Blogging is a hobby that many people have been able to monetise and turn it into a money maker or even a full-time job to blog (that's what I did!). Some blogs are making very decent incomes so I thought I'd share with you how blogger make their money.
Let's get started on how bloggers make their money:
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is where you promote a product or a service and whenever a sale occurs that you've initiated, you earn a commission. There are so many positives to affiliate marketing – one of the biggest is that someone doesn't have to buy a product or service that you have linked straight away. If they come back and make a purchase later, you can still earn a commission. Affiliate marketing can easily become your biggest monthly earner, and courses such as this: “Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course” can really help your income shoot up! If you are interested in affiliate marketing then be sure to check out my guide to getting started with affiliate marketing.
Advertising
Selling advertising space on blogs is a great way to earn money from blogging. The easiest way to get started with display advertising is to use a service such as Google Adsense. All you have to do is display the code on your blog and whenever the advert is displayed or clicked, earn some advertising income. Bloggers can also sell advertising space to brands and other bloggers, either privately or with the help of an agency. You can also see advertisements on instagram or twitter, where bloggers will use the #ad to show they've been paid by a brand to publish a post or picture.
Sponsored posts
A sponsored post is where a company ask you to write about them, their products or their services for a fee. This can be a great boost to any blogger’s earnings as well as a motivation to work on their blog, as fees often depend on blog stats (domain authority) and social following. As a blog reader, you should be able to tell which posts are sponsored, as they need to have a disclosure telling you that they are so.
Social media
There are companies and brands who are looking to get their products or services in front of bigger audiences, which is why it benefits them to ask bloggers to advertise on their social media. The great thing about this is that anyone can make money from social media, not just big bloggers. If you have developed a decent social media following then consider monetising your social media accounts with Buzzoole, SocialPubli and FameBit.
Selling related products or services
Bloggers typically have a particular niche, therefore are known to be knowledgeable on that subject. This means that they can offer additional products to their readers or recommendations. Massive bloggers like Zoella have created beauty and lifestyle ranges, but it can be anything. Publishing books, creating products or even making courses to sell to readers is a great way for bloggers to make money. Another way for bloggers to make money is to offer virtual assistance to other people, usually bloggers or brands who need some help with blogger outreach (finding other bloggers to work with) and social media.
Public speaking & event attendance
If a blogger is well known in their area of expertise then they could be offered paid public speaking jobs in order to share their knowledge. It could be anything from a short speech to an entire day's workshop. Alternatively, brands may pay for bloggers to attend their event and write a review- they would get a fee for attending and usually, a fee for their travel and the brands get publicity.
Reviews
Every blogger has a different policy on accepting items for review – some bloggers are happy to accept the item as payment, whereas other accept the item and charge a review fee on top. Regardless of whether they accept the item as payment or they take an additional payment, the review should be honest and unbiased, and the blogger should disclose whether the item was received for free or not.
Make your own blog and start making money from blogging
If all of this sounds good and you aren't put off by hard work (this is not a make money quick scheme) then you might want to consider starting a blog yourself and seeing how you too could successfully monetise it. There are 5 steps to earning money from blogging:
- Decide what to blog about
- Build your blog – here's my full tutorial for creating a WordPress website
- Create useful, awesome and amazing content
- Get visitors to your blog
- Start monetising your blog
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