15 Ways to make money blogging

Before you can think of ways to make money blogging, you need to have a website or a blog. There are different platforms that can host your blog. Some of them include: Namecheap, Bluehost and Siteground. It is easy to set up a blog. In fact it is simple process that does not even need prior experience. All you need to do is follow the step by step procedure. But if you are new to blogging it is recommended you start with free WordPress hosting, then upgrade after sometime to self hosting though this wholly depends on you. 

We can now discuss ways in which you can make money blogging. Note that these are not quick schemes to make money, you will need to dedicate your time and effort to have a good blog that can attract enough traffic which you can monetize.

Some of the ways that have been proven and are legit to make money online blogging include but are not limited to:

Display CPM ads 

CPM ads pay per 1000 impressions, which means you are paid for every visitor that get to see ads displayed on your site. We have several CPM networks like Ezoic and The Monetizer that you can easily join and start generating money on your site.

Google Adsense is one of the best ways to make money on your blog, though they have strict approval requirements . You have to meet these requirements to be allowed to display their ads on your blog. After approval, they will give you a script to add on your blog. Thereafter their ads will start displaying on your blog. They pay you every time a visitor to your blog clicks on their ads i.e. CPC ( Cost Per Click).

Media.net  is the most similar to Google Adsense, they too pay per click. They have less approval requirements as compared to Google adsense. You can be assured of getting approved even if you have low traffic and your blog is still new but make sure you have created some content on your site before you apply.

Sell Sponsored Blog posts

This works in similar to TV shows. A company pays you to represent their product, talk about it and promote it to your readers. To get started, put together a one-page media kit that details your traffic stats, social media following, audience demographics, then approach companies to negotiate a sponsorship deal. Take note of laws in your area about disclosure with regard to publishing sponsored posts. You can work with Influencer networks like SeedingUp, that connects bloggers and brands.

You can also read: Over 20 sites that offers opportunity to earn income online.

Get Paid to Write Reviews

This is similar to sponsored posts. Here you look for products related to your niche and get paid for writing a review. Simply approach companies that you feel you can write reviews on their products. We have websites that help you to connect with businesses that you can write reviews on their products.

Make Money with Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is recommending a product or service to your audience using special tracking links, and then get a referral commission for every time someone buys after clicking your link. Some of the best affiliate Networks include: Amazon, Peerfly, eBay, Alibaba, Commission Junction, Shareasale etc. You can also check Affiliate resources for more information on what you can promote.

Use a WordPress Plugin to sell Ads directly

Selling banner ad space on your website can be better instead of relying on intermediaries who take a big portion of the advertising revenue. Here you negotiate the price & terms on your own and take care of invoicing. You can manage this process with WordPress ad management plugin. BuySellAds WordPress Plugin gives you a simple way to insert the ads on your site with widgets and short codes.

Sell E-books 

These are digital products. They are simple to write and produce. In fact you can compile your blog posts and turn them into chapters in a book. Once your book is written, you can design a cover using Canva and create a PDF of your book.  You can sell digital products with a plugin like the WP E-commerce Plugin. For digital downloads you can use Easy Digital Downloads With this 2 you can easily set up an online store.

Sell Online courses 

Courses usually sell for much higher price point than E books. You will need to create the lessons for your course with the supporting materials such as downloads, slides, checklists, templates etc. You need also to decide if you want to offer personalized support for your course or not. Support can be like an Email Support. To manage your course, you can use a Learning Management System Plugin to deliver the course to your audience.

Create a Paid Membership Website

Here your audience pay to access a certain content or areas of your site. You can create a members only area where they are willing to pay to read more of your work i.e. enables them to share more in-depth blog posts, downloads, videos, audio content etc. You also need continually create premium content for your paying members. This can be  lucrative since it has recurring revenue through subscriptions. To create a membership site with a WordPress plugin like this one Simple Membership Plugin.  Another way is to create private forums that users must pay to get access to. To get started, you can use bbpress plugin.

Create a Directory Site 

Here you charge visitors to advertise their listings on your site. For example, you can create a paid business Directory like a local or niche directory. Directories can gather reviews of local businesses, share the best podcasts on a given topic or list the best products in a certain niche. For this you need a Business Directory Plugin for WordPress.  Another option is to create a paid job board. Companies who want to advertise an open position to your audience can pay you to submit a listing. To create a successful job board, try to narrow down to a specific niche.

Create an Event Calendar With Paid Submission

Here you create an event calendar where you charge people to advertise their events. This works well if you have an already established audience, because businesses will be willing to pay to reach your audience. This works well for local or industry-specific websites. You can choose to advertise events in your local city, conferences in certain industry or even webinars or live streaming events. To set up this, you need WordPress Event calendar Plugin

You can also read: Some of the best alternatives to Google adSense

Host a Paid Webinar  

Webinars is a great tool to build your audience hence growing your business. Webinars are similar to online courses, but a webinar is live and normally it includes a question and answer section.  With WordPress you can easily host a paid Webinar. For this you need a plugin like WP Webinar System.

Offer Freelance Services

As a blogger, you are an expert in your niche. You can earn income by offering your skills and expertise as a freelancer to your current audience. As a freelancer, you will need to have a way of invoicing and collecting payments from your clients. One of the plugins you can use for this is WP invoice Plugin.

Start Your own consulting Business

A consultant offers advice and strategy to their clients to enable them become more effective in their areas of endeavors. Here you don’t need any start-up investment. You can start offering consulting services on your blog now by creating a page with a form so users can request more information.  To easily get started with a professional, mobile friendly form, you can choose WPForms.

Start an E-Commerce Business

You can create an online store for your products but it requires quite more work since you need to create or buy the products and then ship them out yourself. To get started you need a  WooCommerce Plugin.

Related: How to make money online

Create a WooCommerce Drop shipping store

 Drop shipping allows to create an eCommerce store on your site without having to handle the inventory or ship items yourself. With Drop shipping, you create the store, manage the website, and customer service. But a Drop shipping service will take your orders and ship them out to your customers. They are invisible third-party that your customers don’t even know about. You can use the WooCommerce plugin to implement a drop shipping store. Note that you need to find a good supplier to work with.  With a Premium WooCommerce Amazon affiliates plugin you can create an Amazon affiliate store using WooCommerce.

Bottom Line

The above are just but some of the best ways you can monetize your Website/blog. There are more other ways that we have not mentioned in this post. What we have discussed can be implemented by any blogger or website owner who wants to make some extra money online. You can share with us some ways we may have left out in the comment section.