Blogging has become very popular today. Every day more blogs are built. Many bloggers are making a full-time income from their blogs to the tune of 6 figures and even more. However, it is also worth mentioning that there are many bloggers who struggle and are making substantial money from blogging. In this blog post, we will discuss how to make money from blogging.
Here are some blogging statistics:
- Each month, approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages.
- There are about 70 million posts being published each month by WordPress users.
- Blogging has grown by 12.5% since 2015.
- Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to have a positive ROI on their efforts.
To make money blogging is not by accident. There are certain things that six and seven figures bloggers do that set them apart from the rest. It is a clearly thought out plan and strategy that successful bloggers do every day to achieve the results they get.
Table of Contents
1. Pick a Niche
When you decide to start blogging, you must spend some time thinking and planning on the topic you want your blog to be about. Is it dating advice, stock trading, parenting, health? You will have to pick a niche that you are passionate about and knowledgeable about.
You may wonder why choose a niche that you are passionate about? If you are not passionate about a niche, you may find it difficult to continue blogging in the long term. Making money from blogging is a long-term strategy and you must be in it for the long term to have a realistic chance of accomplishing your goals.
2. Do Research
There are millions of blogs online but a small percentage of those bloggers make a significant amount of money. Why is that the case? If you randomly pick a blog and study it, you will realize not many blogs are built with a clear plan. When you start a blog, you must plan how to attract the right audience to your content. You have to research the topics and keywords that searchers are using to find solutions to what they want.
Additionally, you also have to research your competitors and see their strategies for success. As blogging has become more popular, the competition has also become very strong. There are many free and paid tools to help you do the research on topics and keywords to write articles about to drive traffic to your blog. The Google keyword planner, Google Trends, SEM Rush, and Ahrefs are just a few of the tools.
3. Article Writing
Have you heard of the “evergreen content”? With blogging competition as strong as it could ever be, you will have to create many articles on topics that meet the searcher’s intent. One way bloggers are successful is by creating much “evergreen content”. Evergreen content is content that is timeless. It is relevant today and will be relevant 40 years from today.
These topics will drive readers to your content as long as there is the internet. An article on “How To Tie a Tie” is evergreen content. It is not for a period of time and loses its relevance after 10 years. “How To Tie a Tie” will be relevant to young and older men as long as there is life.
4. Build Expertise, Authority & Trust
Part of your long-term strategy with blogging is to build expertise, authority, and trust in the niche that you blog about. How do you do that, you may ask? Cover all of the topics in your niche by creating content such as articles, videos, infographics, ebooks, guest posts, interviews, reviews, etc.
You want to cover the topics over time so that you become an authority for that niche in the eyes of your readers and the search engines. This allows your blog to also gain trust and expertise with the search engines.
5. Monetize Your Blog
As you build the authority, expertise, and trust of your blog, you want to work on monetizing your blog. Many of the options for monetization depend on how many views your blog is experiencing on a monthly basis. However, you can start with the minimum and work your way up as it gets more views. There are so many ways to monetize a blog today. What is required is that your blog meets the requirements to be monetized with some premium display ad networks.
Google Adsense
Google Adsense is a display ad network. If your blog is gaining up to 10K pageviews monthly, you can apply for Google Adsense and create an account. Once accepted, you place some code on your website and Google will display text and other ads on your website related to your niche.
When someone reads your articles and clicks on the Google Adsense ads, you will be paid a percentage of the commissions for driving traffic to a website that created the ad. The cold hard fact is that Google Adsense pays you pennies compared to other display networks. Your goal should be to continue creating content and increase the page views on your blog so that you qualify for display ad networks that pay a lot more.
Media.net
Media.net is another display ad network to monetize your blog. It is very similar to Google Adsense. You can apply for an account and when your application is approved, you can place a code on your website that allows media.net to place ads on your website. When someone clicks on the ads, you will be paid a percentage of the commissions for driving traffic to the website.
Media.net, like Google Adsense, pays pennies on the dollar when compared to other display ad networks. As your pageviews increase, you want to graduate to a display ad network that will pay you a lot more. These display ad networks are discussed later in this article.
Affiliate Marketing Programs
Affiliate marketing programs have been one of the original ways to monetize a blog. There are affiliate marketing programs for almost any niche you can think of. With so many affiliate marketing networks available today, you should have no difficulty finding affiliate programs to monetize your blog. You could type your niche plus the words “affiliate marketing program” in Google to find many affiliate programs for your blog.
Amazon Associate Program
Amazon is the largest eCommerce company today which generates billions of dollars. You can apply and become part of the Amazon affiliate program. When you write some articles, you can insert your Amazon affiliate links into the articles when you recommend products that relate to the topic of the article. You can also place Amazon banners on the sidebar of your site. The only downside with the Amazon Associate program is that the commissions are low and Amazon continues to reduce the commission percentage.
It could be one of the affiliate marketing programs you begin with and when your blog is generating thousands of page views, you can replace many of the Amazon affiliate program links with those of other affiliate marketing programs that pay higher commissions than Amazon.
eBay
eBay is another eCommerce giant. They have an affiliate marketing program that many bloggers and marketers don’t take advantage of. You can apply for the eBay partner network. Once your application is approved, you can monetize your blog with links to products and also use banners on your blog. eBay has thousands of products like Amazon that can be used to monetize your blog.
Clickbank
Clickbank is one of the most popular affiliate marketing networks. Most of the products on Clickbank are digital products although they also carry physical products. The barrier to entry for Clickbank is not high and you can set up an account. You can also monetize your blog by recommending digital products to your audience that relates to topics covered on your blog. Additionally, you can also place banners on your blog for products on Clickbank. Click bank has many products from a wide range of niches.
ShareASale is another popular affiliate marketing network with hundreds of physical products in thousands of niches. With ShareASale, after creating an account, you will have to apply to each affiliate program in ShareASale that you want to promote. Once accepted, you can then promote products to your audience with banners and contextual links.
Rakuten Advertising
Rakuten advertising is similar to ShareASale. Once your application is approved, you can find many affiliate programs to promote and include links in articles to these products as well as banners.
Commission Junction
Commission Junction is another popular and large affiliate network. They have thousands of affiliate programs in their network. Once your application is approved, you can monetize your blog with banners and links in your articles to products relating to your niche.
JV ZOO
If your niche is the make-money or biz op niche, you can create an account with JV ZOO and monetize your blog with products from this affiliate marketing network as well as from Clickbank.
WarriorPlus
WarriorPlus is another affiliate marketing network in the make money and Biz ops niche. If your blog is in this niche, you can promote products from this affiliate marketing network to your audience.
Ezoic
Ezoic is a display ad network that requires 10K to 30K pageviews. Once your blog is generating page views in this range, you can apply to Ezoic to monetize your blog. Ezoic is a big jump from Google Adsense and media.net. They will pay you better than what you got from Google Adsense and Media.net. Ezoic also has video ads that can be used to monetize your blog.
Newor Media
Newor Media is another display ad network that requires 30K+ pageviews to get accepted. Once your application is approved, you can monetize your blog with display ads from Newor Media.
Mediavine
Mediavine is another display ad network that requires 50+ pageviews from your blog. Once you meet this requirement, you can monetize your blog with display ads as well as video ads from Mediavine. You will generate more income from Mediavine than you got from Ezoic, Newor Media, and others. Mediavine is taking your income to the next level.
AdThrive
AdThrive is one of the best, if not the best, display ad networks to join. They require 100k+ pageviews. You will generate more money when you monetize your blog with AdThrive. AdThrive is like putting your monetization on steroids. Your goal should be to create content monthly to reach 100K+ page views. Once you have attained that benchmark, AdThrive should be your next move.
Ex.co
Ex.co is a video display ad network that can be used to monetize your blog with video ads. Video ads and display ad providers can be different. You can monetize your blog with display ads from Mediavine or AdThrive and also monetize it with video ads from Ex.co. There is no exclusivity.
Private Display Networks
There are private display networks that you can find through masterminds and recommendations that will pay you handsomely. They are not accessible to anyone. But when you get into private display networks, you can generate a lot of revenue.
Private Partnerships
Private partnerships that you can enter into that will also generate a lot of money when you monetize your blog with these partnerships. You can get invited into these private partnerships from masterminds that you are a member of and also from recommendations.
6. Create a Media Company
At some stage with your blog, you will have to take yourself out of the business and work on it rather than work in it. To achieve 7 figures and beyond, you will need to start employing articles, link builders, and project managers. I can just imagine what you are thinking as you read this. Building out a complete media company is not difficult as you think it is.
You start with employing one article writer. Create standard operating procedures with pdfs, excel spreadsheets, videos, and other training. After you have employed one writer and they have been well trained, that will have freed up some of your time.
This will allow you to continue working on your business, find out the most immediate need, and employ people to meet those needs. Slowly but surely, you employ more writers, project managers, etc. to create an efficient system and produce content on a daily basis to have a real media company that generates 7 figures or even more than that.
The Bottom Line
How to make money from blogging is not rocket science. It involves a plan and strategies to implement the daily monetizing of your blog. You can create a blogging business that generates 6 or 7 figures monthly by implementing a system. In this blog post, we have laid out a blueprint that can be implemented to make money from blogging and accomplish your goals.