Blogging can be one of the most fulfilling hobbies, but make no mistake; it can actually make you quite good money.
If you have a blog or are thinking of starting one, it is never too late to start out and turn your blogs into a source of income.
While blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme or the easiest way to make money online, with a concrete action plan, you can start a blog, grow it, and make a life-changing income from it.
All you need is to offer value to your readers and have enough patience for your blog to drive organic traffic.
Starting a blog is relatively straightforward, but turning it into a profitable one requires some patience, skills, and passion for writing. In this post, you will learn more about blogging for money and find other useful information relating to the subject.
Let’s start with understanding how a blog drives organic traffic.
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How does blogging drive organic traffic?
Organic traffic refers to the visitors that land on your website as a result of unpaid searches. As such, visitors find your website because it ranks well on search engines.
That said, the easiest and most effective way to increase your organic site traffic is by publishing quality and relevant content on your blog regularly.
By blogging, you create a large catalog of helpful, persona-optimized content centered on your market niche than your website allows.
So, how does this drive organic traffic? It is very simple. As long as you are consistent with crafting and publishing quality content, Google will constantly crawl your pages and make your content available on the first page for related keyword searches.
Because your content is already on the first page, internet users will be more likely to click on your pages. Ultimately, what you get is organic traffic.
Notably, driving organic traffic through blogging requires patience and is possible only if you create valuable content that presents your brand uniquely. But, no matter how long it takes, the most exciting part is that it is free traffic.
How to blog for money
While income generation is not the only reason to blog, blogging presents multiple opportunities for you to create income.
So, get your blog up and running, then use these easy ways to turn your blog into a profitable avenue.
Affiliate marketing
When blogging for money is mentioned, promoting products is often the first thing that comes to mind.
Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a relevant product or service to your audience by adding affiliate links (special trackable links) into the text of your blog. It’s the absolute favorite form of blog monetization for most bloggers.
For you to make money through affiliate marketing, someone has to click the link on your blog and purchase the product or service you recommended.
Here is how it works
Someone visits your blog and finds the affiliate link as they read your content. When they click on the link, they are redirected to the affiliate’s website to purchase the product you recommended. Upon completing a purchase, you earn a commission – a “thanks” for sending your readers to the affiliate.
That said, affiliate marketing can be a viable revenue model if you have an engaged audience who show interest and end up buying the products you endorse. The method works best for informational, how-to, and lifestyle blogs. Thankfully, there are affiliate programs available for every niche.
Affiliate marketing is an easy way to make money because you can promote a wide variety of products, even in the same blog, as long as they are relevant and useful. All you need is to drive traffic and maintain the trust of your audience.
Online store – dropshipping
Are you considering selling products on your blog but don’t want to deal with the inventory and shipping? Dropshipping is an online business model that lets you run an eCommerce business without stocking any products.
As a dropshipper, you create an online store and sell products at retail prices.
When a customer buys your product and completes the transaction, you order it from the merchant at a wholesale price, where it is shipped directly to the customer (the customer thinks that product comes from you).
The appeal of dropshipping is that you can start with a lean budget. Besides, because you set the product prices, it tends to be more profitable than affiliate marketing.
All in all, you are responsible for managing your online store and customer service.
Create a physical product or Whitelabel
Selling physical products is another strategy that most bloggers start with when looking to monetize their blog. After all, physical products could be all your audience wants.
In this method, the goal is to market your brand. This is how it works: you create physical products or buy third-party products, then package or rebrand them so that they appear as though you made them.
Unlike an online store where you create or buy inventory and ship them out, selling physical products can be a rewarding experience.
If you opt for white labeling, make sure that you buy high-quality products that your audience will like. Again, because you will advertise them on your site, make sure they are relevant and align with your content.
Create a digital product
Many top bloggers have parlayed their blogging success into a major publishing deal – they make money selling their own products.
If you are a great writer, you can achieve the most desired success selling digital products like e-books and online courses.
Thankfully, creating digital products is very simple as long as you have the skill. All you need is to pick a topic and compile an e-book or online course on that topic.
You can also hire freelancers to help come up with interesting ebooks and other informational products.
Once you have the books or course written, you can put it on sale on your blog or online books store like Amazon. Courses usually sell at a much higher price than ebooks because you charge your expertise in a particular subject.
Are you lacking a starting point? Compile your articles into a well-structured book, design a compelling cover, and sell it on your blogs.
Provide a service
Selling your services is the fastest way to get started because there is no upfront investment in creating products or buying any sort of inventory. For instance, you can start a consulting business or become a coach.
To make your blog useful in promoting your business, you blog about the service you offer and charge for that service through the site.
It is the equivalent of promoting services offered by others for a commission, but you are the service provider this time.
The most interesting part is that there are a lot of services that you offer online and earn decent money.
Make money with ads
Ads offer a more visual way of advertising, and you can also make a lot of money by displaying them on your website. The best part is that they can be placed anywhere on your blog as long as they are not blocking the content.
Normally, you make money by joining the ad network and selling banner advertising space to brands relevant to your readers. For most Ads, you earn income when your reader clicks on the ad or for a thousand views.
Google AdSense is a great way to start making money when you are starting out. As you grow in blogging, you will get to know other platforms with a large pool of advertisers. Selling direct ads is more profitable but not the best for beginners.
Create a Membership site
If you are not interested in promoting other businesses or creating your own products, you can also make money with premium gated content. As long as you offer content, your loyal readers and fans will be willing to spend a few bucks to access your content.
Well, while membership sites can be a big-time investment because you must continue creating quality content for paying members, it can as well be very lucrative, thanks to the recurring revenue.
Create a question and answer site
Not far from creating membership sites, you can also create a niche-specific question and answer site. After establishing the community, you will be able to monetize user-generated content on your blogs using advertisements, affiliate ads, and other suitable methods.
Start selling t-shirts
Selling t-shirts online is similar to starting any other e-commerce business. Considering that almost everyone wears t-shirts, this could be a very profitable venture and an excellent way to monetize your blog.
To stand out in your niche, you can be creative and design t-shirts suited for different lifestyles and fashions.
Accept donation
This is very straightforward – accepting donations. As such, you can ask for donations from well-wishers. However, this method would make perfect sense when used by non-profiting organizations, religious groups, and charity groups.
Conclusion
Although blogging for money is not the easiest thing you can do, there are lots of opportunities to make money with a blog. The above methods work great, but you should not overwhelm trying to implement all of them at once. From the list, identify what can work best for your niche and start immediately.