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8 Ways To Make Money Blogging (2024 Guide)

Don't Work Another Day is reader-supported. We may receive compensation from the products and services mentioned in this story, but the opinions are the author's own.
  By Forrest McCall | Last Updated:  January 12, 2023

Picture this…

You’re a full-time blogger with your own website, working from wherever you want… whenever you want. 

Your website earns over $50,000 per month, every month, and allows you the kind of lifestyle you used to only dream about. 

Sound too good to be true? 

It’s not!

For many bloggers, this is simply their reality. 

Michelle of Making Sense of Cents regularly earns over $100k/mo with her blog, and she’s far from the only one! 

Whether your goal is $5k/mo, $30k/mo, or more, it’s doable. 

The first step to achieving these numbers is learning how to do it – so it’s a good thing that you’re here.

Every single blogger making any kind of money from their blogs are using the strategies listed in this article. 

If you’re a beginner blogger or thinking about getting started, be sure to save this post! Here are 8 ways to make money with your blog or website that are being used by successful bloggers everywhere.

8 Ways to Make Money Blogging

1. Ad Networks

Making money from advertising is one of the most common ways to earn money from your website or blog. 

Partnering with ad networks brings in passive income that increases as your blog traffic increases. Ad Networks display ads from their partners on your website in the form of banners at the top, bottom, throughout blog content, and in the sidebar.

You can get paid by displaying ads from ad networks in two main ways: 

  • Cost Per Click (CPC) – every time a reader clicks an ad on your website, you make money. The amount depends on the ad and niche. 
  • Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) – with CPM advertising, how much you get paid depends on how many times people see the ads on your website. Every time someone sees an ad is called an impression.

For beginner bloggers, the most popular network is Google AdSense. In order to make decent money with advertising, you need a lot of traffic. However, once you apply and get your ads setup, you don’t have to worry about it again… this is what makes it passive.

Google Adsense doesn’t have minimum traffic requirements but they also pay the lowest. As your blog and blog traffic grow, you will be able to apply for higher paying ad networks like Monumetric and Mediavine. Monumetric requires a minimum of 10k sessions per month and Mediavine requires a minimum of 50k sessions per month.

2. Affiliate Marketing

You can make money with your blog or website simply by recommending products to your readers that you use or believe in. This is called affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money with your blog or website, and if done correctly, it can be very lucrative. 

What kind of products can you recommend with affiliate marketing? Pretty much anything! Almost any company you can think of has an affiliate or referral program. 

For example, Amazon has an affiliate program. 

Say you buy a book on Amazon and you loved it, so you recommend it on your website. Someone sees your recommendation, clicks your link to Amazon and purchases the book for themselves. Amazon then pays you a small commission for sending them a new customer, and it didn’t cost your reader anything extra! 

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money from your website, especially if you don’t have any products of your own to sell. 

Commissions for affiliate products vary widely depending on the niche and type of product you are recommending. As a general rule, physical products pay the least in commissions.

Digital products like ebooks, softwares, and online courses typically pay the highest in commissions – I’ve seen commission rates of up to 70%! That may sound crazy but it’s absolutely legit. Digital product companies can afford to pay higher commissions because they don’t have to keep inventory or deal with shipping, and they only had to create the product one time.

Bloggers make money with affiliate marketing by writing product reviews, product tutorials, including them on their resource pages, and more. 

3. Direct Advertising

Once a website has a lot of traffic, companies and advertisers reach out to the website owner and ask to purchase ad space for their products. This is called direct advertising. 

With ad networks, the ads are random and come from partners of the ad network itself. With direct advertising, the ad stays the same. The ad can be in the form of a banner, a button, or a link. 

Depending on the agreement, the advertiser may pay you a one-time fee or pay you monthly for direct advertising.

4. Sponsored Posts

Sponsored content is where a company pays you directly to publish an article on your website about their product – and it’s typically written by them as well. Sponsored posts can be a major money-earner for bloggers, especially if you develop a relationship with the companies and feature repeat posts by them. 

Another way to earn money as a blogger with sponsored content is by publishing posts to your blog’s social media pages about the company or product, or running paid traffic directly to the sponsored posts on your blog. 

The more readers or followers you have, the more you can charge for sponsored content. Once your blog becomes established, you will have companies reaching out to you for sponsored posts, but you don’t have to wait for that to happen! You can join influencer networks like Acorn Influence, Find Your Influence, IZEA, and more. 

5. Sell Your Own Products

Selling your own products on your website is an amazing way to monetize your website. With your own products, you get to keep all the profits from the sale instead of just getting a percentage for commission. 

The types of products you can sell on your blog varies depending on your niche, but popular ideas are: 

  • Ebooks
  • Digital Courses
  • Printables
  • Merch

Digital products like ebooks, courses, and printables are the best options for selling your own products on your blog. This is because they only require you to create them once, and you can sell them over and over again. 

When you have your own products to sell on your website, you can create an affiliate program for them to bring in additional money. In the same way that you can be an affiliate for other companies, you can have affiliates helping you sell your products in exchange for paying them a commission. There are plenty of services online to help you setup and manage this like Gumroad, SamCart, Clickfunnels, Teachable, and more. 

6. Sell Services

Do you have a skill or talent that you could sell as a service through your website? Many bloggers do this, myself included. Depending on your areas of expertise, there are a wide range of services you could offer. Popular services that bloggers sell are: 

  • Freelance Writing
  • Blog Management
  • Editing
  • Virtual Assistant Services
  • Website Design

And so, so much more. Selling services is the quickest way to transition from a full-time job to working for yourself (if that’s your goal), and adding your services to your blog is a no-brainer. Technically this is considered freelancing or contracting. You aren’t limited to just selling your services on your blog, but if you’re getting traffic there, it doesn’t hurt to add them!

7. Memberships

Membership sites are a great way to monetize your blog or website because they typically charge a recurring subscription fee. This is a great option to add to your website if you want to create a members area that you keep updated with new, helpful content for your subscribers. 

This format is great for course creators to use as an additional content area for your customers, or in lieu of a course. With a membership area, instead of giving the whole course up front, you can drip content out slowly. Dripping content out every week or every month will keep your subscribers engaged (and more importantly, subscribed and paying you), and also gives them time to work through the content instead of rushing through a typical online course. 

This is a high-level way to serve your customers and also ensure you have a recurring income stream in the process. 

8. Donations

This is a less common way to make money with a blog, but I see it being done often! Adding a section to take donations or a “Virtual Tip Jar” on your blog is a way for your subscribers to toss a little coin your way and show their appreciation. 

This is popular on travel blogs and how-to blogs and typically is the result of readers asking how they can support the blogger – not the blogger just asking the readers for money! 

Once you build a relationship with your readers and subscribers, many of them will want to support you for what you’re doing. And even if no one has asked you yet, it doesn’t hurt to add a link to a virtual tip jar in the footer and on the about page of your website, you may be surprised! There are many ways you can set this up – you can use PayPal, Patreon, Ko-Fi, or Buy Me A Coffee

Is Blogging Worth it?

Wondering if blogging is worth it?

In my opinion, absolutely!

My blog has allowed me to work whenever I want, and you can do the exact same.

If you're willing to put in the work and learn along the way, blogging is absolutely worth it.

Whether your goal is to become a digital nomad and travel the world, or if you want to build wealth and become a millionaire, blogging can be one path you can take to reach your goals.

Cost to Start a Blog

Wondering how much it costs to start a blog?

The answer will depend based on your needs, but for most bloggers, it will cost under $200 a year to start a blog from scratch. 

Of course, if you want to have a custom blog design or advanced features, this is going to cost more. But for a basic blog, you can get up and running for under $200 annually.

Blogging Equipment

You might be wondering what blogging equipment you need to get started.

The beauty of blogging is that you don't need much!

All you'll need is a computer and internet connection to get started. There are some softwares that can help you grow your blog more efficiently, but otherwise that's all you'll need!

Blogging is a tremendous way to make money with a laptop or computer and anyone can get started.

Final Thoughts on Making Money Blogging

These 8 methods are the main, if not only, ways bloggers make money from their websites. Everything bloggers are doing to make money from their blogs will fall into one of these categories somehow, but don’t let this overwhelm you. 

It can seem like a lot at first, and if you’re trying to do everything at once then it certainly is! 

Focus on one thing at a time before moving on to the next monetization strategy. The easiest to get started with it AdSense. It’s not going to make you a thousand-aire overnight, but it is a good way to get a little trickle of income coming in… even if it’s for no other reason than to inspire you to keep going. 

Blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick thing and it will never happen overnight. Don’t give up. The most important thing you can do for yourself on your blogging journey is to just KEEP GOING! 

Forrest is a personal finance, entrepreneurship, and investing expert dedicated to helping others obtain life long wealth. He has a Bachelor's degree in business and has been featured in many popular publications including Forbes, Business Insider, Bankrate, CNET Money, and many others. To learn more about Forrest, visit the About Us Page for more info.
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