17 Ways To Monetize a Blog

Please note some of the links in this post may contain affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. As always any recommendations that I make are always based on my personal experiences with the product and I have not received any free products or anything else by these companies.

So now you have written a bunch of epic blog posts, gotten yourself a fan base and perhaps some hardcore groupies, what is next?

It is time to capitalise your new found fame and make some money.

Ok I said it, money. Some of you may not want to make money from your blog and that is perfectly fine.

I know a few people who are really iffy and feel that they will lose their authenticity. I get it and if that is the case feel free to skip this awesome blog post.

However the reason I am writing this post is because this is the number one question I get asked on a regular basis which is – How do you make money with blogging?

But before I start, some semantics, yes I know … for those spelling nazis.

I have spelt monetize with a “Z”, for those who have picked this up (my British / Aussie friends, yes I am an Aussie – Oi Oi Oi) – thank you, but there is a specific reason why I have done this and it relates to SEO.

Without going into too much detail, it is to with what I am trying to rank for in the search engines.

One more thing, some technical marketing/sales lingo, if you are serious into blogging or anything online you will hear these terms floating around quite often.

• Pay Per View (PPV) – You get paid on the number of views
• Pay Per Click (PPC) – You get paid every time someone clicks on something
• Pay Per Sale (PPS) – You get paid for a sale
• Pay Per Lead (PPL) – You get paid when you refer someone
• Pay Per Install (PPI) – You get paid per install
• Pay Per Download (PPD)- You get paid per download

Plus when I refer to these terms, I will be talking in the context from a publisher perspective. If you are a blogger you are a Publisher!

Now that we have gotten that out of the way.

‘Show me the Money’ – Jerry Mcguire

1. Contextual Advertising – Google Adsense

This is perhaps one of the easiest ways to make money online and where most of you will probably start from.

The way Contextual Advertising works is you are basically selling advertising space on your blog to advertising networks like Google Adsense or Media.net and they will serve advertising based on your content.

Usually you will get paid by the number of clicks (PPC) but sometimes it is pay per view (PPV).

I have seen clicks go from $0.02 to $10.00, but usually it is around $0.25-$1.

“Warning: If you are serious about monetizing your blog with Google Adsense don’t click on your own ads. You will get banned faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100m.”

I personally don’t use this method for this blog but I have used Google Adsense in various other niche blogs/websites where I have built in the past.

In the above picture you can see a snapshot of one my website/blog where have generated over $40,000 revenue with Google Adsense.

2. Amazon Associate Program

The Amazon Associate program is another great way to monetize your blog.

Amazon offers a variety of tools and options to help you generate revenue from your blog. However from my experience the best way has always been simply creating a link either a text link or image link and sending the visitor to the product page listed on Amazon.

For every item you sell you can make anything from 4%-10% depending on your volume.

What makes the program unique is you are credited for a sale for any item purchased by the visitor within a 24 hour period.

This often makes “The Earning Report” a very interesting read; the strangest thing I have ever come a crossed was someone buying a female condom. Ha, I had to Google it, I didn’t even know there was such a thing! Now I know.
 

3. Affiliate

This is perhaps one of my favourite ways of making money online. Unlike Amazon Associate program, the commissions are usually much higher which can be anything from $20 to $500.

There are literally thousands of affiliate programs out there from travel, shopping, fashion, technology, services and many more.

Some of the affiliate programs I am a member of include my trusted hosting company Bluehost and my email autoresponder Aweber.

4. Ebook

Why not write an ebook and sell it on your blog.

The best ebooks are usually how to guides and things that solves a specific problem.

You can charge anything from $7 to $47 or more. Really depends on what it is and how much people are willing to spend.

The potential is unlimited, write it once and if it is really good it could be cash cow for life.

5. Online course

Another way to monetize your blog is to create an online course.

This is a much more advance method as it involves a bit more work but I have seen people create the crappiest courses but they sell like hot cakes. I guess it doesn’t really matter how crap it is but if the content is good, who cares.

One of my favourite bloggers James Clear who blogs about habits and productivity monetizes his blog with courses.

6. Product

Ok this is going into the realm of ecommerce.

You could offer a gift pack or something. Source some stuff from Alibaba and you can sell them on your blog. Damn why didn’t I think of this earlier.
Perhaps not a big money spinner but hell it’s an idea.

7. Sponsorship

Another method is to get or ask for sponsorship.

If you grow your audience to a decent size you will have sponsors wanting to do business with you left right and center. But it also doesn’t hurt to ask.

Best way for this to happen is to create your own Media Kit.

8. Service

If you have a business you can always sell your service on your blog.

For those who don’t know already I run a small boutique web development house and I rarely mention it on this blog but on a number of occasions I have gained a few clients through this blog.

Small plug for myself – If you want a nice guy and someone who has been in the trenches and 15 years of digital/development experience to build your business website, send me a message.

9. Sponsored Posts

Imagine this, someone online contacts you and asks you can I write an article on your blog for free and for this privilege I want to pay you.

You think you won the lotto or something!

Crazy as it may sounds, this is called a sponsored post.

The only condition is they get a few links back to their blog.

I have a friend who literally makes $300-500$ a month from this alone.

10. Referral Programs

They are very similar to affiliate programs the only difference they are usually pay per leads.

Sometimes you are not paid by cash but instead store credit or rewards points like Swagbucks.

11. Job Board

You could also monetize your blog with a job board. You could charge a small fee to list a job.

I really don’t know many people who have done this successfully.

But there is this one guy, a fellow Aussie name Darren Rowse who owns ProBlogger.net and his job board alone has generated him approximately $300K.

12. Private Advertising Space

An alternative to contextual advertising is to actually sell your space directly to advertisers.

You can either do this through an Agency like BuySellAds or DIY.

Again, I would add this information in your own Media Kit.

13. Paid Newsletter

A paid newsletter is also a fantastic way to generate a long term income for your blog.

You can charge a monthly subscription for exclusive content, tips, guides and information.

This can be really easily setup and can literally delivered via email.

14. Paid Forum or Private Facebook Group

Similar to a newsletter, you can start a private forum or even a Facebook group.

Create an exclusive club or community. I have personally joined a lot of forums however the private/paid ones are where all the trade secrets are shared and it is where you meet serious players.

You can charge membership fees either monthly or yearly. This can easily setup via Paypal Subscription.

15. CPA network

This really is for the advance people. I won’t explain this one too much as it is not something I would monetize a blog exclusively with unless it is part of a bigger marketing project.

Usually this involves paid advertising, social media, search and email marketing.

16. Sell Merchandise

If you are an artists, graphic designer or photographer, you can upload your designs online and get companies like Zazzle to manufactures products, ships it and pay you.

Promote this on your blog and watch the money roll in.

You can set your royalty rates from 5% to 99%.

I know an art coach who sells a ton of merchandise with this method.

17. Donations

Lastly a nice way is to setup a donation box.

For instance I have recently started a simple service called AskNorm – where anyone can email me any problems they need help with.

Which can be done very easily with Paypal. I use Paypal.me

All I ask people to do is if they found my advice useful buy me a coffee or leave a tip here.

So there you are 17 different ways you can monetize your blog with and I am sure there are many more ways out there. The key point here is to find a model that works for your blog.

It could be context advertising or affiliate or a service or any combination.

The only way to find the best way to monetize your blog is to experiment until you find the one.