How to Make Money Blogging in 2019
Bloggers can help their readers answer questions and fix problems while also earning an income from home. There are many realistic ways to make money blogging, but not every blogger can turn it into a full-time job.
It can take hours to start a blog, and sometimes six months to a year to start earning money. But self-discipline and determination make it possible to succeed.
Start to Make Money Blogging
There are blueprints to follow when trying to run a profitable blog. Try not to skip any steps, even if they seem redundant or unnecessary. Skipping an important step could lead to a failed start, or perhaps an abandoned blog altogether. Starting your blog already knowing how it works will give you an advantage.
1. Choose a Profitable Topic/Niche
First, choose a niche for your blog. You can decide to start a blog following your day-to-day life, but it’s best to have a specific focus.
Sticking to a niche and consistently creating content catering to readers interested in that topic will help the blog build authority in that field.
Here are some of the most common (and profitable) blogging niches:
- Parenting
- Personal finance
- Health and fitness
- Fashion and beauty
- Food
- Lifestyle
- Homesteading
- Travel
- Technology
- Sports
- Entertainment
- Product reviews
These blog niches are still broad and can be narrowed down even further to cater to specific readers. For example, a parenting blogger might talk about all things parenting or tailor articles toward parents of an only child, single parents, or parents of a large family.
2. Start Blogging
Once you have your niche, it’s time to start writing. While you should proofread your posts and ask for feedback, don’t wait until each post is absolutely perfect to hit publish. Start writing and be consistent. It will take time to build a fan base so start publishing as soon as possible.
3. Design a Monetization Strategy
It is important to choose a monetization strategy by selecting one or more ways to make money blogging. While every blog is unique, there are typically at least a few monetization strategies that work for most blogs.
4. Drive Traffic to the Blog
Traffic is key on the journey toward monetizing a blog and will lead to more potential income. New bloggers should make Pinterest and SEO a top priority while building followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is also a good traffic-building strategy.
Networking and spending time with people in your blog’s specific niche is a great way to bring in traffic. Over time, followers might share your content, bringing in even more traffic in the long run.
The Top Five Ways to Make Money Blogging
There are five main ways to make money blogging, and each strategy works in a variety of blogging niches.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways for new bloggers to make money. This means selling products from a third-party for a small commission.
These commissions typically range from 1 percent to more than 50 percent per sale. The lower commissions are often for physical items, while the higher commissions are for digital products.
To sell third-party products, a blog must focus on a need, attract relevant visitors, and ultimately build trust among its readers.
New bloggers can sign up for FlexOffers, ShareASale, or CJ Publishers, three companies that offer entire networks of affiliates companies that sell anything from shoes to online courses in parenting. You should use all three affiliate networks to maximize sales.
2. Digital Products
Creating digital products is a great low-cost way to build authority and make money. It’s one of the most high-profit, rewarding ways to make money blogging.
Online Courses
An online course is a digital product that has the potential to be sold over and over again. While the initial creation and marketing can take anywhere from weeks to months, the monetary gain of a successful course far outweighs the work.
Creating an online course does not require a teaching degree or formal teaching experience, but it does demand a good online presence, a pleasant voice, and knowledge of the topic. Also, consider investing in high-quality recording tools like a microphone and camera, as well as lighting and behind-the-scene aesthetics.
E-books
Many bloggers sell e-book as a way to make money blogging, especially those who are camera-shy or who love writing long-form pieces. E-books can help teach more about a certain topic or can be fictional.
The blog and digital product should work together to build up an income. If you blog about health, writing an e-book about your personal health journey and what you’ve learned. Try not to replicate exactly what’s on your blog.
Worksheets and Templates
From printable calendars to cleaning schedules to daily checklists, there’s no limit when it comes to creating digital and printable worksheets and templates to sell on a blog. Create the templates once, and sell them over and over on the blog to earn a passive income.
You can also decide not to sell digital products directly and use them to capture email addresses to sell other products.
3. Offering Services
Offering services to visitors is a great way to jumpstart a blog’s income – perhaps the fastest way to make money from a brand new site. Just one solid client can provide consistent, ongoing work.
Becoming a virtual assistant is a great place to in online services. Freelance website designing, freelance writing, proofreading, and transcription services are a few other online services that you can do from home.
4. Physical Products
Bloggers also make money selling physical products, such as homemade goods or items sourced through a local or overseas supplier. Some bloggers even make sales without ever touching the product themselves. This is known as drop shipping, and can be a lucrative monetization strategy.
5. Advertisements
One of the easiest ways to begin blogging for money is with display advertising. This won’t provide quick income on a new blog, because it requires a significant amount of traffic. But it’s still good to do this at the beginning.
There are three ways to make money with display advertisements: PPC, PPV, and private ads. Pay per click (PPC) pays a set amount every time a reader clicks on an advertisement; pay per view (PPV) pays when someone views an ad in passing.
The rates between PPC and PPV vary and depend on the blog’s niche and topic authority. Selling private ads is the third way to make money with ads. With this strategy, you have far more control over what ads are displayed on the site and how much money you make from them.
All three advertising methods have the potential to earn a lot of money on a high-traffic blog.
The Key to Make Money Blogging: Be Persistent
Earning an income from blogging takes hours of unpaid time at first and even more time to actually bring in money. But the potential rewards are high. Prepare to work hard and be persistent; it’s the final key to success.
Find a topic you love writing about that will provide lots of inspiration. Follow other bloggers and see what they do.