Are you a blog writer? Even if you’re not, it’s pretty easy to start one. One thing that many bloggers are starting to discover is that they can actually bring in thousands of dollars in income every month through their blog. Having a readership that cares about the knowledge you can share about something you’re all interested in is a HUGE opportunity.
When you have the trust of a bunch of people online there are a ton of different ways you can make money. So I’ve compiled a list of the top ways to make money from blogging.
And remember, think outside of the box! A lot of people don’t realize yet that they can use their skills to make a lot of money online – writing, photography, humor, communication, teaching, videography, graphic design, art, music – there are hundreds of ways that you can be making more money than an orthopedic surgeon, working half as many hours. And there are hundreds of people doing it!
Keep reading, and I’ll set the groundwork, ok?
Step #1: Learning, Mindset, and How To Not Lose Your Head
Okay, let me be clear. Before you turn your blog into a cash flow that allows you to travel the world, or cruise country roads in a $134,000 Maserati that you paid for in cash, you’re gonna need to know about learning, mindset, and how to not lose your head.
I shouldn’t get ahead of myself though. Truly the first thing you need to sort out is what motivates you!
Money is not a good motivator by itself. I genuienly believe that the human soul can never be satisfied by money. I’ll tell you what motivated me in the beginning though – freedom to live my life how I wanted to live it, and to go where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go there. Freedom to spend more time with my family, not cramming it in at the end of a tiring work day. Freedom from the culture of dreading Mondays, living for weekends, and being surrounded by coworkers complaining about having to give up the majority of their days, the majority of their weeks, for just enough income to survive.
A cash flow through a blog was about freedom to me. Not money.
So don’t be afraid to reach for your goals. Understand your motivation. Choose why you want success. And then REACH for it! It can be scary without a doubt. I have struggled with severe anxiety for over 4 years, and trying to do hard things hasn’t always mixed well with my brain’s panic button, but life on earth is still a little too short to settle for something mediocre.
The second thing you’ll need is learning. You need a resource that can truly teach you how to bring a flow of traffic (a.k.a. your awesome readers) to your website. You need to learn how to optimize your blog for search engines, like Google, so that it lands on page 1. You’ll need to learn some of the ins and outs of marketing, and how to transform your blog into a steady source of paychecks.
This is a lot easier than it sounds! I used a program called Wealthy Affiliate to get me on my feet. There are users of Wealthy Affiliate whose blogs make them over $150,000 per month like clockwork, and it’s not hard to see why. Starting out with Wealthy Affiliate is totally free, they’ll build your website FOR you, and even upgrading to more advanced courses is cheap.
Make sure you use this kind of mentorship. Going in blind is not only the best way to fail, but even in the best of cases is sure to take 10x as long to finally make some money.
Next, you need to make sure your mindset is in the right place. If you’re looking for a “get rich quick” business plan, unless you already have a popular blog, it’s NOT going to happen with a blog. If your motivation is going to dry up as soon as you start hitting obstacles you won’t make it. And if you expect these things to happen with minimal effort, within a few months, that’s also not going to work out.
Your mindset needs to be on the big picture, and the long term goals. It’s not a good idea to immediately quit your job and start a blog from scratch. This is something you need to work at consistently, and with persistance, persistance, persistance! Most successful people I have met were not so much intellectuals or geniuses as they were persistant, patient, and full of questions.
Finally, don’t lose your head! Working from home, and staying focused, can be TOUGH! Sometimes you might even need to break some bad habits to make sure you’re staying productive.
Step # 2: How To Make Money (and lots of it) With Blogging
When you’re communicating tons with a huge pool of people (there are 3.75 billion people using the internet, so trust me that pool of people is out there) the opportunity to help people while also making a profit is… well…everywhere.
You just need to promote things that your people need.
These are the top 4 things you can do to make money with blogging, once you have an audience:
1. Affiliate marketing
2. Google Adsense
3. Freelancing for other businesses
4. Create a course
Affiliate marketing is the #1 way to make good and consistent money with a blog. What do you think is the main reason people end up reading blogs? Most of the time people are finding you in the search results because they are looking for help, or need a hand with something. Your post or blog clearly seemed to hold info that could help them…
This presents an opportunity for both you, AND for your reader. Believe it or not, there are thousands of programs out there, in almost any industry you can think of, that have what are called affiliate programs. That means that they’ll give you a link that is personalized to you, and if one of your readers clicks through your links and buys something, these companies will pay you commissions every time.
If you’re finding stuff that’s helpful, relevant, useful, or just plain fun to your readers, you can introduce it to them through reviews, recommendations, top 10 lists, and guides. Direct them to companies that you’re affiliated with, and you can make hundreds to thousands of dollars.
Joining affiliate programs is free, and almost always easy. And your presentation of the products or services can be very personalized. Use your own voice! A solid half of people buying things online these days are checking reviews first!
The next thing you can do isn’t quite as lucrative. But gosh is it simple. Think of Google AdSense kind of like a billboard, or a commercial. When there’s a lot of traffic to something, whether a busy interstate, or a TV program gazillions of people tune into, the owner’s of that space can get paid to advertise.
If your blog is getting a lot of eyes looking through your site, you can use Google AdSense to put up a blanket of advertisements that are relevant to your reader all over your site. When your readers click on the ads, even if they don’t buy anything, you get paid a little pocket change.
Since the payments are very small, it can take a long time to ad up (misspelling for the sake of puns. I’ve hit a new low). But if you have enough people reading your blog, you can definitely make money off of Google AdSense.
So Christopher Nolan’s 2008 Batman flick The Dark Knight is one of the greatest classics to come out of the 2000’s. It’s my generation’s The Godfather. I’m a fan. But trust me… I wouldn’t usually consider its villian, The Joker, as a good source of life advice.
HOWEVER, one quote sticks out. He says when you’re good at something, never do it for free.
It’s a good point. Marketing in today’s day and age (and in every day and age) is about getting attention. More specifically, it’s about getting GOOD attention. The kind that makes people like and trust you. If you’re writing a blog that is popular, and has a good bit of traffic, you’ve accomplished this. And you have an incredibly valuable skill.
While being the creator of a successful blog will definitely look good on your resume, and may land you a nice marketing job, you may do even BETTER by helping OTHER small business owners create attractive and Google friendly blogs. For a price.
Whether you use a freelance community like Fiverr, or strike out on your own to round up some clients, there are hundreds of upstarting businesses out there that will happily fork over some money if you’ll give them an appealing online presence. Don’t underestimate the power of the knowledge and skill that you’ve honed.
Last but not least, once you’ve gotten the hang of running a blog, and maybe even done some affiliate marketing, you can create a course of your own.
Whether you sell the course as a whole classroom, to hundreds of people looking for some insight into your area of expertise, or you decide to go the route of a 1 on 1 mentor, the opportunity is there.
You can set the price yourself. You can choose whether or not you want to create a course about the subject of your blog, or even just how to create a successful blog.
Many experts, who become highly successful in affiliate marketing, will eventually launch a course. There are many people trying to figure out how to become successful online, so if you’ve accomplished this, you have something that thousands of people will be willing to pay for.
Just remember that this requires that you’ve developed actual expertise, and have something of significant value to share.
Now Take Action!
The opportunity to be an independently successful business owner has never been more available, or affordable, than it is today. So don’t be afraid!
It’s tough. Most worthwhile things are tough some of the time. But the potential rewards outweigh the difficulties.
If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask anything in the comments below! And you can find out a lot more detailed information at any of the posts below:
Wealthy Affiliate In Detailed Review
Great Affiliate Programs In The Internet Marketing Niche