Do you share the dream?
Not the American dream but the bloggers’ dream.
Do you know what it is?
It is to make money blogging.
Yet, according to statistics, 96% of bloggers fail at making money online.
You don’t have to feel guilty to want to make money online. You can still want to empower people.
Hoping to earn money from your blogging efforts does not have to be a source of guilt. It doesn’t mean you want to help your readers any less.
MoneySavingMom agrees. “If you are going to spend so much time producing great content, you should also get paid for your time.”
Everybody’s Doing It
According to Keesha Metcalf, one of the reasons people start blogs is to earn an income from the Internet.
Metcalf actually makes earning money from the Internet sound easy. She explains the key is finding a niche where there is high-interest. She offers fitness and personal finances as an example. Sites like Buzzsumo.com exist to help you figure out what’s popular, so you know which topics are high interest.
Neil Patel claims anyone can make $100,000 a year from their blog. Blogger Alexander James has taken him up on his challenge and his trying to do just that.
Sue Anne Dunlevie knows of people making one million dollars a year from their online business.
So many people are making money online, it has even become trendy for bloggers like Chantal to publish their income reports.
How to Make Money Blogging
- Petition WP to have ads on your site.
- Accept donations. Have a credit card on your site. Jason Cushman has a credit card on his site, so people can make donations.
- Accept money for sponsored blog posts. FatJoe’s Blogger Outreach Program sponsors bloggers’ posts. They pay a small stipend to you for publishing their article. Companies pay them to embed their links into the post.
- Accept money for sponsored Pinterest pins. Loop 88 pays people to pin as advertisements
- Offer your services on Fiverr. Nico Puegher reported he made money quickly on Fiverr. People who make money on Fiverr make $5.00 a gig; however, the price increases in conjunction with how complicated the jobs are.
- Offer your services on Upwork (formerly Odesk.com). Upwork is like Fiverr, but the users tend to get paid more.
- Start a service. Trey Morgan recommends starting a service that solves a problem for your readers.
- Be an affiliate of a product that solves that problem. If you look in my right sidebar, you will see that I just became an affiliate of my host, A Small Orange.
- Use ProBlogger.net to find paying jobs for bloggers. Clarissa Wilson reports being pleased with the income she has made from ProBlogger.
- Have a membership site. Daniela Uslan charges $50.00 a month to be a member of her site.
- Write an ebook. You could sell it through the Amazon kindle program which has a good reputation. Get it reviewed. If you trade service for service, you might be able to get it reviewed for free. You could also sell it on your site. This is called Passive Income— when you are doing very little work, but you are still earning an income.
- Use Sverve.com which has the potential for bloggers to make money. Bloggers like Michelle report making money from Sverve, and that was when she was only blogging for one week. Chantal Steele also reports making money from Sverve.
- Become an affiliate of companies that relate to your blogging niche. Many companies pay $50.00 for each referral. I am an affiliate of A Small Orange and Jill’s Virtual Assistant.
- Outsource a job. You can spend less but make more even though you’ll have to put out money initially.
- Have Google Adsense on your site. If you look to your right, you will see I have ads. Google Adsense sends a check when the clicks on the links reach a certain amount.
- Become an Amazon affiliate. Karissa Ancell is an Amazon affiliate. When people click her link, she gets money.
- Conduct webinars. Some webinars charge to attend. Others are free but try to entice the participant into paying for further help. A webinar is a video conference. Utilizing webinar software can greatly enhance the management and presentation of these virtual events.
- Ghostwrite. A ghostwriter is also called a freelance writer. ProBlogger, WriteJobsInfo, and BeyondYourBlog are great places to look for ghostwriter jobs.
- Sell advertising space on your blog. I sell advertising space in my right sidebar.
- Sell a course. Udemy.com is the place many bloggers are selling their courses. Ruth Soukup turned her Ebook into a course called “The Elite Blog Academy.”
- Become a motivational speaker. Now that you’ve got credibility in your area, you could empower people off line. Christoph explained he makes a great deal of money this way. Blogger Tammy Bleck is also a motivational speaker who started speaking at colleges after receiving success as a blogger.
Whatever you decide to do as your way of making money, the best people to market your products and services to are your Email list. Each time you get a happy customer, make sure you get a testimonial. Social proof is important in order to get more customers.
Marketer Mark Newsome prefers video testimonials. He explains they advertise his marketing services for him.
Uh-oh… When Making Money Can Be a Problem
WordPress.com frowns on its users making money from blogging.
Consider this comment from a reader: I use WordPress.com so things are a little different, I can’t use Google Adsense (which sucks), but I want to be able to monetize it [my blog] somehow.
I heard WordPress.com gets angry if their users accept money online. Others I’ve spoken with have heard this as well.
Lately, WordPress.com users seem to be making the move to WordPress.org. Jason Cushman is an example of a blogger who previously insisted he wasn’t close to making the move to self-hosting, and just recently made the switch.
My article 18 Important Things You Should Know About Self-Hosting offers a nice overview of the pros and cons of self-hosting.
When you are ready, if you decide to make the move to self-hosting, I am a huge fan of A Small Orange which is why I became an affiliate.
In closing, there are many ways your blogging can lead to making money. Most of them require self-hosting. However, while the majority require self-hosting, not all of them do.
Many people are making money from their blogs. Why couldn’t you be one of them?
Readers, please share, so other bloggers know the possibilities for blog monetization.
Are there any ways to make money blogging I left out? Are there any other sites that pay bloggers? I look forward to your views.
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Related Posts:
How to Make Money From Blogging Even if No One is Paying You Part I
How to Make Money From Blogging Even if No One is Paying You Part II
