How To Make Money Online With A Blog

At that place are lots of guides almost how to brand coin blogging, but hither'southward what makes this one different:

I've taken three unlike blogs to over $ane million per year. In fact, the blog you're reading right now has made a total of $6.seven 1000000.

And in this mail, I'one thousand going to requite you a step-past-stride instance written report showing yous exactly how I did it, starting from nothing, along with my pace-by-step guide for beginners trying to get started.

Let's jump in.

seven Ways to Make Money Blogging (with Examples!)

Online Courses and Workshops
Books and Ebooks
Affiliate Marketing
Advertising
Speaking Gigs
Consulting/Coaching
Selling Freelance Services

In a moment, I'm going to show yous a general framework you tin can follow to start a profitable blog from scratch.

But offset, let'southward leap into the specifics of how to make existent coin blogging, including real-world examples y'all can study and learn from.

Here are the top vii crawly ways to make a good blogging income:

1. Online Courses and Workshops

Hither at Smart Blogger, we brand most of our income from online courses and workshops — over $one 1000000 per year — but we are far from the only successful blog doing this. Most of the people making a lot of money from their blogs are doing information technology through online courses.

Ramit Sethi reportedly crossed $10 million dollars in annual revenue with his suite of premium courses:

And it'due south not but business or wealth-focused topics that are doing well. You tin can find successful blogs on just about whatsoever topic or niche monetizing with online courses. For instance, the pop interior designer Maria Killam has quite a few courses and workshops in her catalog:

Online courses and workshops can bring in 1-fourth dimension payments or, depending on your model, recurring income via subscriptions.

2. Books and Ebooks

Quite a few writers have parlayed their blogging success into a major publishing deal. Mark Manson, for instance, published a blog post called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck in 2015. Millions of readers later on, he got a book bargain with Harper Collins and went on to sell over 3,000,000 copies in the United states alone.

Self-published books accept also been successful. The nigh notable success story amid bloggers is probably James Altucher'due south Choose Yourself, which is now sold over 500,000 copies:

three. Affiliate Marketing

If yous'd like to create some passive income streams from your blog, ane of the best choices is affiliate marketing — recommending the services, digital products, and physical products of other companies in exchange for a commission.

Here at Smart Blogger, we make more than than $100,000 per year promoting affiliate products, virtually of that coming from casually recommending products we beloved like SiteGround (chapter link) and Elementor (affiliate link).

But there are lots of other examples as well. For instance, John Lee Dumas of EOFire made $710,835 in affiliate income last twelvemonth. Digital Photography School has reportedly made over $500,000 in commissions every bit an Amazon Associate from promoting photography equipment:

With then many companies offering referral programs to aid spread the discussion about their digital product or service, the number of unlike affiliate marketing opportunities is enormous.

Joining an affiliate network such as CJ Chapter, ClickBank, eBay Partner Network, or ShareASale is 1 way to begin borer into this revenue stream and to start earning extra income from your hard-earned organic traffic.

Free Bonus:

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4. Advertising

Normally, we're non big fans of selling ads on your site as a monetization strategy. You lot need roughly a million visitors per year for the large ad networks to take y'all seriously, and affiliate marketing is almost always more than profitable and just as passive.

That being said, some niches like recipes, fashion, and news are hard to monetize through many of the other methods mentioned here, and they get LOTS of folio views. In that instance, putting a few banner ads on your site can make sense equally a supplementary income source.

For example, hither's a screenshot of a 2016 income written report from Share the Yummy:

Normally, you make coin by joining an advert network. Nigh anyone tin can join Google AdSense and add a Google Advert or 2, for example, and you can later abound into more than selective networks like Mediavine and AdThrive.

5. Speaking Gigs

If your blog takes off, and you start existence recognized as an authority in your space, you might exist surprised past how many invitations you get to speak at conferences. And it's amazingly assisting. I typically make a minimum of $ten,000 per spoken language and it tin can become every bit high as $100,000 when yous count product sales resulting from the spoken language.

Swell for a 60-90 infinitesimal talk. 🙂

6. Consulting/Coaching

While this certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea, doing a bit of coaching or consulting is an online job that can earn you a surprisingly nice living, even when your audience is small. I rarely do consulting anymore, but the terminal time I did regularly, I charged $1,000 an 60 minutes with a 6-month waiting list.

But I'thousand non the merely one. Going back to Maria, again, she's been quite innovative in coming upwardly with ways to practise pattern consultations by photograph and e-mail, currently charging $1,275 per room:

Yous can brand this work in almost whatsoever niche. Yous merely need to know what you're doing and exist confident in the value y'all are providing to clients.

7. Selling Freelance Services

The adjacent footstep up from consulting is to actually do it for them.

Typically, you'll make more money freelancing than with anything else, but it'due south also the most draining and fourth dimension-intensive. That being said, I've seen bloggers make 6-figure incomes with no more a few thousand readers on their blog, essentially using their blog as a lead mechanism to go clients.

It's so profitable, even if successful bloggers continue to do it. For example, Elna Cain continues to sell her freelance writing services:

If y'all're a freelance author, designer, lensman, programmer, or other service provider where your skills tin be sold digitally instead of you lot having to exist there in person, you lot might desire to consider this income stream from day one. All you really need to go started is a contact form for clients to reach out to you.

Okay, at present for the fun part. Permit me show you the framework I used to become an honest-to-goodness millionaire…

If you're a new blogger starting from scratch with no traffic or influential friends, it'south easy to wonder…

Is it reasonable for you to believe y'all tin brand money blogging?

For that matter, how do blogs even make money? Ads? Sponsored content (i.e. writing a sponsored post)? Sell products? Expert luck? Or something else?

Well, allow's take a look at exactly how I did information technology at Smart Blogger. Here's my complete step-past-pace process for how to make coin blogging:

one. Choose the Correct Blogging Niche (a Profitable I)

Let'southward start with a little brutal truth, shall we?

Passion does not equal profit.
Neither does expertise.
Hard piece of work doesn't guarantee anything either.

For case:

You lot tin be the world'south foremost practiced on square-shaped tomatoes, wake up every morning with a burning passion to educate the public on their vast superiority to normal-shaped tomatoes, and work until your fingers bleed and your eyes fall out of your head, following all the right tactics for turning your new blog into a popular one, and…

You lot'll never have a chance in hell at making any amount of coin.

Here's why:

Nobody only you lot gives a damn about square tomatoes
Even if they did care, they wouldn't spend any money

In other words, you need a large audience who buys things. Without that, nothing else matters. It's a prerequisite for everything else.

In the case of Smart Blogger, I noticed early that bloggers buy lots of different things:

In fact, there are companies with $10 million+ per twelvemonth of acquirement in almost of those categories. It's also a growing space with millions of people:

The only trouble?

Loads of competition. Whether it be my previous employers Brian Clark or Neil Patel, my skilful friends over at Problogger, or the gazillion other "blogging nearly blogging" peeps infesting the social media space, anybody was intent on snagging a piece of the pie. They too had a several-yr caput start on me.

And so, how did I compete? The honest answer:

2. Improve Your Content Skills

Embed This Infographic On Your Site

You've probably heard that "Content is rex," and it's true… to an extent. A more authentic statement would be…

The All-time Content Is King

If that'due south hard to empathize, think well-nigh it this way:

Lots of bloggers sit down down and remember, "What will I write today?" They jot downwards some thoughts, doing their best to be helpful, original, and entertaining. If they're disciplined, they might fifty-fifty stick with it for a few months.

Simply it almost never works. Here are a few reasons why:

What you desire to say isn't what other people want to read
You weren't using a proven content framework
It's not the best post ever published on the topic

Granted, it's not your fault. Until today, chances are no ane ever told you about any of those requirements. Yous thought, to become a successful blogger, you but had to write interesting stuff and publish it.

No, grasshopper. No.

The truth is, having good ideas and powerful words isn't enough. You take to create the best content e'er published on blog topics lots of people are interested in learning more near. And that brings usa to the iii levels of content cosmos:

You know what blog content is popular in your niche, and you write exclusively about those topics
You've mastered frameworks proven to brand your content more pop (list post, how to post, etc.)
Your content delivers more value to the reader than any other post published on that topic

You're probably thinking, "Geez. That sounds difficult." And you're right, it is.

I personally spent about 3 years honing my skills by writing for other sites before I started my own blog. It doesn't take to take that long — I'grand just a perfectionist, so I wanted to acquire from the best people in my space.

It worked, though. Nowadays, my posts get millions and millions of visitors, non because I know some special "hush-hush," but considering I'chiliad really skillful at what I do.

Blogging is really no different than anything else. The more of a badass you are, the easier it is for you to make money online.

So you want to know how to brand coin blogging?

Become an awesome writer.

Then the next pace is to…

3. Choose a Traffic Source (Google Search or Facebook)

When you're a newbie, getting traffic is confusing.

Should you focus on optimizing your keywords? Growing your Facebook page? Leaving comments on blogs? Answering questions on Quora? Existence active in Facebook groups? Creating videos for your YouTube channel? Starting a popular podcast?

And so on.

There are a gazillion traffic tactics out in that location. Everybody says theirs is the all-time.

Simply hither's the data:

referral traffic sources by topic — Source: Business Insider

Pretty much all the traffic for written content comes from either Google or Facebook. The rest of traffic sources combined don't even come close to competing with those two Goliaths.

So, how do you lot get them to send y'all a bunch of traffic?

1 pick is you can pay for it. They like that.

But chances are, you're reading about how to make money blogging because you don't want to pay for traffic. You lot want it for complimentary, right?

Well, imagine this:

In that location's an arena where all the bloggers in your space go to compete for traffic. The number of other challengers you defeat determines the amount of traffic you lot receive.

In other words, getting traffic is a sport.

There are winners, and there are losers
To be skillful, you have to train
You demand to study your opponents

In that location are really ii sports, and I'd bet you've heard of both of them: search engine optimization (SEO) and going viral on Facebook. Both have years (yep, I said years) of study to primary, simply y'all tin start getting pretty decent traffic after just a few months of study and practice.

Which ane should you focus on?

Well, here are two questions to guide you:

Is your topic something your friends and family regularly talk well-nigh on Facebook? Examples: pets, parenting, self-comeback, and health. If and then, focus on playing the viral traffic sport.
Is your topic something people actively search for information about on Google? Examples: product reviews, specific questions they would inquire an expert, how-to data. If so, focus on SEO.

For virtually topics, you lot tin practice both, but one or the other will be dominant. In that example, focus on whichever 1 is dominant.

In the blogging space, for example, stuff almost writing and grammer occasionally goes viral on Facebook, because we beloved criticizing our relatives most their terrible English language. On the other hand, you rarely talk with your family unit nigh blogging platforms, WordPress plugins, chapter marketing, digital marketing, keyword research, or any other blogging topics.

You lot will, even so, search for them on Google. Just every bit you would guess then, the blogging niche is heavily dominated past search. Here'southward a breakdown of Smart Blogger'south traffic by source:

The truth is, we pretty much ignore Facebook. The volume of traffic available there comes nowhere close to the volume of traffic available from search engines. And so, we focus on Google.

I also spend WAY more fourth dimension keeping up to date on SEO stuff than I do on social stuff. I'thou a geek about it. Throw me in a room total of Google engineers, and I'd probably know more one-half of them.

Not to imply I'grand the all-time, though. I'm also competing against people like Darren Rowse, Amy Lynn Andrews, and Neil Patel. They're pretty freaking good too.

In fourth dimension, I think I can be amend, but who knows? That'due south why sports are fun. Y'all never know who is going to win.

If y'all're proficient though, you'll always be in the "playoffs," for your space, and you'll go lots of traffic. Possibly not the most, but still plenty.

And then y'all can focus on how to…

iv. Grow Your E-mail Listing with Pop Ups

Chances are, you see pop ups as an annoyance.

They get in the mode when you're trying to read. They enquire you to hand over sensitive data like your name, e-mail address, and phone number. Sometimes you have to deal with multiple pop ups on the aforementioned site, and it makes y'all feel hassled and uncared for.

And all that sucks. In my stance, you take every right to exist bellyaching.

But here'due south the matter…

That's where the coin comes from. The best predictor of the acquirement for a money making blog is the size of their email list. Here'southward a breakdown of our acquirement at Smart Blogger comparing acquirement dollars from email to other sources.

The dominion of pollex is yous tin expect to make $1 per subscriber per month. So, if you lot have 10,000 email subscribers, you should exist able to brand virtually $10,000 per month.

And then obviously, growing your email listing is a summit priority. Yous might, nonetheless, experience conflicted nearly using pop ups. What are you supposed to do?

Here'south a different mode of looking at it:

If a company comes to your site and doesn't give you their electronic mail address, the chances of them returning are nearly nada. You'll never have some other opportunity to aid them.

If you believe your content is the best, and you believe you can assist them over time, I believe yous owe it to them to be as pushy as possible about staying in contact. In other words, not using a popular up is unethical. A little annoyance is a minor price to pay for alter.

And recall, that doesn't mean you have to exist extremely pushy or spammy. You can absolutely apply pop ups in authentic means.

But y'all absolutely must use them. Bold you desire to make coin, anyway.

5. Begin Monetizing with Affiliate Programs

So, you're operating in a profitable niche, and you lot take traffic and an electronic mail listing. What adjacent?

Lots of new bloggers spring into creating an online course or volume or customs of some sort, but that'southward a mistake, in my opinion. Before y'all beginning selling things, you need concrete testify those things are what people desire to buy. Otherwise, you're risking wasting months or fifty-fifty years of your life trying to push a product no 1 wants.

The simplest mode to obtain that evidence:

Affiliate programs.

By seeing what your audience buys from other people, you can get a much better sense of what they might desire to buy from you. If yous promote an chapter production and it converts well, you lot should think about creating a similar product. If information technology doesn't convert well, you should probably motion on.

In other words, affiliate program offers are a class of market research. As a bonus, you just then happen to get paid commissions on the products your customers buy in the process. And so non merely are you lot learning what your target audience wants to buy, merely you're making money from your blog at the same time. Pretty sweet deal.

At Smart Blogger, I've tried lots of dissimilar offers. WordPress blog hosting, landing page tools, email marketing software, Amazon affiliate content links, WordPress themes, and one-half a dozen different types of high-quality courses. Since nosotros sell courses, I pay the nigh attending to the results from those programs, and hither are a couple of lessons:

Finish to cease solutions sell best. Courses promising to accept someone from knowing zilch to making money far outperformed the others. For case, here's a screenshot showing us as the #ane affiliate for Danny Iny's Course Architect's Laboratory:

Tools with a clear connection to coin making likewise sell better than the others. For instance, landing folio builders. Every bit proof, here'southward a screenshot of our earnings from promoting LeadPages:

By themselves, neither of those promotions really moved the needle on our revenue, merely they did teach us useful lessons that went into creating Liberty Car, which brings us to…

vi. Develop a Unique Machinery

Before you recall about launching your ain products or services, there'southward i essential point nigh human being nature yous demand to understand:

Whenever anyone purchases anything, they wait to transition from where they are now (Point A) to where they want to be (Point B). For case…

When y'all buy pizza, you lot want to transition from being hungry and craving pizza (Bespeak A) to tasting succulent pizza and feeling full (Point B).
When you hire a plumber, y'all want to transition from having a chock-full, overflowing toilet (Point A) to having a normally performance toilet (Bespeak B).
When yous buy a course on SEO, you lot want to transition from feeling bewildered and getting ignored by Google (Signal A) to ranking for competitive terms and getting great blog traffic.

The success of a product ultimately depends on helping customers make those transitions. If the customer doesn't become to Signal B, they typically view the experience as a failure.

And then, here's the magic question:

What makes you better equipped to deliver that transition than your competitors?

The reply to that question is what content marketing expert Todd Brown calls your "unique mechanism." Information technology's a little dissimilar from a "unique selling proposition," because it'southward not just something most you that'south different. Information technology's something about you or your method that makes you lot improve able to help customers than anyone else.

For Freedom Automobile, we have multiple unique mechanisms:

Get published on Medium — a platform with more than 60 million active readers looking for cracking content
Content frameworks adult backside the scenes at Smart Blogger to produce popular, valuable content
A monetization methodology proven by our success with Smart Blogger

Combined, those unique mechanisms are EXTREMELY convincing at setting us up as the superior solution. Therefore, the product sells like hotcakes.

To exist clear… it'south not necessary to take 3 dissimilar unique mechanisms. Sometimes just ane is all y'all need (i.e. fresh, hot pizza in thirty minutes or less). The core idea though is to make sure y'all are obviously far more capable than your competitors at delivering results.

Then all you lot have to do is…

7. Launch the Minimum Viable Funnel

Look effectually at successful entrepreneurs of any blazon, and yous'll find a surprising trend:

They tend to sell their products before the production is created.

To almost people, this sounds like insanity at best or a disturbing lack of ethics at worst. How could yous maybe inquire people to buy something that doesn't be?

The answer:

It'southward the same principle as Kickstarter.

You create a fancy minimal sales funnel of some sort (in this case, but a unproblematic sales page), tell people the product is coming soon, and then look to see if enough people sign up to justify making the product. If they don't, you refund everyone's money and start over.

In other words, it's the final step in validating y'all have a viable product. The steps go like this:

Identify demand by promoting chapter products
Find a unique mechanism that makes you lot clearly superior
Examination the need for that unique mechanism with a quick and dirty launch earlier you lot create the product

In my case, the minimum feasible funnel was a xc-minute webinar. The first fourth dimension I did it, there was no product, no follow-up sequence, nothing. Information technology was just a bare-bones exam.

And it resulted in $126,000 in sales live on the webinar.

Seeing that $30,000 sales was my minimum for success, nosotros went ahead and created the first version of the product live with students. Virtually a twelvemonth later, it'south at present approaching $i million in sales.

That's also just one product. We have others, and we have still more in the research pipeline.

And gauge what I would exercise if I had to beginning over over again?

The verbal same affair. Information technology'southward not piece of cake, information technology'due south not fast, information technology'due south not even that sexy, just it works.

Allow's close with some questions and answers, shall we?

FAQ about How to Make Coin Blogging

Then, nosotros've covered the bones procedure. At present allow's step dorsum for a moment and answer some of the questions I hear the nigh oftentimes:

Practise bloggers make money?

I certainly do, but I don't think that's what you're asking. I think yous're request…

"Is it reasonable for me to learn how to brand money blogging?"

The no BS respond:

It depends on how patient and persistent you lot are.

Starting a blog from scratch is just as difficult as starting a small business. For example, it requires the same time and effort equally starting your own restaurant, software visitor, or accounting service. Yes, those businesses are wildly different, just the first few years are normally the same story: low income, lots of stress, big learning curve.

If you want a more concrete answer than that, we've establish it takes fifty-fifty our smartest, nigh defended students 3-6 years to make enough coin from blogging to quit their jobs. And that sounds like a long time, but then what? 3-6 years to be able to work from anywhere in the world, accept a holiday whenever y'all desire, and probably accept passive income until the day yous die?

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

How much coin can you make from blogging?

The fact is, most bloggers make as much money as any other type of entrepreneur:

Nothing.

And information technology'southward not because there'southward no money in it. This blog makes more than $1 1000000 per year, for God sakes, and it's nowhere close to the most profitable blog out there. Blogs like The Penny Hoarder, Moz, and Lifehacker ability businesses worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Then why aren't more bloggers rich?

The truth is, most people quit. They kickoff a blog, write a mail or ii, realize it's difficult piece of work, and walk abroad.

Only if yous're patient and persistent?

Yous can make millions. I have. So take lots of other smart, dedicated entrepreneurs.

You only take to do the work. Consistently. For years.

Can you practise that?

Then aye, I recall you can make six figures at least. Perhaps more.

How do you make coin blogging? (Or, How do bloggers make money?)

As I mentioned earlier, in that location 7 popular means to brand coin blogging:

Offer online courses and workshops
Writing books and eBooks
Affiliate marketing (recommending products and services in substitution for a commission)
Blog ads
Speaking at conferences
Offer your expertise as a consultant or double-decker
Selling freelance services such as writing, designing, and programming

Which is all-time for you will depend on your blog, your expertise, and your state of affairs.

How do you lot starting time your own blog for free?

Lots of people say you can't. They tell you to purchase a domain proper name, a web hosting business relationship (Bluehost is one you run into pushed a lot by influencers), and a premium WordPress theme.

But I think that's nonsense.

Y'all can get started for complimentary within five minutes on Medium. They also take over lx million monthly readers, then you lot tin become a lot of exposure there if you get featured.

This groovy commodity walks you through that strategy, step-by-step.

Alternatively, you can write on WordPress.com, Linkedin, or any of the other platforms out at that place. It doesn't really thing. The point is, first writing and learning as soon as possible.

In one case people start sharing your great, informative posts, and you lot begin to understand how everything works, then you can go through the trouble of setting upward your own site, installing WordPress, and all that jazz. Until then though, information technology'south simply a headache you lot don't need.

What are the nigh popular blogging platforms?

WordPress is by far the well-nigh popular. No one else is fifty-fifty close.

But that doesn't hateful it's the best for everyone. There are several blogging platforms you can attempt — and most of them are gratuitous.

Every bit I mentioned earlier, I think Medium is a good place to offset. Y'all tin can also create your own blog with tools like Blogger, Squarespace, Wix, Joomla, and countless others.

What are the top blogs almost how to brand coin blogging?

I'd similar to think Smart Blogger is the best (and about comprehensive) site on the topic, but it's past no ways the only 1. Not all of these talk about how to make money blogging, but together, they give you a solid foundation:

Backlinko — Brian Dean doesn't talk much about how to make money blogging, just he's ane of the pinnacle experts and educators in the world on SEO. What I honey nigh his highly valuable content is how easy to empathise information technology is, despite covering some incredibly complex topics. If y'all're a beginner blogger looking for DIY insights, prepare for a treat.
Digital Marketer — In my stance, my friends over at Digital Marketer are the best in the earth at monetizing traffic. If y'all'd similar to learn about marketing, list building, customer research, automation, or funnels, there'due south no better source.
Smart Passive Income — If yous're interested in using your weblog to build passive income, Pat Flynn is a primary at showing you how to build a tiny little business organization that can support you and the lifestyle you desire. Both his weblog and podcast are first-class.

The Bottom Line about How to Make Coin Blogging

Is it possible?

Absolutely, just only if yous treat it like a blogging business.

Yes, you can start your blog every bit a side project. Yes, yous can slowly grow it in the background. Aye, you lot tin plough your blog into a source of passive, full-time income that somewhen lets you quit your job, travel, spend a lot of fourth dimension with your family, whatsoever you want to practise.

But similar anything worthwhile, it'south hard piece of work getting there.

Y'all have to report. Practice. Master your craft. Put in a lot of work. Hustle.

If yous love writing, I can't imagine a better business organization, though. Not only is blogging a great mode to get your writing noticed, but it's a great way to connect with people around the world who need yous, teach them what you know, and get paid pretty damn well in exchange.

There'due south never a 24-hour interval I regret dedicating myself to blogging. Never.

It'southward non merely considering of the money, either. Information technology'due south considering I also get to practice what I love and help people at the same fourth dimension.

What could be ameliorate than that?

Source: https://smartblogger.com/make-money-blogging/

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