How To Start Making Money With Your Blog

If you’re looking for a way to make some extra money on the side or even start a new career blogging could be the answer.

Don’t be so surprised, blogs can make money. Now not every blog is going to make hundreds of thousands or even thousands of dollars. And not every blog becomes more than a side hustle. The reason is blog monetization is not one size fits all. There is a multitude of factors determining how much income your blog generates. 

(This post includes some affiliate links. Should you click an affiliate link and make a purchase I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.)

 

Some of those factors can be the size of your blog, how much traffic you get, how old your blog is, and probably one of the most important is the income source.

Yes, the income source does matter because there are multiple ways you can earn some money for your blog. Some are more lucrative than others and how much you can make from some is tied to the size of your blog.

Now I will caution that none of these ways are to get rich quick and it may take a little while for the income to start coming in. That’s how it was for me. I’m not making anywhere near a full-time salary, even a low one, with my blog but I’m bringing in small amounts each month.

When it comes to making money for your blog you'll want to have diverse sources of income so you have multiple ways you're making money. This is really important if you're looking to turn this into a full-time income.

Here are seven ways you can start earning some money with your blog whether you have a small blog, just started blogging, or have been doing the blogging thing for a while

1. Affiliate links 

Simply put, affiliate links are links to a recommended product or service that you promote on your blog or social channels. When someone clicks the link and makes a purchase you earn a commission on the sale.

You get these affiliate links by joining an affiliate program which I go into more detail in my post 7 Of The Best Affiliate Programs For Beauty Bloggers.

 

Using affiliate links can be a good way for a small or newer blog to start earning some money. I will caution that it can take a while to start to see some decent earnings when you’re first getting started. Also, some programs pay better than others.
 

I’ve joined several of these programs over the years. My favorites are RewardStyle, Amazon, FlexOffers, and Collective Voice. I like Amazon because it’s a popular shopping site and there is a great variety of products you can link to. RewardStyle and Collective Voice are great because you can create affiliate links for hundreds of brands also giving you a great variety of options.

Related read: Start Making Money With The Amazon Influencer Program

2. Ads

This one is really straightforward as it allows ads from advertisers to run on your site for a fee. There are a couple of ways you can do this

1. Join an ad network like Google Adsense (this is the most popular and easiest option), She Media Collective, Mediavine, or Raptive.  
2. Solicit brands and sell ad space on your blog yourself (this has the potential to be a more lucrative option)

If you go the ad network route be prepared to start by only earning pennies every day or so. Eventually as your traffic increases and are more engaged on your blog you may start seeing increased earnings.

Related read: How To Make Your First $100 With Google Adsense

3. Brand partnerships/sponsorships

Another name for this is Sponsored Posts. A Sponsored Post or Brand Partnership is when a brand pays you to share about their product or service usually in the form of a review.

You can get these types of brand deals by using a network like RewardStyle or Izea. Another way to secure brand deals is by reaching out to the brand and pitching yourself to them. Lady Boss Blogger has some great tips on pitching yourself to brands.

To be honest this is where the real money is. Especially if you have a large and engaged audience. It does require more work though as you have to create the content versus with ads and affiliates you can just set it and kinda (not completely though) forget it.

4. Products 

If you are creative or have something digital or physical to offer your readers, sell it. Many bloggers make a full-time income by selling products, mostly digital products, that they make.

Some of the more popular types of products that bloggers sell are printables, eBooks, social templates, and merch. Twins Mommy Blog has some great tips on making digital products to sell.

Related read: 6 Ways To Get Monetized On YouTube

5. Services 

Just like selling products, you can sell a service. This could be anything from virtual assistant services, social media management, coaching, or freelance writing.

Tailwind has a great blog post outlining how to get started as a Pinterest Virtual Assistant.

6. Courses

If you have experience or are an expert in a certain area you can create an online course and sell it on your blog. Several bloggers have been able to make a good income this way.

Your Course Creator Hub has a quick tutorial on creating a course for free.

7. Creator funds or rewards

This is one of the newest ways to make money as a content creator or blogger. This is also the way that is going the wayside. Social and content platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and Facebook started creator funds as a way for them to reward or incentivize creators for making and sharing content on their platforms.

Many of these platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube have disbanded the funds. As of the writing of this post, TikTok’s fund is still going.

How can a blogger make money with a creator fund? By repurposing your content! If you write a blog post, you can make it into a video you share on YouTube or Instagram. As of the writing of this post, most of these creator funds are in testing and are only available to a select number of creators on each platform. So if you don’t have access to participate in any of the funds you’re not alone.

How do you plan on monetizing your blog?