How do Bloggers make money

How do Bloggers Make Money ( 7 Steps) Complete Guide

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Money can be made from your blog in so many ways. I cover only a few here.

After having interviewed numerous bloggers, following and researching upon thousands of bloggers I have found a few common ways bloggers use to monetize a blog.

How Do Beginner Bloggers Make Money? Beginner bloggers primarily stick to what they know best. I found that most sell the skills they know as services.

Eventually, they diversify into one or a combination of the following ways to monetise their blog.

  • eBooks
  • Freelance Writing
  • Online Courses
  • Coaching and Consulting
  • Google Adsense

How to Monetize Your Blog?

Let us take a look at some easy ways to monetize your blog and most of these have been used by me on this blog.

  1. Affiliate Marketing
  2. Adsense
  3. Informational Products
  4. Physical Products
  5. Memberships
  6. Sponsored Posts
  7. Lead Generation

Affiliate Marketing

If you sell other people’s products on your website you are an affiliate marketer.

Affiliate marketing is promoting others products in return for a commission. This is one of the easiest ways to get started making money.

As an affiliate, you stand to earn on every sale. If you want to sell physical products as an affiliate you could use Amazon.

Amazon has an affiliate program where you get paid for every product you refer.

If you want to sell Digital products you can become an affiliate at sites such as Clickbank and JvZoo. I have worked with both these companies and I have received timely payouts from them.

This is how you make money with affiliate marketing

  • Partner with companies which offer affiliate marketing services such as Amazon, Clickbank and JvZoo
  • Write product reviews on your website and link out to the products using your unique “referral link”
  • When someone purchases via your link, you get a commission

Working with affiliate programs is easy.

Just Google
your product + affiliate and you should be able to find may merchants who offer this service.

Most companies will hold onto your payments for up to 90 days. So if you make a sale today, you will get paid 90 days from now. A resource to learn Affiliate Marketing.

Adsense

You can place advertisements on your website from Google. This is under Google Adsense program – adsense.google.com

Once you sign up and are approved, you place Google adsense code on your website. When someone clicks on the advertisements you get paid per click.

Adsense strategy

  • Post at least 10 to 15 posts on your website
  • Create required pages such as Privacy policy and About me pages
  • Your articles must be copyright free and well written
  • Your images must be copyright free
  • Apply to Adsense
  • Once approved you can add it to your website. To add to the sidebar use the HTML widget and paste the AdSense code
  • Never click on the ads on your website

In some countries, your website must be at least 6 months old for approval. Approval to Adsense can take anywhere between 4 days to 7 days . Some people have reported a longer wait time.

Once your pageviews increase just move onto better ad networks such as Mediavine, Ezoic.

They pay higher ( yes a lot more than Google Adsense).

Informational products

It took me years to get to this stage in my career as a blogger. I knew that the fastest and easiest way to make money as a blogger is by creating and selling information products.

But there is always the fear on how to go about this. I found for me it was easier to first write a couple of Blog posts on the topic I wanted to publish an eBook on.

The more I wrote and researched, the more confident I became about the topic.

Eventually I simply made an outline of the eBook ( I already had all the topics in my head).

I used Google to find MORE ideas and specific issues people were having or information they were looking for.

I converted this into a mindmap.

I then wrote until I could provide the best answer to the topic on hand. I edited the content, moved the topics around. Put related topics under one header and called them chapters, added in a table of contents…and Voila…my eBook was ready,

I think it took me 20 days from start to finish.

It was the most thrilling and exhausting task ever. Try it 🙂

BTW here is my eBook

You could also create

  • Planners
  • Printables
  • Guides
  • Podcasts
  • Videos

All such informational products can be sold online. You can sell via amazon kindle, Teachable, Udemy.

There are so many platforms which help bloggers sell their products. They keep a commission for this service or charge a monthly fee for this.

Selling digital products is very easy and before time you can create tons of products which you can sell online.

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Let us look at an example. Lets say we have a website about laptops. We realize that we can help people by creating a document which is a buyers guide.

So this could be a “Beginners guide to buying a laptop on a Budget’. 

In this eBook we have all the requirements a laptop should have. The additional requirements  it should have for say a gamer ( more processing, better graphics card).

You understand the drift. Now package this into a pdf document and sell it. You can sell it as a kindle book or sell it on Teachable or on Udemy.

After a few weeks you can come up with the best accessories guide for laptops. This could be printers and microphones.

What excites me is that each and every time you learn something new, you can create a guide and sell it.

Physical products

You can sell physical products as well. These could be beauty products, clothes, calendars. These can be purchased in bulk using websites like Alibaba and sold via your website or using sites like Amazon.

There are many people making a ton of money dropshipping products. Basically you drive traffic to product pages. Once people purchase from your website, you open an order from a company which will ship the product to the customer.

Some drop shippers even customise and brand your deliveries with the packaging you want and include your labels and brochures. Of course this will be at an extra cost but it is a great way to make money.

Memberships

This could be another way you can monetise your website. Create a members-only zone where you teach something. Membership fees could be one time or recurring.

These are perfect if you want to generate recurring income. 

You might be thinking well this sounds complicated. There are simple ways and complicated ways to do this.

Complicated method – Hire a developer and code a membership area or buy a membership plugin. Integrate payment gateways and start accepting memberships.

Simple Method – Password protect posts on your wordpress website. Accept payments from people for a course and send them the password to the pages. Only paid members can see the pages.

 I just wanted to how you if you have a desire you can make it happen.

Lead Generation

This technique is a killer as you do not require a lot of pageviews to generate leads. Basically, you need to have a system in which people can share their Name, number and email address with you.

You then sell this information to companies who are willing to pay huge amounts for these leads.

Before you shake your head and say…”No” this is too difficult… let me tell you it is easy…

This is a strategy I am looking to implement on one of my niche sites which is like super targeted.

On this website I have very few blog posts ( in all may be 10 or so). I get a handful of visitors on this website.

The purpose of the website was simply to have a place to share the most commonly asked information about a service which we were providing.

This tiny site with just a handful of visitors has brought in people who have signed up for our service.

We charge about INR 4000 for the service. So just one or two leads more than enough for us. We cannot and do not want to handle volume, as it is a one on one consulting.

What we noticed over time is that we receive many calls from people who are not looking for our service but a similar service.

We are not ready to offer that service so we are now looking at adding a lead generation form which will help us get qualified leads.

We can then sell these leads to people who offer the services they are looking for.

In a lead generation system, you must keep the following things.

  • Take as much information as you can without taking any personal information. No SSN, Pan Card should be taken.
  • Qualify the lead by asking the right question(s). This will help you classify the lead and sell them to the right service provider.
  • Let the person filling the form know before they sign up that you will be giving their information to service providers. This should be transparent.

Brands are always looking for ways to promote their products, services, software. Usually, they hire PR teams who source bloggers and vloggers suited for their niche. These people find bloggers who are in the niche and whose readers fit the profile of a buyer for their client.

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Bloggers could be sent free products in return for a review. They could be paid money in return for a review. It all depends on how many followers you have and how valuable they think your blog is. 

So you write a post on your website about the products you received. You might also make a video and share the products. In return, you receive payment. These are called sponsored posts.

Let’s talk about brands for now.

Working with Brands

Brands start noticing your posts. Some of them might even reach out to you if they like your writing style, your personality. You could also be the one taking the first step and reaching out to the brands. Say you love a particular company and use their products often. You could reach out to them and connect with them.

Do Brands work only with big Blogs ?

Brands today have started using the influence and voice of relatively small blogs to get word out about their products. Small bloggers and social media influencers are called micro influencers. 

Brands realise that tapping into the audience of small bloggers can bring them a different reach which big bloggers cannot provide. Also it is much cheaper and even free to use small bloggers than to pay big bloggers who typically have big budgets.

This is very helpful for people like us who are small time bloggers. This means that we can work with brands even if we still don’t have the reach. 

We can showcase our strengths even if we are a small blogger to get brands interested in working with us. We will address this when we discuss the media kit. For now just know that it does not matter whether you are a big blogger or a small blogger, you still have a voice.

The Media Kit

A media kit is like a resume or CV about your blog and your personal brand. When you reach out to a brand or a brand reaches out to you, they typically would be interested in a media kit.

What a brand wants to understand is why they should work with you, how will it help them? 

So in the media kit typically this is what you will mention

  • The blog analytics
    • How many unique visitors does your blog have
    • Monthly pageviews
  • Social media analytics and reach
    • Followers on Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter
    • Reach on each platform and for specific posts
  • Demographics of your audience
    • Age and Location ( Country or City)

It is best to start working on a media kit as soon as you feel sure that you would like to continue blogging.

Keeping this document ready will keep you stay focused and also provide you with a clear picture of what’s working for your blog. Ideally this document can be updated every month. That will help you have visual feel of how the blog visitors have increased. How the social media followers are increased. Which social media platforms work better for you.

This will help you chart out strategies for your blog once you understand what’s working and what’s not.

As an example

  • You notice that the followers on Twitter are increasing and you are getting visits back to your blog
  • You decide to focus some time on twitter and leverage it for your blog
  • You figure out that most of the interactions happen between the hours of 6 pm to 8 pm
  • You start tweeting at these hours and interacting with people at these hours on twitter

Such focused planning would have been impossible if you did not have the numbers to work with. A media kit is just not for selling your services to a brand, it is also a guideline for you to understand where you are at and where you need to be 6 months from now or a year from now.

How much to charge a Brand?

This is one question for which I do not have a standard answer. This amount varies. Yes, big bloggers and social media influencers charge huge sums of money. They bring their personal brand value to the table and are in a position to set terms. Big bloggers typically have a Sponsored Posts

How do you get products to showcase in your blog?

When you are new no one will send you anything to review. Any brand wants people to view their products. They will send you products only if they feel that you are an influencer. They want to feel confident that you can influence people.

So here is how I got started when no one ever knew me. Once I established myself in one area, I could then leverage that influence and work with more brands.

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When I started out I did not want to invest money so I started reviewing products I have already purchased.

These included some makeup products, some home organisation items. If you are interested in say beauty you will have at least 5 to 10 beauty items at home.

Start with these products. Research in Google about that product.

I went to Google and found what are people searching for about hair colouring. Some of these searches or keywords related to my product. I could use my product as a solution.

Next I wrote the article and published it.

I shared it on social media and also pinged it.

I added it to the webmaster tool.

Tip: Incorporate all kinds of media in your blog posts. This makes the posts rank higher. Media include images, video, podcasts.

My Secret Strategy ( So Simple)

Once you have a good number of articles on your website you can use the method I am sharing with you.

I waited till I had at least 30 articles on my website before I used this strategy. 

I contacted brands and I shared with them the products I had reviewed. I mentioned how I liked their products and what all ways I have shared their products ( social media, on YouTube).

This made the brands notice me ( a small blogger). They wrote back that they liked my writing style and contacted me. They asked me if they could send me review products.

This is how I now had new content for my blog ( with new review products).

Does it work for all niches?

You can use it for any niche. I have used the same technique for Blogging niche ( for software reviews), Beauty ( product samples like face wash, handwash). 

Working with brands is easy if you have the patience and a strategy in mind. Randomly approaching someone will get you nowhere. It needs time and patience as well.

Take a sheet of paper and write down what it is you want to accomplish. Now write down how you plan to achieve it. Then just go do it.

Note: Once you start getting more and more content published. New brands will start noticing you. Their PR people are always looking for influencers, whether it be big or small. They will start reaching out to you with their products in exchange for a review.

Do Bloggers Really Make Money?

The short answer is yes, bloggers do make money. How much you make depends on many factors such as keyword research, the topics you are selecting, how you plan to monetise.

How Long Does it Take to Make Money Blogging?

Usually, it takes between 8 months to a year to see any traction from a new blog. Money slowly starts trickling in. If you are doing things right you can expect to generate a full time income in two years from your Blog.

Check out this system which can help you generate a passive income from your blog.

How much money can you make from a Blog?

The short answer is it varies from niche to niche and from the amount of effort you have put in, your blog strategy.

If you are doing things right, you can expect to make anywhere between $200 to $1000 by the end of 2 years.

There are many more strategies and step by step tips I would like to share with you. Connect with me on my various groups and channels. Subscribe to my newsletter at indianmomvlogs.com to get updates.

This post is a part of the #startablog series and first appeared on indianmomvlogs.com. You can check the other posts below.

How other Bloggers are making money from their blogs