When I was invited to speak on a panel in London over the weekend about blogging, Sarah sent us four topics that would be covered during the talk.
In order to ensure I was fully clued up, I wrote posts about each of the topic on the train down to London and decided to create a mini-series of blog posts to help you take your blog to the next level.
The posts are:
- Getting started with a blog or YouTube channel.
- Should you be creating content that’s sharable and relatable?
- How to make money from your blog.
- Mistakes to avoid if you want to take blogging seriously
How to Make Money Blogging
There are multiple ways to start monetising your blog – the most important thing to remember is that it’s not something that’s going to happen over night.
It took me a year before I made my first bit of cash from blogging, which was only $10. It’s also something I regret – a cheap dress site that was probably rubbish quality. Never again.
You need to be willing to put in the effort with little or no return for months, or even years before seeing a return.
You’re not going to start making money until:
- you’ve built up your authority with Google to rank in search engines to increase your traffic.
- you’ve built up your authority within your niche so you’re known for being an influencer.
- you’re able to create quality blog posts on a well structured blog with clear images.
These things take time, experience and the ability to build relationships with others.
Here are some ways you can start making money on your blog:
1. Adsense.
Adsense is easy to implement and is great because it’s a passive way of earning money.
You put the adverts on your blog and can start earning straight away.
Finding out how much you’re likely to earn based on your views is difficult as it’s against the terms of service to publicly discuss the amount of money you make – though expect it to be very low unless you’re getting thousands of page views a day.
2. On site advertising.
It’s easy to sell advert slots from your blog.
Set up a tab in your menu that explains your pricing – I’d advise you to create a couple of different sizes for different prices. I currently have two sizes – a small and a large which you can view here.
What to charge for advertising?
It’s so hard to find out how much you should charge – so here’s what I think.
The price you charge is up to you. You don’t want to sell yourself short but you wan’t to make the price attractive. I’d start pretty low and if you find that your advertising spots sell out, increase the price.
I started mine at £2.50 a month for a small advert and £5 a month for a large advert.
I don’t sell many adverts on my blog, about 2 or 3 a month – but again, it’s another passive way of earning money.
It’s not uncommon to get buyer that will want to buy in bulk – for this I will offer 3 months advertising for the price of 2.
3. Amazon affiliates.
Amazon affiliates is good if you review a lot of products, or do wish list type posts.
You simply add a bit of code in your blog post and it will show either a text link or image. This will take a reader to the amazon page to buy the product and you’ll get a small percentage of the earnings.
Again, this is something that you’ll need a lot of traffic to benefit from and you need to be influential as it counts on your users willing to spend money on your recommendations.
4. Selling products or services.
You can add a shop to your blog or start an Etsy site selling products or services.
Popular things to sell along side your blog are eBooks with information to solve your readers problems, blog templates, graphics, handmade crafts/jewellery and some bloggers will even sell blog consulting where you can skype/e-mail with an experienced blogger to get advice on how to improve your blog.
5. Sponsored posts.
Sponsored posts are the biggest earner for me. This is when a company or brand will ask you to write an article for them to a set specification.
You will usually be asked how much you charge for sponsored posts, but more often or not, the PR you’re communicating in will have a set budget that they can’t go over.
It’s important to understand that the PR is usually the middle man between the brand and the blogger and don’t have thousands of pounds to give you for a blog post.
The most I’ve got for a sponsored blog post is £100 and the least I’ve got is £40.
I’d advice against accepting sponsored posts that only offer you a few dollars – there are a lot of websites out there that are trying to buy a lot of links for a small amount.
6. Writing for other blogs.
If I didn’t have a full time job, this is how I’d go about earning extra morning blogging.
There are websites that are looking for writers to create blog posts and articles for them. You can use your own blog as a portfolio.
There are many websites that will advertise for writers and ask you to e-mail and send a pitch as what you can offer them.
I’ve only wrote for one other blog before and was paid £75 for a 500 word blog post.
A good place to start looking for paid writing work is the Jobs section on ProBlogger. Here there are many jobs and descriptions to give you an idea of the jobs out there.
Are there any other ways you make money from blogging?
These are really great some of these I had no idea about
CANDICE | BEAUTY CANDY LOVES
They all great information and about accepting PR for few dollars so true no blogger should accept them is insulting when the advertising is double of that. Have an awesome weekend.
This is so helpful! I definitely want to monetize more, but it seems time-consuming, especially on top of a full-time job!
This is such a useful post and you’ve summed up each way brilliantly 🙂
x
These are great! It is always so hard figuring out how to make money!
Melanie @ meandmr.com
What a really useful post! Now im thinking of monetizing my blog soon <3 Thanks for these tips 🙂
Flash Tattoo Giveaway!
sarahrizaga.blogspot.com
Very interesting post. I can’t wait for the last topic, I like to read about this topic although I’m not sure I want to monetize my blog as I think is a lot of hassle. But I love going to events and blog about them 🙂
You’re right, it can be a lot of hassle and it has to be worth it for you to want to do it. Earning a little each month might not seem worth it with all the declaring and such that comes along with it!
I wish I had a guide like this when I first started blogging. I definitely stay away from sponsored posts that pay very little as well.
Hmm my question is how do you know that you are influential enough to start monetizing? And if you’re not at that point yet, how do you get there?
Olivia | Her Name Was Celebration
I think as a blogger, you’re never going to feel influential enough! It’d say you get there by being really active within the blogging community – leaving quality comments on other blogs that result in your gaining quality comments and having an active twitter feed that shows brands that people care about what you have to say!
Great set of tips for someone who knows nothing about this side of blogging (ie. me!)
Interesting to know what to avoid 🙂
Olivia xxx
This was a really interesting post to read, my dream would be to go full-time blogging but I understand that takes work and time. Writing for other blogs isn’t something I’ve ever thought of but is definitely a good idea so thank you.
Kristy | thevioletblonde.com
Yeah, you can earn some decent money from it! But it can be time consuming. I also get jealous when I write posts for another blog which I end up wanting to post on mine haha.
Wonderful post. ^^
New outfit is online…
I love that there are so many different ways to make money from doing something that we love!! I’d love to look more into this and see what i can do but i’m definitely researching into these! Thank you
Have a lovely day,
Rebecca xoxo
http://rxbxcca.blogspot.co.uk/
100% agree on the sponsored posts. I was approached by a few online site asking to do sponsored posts for $20 and I must use certain words and insert links. Needless to say I never replied any.
Shireen | Reflection of Sanity
This is so helpful! I was seriously doing research about this just the other day. Do you have any advance on, if a company approaches you, wants to gift you products, and have you write a post about them, but the assumed compensation are the free products. At that point, do you think we should ask them to sponsor the post? Would love to hear your thoughts on this!
Tina
http://www.justatinabit.com
I’d only ask for money if they wanted very specific things – like the post within a certain time frame, for it to be a certain number of words/photos and specific links. If it was just a review and you have complete control over the article, I wouldn’t be asking for money.
I as yet have not done any posts for money or gone down the route of advertising. I think in part that I love having my space where I can do and say what I like without being influenced. But in time I am sure that to support the growth of my blog and the products I want to review I will need to Lucy x
Corinne Hello this post is very interesting, I tried Google Adsense, and as you say not much is gained even for me it’s slow, I prefer Sponsored post!
Great post, I remember when I started blogging in January I had no idea how to monetize my blog properly, thanks to posts like this I have a much better understanding x
Great post 🙂 I’m part of an affiliate scheme but I have yet to have any success with it! 🙂
Dannie x
What great tips!
Excellent Post; As Usual!
xo