10 Ways To Make Money Blogging

A lot of people wonder how you can make money by starting a blog! Some of the following strategies are short term and some are long term, but they are ALL something you can do to make money online.

1. Affiliate income

In my opinion, affiliate income is basically the holy grail of blogging income. It’s not quite passive because there is work that goes into it, but it’s the least like trading time for money on this list. You basically get emails that say you made money, which is nice. 

In a nutshell, you make money by introducing products or services that are legitimately helpful for your readers. When a sale is made on your site, you make a cut of the sale.

Affiliate income takes time and traffic, so this would be part of your long term plan in terms of monetizing a website.

I highly recommend you take Michelle Schroeder-Gardners “Making Sense of Affiliate Income” course if you’re serious about blogging and actually interested in making affiliate income.

1. Marketing Services

You can make thousands of dollars a month by running websites, social media, email campaigns, paid advertising and more for small businesses. This is the ultimate income stream for new bloggers!

1. Freelance Writing

This is the easiest way to make money in the beginning stages of a blog! If you have writing talent (which you’ll probably figure out pretty quickly if you are honest with yourself) you can make money this way.

A lot of small businesses have blogs, which means they need great content written for them!

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Work

Small-mid sized businesses pay well for SEO work, mostly because it can be very tedious and requires a lot of research and execution from you. It’s the practice of getting a site to rank higher in Google.

Most small business owners want this service, but don’t have anyone on their staff that knows how to run a website or write content that would rank in Google. If you can become a proficient blogger you’ll have an opportunity to offer this service to small businesses!

1. Social Media Management

This is probably the easiest service on this list, but it’s important. Small business owners are busy, and usually don’t have time to manage their online presence. The smart ones know how important this is right now in the business-to-consumer environment and will continue to be in the coming years, so you can make good money by providing this service for them.

The key is to charge a business less than it would cost them to hire a full-time social media manager. It makes it a no-brainer for them!

1. Email Campaigns

Similar to social media management, you can charge companies for managing their email campaigns or helping them grow their list! This is something I would try to package in with some of the other services on this list.

Personally, I use ConvertKit for all of my email management. It’s hands down the best in the game right now and also reasonably priced.

1. Sponsored Content

From time to time, you’ll see a sponsored post on Topnaija.ng . These are great because they pay well, but you have to be CAREFUL when you do them. There are a lot of crappy companies out there that try to use a blogger’s influence to push…well…their crap product.

I’m extremely picky about which companies I work with, and will always turn down a company I’m not comfortable with. You might have noticed I don’t have any sponsored content on the site this month – I didn’t receive any offers I was comfortable sharing with my readers in November!

1. Blog Coaching

I LOVE blog coaching, but this is another one that is a long term plan for your blog. You have to have success with blogging (which means making good money) before people will pay for your advice.

When I see non-money making bloggers offering blog coaching it reminds me of a 20 year old “life coach”. It just doesn’t make any sense! Hold off until you are showing consistent profits.

1. Google Adwords

Plenty of mom and pop stores want to show up in Google, but don’t necessarily have the resources to pay for SEO or blogging content. Managing their Google Adwords accounts can be a great way to provide value to their company while getting their brand seen on Google.

1. Facebook Ads

Facebook ads give you the ability to very specifically target potential customers! I’m not affiliated with him in any way, but Jon Loomer is a great resource to learn more about Facebook ads.

As you can see – most of the money I made in the beginning of my blogging career has been providing marketing services for small businesses. If you are hoping to make money quickly in blogging, that is probably your best bet.

If you decide to start a blog – be extremely patient and learn as much as you can. Not only will it give you more skills to monetize, but it will help your own site grow over time.