Different Ways to Monetize a Blog

Blogging is a great way to earn money online. In fact, it gives you the opportunity to earn in several ways from one convenient place. How much you earn will depend on a number of factors, like what your view counts look like, and the types of things or services you’re selling. But there are plenty of different ways to monetize a blog to set yourself up for earning multiple streams of income from home.

Here are a few Different Ways to Monetize a Blog

Making substantial money through blogging isn’t something that happens overnight. But if you implement enough ways of earning and continue to grow it, it’s definitely possible. Here are some of the ways to monetize a blog and make money off of your website.

Sell Physical Products

There are a few different ways you can use your blog as a platform to sell physical products. The simplest would probably be using an e-commerce plugin like WooCommerce, which makes everything from setting up your storefront to shipping a breeze.

Sell Services

One of the quickest ways to monetize a blog is by using it to sell your services. For instance, If you’re a freelance graphic designer and you’re great with logos or Photoshop, create a services page and detail your offerings and prices. Then, give your readers a way to contact you if they’re interested, like by using a contact form and including your email address and/or phone number.

Affiliate Marketing

Whether you just launched your site today or you’ve been up and running for several years, affiliate marketing is one of the best (and easiest) ways to monetize a blog effectively. This can happen in all different forms, and you can partner with a wide variety of businesses, from entrepreneurs selling their services to huge retailers like Target. Most of these companies will have an affiliate section on the footer of their website where you can go to apply. If you don’t see anything, you can always send them a message and ask them directly.

You can also join an affiliate marketing site where you will only need to apply once and then you simply use their platform to get all of your affiliate links from hundreds of different businesses.

Create a Resources Page

Creating a resources page can be super helpful, both to you and your readers. To your readers, you’re giving them an easy way to find and access tools to help them in their own business ventures. And for you, it can be a good opportunity to include affiliate links. Unlike posts, which are dated, a resources page can be a solid and consistent way of making money from your blog.

Sell E-books

Selling e-books is an excellent way to earn money from your blog. It may take some time to get your book put together, but once you have something that you think your readers will enjoy, your work will be a great way to earn a passive income from your website. Keep in mind, however, that you’ll still have to put effort (or money) into marketing so that people know your book exists and you create some interest in it if you really plan on making good money from it.

Advertisements

Depending on what type of website you have, selling ad space and enrolling in pay-per-click programs may be one of the best ways for you to monetize. There are several of them out there, including my personal favorite, Media.net, and Google AdSense. You’ll get access to banner codes that you can place throughout your site. Just keep in mind that people don’t want to be bombarded with ads, and if you use too many of them, you’re likely to turn visitors off. Try and keep them to a minimum, and as relevant as possible to your content. A bunch of flashing ads for online casinos on your health and wellness blog probably wouldn’t do very well.

Sell Live Coaching Sessions

Do you have some type of skill that’s in demand these days? If it’s something you’re able to teach online, selling one-on-one live coaching sessions is a good way to monetize your blog. Create a services page on your website, where you can display the descriptions of what you have to offer and how much you charge. You can use some type of software like Skype or Zoom to host your coaching sessions.

Members Only

One of the other great ways to monetize a blog by means of content is to offer a membership section of your site. This usually works by having members pay a monthly recurring fee in order to access the upgraded content. You can use anything from behind-the-scenes images and videos to downloadable or printable items. There are several content-restriction and members-only plugins available to help you get your VIP section going.

Sponsored Posts

Whether you have a readership of 500 per week or 15,000 per week, sponsored posts are a great way to earn money from your site – as long as it’s something you feel confident selling on your blog, anyway. In order to earn money through sponsored posts, you’ll need to reach out to brands directly, which can be a bit awkward since you’re hitting them up and asking them to pay you. But, if you can deliver value and the product or service is a good match for your site, it’s worth a shot! Here’s a great article about how to pitch brands for sponsorships.

Donations

Asking for donations may not work for certain types of blogs, but if you have a tight-knit community and you feel confident in asking, you can use a plugin like Charitable or Give to give readers the option. Generally, this type of monetization works best if you’re operating a non-profit organization and you know that your community supports your mission and wants to help out.

Tips

If you’re an individual blogger and you feel strange about asking for donations, you also have the option of using a plugin like Tip Jar WP, which allows you to implement a shortcode that will add a form to posts or pages of your choice that lets readers leave tips if they so choose.

Sell Courses

If you’ve got marketable skills and the know-how to lay them out for others, you can make some decent money from your blog by selling online courses. For example, if you’re a freelance photographer, you can make a mini-course about how to take stellar photos of food, or the best selfie, etc. No matter what topic you choose, you can turn it into a profitable course by using something like Udemy.

Digital Products

Maybe you don’t necessarily want to create entire courses, but you’re still interested in ways to monetize your blog by selling different types of digital products. There are multiple products you can sell digitally on your site depending on your abilities. Some things to consider include photos, software, videos, and sound clips.

Get the Word out

All of the monetization tools in the world won’t do you any good if your blog isn’t seeing any traffic. Are you looking for more in-depth information? Schedule a creative strategy session today!

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