Can you rely on blogging as a means of earning a living? The answer is a resounding yes, though you shouldn’t expect to become rich overnight, given the hard work involved. In case you’re wondering, bloggers can earn anywhere from less than $10 to $170,000 per month. Today’s top bloggers rake in millions annually from blogging, while many others earn less than $100 per month. It’s a wide range of potential monthly income as a side hustle or even turn it into a full time job and most professional bloggers fall somewhere in between.
When it comes to earning money from blogging, most people often think of advertising as a source of income. But that’s not the only way to monetise blog content, which we will explore in this article. Various factors will influence blogging income depending on the type of blogger you are, your niche, and the monetising strategy that you have in place.
Types of bloggers
Most people often think of bloggers as people who set up their own sites, but there are also those who work as in-house bloggers with a company as well as freelance bloggers. The former gets paid with a monthly salary while the latter group is part of the gig economy and has a going rate of $0.10 to $1.00 per word. Independent professional bloggers who start their own sites are usually the ones in the top tier of earners.
Out on the web, there are bloggers for all kinds of topics you can think about, from food to travel blogs and everything in between. The type of content that a blogger focuses on is referred to as their niche, and certain niches tend to do better than others in terms of pulling in traffic or site visits. It’s certainly not a hard and fast rule as to which niche is more popular, but getting a sense of what people actually care to read about can put you on the right track toward drawing in visitors to your blog that translates to income.
How to monetise blogs
Most professional bloggers rely on more than one method to generate income from their blogs. It’s important to understand that a good income stream doesn’t happen overnight, and most people who start blogging may not even see much money in their first year. If you are an aspiring blogger, you should know that a combination of high-quality content, a good niche and consistency are the keys to having an income-generating blog. In addition to those factors, you’ll want to know how to integrate monetising strategies into your blog. Here’s a look at some of the methods you can use to generate income from blogging.
1. Advertising
Displaying ads on your blog pages will generate income based on the number of page views you get per month. The advertising rate goes up higher the more visitors you have coming to your blog. This means that you’ll need to have a consistently high volume of traffic to your blog in order to generate a decent amount of income from ads.
The good news is that it’s relatively easy for you to set up and start earning passive income from your blog by joining an advertising network. You simply have to add a code to your website, and ads will automatically start displaying while you generate passive income. Some of the notable advertising networks you may want to check out include Google AdSense, Infolinks and Mediavine.
Alternatively, you can always seek out potential advertisers yourself and negotiate better rates. It certainly requires more effort on your part but could be well worth the returns.
2. Sponsored posts
We live in an era of social media influencers who have clout over their followers when it comes to the products, services or experiences they write about. Writing sponsored posts can help bloggers earn good money depending on their niche, their number of followers, and audience type. Influential bloggers with a strong following can typically command thousands of dollars for a sponsored post, while a less popular blogger might earn less than $50 per post.
There are two ways to seek out sponsored post opportunities. You could join influencer networks that help connect corporate clients to bloggers or directly reach out to potential clients yourself. The former helps to manage your writing assignments and deal with clients on your behalf, while the latter has a higher earning potential for endorsing a product or service.
3. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways for bloggers to monetise their content. The way it works is simple: you promote the products or services of others and earn a commission when your reader clicks on a tracking link to the product or service or makes a purchase via the affiliate link. The way you get paid depends on the affiliate agreement with the third party. Some third parties might pay you for simply redirecting traffic to their site, others when a reader makes a purchase or fills up a form.
You could join affiliate programs or seek out brands directly based on what you blog about to start monetising via affiliate marketing. Popular affiliate programs you can check out include Amazon Associates and eBay Partner Network. It’s easy to get started just by joining, and you can start earning even as an amateur blogger.
4. Selling products and services
Selling products and services on your blog is akin to setting up an online store. There are no limits as to what you can sell (aside from anything illegal, of course) on your blog. It can be a digital or hardware product that you developed yourself or even products from other companies. Some examples to give you an idea of the possibilities include selling art, books, digital templates, t-shirts, and the list is endless.
As for services being sold on blogs, popular choices seem to be selling online courses developed internally and independently. Some bloggers also provide consulting services by offering their expertise in certain areas, like digital and eCommerce marketing, for example. It’s also fairly common to see motivational speakers turn bloggers who get paid to speak at seminars or any other speaking engagements based on their expertise, inspirational life experiences, or some other relevant reason.
Final thoughts
Starting a blog is easy, but don’t expect to start generating money overnight. Today’s top-earning bloggers make millions per year based on the consistency of high-quality content and the strong following they’ve built over the years. A successful blog also combines good monetising strategy, niche, knowledge of your audience, and learning how to keep them with relevant content while growing them at the same time. Don’t be demotivated if you only earned a few dollars when you’re starting out. The most important thing is that you start!
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