How to make money as a Blogger – A Practical Guide

Blogging is now popular among people because several pro bloggers have shown the world how one can easily earn a full-time income by opting blogging as a career. Bloggers write about things they know and share their experiences with the world. In return, they monetize their blog’s traffic to earn money. Not all people understand the whole process. People know bloggers make money. They also follow popular bloggers that make money online but they still don’t know how to make money by blogging. So, I am writing this in-depth guide on how to make money as a blogger or how to make money by blogging.

I am a pro blogger earning money with my blogs. I have blogs and websites on different topics. I try to improve traffic and use different monetization strategies to earn money from my blogs. And you can also do this if you properly understand the whole process of content monetization. I am calling it a process because you need to learn how to do it right. It also varies from content to content. That means it also depends on what kind of articles you write.

When I started blogging back in 2010, Amit Agarwal from Labnol.org was my inspiration. But I learned a lot about blogging and monetization from harsh Agarwal from ShoutMeLoud.com.

Everyone has a motivation behind starting something but you cannot grow until you learn things. Blogging is about writing content, but you need to understand how to follow SEO guidelines and what things to consider for getting more readers and monetize the blog. In this article, I will focus on writing about blog monetization. I will add different ways to earn money by blogging.

Also see: Blogging Tools I Use and Recommend

Make money by blogging

If you really want to make money as a blogger, you need to see your blog as a business. You also need to take care of your blog in the same way. You will have to maintain your blog’s reputation, focus on building it a brand that people know and then you can earn good money you can rely on. Here are different ways to make money from blogging. This will answer “How do bloggers make money?”

I assume you have a blog. If you don’t have a blog, read my previous guide on How to start a blog. That guide will give you an overview of everything you need for starting a blog.

1. Display Advertising

This is the easiest and most common way of blog monetization. Display Advertising is a form of advertising where you put ads Banner on your website and get earning based on the number of clicks and impressions. For this, a blogger needs to join one of the popular advertising networks. Google Adsense is the most popular one. You just need to sign up and enter the details of your website. If your website is approved, you can put banner code on your website and ads will be served. Depending on your agreement with the advertising network, you will be paid for clicks or for impressions. Advertising networks take care of advertisers and send your earnings each month.

Here is a snapshot to show how Display Advertising looks on a web page.

Google Adsense is the most popular and trusted program that pays you for clicks. But it also makes sure you are not paid for clicks made by you. Along with Google Adsense, there are several other advertising networks. You can check this list of Google Adsense alternatives. You need to signup these programs and put ads code on your website after getting approval. Google doesn’t approve any new website. So, read how to get Adsense approval easily for help.

Before using Display Advertising, you need to understand a few things. The most important thing is the ads placement. You need to put ads banners on the places where ads are visible to people visiting your website, but make sure ads are not covering your content. You should never use more than 4 ad units on your website. It looks unprofessional and also makes your website slow. You can also read this article, to learn ways to boost Adsense Earning.

For considerable earning using Display Advertising, your blog should get at least 2000 unique visits a day. Otherwise, you won’t get anything. Out of 100, 3-4 people click on ads. That’s a general average. Your blog may get lower or higher depending on design and content. Now if you are getting an average of $0.04 per click (This may vary as it depends on several factors), you will be earning around $3.2. The monthly income will be $96. This is just an estimation. Sometimes we don’t see a single click on ads even after 1000 pageviews. People also use Ad blockers to block ads.

Google Adsense or any other advertiser use AI to detect if the click was organic or intentional just to boost your earning. So, never try to click on ads on your own website. If you regularly do this, you will be banned for a lifetime.

Display Advertising works well only if your blog is getting a good amount of visits. If you want better earning, focus on improving traffic. For this, you can use social media or follow SEO practices.

Read: How To Increase Traffic Of Your Blog

Sometimes you get a call from brands directly to put their banner ads for a fixed amount. If they get good clicks, they will continue the collaboration for a longer time.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is most profitable and my favorite way of monetizing the blog. The only thing you need is a better understanding of your readers and traffic. I have already written an in-depth guide on Affiliate Marketing. In that blog post, I talked about the term Affiliate marketing and how to use it for earning money from the blog.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t require much traffic. Even if you are getting 10 people a day on your blog, you can get success in selling a product to one of them and earn a commission on the sale.

You need to select affiliate programs depending on the blog content. For example, I have a blog Techlomedia on gadgets and apps. I joined Amazon and other retailers’ affiliate program to promote good gadgets like earphones, headphones, and smartphones. In my blog UseThisTip, I promote software products, hosting and WordPress plugins. You cannot sell software on a blog that talks about fashion or food. If you have a fashion blog, promote clothing brands and join the affiliate program of relevant stores. You can promote online food ordering platforms on a food blog. Travel bloggers can promote booking.com or similar booking platforms to generate a sale and earn a commission. Analyze your blog posts and think about what kinds of products you can promote in your blog posts.

Not just products, you can also promte courses. Coursera and Udemy have tbeir affiliate programs.

SEMrush is really an important tool for affiliate marketers. it helps in knowing potential keywords that are less competitive and easy to rank.

3. Sponsored Posts

When your blog gets a good reach, several brands will contact you for sponsored stories. Sponsored Stories are stories that specifically promote a product from the brand in return for money. On Techlomedia, I do several stories for several software and gadget related brands. For example, there is a new app and the company behind the app wants people to know about and convey a message. They offer a good sum in return for a space in the blog. This monetization method works well with a niche audience.

Sometimes you may get emails regarding sponsored posts asking for do-follow links from the post. Well, avoid such emails. Because you are not just promoting the brand, but also passing link juice that shouldn’t be cheap. So, ether charger high or completely avoid selling links. Google doesn’t link websites that sell links and can slap your blog for this reason. If you really want to earn from your blog in the long run, you should avoid selling no-follow links. Accept sponsored posts only from brands how genuinely wants to promote their products on your blog.

I also advice you to make a media kit that details your blog’s traffic stats, social media following, audience demographics and other data that companies look for in a website. Then you can also directly approach brands to negotiate a sponsorship deal. You can use Canva for making Media Kit of your blog. There are several ready-made template to edit.

Always be careful in choosing the products and brands to promote. Avoid promoting bad products just because you are getting money. I get several emails from brands who have gambling websites but I completely avoid them. Promoting band products will affect your reputation. So, never ever do this.

4. Sponsored Social Media Posts

When you start a blog, you will obviously make social media pages of it. If your blog’s brand pages on different social media platforms have a good number of followers, brands may reach you for sponsored social media posts. You may have heard the term called Social Media influencer. People with good social media following are called social media influencers. Most of the brands actively pay to profiles with good followers on Twitter and Instagram for posting their promotional content.

So, not just work on getting good traffic on your blog but also on getting followers on your brand pages. It may not help you initially but helps a lot when you have more than 10000 followers.

Same thing I want to write again. Never ever promote a band product or brand.

5. Sell your own eBooks

Some of the top bloggers make a good amount of money by selling their own eBooks. They write ebooks on topics they are master on and sell it using their blog. The blog helps in promoting the book. But this helps only if you have good traffic. Otherwise, no one will ever notice. You can also sell your eBook on platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing Platform and reach millions of readers on Amazon.

6. Promote your Services

I also love to code and I write about coding, WordPress, web design and similar things on my blog UseThisTip. Several people who want software or web development work done contact me after reading my blog posts. My blog posts give them an idea of my skills and they decide to hire me for the work. You can also use your blog to show people your skills and promote services. I offer services like software development, WordPress customization, blog consultancy, and digital marketing. You may offer something else depending on the skills you have.

You can easily get clients from your blog. If you work well, they will hire you again whenever they have similar work to be done.

Challenges

It seems easy but it is not. You can not just start working on any of the blog monetization methods and earn. There are so many challenges one has to fake with a new blog. Putting ads or writing about any product with affiliate link doesn’t earn for you. Even if you put lots of effort, there is no surety of earning in the initial phase.

Can you really make money from blogging?

Obviously you can. You can take my example and I know several bloggers who are earning big just by blogging. When I talk about earning from blogging, I just include earning that you get through your blog. Monetizing a blog takes time and effort. It also relies on the traffic your blog is getting. The more readers and page views your blog attracts, the more money you can make.

FAQs about making money as a blogger

Deepanker

I am a tech blogger, traveler, and entrepreneur