reach out to brands and still try and build relationships in your industry and offer if they would pay you a monthly fee to have their brand sponsor your site.
There is so much potential here. I am just beginning to scratch the surface!
Selling Your Own Products
Again once you get that audience you can start selling your own products. Once you have proven to yourself that you make sales selling other peoples products as an affiliate. Why not create your own product and sell it too?
I am personally in the trenches putting together a digital product informational package that I plan to sell on my site. The goal here is to add as much helpful information that it just ads so much value.
For example; sticking with the DJ idea you could write your own ebook about, how to start your own DJ business and sell it as a video course and audio book combination. So much potential here! And if you have the solution and if that persons problem or pain point is strong enough they will throw money at it to solve it!
Selling Your Blog
So these last few ideas are not the detailed with actionable steps. Sorry about that! But I am new to them and only want to speak on what I have done.
But I have talked to a number of blogger who have sold blog before and it is something to think about. My blog right now is my baby and I would hate to sell it. But once you get a blog doing 100,000 pageviews you could sell it for 10’s of thousands of dollars. I believe it is generally 1 years earnings or something like that.
Final Thoughts
All these income streams are always fluctuating and bringing in different amounts every month. But having ‘multiple’ streams is key! Spreading your earnings to affiliate, ads, and your own products is a sure way to build a stable and reliable income for your business.
If you want to learn more advanced strategies and get exact step by step guidance to building your blog and creating articles that rank and get traffic, which ultimately make money. I highly recommend you check out this blogging course. You don’t have to buy it but I am a believer in investing in yourself and learning from people who know what they are doing.
Anyway all the best with your blog and I hope you make things happen!