In this post, I’ll discuss how bloggers can make money from a blog and how you can do the same with your own blog to increase your passive income. Blogging has now become one of the important ways for people to share their thoughts, opinions, and expertise with the world. Wanting to become a blogger or a self-media worker has become the ideal job for some people.
I have shared with you the reasons for writing a blog in the previous article . One of the main argument is to make money from a blog Although there are more and more platforms for writing with the development of the Internet, website blogs have always been a more popular model due to their independence.
Although the number of independent blogs in the simplified Chinese market is decreasing year by year, the development of blogs in the traditional Chinese and English markets is becoming more and more prosperous.
According to statistics from the overseas website FounderJar, high-income bloggers earn between US$30,000 and US$250,000 per month. Does this make you surprise how you can make so much money by blogging?
How to make money blogging
If you are serious about building an online passive income business through blogging, then it is very important to understand how to make money from a blog. In the following blogger money-making methods, you can combine the real world in which you live and your personal cognition. I hope that it will give you some money-making ideas and help, so that you can make more money more smartly.
11 Ways to make money from a blog
Advertise
Once you have achieved a certain level of traffic to your blog through the right growth strategies and hard work, you can then choose to monetize your traffic through advertising, which is the same method used by most blogs or companies.
However, there are many ways to accept advertising. You can sell website advertising space like the front-end god Ruan Yifeng, or you can use Google ads to make money like the Chinese technology blog Moonlight Blog. However, the prerequisite is that your blog has reached a certain level of traffic, otherwise you may not be able to pass the audit of the advertising alliance.
Currently, the more common advertising alliances in the domestic market are Baidu Advertising Alliance and Google Advertising Alliance, but in terms of revenue, the unit price of Google Advertising Alliance is higher.
English advertising alliances such as Google Adsense, AdThrive and Ezoic will undergo strict audits before joining. However, advertising alliances generally calculate advertising payments through CPC and CPM billing methods, and they also have a certain advertising revenue sharing ratio.
For English blogs, Google Adsense is a good choice for new websites, while AdThrive requires the website to have at least 100,000 page views per month. Although Ezoic does not have a minimum traffic requirement, they both require strict audits of the website, including website type, website traffic sources, website visitor quality, etc.
However, the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of third-party advertising networks is usually higher than that of Google Ad Network, which is one of the reasons why they have strict joining conditions.
Some challenges when websites use advertising
- High traffic requirements: AdThrive requires at least 100,000 page views per month
- Advertising revenue share ratio: Google will receive 32% of the revenue from Google Adsense content advertising
- Impact on website experience: The inclusion of advertisements may cause the website to slow down
Therefore, before choosing to join an advertising alliance, you can choose a suitable advertising alliance based on your blog’s niche market, traffic conditions, and revenue goals. However, for bloggers with websites with lower monthly visitor traffic, Ezoic or Google Adsense are good choices. They are free to access and do not require high website traffic.
Affiliate Marketing
The full English name of affiliate marketing is Affiliate Marketing. It is a very mature marketing and promotion model overseas and is also one of the main ways for bloggers to make money. This marketing model does not require you to create products yourself. In this way, you can also make money from a blog.
You only need to let website visitors click on your exclusive link to purchase the product, and you can earn a certain percentage of commission.
Overseas, almost all brands, big and small, that we encounter in our daily lives offer affiliate marketing programs, such as Amazon, Apple, KFC, Udemy, etc.; and in China, it has also gradually matured, such as Taobao, JD Shopping, Douyin Stores, etc.
However, affiliate marketing requires you to have a certain base of loyal fans when promoting products and services, and you need to choose high-quality products and services to promote based on your niche market and audience.
After all, the ultimate goal of affiliate marketing is to hope that merchants, bloggers and consumers can all benefit from it, so this requires bloggers to experience the products and services as much as possible and share their personal real experience when promoting them. Otherwise, loyal fans may lose their trust due to a bad shopping experience.
In addition, different merchants and brands have different commission rates. You need to choose appropriate products and services based on your target audience. Of course, you can also observe and adjust in time through testing.
Where can you join an affiliate program?
So the next question is where can you join an affiliate program? In fact, you can find many homepage affiliate programs or third-party affiliate programs by just searching the Internet. , covering all areas of our clothing, food, housing, transportation, entertainment, etc.
Email List
Since email is one of the most commonly used methods of communication for foreign netizens overseas, this is one of the reasons why email marketing is so important overseas.
It is just like domestic netizens often use WeChat to communicate and connect with the target audience through public accounts. At the same time, there is a saying abroad that “Money is in the list”.
If you have an email list with a large number of subscribers, you can directly use it to promote products or services to make money. The Solo Ads (email mass marketing) platform Udimi is a good platform. If you do not have fan base, it means that you can’t promote your services and skills, then you should use Udimi platform.
You should use email news letter for you blog or e-commerce website for better fan base. In order to increase the subscription rate of website visitors, bloggers or businesses generally provide valuable things to win visitors’ emails.
Generally speaking, you can use email service providers such as Mailchimp or ConverKit to collect visitor email addresses, but for e-commerce websites, it is recommended to use the more professional Klaviyo. Once you have successfully obtained the visitor’s email address, you can then conduct remarketing via email at a later stage.
How can an email list help you build a profitable blog?
Promote products or services: By suggesting your chosen products or skill to subscribers of email , you can get rewards when clients complete transactions, according to the affiliate marketing promotion model.
Sell your own products: You can use your email list to offer your own digital products, such as eBooks or courses.
Sponsored content: To assist market your brand, you can include advertisements in emails you send.
Success stories E-mail marketing bloggers
Jon Morrow : With more than 300,000 email subscribers, Jon’s website mostly advertises writing lessons and other goods and services.
Melyssa Griffin : Melyssa has more than 20,000 email subscribers, and she frequently publishes her personal podcast, success story, and course promotions.
Jeff Goins : With more than 73,000 email subscribers, Jeff often uses email to advertise his podcasts, books, and classes.
Brand sponsored or paid guest posts
Another way to make money from a blog is sponsored or guest posts. When your website traffic reaches a certain level (daily visitor page views reach 1,000), you will gradually receive some promotional cooperation product or service brands, and of course some marketing agencies.
Uses of sponsored & guest posts
For video platforms such as YouTube or TikTok you are required to create an unboxing experience in the form of a video, and they will also provide exclusive discount codes or independent product service links.
For websites or social media, you are usually required to share your experience using products or services, review articles, and may be asked to insert the link address of the other party’s website or product service in the article, or directly give you an exclusive discount code.
In addition, brands or marketing agencies will strictly review the content of articles or videos to ensure that bloggers create content that complies with brand information in accordance with their agreements. Therefore, before bloggers and businesses start cooperating, they need to negotiate the content of the promotion in advance to ensure smooth cooperation between the two parties.
A typical example of making money from a blog use sponsored content is Chiara Ferragni , who was originally an Italian law student. More than ten years ago, she founded the fashion blog TheBlondeSalad out of interest .
After years of careful operation, her blog became a great success and cooperated with many well-known Italian fashion brands. Now, her blog has been successfully transformed into a global online fashion mall. She now runs a business worth 30 million and has become one of the famous bloggers in the fashion circle.
However, brand sponsorship has two sides. One is to allows bloggers to make money and advertise of your brand, but on the other hand, it may also guide to the possibility of deceiving visiter. When bloggers work with brands, the brands may ask the bloggers to compose false publicity, which may demotivate fans and damage the independence and objectivity of the website.
Surprising views on sponsord posts
- Two-thirds of readers feel cheated after reading a sponsored article or video.
- 54% of readers think sponsored content is not credible.
- 59% of readers would be biased if a news site ran an article sponsored by a brand
- As education levels rise, so does distrust of sponsored content
This is not to say that sponsored content is not a viable way to make money, but it does mean that when promoting other products or services, you should be transparent with your readers and recommend products or services that you can trust. Otherwise, you will lose many readers and the reputation of your website and blog will be damaged.
Freelancer Services
Freelancing is one of the relatively quick ways for bloggers to make money. It does not require much start-up time. As long as the blogger has extraordinary skills and can provide high-quality services to customers in a guaranteed quantity, it does not require much start-up time. In addition, there are many Internet platforms that provide bloggers with freelance work opportunities, such as Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, etc. As a freelancer, the services you can sell include:
- Copywriting
- Website Management
- Social Media Management
- Website Development
- Graphic Design
- Video Editing
In fact, for bloggers, they attract readers’ attention by sharing professional knowledge. When bloggers have certain professional skills and can help others solve problems, they can actually sell their own skills and services.
Successful Freelancer who basicaly blogger
For bloggers, who deal with words almost every day, copywriting has become a relatively simple way for them to make money from a blog. Elna Cain is a freelance technology writer and blogger who sells her writing services to well-known blogs and websites such as Bloggingwizard and WordTune . At the same time, with the help of high exposure on well-known websites, Elna enjoys a high reputation in the blogging field and becomes one of the highest-paid freelancers.
So, before you start selling the services you specialize in, you need to determine whether your skills and expertise can solve problems for others? Can you bring value to others? You also need to do your research to ensure you can promote your services.
Online courses and workshops
If you have some professional skills or expertise, in addition to providing freelance services to others, you can also sell your skills or knowledge through knowledge payment.
One of the most typical cases is the well-known overseas online course platform Udemy and the professional skills sharing platform SkillShare. Of course, if you have any kind of skill or knowledge and have good number subscriber, you can also monetize your knowledge through similar platforms and can make money from a blog.
If you do not like to rely on a platform, you should try to host your courses on a streaming platform. There are many ways that can help bloggers share online, such as the online live broadcast platform StreamYard, the online teaching platform Teachable, and so on. For domestic platforms, Knowledge Planet and Lizhi Microclass are both good knowledge payment platforms.
Stories of online courses seller blogger
Jon Morrow is a blogger for SmartBlogger , a well-known overseas blogging website . He is one of the best examples of bloggers who have achieved great success in online courses and seminars.
Jon offers online courses and workshops to teach people how to start and grow a successful blogging and content marketing business. Jon’s courses and workshops have inspired thousands of people to start blogs and copywriting businesses, while also creating ongoing passive income for Jon.
Another pair of sisters I would like to introduce to you are Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman, who are the founders of the blog ABeautifulMess , which focuses on handmade DIY and recipes. They also host classes and webinars on topics like design, blogging, and Instagram growth strategies.
The holding of online courses and seminars requires bloggers to start from the things they love and continue to expand through their own interests. Everyone has their own unique side. It has nothing to do with your age, occupation and background. As long as you discover it with your heart, you will definitely find your own interests.
Books and e-books
If you have good creative ideas, professional knowledge, touching stories or successful experiences, you can make money from a blog by releasing books or e-books. Running a blog itself is a job that often involves writing. What is important is the content you want to express through words.
As long as you have good content ideas, you can make full use of various book stores around the world, such as Amazon, Apple, Google and other well-known online bookstores. Once your books are recognized and praised by readers, the number of your books will continue to increase over time, thereby earning passive income.
Some stories of books & e-books
When ChatGPT became popular all over the world, a book titled “Everyone Can Make Money Playing ChatGPT” was launched in China. The cumulative sales on JD.com have now exceeded 5 million. I haven’t read this book in detail, so I won’t talk about the content of the book for now. It can be said that the author has combined current hot topics with his own areas of expertise.
Another typical case is Matthew Kepnes, a well-known American travel blogger. He left the United States to travel to Thailand at the age of 23. However, this trip made him give up his job and began to share his travel experiences and skills with netizens through blogging. At the same time, he also wrote his travel experience into a book titled ” How to Travel the World on $50 a Day” , which is now one of the bestsellers on Amazon. The book has received over 1,000 reviews on Amazon and has been featured in media articles on websites such as CNN, BBC and the Wall Street Journal.
If you want to successfully sell books and e-books, you need to win the recognition and trust of readers through your professional knowledge and skills in the early stages. In fact, you also need to customize a reliable marketing strategy to promote your products. Social media platforms, email lists, communities, blogs, and paid advertising can all drive traffic to your sales page.
Online consultation and coaching
In daily life, people will have some problems that they cannot solve by themselves, and then they need to seek some professional opinions and suggestions. The problems people encounter are often related to your niche market.
Readers benefit from your content and are naturally willing to pay for advice and learning. At the same time, for merchants, if your readers have high stickiness, merchants are also willing to pay for consultation to get better customer experience or product recommendations. Online consultation can be easily solved through online meetings using Calendar.
In addition, tutoring is also one of the ways to help readers quickly improve their cognitive and professional skills. If you run a blog about women’s fitness and healthy living, you can offer coaching services based on your readers’ preferences and problems. Tutoring can be done offline or online, but it requires you to make specific arrangements based on the actual situation.
Example of make money use consulting & coaching
A classic example of making money through consulting and coaching is Brooke Castillo of Life Coach School . Her original teaching framework helps her clients improve the quality of life and solve the problems they encounter in life.
Her coaching services have helped hundreds of people who want to improve their personal and professional lives. In addition, in order to further expand her influence, she also established a successful brand blog TheLifeCoachSchool based on the content of the blog .
Selling goods
Once you have earned the trust of your readers through good content, you can create physical products for sale based on your audience as you wish. If you want to be successful, you should be connect with your subscribers frequently to understand their feelings about your products or content. If you don’t have any idea about products, you should search on google and check your competitor products and then decide what to do?
Ideas for selling goods
- Products: If your blog has established loyal fans, the most common products are T-shirts, mugs and stickers with brand or popular words. There are many POD (print on demand) service providers to choose from overseas. You only need to provide the design plan and leave the rest to the POD service provider.
- Handmade products: If your blog content tends to be DIY or handmade daily necessities, you can consider selling your handmade products through an online store. There are many e-commerce platforms to choose from, such as Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, etc.
- Digital goods: Digital goods have low costs and high profits. You can choose to sell digital goods or physical goods, such as bullet journals, based on customer demand.
Bloggers who make money through selling products
- ABeautifulMess : The website content is mainly DIY and handicrafts, and the products sold include clothing, home decorations, craft supplies, etc.
- Jeff Sheldon : Jeff Sheldon is a successful blogger who sells a variety of products including home furnishings, daily necessities, office supplies, etc.
Make money with YouTube videos
Now, with the rise of film content, various video platforms and live broadcast platforms have become the platforms of choice for many self-media workers.YouTube has many video creaters because it is a second largest search engine.
If you have already created a personal blog, you can insert the corresponding YouTube video in your personal blog to increase traffic, and you can also achieve mutual traffic between the blog and the YouTube channel.
Although the ways to make money from a YouTube channel are very similar to blogging, they are somewhat different. According to YouTube’s official blog, YouTube makes money in more than a dozen ways, including advertising, business sponsorship, subscription memberships, affiliate marketing, online stores, and more.
However, before you start making profits, you also need to produce eye-catching videos in the early stages to attract your target audience. Once your channel has accumulated a certain number of fans and the videos have a good number of views, you can start considering making money.
Bloggers who make money use YouTube
There are many examples of making money through YouTube channels. Here is a typical example of Zoella. The content of this blogger’s channel is mainly beauty and fashion. She currently has nearly 11 million subscribers on the YouTube platform.
Therefore, she cooperates with large companies such as the well-known cosmetics brand L’Oreal, and also uses affiliate marketing to promote brands, skin care products and services that fit her lifestyle.
Li Ziqi, whose YouTube Chinese channel was once very popular, is also a very typical case. Although the channel has now suspended content updates, the videos released in the past are still generating passive income for the channel.
Personal Podcast
According to the latest data released by the overseas data statistics website DemandSage , as of February 2023, the number of podcasts has exceeded 5 million, and the number of podcast episodes has exceeded 70 million.
At the same time, podcasts support multiple different podcast hosting platforms, including APP Store, Google Play, Spotify, and other independent podcasts, etc.
There are about 5 million podcasts on the Spotify platform alone. This also fully demonstrates the popularity of the podcast market, and as a creator you can earn passive income by releasing a few episodes of podcasts in a month.
Ways to make money from a blog use podcaste
The main way for podcasters to make money is also through sponsorship or advertising. However, when accepting sponsorship or advertising, they need to accept services or products related to the listeners, otherwise the advertising effect will be difficult to achieve.
Another effective way is VIP paid content. You can register an account on the Patreon platform and activate a membership subscription plan.
Success story of podcaste blogger
Ryan Robbinson, a well-known overseas blogger, has achieved great success through his podcast. His podcast column The Side Hustle Project has become the preferred resource for entrepreneurs looking to start and develop side projects.
This podcast has grown due to the development of his own blog website. He also talked about his money-making blog and freelance writing in the podcast. If you realy want to start your own podcast, you can choose services such as Anchors.fm and Buzzsprout to host your podcast, and use Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify to assign your podcast content and get more exposure.
Follow steps to start blogging
If you have already started to want to make money by blogging, but you have some basic work to do in the early stage, it can be roughly divided into the following four steps:
- Write a blog: The first step to make money from a blog is to start writing text.
- Choose a niche: Focus on one target niche and start work on it, write high-quality. Buy host and domain, then use a website builder like WordPress, Wix, etc. to build a blog and start publishing articles.
- Blog operation: Learn how to drive traffic to a blog site and enhance the site’s brand power and influence. There are many operational methods, including sharing on social platforms, short video traffic, SEO, SEM, etc.
- Traffic Monetization: Once your blog has high traffic, you can start making money from it.
Monetize traffic through
- advertise
- Affiliate Marketing
- Sponsored content
- Online Store
Summarize
If you want to make money from a blog, you need to gradually accumulate popularity and gain traffic through writing. This process is long and arduous.I will share my knowledge and experince with you using this blog. I hope you will like this blog and give your feeling in comment section. If you have any questions or other ideas, please feel free to share them in the comments section.