10 Ways to Monetize your Blog : Smart Profitable Strategies
This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see our full disclosure for further information.Blogging has grown in popularity as a means of creating and spreading information, ideas, and knowledge. Aside from the fact that it’s fun and interesting to create content in which you can share your insights and can passionately express yourself, running a blog can also generate money. Yes, by putting in some effort, keeping your blog up and running, and monetizing it, you can convert your blog into an income-generating asset. Making money from a blog is pretty challenging because you have to have at least a hundredth of viewers on your blog to make money. In addition, generating income from your blog will take some time and effort.
In this article, I will suggest ways to monetize your blog and generate income from it using several strategies. So, to turn your blog into a source of passive income, try these 10 useful tips.
1. Sell Digital Products to Your Audience
A digital product is a piece of media that you can sell online and make money. These digital products are more sustainable because they can be easily sold and distributed to your target market. The beauty of this is that you can sell and distribute this repeatedly online without having to restock your inventory.
Digital products that you can sell online include eBooks, audio and music, digital arts and graphics, video, courses, web applications, printables, podcasts, and other digital products. Online entrepreneurs often use digital selling to grow and expand their businesses. As a result, it’s highly recommended that you have your own site or any media platform where you can sell your digital products so that you can keep control over the relationship with your customers. Payhip (use code PAYHIP2023 for 10% OFF) and Sellfy platforms are amazing for selling digital products, and you can use them by connecting your store to an existing website or by using it as the main domain.
Check out one of my digital products if you haven’t already: Lightroom PresetsByLinhy. These lightroom presets are pre-made filters created using the Lightroom cc app. They allow you to easily enhance your photos with just one click. By using these Lightroom Presets, you can instantly transform the look of your pictures and make them more beautiful for your social media posts. It’s a convenient and efficient way to give your images a professional touch without the need for complex editing skills.
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Here’s another example of one of my digital products called “Printables,” such as these affirmation cards. They are designed to be easily printed at home, making them convenient to sell without having to keep physical stock.
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2. Sell Physical Products to Your Audience
When selling physical products to your audience, the first thing that you need to do is identify your target market. Identifying your target market will help you determine what specific product you will offer them to effectively meet and satisfy their wants and needs. For instance, you’re an author and you create a book. Creating a book with KDP Amazon will be so much more effective in selling your physical products. Kindle Direct Publishing is Amazon’s largest publishing platform, where it assists self-published authors in getting their books noticed, reaching millions of readers worldwide, and, of course, the best part is Amazon do all the printing and shipping for you.
You can publish your books on Amazon KDP for free, but if you want to get your book easily noticed, then you need to pay for advertising. Amazon KDP is undeniably valuable and profitable. All you need to invest in is your time and effort, but you must also enhance your research skills and KDP niche to be successful.
Another option you can do with Amazon KDP is you can publish low content books. Low-content books, are books that don’t have much content in them like journals, planners and log books. Those kinds of books sell very fast on amazon and you will get a lot of sales in a short amount of time if you do it right. This is probably one of the easiest options and that’s why so many people choose this option.
Click here to see my collection of KDP Low content books
Are you ready to learn how to quickly make your first low-content book on amazon, but don’t know where to start? This is the course for you if you want to learn how to make low-content books like notebooks, calendars, logs, journals, and more. The Low-content book creation course can help you in getting started today without being overwhelmed or spending a lot of money on inventory.
3. Start Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an advertising approach in which a company pays others (ex: bloggers) to promote and attract more potential customers. Within the first 6 months, the majority of well-built niche websites will start earning affiliate commissions.
You can sign up for either an affiliate program or a affiliate network or even both.
An affiliate marketing network combines products from various brands and then collaborates with affiliate marketers. In other words, it acts as a middleman between the affiliate and the brand by managing the affiliate programs for different brands. Commission ranges from 2% to 15% in the affiliate network.
An affiliate program, on the other hand, is managed and overseen by the brand. Instead, to run the program themselves, brands frequently use affiliate marketing software. The commission you get by joining an affiliate program often ranges from 20% to 50%.
Amazon
Amazon’s Associate’s Program is an affiliate marketing program that helps bloggers, content creators, and publishers monetize their traffic. They advertise and promote products on Amazon by creating sites and links for products you want to promote. Whenever a customer made a purchases through one of your links, you can automatically earn and receive a commission. Through the Amazon affiliate program, you can earn up to 20% commission, but most product categories will pay you a 4% average commission which I think is pretty low.
If you’re thinking of becoming an Amazon affiliate, there are a few requirements you should know about. One important thing to keep in mind is that you will need to make at least 3 sales within 180 days of signing up. If you don’t meet this requirement, unfortunately, Amazon may kick you out of the program. But don’t worry! You can always reapply in the future once you have built up more traffic and a stronger following on your blog or website.
Share A Sale
You can either use ShareASale.com to advertise and promote your products. It’s also an affiliate marketing network with experience in marketing and advertising for more than two decades. They guide and help merchants, publishers, and website owners with promotions and product optimization. Just like on Amazon, they also create links for your products and can get a sales commission and referrals whenever a customer purchases products through one of your links. ShareAsale.com is also free. You can sign up here and just simply follow a few steps.
Commission Junction
You may also drive more sales and successfully promote your products and services through Commission Junction. CJ Network is one of the oldest and largest online advertising networks for digital and physical products. They effectively promote connections between marketers and publishers to reach and engage millions of online customers. Just like mentioned above, they also create links for your products and get paid a commission for the sales made via your affiliate link. This one is my favorite as they offer affiliate program with popular brands like Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, Nike, Bebe, Ssense, CityPass, etc.
Impact
Hundreds of affiliate programs in different niches are available through Impact. Southwest Vacations, Best Buy, Hilton, Atmosphere, Decathlon, Sport Check and Foot Locker are just a few of the leading advertisers who have selected Impact to work with affiliate marketers all over the world. You have the option of searching the entire market and applying to as many affiliate marketers as you like. It’s entirely free to sign up for Impact.
4. Advertise on Your Blog with Pay-per-click (PPC)
Adsense
AdSense is an online advertising program developed by Google that allows website owners, bloggers, and content creators to monetize their online content by displaying relevant advertisements. It serves as an intermediary between advertisers (those who want to promote their products or services) and publishers (website owners who want to display ads on their sites).
To calculate your revenue, you can use a revenue calculator to see how much you earn when your blog has 1000 clicks.
Some bloggers may generate a significant income from AdSense if they have a large and engaged audience in a profitable niche, while others might earn less if their traffic is limited or the content is not as appealing to advertisers. It’s important to keep in mind that earning money through ads typically requires continuous effort in building and maintaining a successful blog.
Additionally, relying solely on ads for revenue might not be the most effective strategy for everyone. Many successful bloggers also explore other monetization options, such as affiliate marketing, selling digital products, or offering premium services to diversify their income streams.
Mediavine
Mediavine is another great ad management platform that works a little differently than Adsense and other networks. Their ad management tools take care of everything for you, and they’re a wonderful fit as your blog grows.
To be accepted, Mediavine requires 50,000 monthly sessions (about 60,000 pageviews).
5. Sell ad space
Selling Ad Space can also be a good way to monetize your blog. It involves designating the available areas of your blog for ad serving. Selling Ad Space provides publishers with direct interaction with media clients, allowing them to generate a passive income. These Ad Spaces come in a variety of forms, including banner ads, sponsored content, pop-ups, and display advertisements. These advertisements are sold either through bidding processes or adversely to advertisers. But before you can start selling advertising space on your website, you must meet all of the criteria as a digital publisher, such as having a sufficient amount of traffic, content relevance, navigability, etc.
6. Generate Revenue with Sponsored Posts/Reviews
Getting revenue from sponsored posts/reviews is another effective way to generate income from a blog. When you say sponsored posts/reviews, a company will pay a certain amount to the website owner in exchange for feedback or reviews, which is probably good and honest feedback. As a result, a blogger’s product/brand will be more accessible to their audience, presumably resulting in increased sales.
In addition, sponsored posts/reviews are a form of influencer marketing wherein it helps a business’s brand grow and increase sales. Also, most businesses use this marketing strategy to expand their market size. So for you to generate passive income from a review, you will reach out to any businesses that are related to your niche who are interested in paying for your review concerning their products or services, or they will directly reach you for a sponsored review.
7. Turn Your Blog Into a Membership Site
Turning your blog into a membership site allows you to monetize your blog by offering premiums to your audience to have access to your exclusive content. You can use it as a way to boost your income with your blog and your knowledge.
Another thing is, if you’re already generating sufficient traffic to your blog, you might want to consider allowing your readers and audience to be members of your exclusive membership site. A membership site offers exclusive content and guarantees your audience will have consistent and unrestricted access to your exclusive content. When your audience enjoys your content and it satisfies their specific needs, they may be willing to pay more to obtain access to your premium content. You can create a membership site like online tutoring membership sites, niche information membership sites, career coaching membership sites, business development membership sites, or any site that caters to the specific needs of your targeted audience.
8. Offer Online Courses
Offering online courses is one of the most popular ways for bloggers to generate passive income. Online courses are a marketing strategy that helps you build relationships with your target customers. In addition, it’s an opportunity for you to introduce and show your customers what your brand is all about and what makes it better than other competitors. Before you create and offer online courses, you must first engage with your audience and determine how to accommodate their specific needs.
First off, survey your target audience to see if the courses you’re offering are of interest to them. It would be preferable if you could be more specific with your content. Next is to review your blog analytics, pick your top and most popular articles. Then, convert them into coaching programs, tutorial videos, modules, PDF’s, e-learning, boot camps, and more. After that, you may upload them to an online course platform like Payhip (use code PAYHIP2023 for 10% OFF), Sellfy, Teachable, LearnWorlds, Podia, Simplero, and Skillshare.
On top of that, when offering an online course, all you need is some knowledge and skills and the ability to express yourself passionately about the course. While you’re earning, you also help people enhance their expertise.
9. Start a Podcast
A podcast is an audio recording of a discussion regarding a particular topic. This medium can be a great way to get your message out to your target audience and for your brand to be acknowledged regardless of where they are in the world. It also fosters a strong connection with your customers, listeners, and prospective clients. Even well-known bloggers think about including podcasts in their blog content because it can help their brand to become more exposed while also generating a significant revenue stream. To start a podcast, make sure your content is relevant. In addition, make sure it presents and delivers your message in connecting with your listeners/audience. When people love your podcast performance, you will have a higher chance of earning more income.
10. Accept Donations on Your Blog
Accepting online donations is another good attempt to make money from your site. However, to encourage readers to donate to your site, you must first gain their trust and maintain a high-quality, entertaining, and relevant blog. Donations can be solicited on both nonprofit and for-profit websites. By collecting donations on your blog or site, you can use donations to fund your creative and professional projects, as well as to develop and expand your website, business, or organization. You can accept donations with WordPress plugins like PayPal, Give, Venmo, GoFundMe, and Charitable. Don’t forget to express your gratitude whenever your audience provides you with support in the form of donations.
One last and most crucial aspect: Is your blog legally protected?
Knowing your blog is legally protected you can now relax! Then again, you won’t face the risk of paying fines, getting formal complaints, or facing legal action.
My friend Lucrezia at Blogging for New Bloggers and Legals for Business Owners who has worked as a lawyer, University lecturer, and GDPR expert (PhD) for over 15 years and is an online entrepreneur and blogger herself, offers a bundle of courses and templates that will help you create GDPR + CCPA + FTC compliant legal pages in less than half an hour.
It’s called the “Legal Bundle Value Pack™” and has been around for a while.
It’s called the “Legal Bundle Value Pack™” and has been around for a while.
It’s the only bundle to include both legal courses and plug-and-play professional legal templates. It was designed specifically for bloggers and online entrepreneurs to empower you to understand how to protect your blog/biz legally and tackle your legal compliance with confidence.
The Legal Bundle Value Pack™ below, will give you the opportunity to relax knowing your blog is legally protected. Additionally, you won’t run the risk of paying penalties, receiving formal complaints, or facing lawsuits.
This bundle of legal courses and ready-to-go templates includes ALL the legal pages you MUST have on your blog.
With this offer, you will get $2,000+ worth of goodies including templates, lessons, workshops, and extra bonuses for the price of 347$
When you monetize your blog, it’s crucial to understand what specific actions to take for your site; otherwise, you will end up wasting too much time on nothing. So, if you want to start generating passive income through blogging, consider those effective strategies mentioned above and turn your blog into a source of income.
Do you have other effective tips to monetize your blog? Please share in the comment below!
Nelis
Great article! Thanks for the advice!
Linhy Banh
Thank you! Glad you liked!
Mom in the middle
This is so so helpful. This is one area I am really struggling with and trying to figure out how to drive revenue.
Linhy Banh
Hello,
There are so many ways to monetize your blog, but some strategies work better than others. Im glad this post was helpful!
Komal Singh
I’ve been looking on ways to monetize my blog. These tips are amazing!
Linhy Banh
Thank you Komal! So glad you found this post helpful!