You will have seen that people are making money from their blogs. It is natural to consider doing it for yourself, and why not? Documenting your life, your travels or sharing experiences is an appealing way to earn a living. Don’t be thinking that this is an easy way to make money because it is actually quite tricky, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. In this post, I am going to answer the question of “How can I make money from a blog?”. I will give you loads of tips to help you get started and tell you the truth about what it all entails.
How To Monetise Your Blog
At this point, let’s pretend that you already have you blog set up. If not, don’t worry, I will give you the information on how to do that later. But first, I am going to go through all the ways of making money from a blog.
Google Adsense
Google Adsense is one of the most popular advertising platforms available. It gives website owners the ability to make money from their website traffic.
Google Adsense is straightforward to set up and use. Once you have created an account, you copy and paste a small piece of code on to your website (there are full instructions on how to do this). This code will place targeted adverts on your page that are either relevant to the content or the reader’s interests.
When visitors to your website click on these adverts, you get paid for it. Google charges the advertiser for the click and you, as the publisher gets 68% of the price.
How much you earn depends on the competition and the CPC (Cost Per Click) in the niche. Usually, you will get $0.20 to $15 per click. However, it is common to get below $3 per click depending on the niche. You can see how expensive the clicks are within each niche using the SEMrush CPC Map.
As you can see, insurance is the most expensive niche right now in the USA. Also, online education is a good one too.
How much you earn really depends on the amount of traffic you get to your website. This is because a tiny amount of people will actually click on the advert, so you need a considerable amount of traffic to make any significant money from the adverts. To do this, I recommend that you choose a niche that you have a real interest in. This way, you will have the knowledge and motivation to create loads of excellent content. Believe me, this is much easier and more fun than creating content for something that you are not interested in.
Your website needs lots of posts with lots of information. You are not going to make any money from adverts with a website with only a few pages.
Sell Advertising Space
When your website has a good following and is getting a significant amount of traffic, you will be able to sell advertising space. This is a great way to make money from your website, as you have control over what is displayed and you can determine how much you charge for each advert. You can even negotiate with advertisers to make sure it works best for both of you. But how do you sell advertising space?
If you have a WordPress website, you can use a plugin to create a form to advertise advertising space. This is an effective way of making it easy for people to contact you about placing adverts on your website.
Alternatively, you can approach advertisers directly. This obviously takes more work, but putting in the effort can be worth your while.
When you get some interest from advertisers, you need to consider the placement of your adverts carefully. This is because specific locations on a page make more money than others. You can determine the best places for adverts by trial and error. Adverts are usually placed in the sidebar, as a header banner or strategically placed within the content. If you have an Adsense account, you can use the MonsterInsights WordPress plugin to give you information on which advert placements are working the best.
Before I move on to other monetisation methods, it is worth noting that adverts are not always the best way to make money. Obviously, if you have a massive amount of traffic, you will benefit from them. However, if you have a page where you promote a particular product or service with an affiliate link, you may want to avoid adverts. This is because adverts distract the reader, and they may not click on the affiliate link, from which you will make more money if they buy.
It may be worth experimenting with both to work out what the best mix for your website is.
Sell Your Services
If you have a skill that you can demonstrate to a high level, you can sell it. For example:
- Writing
- Teaching
- Photography
- Graphic design
- Consultancy
- Videography
- Personal training
- etc
The service you sell will be related to the niche your website works in. If you have a travel blog, you may be able to sell your writing skills in the travel industry.
To get to the pint where you can do this, you really need to be established. This is because you need to prove that you can deliver your service to a high standard.
Your website’s sole purpose could be to promote your services. To build up some trust, there are a few different things you can do:
Testimonials – When someone writes a testimonial about their experience with working with you, you gain credibility. This is because people tend to trust other people’s experiences. Ideally, create a series of video testimonials from previous customers. This will help to convince potential customers that you are worth doing business with.
Customer reviews – Similar to testimonials, but reviews from customers placed on your website, helps new customers make up their mind. Reviews are insightful and a great way of showing people what you are capable of.
Search Engine Optimisation – By having some good SEO skills, your website will be put in front of your audience more. When someone searches for the service you provide on the internet, you want your website to be as high in the search results as possible. This will attract people to it, and you stand more of a chance of people hiring you.
Sell Physical Products
By having an online shop, you can sell products made by yourself or by other people. To ensure that you make this business model a success, there are a few crucial steps to take:
- Research – You will need to come up with an idea. Usually, this comes from recognising a problem you have experienced and realising that other people are going to have similar problems. You need to research the products you intend to sell, how much to buy them for and how much people are willing to pay for them. You also need to find out the demand for the product, make sure it is worth investing in.
- Supply – Is the product something you make yourself, or can you outsource it. For example, if you had a clothing line, would it be cheaper and better quality if your designs were produced by a clothing factory geared up for it, rather than turning your garage into a sweatshop. If this is the case, get some samples made to ensure that the quality is good enough to put your brand on it.
- Selling – You need to determine if people are going to buy your product. Therefore, before you buy in a massive amount of stock, test the market. Sell some on Amazon or eBay, to test the water. If it goes well, buy a bulk order, give a few samples away and sell the rest. Once you have determined that you can sell your product, build an eCommerce website and promote it.
Simple 🙂
Obviously, there is a lot more to it than this simplified example, but you get the idea.
Sell Digital Products
Selling digital products over physical products can be very advantageous. This is because you don’t have to make, buy, store, or ship them. Additionally, you only have to create them once, and you can sell them multiple times. Customers love them, as they can just download them and they have them instantly, rather than having to wait for a delivery or going out to get them themselves.
Examples of digital products are:
- eBooks
- Courses
- Music
- Video
- Software
- Apps
- Photos
- WordPress themes
- Documents and templates
- Designs
- 3D printing programs
- etc
There are disadvantages, though. It takes a long time to make any money, as you need to build up your online presence and trust. Also, in many cases, you are wide open to plagiarism. This is when people copy your ideas and product and sell it themselves.
Sponsored Content
When website owners become authorities within their niche, they can have sponsored content. This is when you write a review or an article, but get paid by the advertiser. Companies will pay you to have a featured article on your blog. For example, this could be a review of a product, service or even a hotel Bali!
This is great to boost your online presence too, as the advertiser will share your article on their social media. To get to this point, you really need to be respected within your niche and be an authority.
Donations
If you have a small but loyal following, you can actually ask for donations. By promising to spend the contributions on coving expenses and continued growth of your blog, you can get the boost you need. A great example of a website that utilises donations is www.justinguitar.com. Justin now has other ways of monetising his website. But he started off by giving free online guitar lessons and people donated to him. He then started selling courses, books, DVDs, Apps and clothing. Justin is a prime example of how you can start with selling your services and incorporating pretty much every trick in the book. He comes across as a really nice guy and really helpful. This is the way to win over your audience and become an authority within your niche. Good luck to him.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the most popular way of making money from a blog. This is when you promote other people’s products and services to your audience. You make money from affiliate links, which reward your efforts with a commission from each sale that goes through your website.
In my experience, this is the best way to make money from a blog. The sky is the limit in terms of how much you can earn. It is also a really fun way of having an online business. This is because you are writing about things you have a passion about.
What Does It Take To Have A Successful Blog?
Now you have a few ways that you can make money from a blog, you need to know what it entails to build a successful blog.
Learn About Your Niche
The niche you place your blog in is critical. It is really tempting to just pick a niche out of the air because you have an interest in it. You might get lucky, and it works; however, I advise you to do some homework first.
Not all niches are equal in terms of their earning potential. The niche you choose should have the following characteristics:
- Something you are passionate about
- Have a good following
- Have low competition
- Be focussed and not too broad
- Not go out of fashion
These characteristics are essential to the success of your blog. But, the most important one is how focussed it is. I have made the mistake of choosing a niche that is far too broad. This caused me to spend lots of time and effort on a website that was doomed to fail.
Do Proper Keyword Research
Keyword research may sound really dull and laborious. It isn’t, as it doesn’t take too long, and by spending an hour building a list of quality keywords, you will have enough content to write for months.
Keywords are what people type in to search engines. By basing your blogs around these search terms, you will attract free traffic to your blog. This is because you have the content that they are looking for. Search engines put the most relevant content at the top of the search results. If your blog was a review or a guide, and you managed to get it high in the Google search results, there is more chance of your audience visiting it. The more traffic you have, the more money you will earn using the methods I have described above.
If you feel that somebody else could do a better job than you, or are more equipped, you can find a freelancer to do keyword research for you. This will also free up your time to do other things. You can find SEO specialists that can provide useful keyword research on Fiverr.
Post Great Content
The primary way you are going to get your content to the top of the search results is by creating great content. This is because search engines make it easier for content that relates to the search term to rank. They take a few things into consideration, such as the word count, the keyword and related keywords. Doing this makes sure that the user sees the most relevant content to their search.
Creating lots of quality content regularly, is the most important part of having a blog. To save you time and to maintain consistency, you can outsource some of your content creation to freelancers. Click here to learn more about what freelancers do.
Content creation is one of the services I provide, so if you would like to know what I can do for you, give me a shout.
Be Helpful
Some bloggers are tempted to just write to please the Google gods, with the hope of ranking high. This is not the way to do it, as Google can see when you are trying it on. The best way is to write naturally, as the whole point is to help the reader. Google’s algorithms make it, so the most helpful content ranks the best.
Also, when the reader finds your content, they want valuable information. If they don’t, they won’t trust you enough to buy through your website or even hang around very long.
What You Need To Know About Starting A Blog
It Takes A Long Time To Earn Money
There is no such thing as a get rich quick scheme. You need to build up the traffic to your blog with quality content using quality keywords. Other reasons why it takes a long time are:
- It takes time to write good content. It gets easier with practice, but doing the research adds time on to content creation.
- Google algorithms make you wait. When a new website has been created, Google puts it in the “sandbox”. It stays here for about four months, to make sure you get out of the sandbox, you need to produce quality content often and consistently. The sandbox reduces your ability to rank highly. But when you are out of it, and you do it properly, it is possible that your content can be at the top within an hour.
This is not to say that it isn’t worth it. By following the right steps, being super patient and consistent, you can earn a decent living from your blog. You just have to stick with it and get through the early days of putting in all that effort with no reward.
There Are Loads Of Advantages
When you start to make thing s work, you will enjoy loads of benefits of earning money with a blog.
- Flexibility – You can work anywhere as long as you have an internet connection. The advantage of not having to conform to someone else’s time table allows you to work at any time too. This means you can add value to your life by doing other things when you would typically be at work. For me it is snowboarding and mountain biking, as long as I get my list of jobs done, I know I am being productive enough.
- Excellent earning potential – By having an online presence, you are not bound to regular “opening times”. You have the potential to have people visiting your blog 24/7 from all over the world, meaning that there is no limit to how much you can earn.
How Can I Make Money From A Blog? - Answered!
There is a lot of information here, you may want to bookmark tis post so you can revisit it. If you have any questions or thoughts on this subject, please leave them in the comments section below, or contact me via Fiverr if you would like some content writing for you.