How To Make Money Blogging
2 Effective And Actionable Techniques [Guide]
2 Effective And Actionable Techniques [Guide]
Starting a blog can be a very lucrative occupation; if done right. Everyday, people are looking to quit their 9 to 5 job to start their own online business. It is of course easier said than done, but with the proper motivation, you will be able to do just that. In this post the main question is: how to make money blogging?
Why?
Because what is more beautiful than earning money for all the hard work and effort which goes into building a blog? With the right mindset, I will help you with some 100% actionable marketing techniques to make your beautiful blog a profitable business. Are you ready to get started?
TIP: If you are interested in improving your conversions, then you also need to take a closer look at your on-page SEO.
Disclaimer: This post may contains affiliate links. I only promote products/services which I trust.
The best methods & examples
One of the common ways for bloggers to make money is affiliate marketing. Even though this might seem pretty straight-forward, I have seen many people doing it wrong – including some of my clients.
That is why I have set up two different lists of dos and don’ts.
For a quick overview, you can also jump straight to the infographic.
What not to do…
What to do!
(This list has last been updated on the 12th of April, 2018)
Handy Infographic (DO and DON’TS):
One last general thought: Affiliate Marketing is generally not the main source of income for a blog/website. If it is, you need to be selling high-value products/services in order to make a reasonable amount of money.
It is therefore best to combine Affiliate Marketing with other marketing techniques to really learn how to make money blogging.
Now that we have this out of the way, let me talk about some of the awesome Affiliate Networks out there.
(I will try to mainly focus on some lesser-known ones to keep it interesting)
Examples of affiliate programs
This is a fairly new platform for advertisers and publishers. It looks extremely promising, and having it tested out myself on some of my client websites, I highly recommend it. Legiit does not require a certain amount of visitors/month and is easy to set-up.
The platform serves different niches such as: Graphic Design, SEO, Programing and Technology, Internet Marketing and a couple of others. Before you decide to enter this program, watch this video of Chris Walker to see if it is a suitable match.
TIP: to determine if the program is right for you, think about your niche. Are the products/services of value for your visitors? You should always do this before asking yourself how to make money blogging.
Want to get started with this awesome platform? Sign up with Legiit.
Once you start to become a serious blogger, a large portion of your visitors will come to your website to check out how you are “doing things”.
Some of these people see you as an example of how they want to start a blog. This is why it is helpful to promote your favorite webhosting. I picked out Siteground, but for some people it may be Bluehost or any other web hosts. If you promote their services, make sure to understand how they compare with the competition. The most crucial question: how is the balance between cost and quality?
This is exactly why I decided to include Siteground in this post, because I believe they offer better quality at a slightly higher price than most: high speed and performance, free SSL certificates, good security and excellent customer services. On the flipside, the data-storage limits (quite low) and the monthly allowance (~10.000 visitors) are things to consider.
Would you like to start making use of this effective Affiliate Network?
There are more than 1.5 billion websites live on the world wide web (you can track the numbers by following the link if you don’t believe me).
Maybe this number does not surprise you. Nowadays, nearly every type of business needs a website. Plenty of these websites need a stable and easy-to-set-up online store. Do you not have the best design skills? But you still want to build an awesome eCommerce website? Then become an ambitious entrepreneur through Shopify. It’s also a possible answer to our main question: how to make money blogging.
The platform allows users to create formidable webshops within no-time. I have used their services for a couple of my clients, and I must say that the ease of building a fully functional webshop with Shopify is just great.
As someone who has used their services for a considerable time, I feel confident that I can promote Shopify for the right reasons. If you are looking to build an eCommerce website, then I highly recommend using their services.
Now that I have told you a bit about the platform, let’s take a look at their Affiliate program.
Have you been convinced? Join Shopify!
Co-working with the right partners…
If you are a blogger, it is a good idea to invest some time in understanding the use of sponsor and guest posts. This is another great way on how to make money blogging.
There are mainly two different methods to be successful:
What you need for this a lot of patience and perseverance. By creating an awesome blog with excellent content, you will get more and more in the spotlight. Other bloggers, but also companies, will start to keep an eye on you. How to make money blogging should be a long-term questions, and you will most probably not succeed within your first weeks, months or maybe even years.
That does not mean that you should just give up. On the contrary, set yourself goals, and try to differentiate yourself from your competition.
You have to realize that bloggers companies are outreaching blogs and websites on a daily basis to gain new high-value backlinks. With several data tools such as SearchMetrics and Ahrefs, they will determine if it is worth to contact you for a guest/sponsored post. As long as you keep going and keep improving your work, the requests will come.
It is therefore imperative to have ways of contact on your blog/website. Make sure that visitors can easily find your email or phone number. It would be disappointing if you missed out on business, right?
Also, if you have the ressources, make sure you are aware of your Rankings, your Domain Authority and other attributes of your website. Usually, they have a big influence on the price that an external party is willing to pay.
Also make sure to have a great sales speech ready in case someone contacts you. Determine for yourself the terms and conditions, and make sure to clearly convey them to the interested party.
On a side note, always be careful with people who approach you out of the blue. When someone is contacting you for a sponsored/guest post, make sure to take a look at the following:
I’m sure there are more things to look at, but these are the simple basics. In any case, if you are in doubt, try to contact some other bloggers or feel free to talk to me about it. Join the blogging groups on Pinterest, Facebook and Google+ (and of course other platforms) to obtain useful information from other people. Most of the time, they are more than willing to help you with your queries.
In case you feel comfortable in selling/pitching your blog or website to other bloggers and companies, it is a good idea to start reaching out to them and generally a superb way on how to make money blogging.
A lot of companies and bloggers will be interested to post on your blog if you can provide them with high-value backlinks. The reason for this is mainly SEO. As you could have read in my Google RankBrain guide, the algorithms of the search engines take off-site SEO into account.
This means that any party you offer backlinks can benefit from these in their website/page rankings. This is why external parties are often willing to pay for sponsored and guest posts.
As I said before, the value is determined by the value your website brings. It makes nearly no sense to approach big players if they don’t benefit from your backlinks.
Nonetheless, bloggers and companies also take your social media presence very seriously. If you have a lot of followers on different platforms, it still may be interesting for them to consider partnering up with you.
This is why it is crucial to know your own worth. What do you bring to the table?
If you are still in the process of figuring this out, then set some goals for yourself:
By answering these questions and more, you will be able to construct a convincing sales pitch, which you can then send out to different bloggers and companies.
If you don’t know how to get in contact with external parties, then I recommend starting with joining some sponsored/guest post exchange platforms. These will help you to set up connections with some of the players in your field.
Try them out for yourself!
With more than 100.000 different active bloggers on the platform, this is one of the big guys in terms of connecting buyers and sellers of sponsored/guest posts. If you really want to know how to make money blogging through sponsored and guest posts, then this is the place to be.
To find proper partners, the platform allows you to filter the offers by keyword and tags. This helps you to identify the sponsors and guest bloggers who are interesting to contact for your blog.
If you are worried about having to pay for the services, then don’t. For bloggers, the basic utilities are free of charge. It is actually the businesses who have to pay to get in contact with you.
Are you ready to set up a BlogDash account? It is very straightforward, and if used correctly, it can be of extremely valuable for your wallet.
TIP: BlogDash also has an exquisite affiliate program. If you wish to take a look at it, you can find more information. In case you are already registered with the well-known network ShareASale, then you can directly start to use them.
This one is a little bit different from BlogDash, because the platform is in some way very controlling. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the process is just a bit longer.
PostJoint puts a lot of effort in maintaining good relationships between the marketers and bloggers. If you want to make use of their services, you will first have to go through a sort of screening.
Once you have been accepted to make use of their services, the platform will match content which is ready to be published with your blog. You will be shown short extracts of the content, before you decide (or not) to publish the sponsored content.
In the past, PostJoint has been a nice source of income for some of my blogs. I must admit that I have not used their services in a while, but I trust that it is comparable to what it used to be.
One thing left to do now: start using this powerful platform.
TIP: Similar to BlogDash, Postjoint has an affiliate program. For every marketer who you refer to their services, you will be able to earn up to 20%. Be aware though that you can only start using this program once your account on the platform has been approved (Usually takes 1-2 working days).
Your turn to use the shared marketing strategies…
I have talked about two different and effective methods on how to make money blogging. If you are starting to blog, or have been blogging for a while, I highly recommend to consider both options.
Don’t wait with it, it is best to subscribe to these platforms from the start. Earning money online from blogging has a learning curve, and you will learn along the way.
If my suggestions don’t correspond to your niche, then put some extra time aside to researcg appropriate affiliate networks for your blog. It would be a shame if you missed out on great opportunities to make some extra income.
I hope that this post helps you to get some ideas on how to make money blogging, and definitely let me know in the comment section if you are planning on implementing any of strategies for your blog.
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Very helpful and illuminating post. Kudos!
Love the breakdown! Makes it easy to understand. Pros and cons lists helped me decide which was best for our blog!
I love how in depth this is. It is much more helpful than other pages I have tried to read. I appreciate you writing this!
I’m glad to hear that you liked the guide Samantha. Let me know if you implement any of the suggested methods for your own website/blog!