How do Bloggers get Paid? 22 “Proven” Ways to Make Money Blogging

2 Consulting/Instructing

Some of the expert bloggers you know charge no less than $500-1000 an hour to coach. You might be wondering how they get such high paying clients.

Once you have made a name for yourself in the industry as a successful blogger, you could easily get people to pay for your experience and knowledge.

We often have people approaching us to learn more about blogging, growth hacking, digital marketing, etc.

People struggle to find the right niche, the correct marketing strategy or even understand how their content should be formatted for the best possible engagement/conversions.

You could help several individuals with insights and proven tips.

There are hundreds of such experts offering to consult and guide budding entrepreneurs as well as established businesses.

Neil Patel, Sam Ovens, Brain Dean, and many more such bloggers and entrepreneurs charge hefty consultation fees from the Fortune 500 companies.

With confidence in your expertise and the value you are adding to your clientele, you could become one of the highest-paid instructors/consultants in time.

3 Getting speaking gigs

Now that you have offered your services as a freelancer and know how to instruct, it is time to take the next step forward.

Where consulting or instructing could pay you $100-500 per hour, you could easily charge $300-1000 per speech/public speaking gig.

After all, you are letting hundreds more like you in on the secret of your success and learnings.

Let’s say you have managed to become an influencer with a strong blog that adds value to tons of people.

People will start recognizing your skills and expertise and want you to share your story while guiding others.

The best part? You get compensated well while marketing yourself even more.

Now, not everyone gets high paying gigs initially, but you do not need to be a Gary Vaynerchuck to earn from this.

Organizers don’t hesitate to pay top dollar for insightful speeches that could result in product/service sales.

However, not every blogger is a good public speaker – so don’t just jump right into it.

Even if you do and it doesn’t go well, it is not the end of the journey. Just remember what you are for – your passion for blogging and the advantage of making money through it.

4 Online courses and programs

You already know that people want to be shown the right direction for success, and they are ready to pay for the same.

If you have a successful blog, it means you understand the game better than most of the bloggers out there and you can now monetize your blog by selling your courses or programs.

From teaching people how to blog and grow their online business to being their lifestyle mentor to help them become better at what they are doing – there are tons of things you could help them with.

Moreover, if you liked consultation or can garner a huge clientele, you might get irritated by answering simple repeating questions.

The best way out is to create your own tutorial or course and probably earn more.

Not just on sites like Udemy and Coursera, you could have your collection of lessons to share with the audience base.

Improving blogging skills, how to create your website with WordPress, or any other interesting topic – take your pick and add unprecedented value to your audience. 

There are many bloggers who sell their online courses and earn really good. For instance, you can check courses by Pat Flynn.

If that isn’t motivating enough, let us shed some light on how much some tutors earn from their premium courses and programs.

Where top interior designers take home a couple of hundred thousand dollars, lifestyle coaches can make up to $1 million each year, just from their online courses and programs.

5 Affiliate Marketing

Have you ever heard of bloggers making hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions in sales seasons?

Yes, that is affiliate marketing powering them up. If you like the idea of creating a passive revenue stream for yourself, affiliate marketing is undoubtedly a great way to start with.

To understand affiliate marketing better, just imagine you joining up to help a business in its sales.

Every sale you bring in gets you a share of the revenue in the form of a commission.

Now the commission over a smartphone or television might seem very small – but imagine what hundreds and thousands of such sales in a season could bring to you.

The best way to start off would be to pick up a niche and start writing about the different services/products.

From website hosting to an electric fireplace – there is plenty out there to be sold.

By strategically engaging with your readers and recommending good products/services, you could easily take home a couple of thousand dollars as passive income.

There is no limit to what you can earn from affiliate sales. Sites like Wirecutter and Thisiswhyimbroke earn millions in affiliate sales every year.

Popular Affiliate programs with which you can begin your journey include Shareasale, Amazon, eBay, etc.

6 Selling your ebooks

Have you heard of the book ‘The Subtle art of not giving a F*ck’ by Mark Manson?

The book has sold over 4 million copies, and you might be surprised to know that its journey began as an online blog/article piece.

Mark Manson’s ultra-successful article got him a deal with Harper Collins and beheld – we got a book we all have loved to read!

Of course, not everyone gets to enjoy such success and deals but you could surely publish your own ebooks and sell them on platforms like Amazon.

Believe it or not, there are businesses out there who get their ebooks written by freelance writers and sell thousands of copies to make a great profit.

But writing ebooks or books is not as easy. Takes more than just thought process and dedication – it requires understanding and a thread of engaging pieces to keep the reader hooked throughout. A rare, but a possible way of making money through blogging online.

7 Advertising on your blog

And comes one of the most popular and highly preferred ways of generating money through blogging – advertisements.

Google Adsense happens to be one of the most popular ads platforms used by bloggers.

Ads through such platforms give mixed results but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try a few platforms out.

Even though such ad platforms give mixed results, some niches require a supplement push through advertisements.

Since your recipe, news, and fashion blogs might not generate much income with other methods, putting up ads there might actually help.

Google Adsense is not the only platform out there, you could also look at some selective ad networks like AdThrive, Mediavine and Media.net.

These platforms have their own prerequisite conditions to be fulfilled before you can have ads displayed on your website.

8 Writing sponsored posts

Another great and common way of earning money through blogging is to go for sponsored posts/blogs.

Have you ever pursued through websites like Forbes? They have several sponsored stories and posts to promote a specific business, product or service.

You will find the ‘Advertise with Us‘ section on these websites where you’ll find all the details related to how you can promote yourself on the website.

To start that off, you should put together a media kit that includes various statistics and screenshots to account for your traffic, reach, and daily readership.

Services and businesses in the same industry/niche would surely start reaching out to you, knowing you are open to sponsored blog posts or write-ups.

People often confuse sponsored posts with writing reviews, which is our next way to generate money.

Understand, your sponsored blog post doesn’t always have to be a review – it could merely be a news piece put together to talk about a specific bunch of products/services.

Not to forget, the biggest advantages of taking up sponsored blog posts include networking and taking control of the content displayed on your website (as compared to joining an ad network).

9 Review writing

No, not just your average two-liner reviews on popular shopping or order-in websites – you get paid to write detailed reviews of the product/services.

Quite similar to writing a sponsored blog post, you get paid by business owners when you recommend their service/product to your audience base.

When you are going for paid reviews, you have the advantage of trying out the product/service for free and then promoting it through your review.

Having said that, it becomes your moral responsibility to provide your audience base with legit and honest reviews.

Yes, you should make money, but shouldn’t lie to your audience as you might just end up losing your credibility.

In most of the cases, we have observed bloggers garnering up a mix of affiliate and paid review writing – they get paid a fixed amount upfront for writing the review and also get the opportunity to earn more with each sale that happens through their affiliate links.

10 Create paid content

Even though only a few bloggers go for creating paid content, it does work!

You need to be sure of the quality of content you are providing to your audience. If you are in a niche, this method might just help you make money like never before.

Quite similar to creating your ebook and selling it, we are talking about ebooks, articles, story series, infographics, collections, etc.

You could offer your audience base a peep into what’s behind the curtain. If they like what is being offered and are intrigued, they might just pay a small subscription fee to know or discover more.

You don’t need to be worried about the development or the technical fixes you might have to make to start paid content.

There are free and paid plugins available that can be installed to make that job easier. Or, you could simply use platforms like Patreon to let your fans/patrons bring in the revenue.

11 Creating a private paid forum

A rarity, but a money-making method nonetheless. Creating a paid private forum tells that you have an exclusive group of enthusiasts and experts together, exchanging knowledge or content. This can be similar to a subscription fee-based membership forum.

For example, suppose you are blogging about website development/WordPress blogs/plugin development, etc.. In that case, you could have a private forum for serious audience members to seek help from either you or other expert members in the forum.

No need for extra development effort- you could use plugins like BBPress, buddypress, etc. to get your forum going.

Now it might seem like a tedious and time-consuming task, but it will surely help you establish a recurring income while building a stellar reputation for you as an expert in the field.

12 Create your own merch/store

Got fans in the audience base you are engaging with? Now might just be the best time to leverage that connection and open your own merchandise store.

Yes, you could sell custom merchandise, and believe us, people would be more than happy to buy it and keep it as a token.

There is a lot of stuff that you could sell – custom print t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, stationery items, posters, keyrings/magnets, etc.

People love to collect such tokens, which could turn out to be another great way of spreading your brand’ s/business’s name.

A great example of such merchandise sales can be Gary Veynurchuck’s recently launched shoes – GaryVee 004.

After running a successful blog that is getting traffic, setting up a merchandise store might require some amount of development effort.

You could make use of easy to install and use plugins to help you ease the process.

13 Empower a dropshipping business with a blog

If you are open to opening and managing an online store, why not take up one of the most profitable roads?

Dropshipping is in trend and has helped thousands of individuals earn handsome profits after generating good traffic on their blog/website.

The advantage of opening and managing a dropshipping store is that you do not have to worry about managing the inventory or shipping any of the items.

You only leverage your traffic and audience group to make the sales, whereas a third party manages the production, inventory management, and delivery.

To understand this better, let’s say you have a health and lifestyle blog that has good traffic.

Now, how about you sell some good healthcare products by recommending them yourself? The inventory, packaging, and delivery are managed by someone else whereas you remain as the store’s face.

You could sell anything on a dropshipping store, provided that it is legal.

From health supplements to cosmetics, wearables to custom print t-shirts and stationery, or even healthcare products like masks and supporting belts – choose what’s in demand and drop ship it away to make good profits!

14 Paid Podcasts

After you have blogged for some while, gotten your audience’s attention, and have established yourself as an authority in the niche, you can also go for paid podcasts to generate revenue for yourself.

You can either have podcasts about blogging/your journey or experience or you could pick up some niche, similar to your website, and leverage the traffic already gained to maximize your revenue.

In several cases, we have observed that bloggers put up their podcasts on Patreon and are able to earn a steady average of $1000+ every month, whereas some of them cross the $10,000 a month mark as well.

In times of global pandemic where public speaking gigs might be difficult to score, you can surely use podcasts to stay connected with the audience base and drive revenue by sharing useful information with them.

15 Full website sponsorship deal

A rare yet great way to make money with blogging – you can get site sponsorship deals. Approach a brand for site sponsorship by showing them how you can bring all the relevant traffic for their business. 

They’d be more than happy to sponsor all your activities. No, not just a sponsored post, but you will have banner ads, in-text ads, and even home banners calling out the brand that has chosen to sponsor your blog website.

However, the downside of choosing this method is that you lose all control of the content being displayed on your website.

The annoying ads you hate will always get shown to your audience group and that too, for the same brand again and again.

There are many websites especially in the auto industry, where site sponsorship is the major revenue source.

16 Flipping your website

Made a successful website and are ready to earn a lump sum by giving it away? Flip your blog website and you can get up to 3 times your yearly revenue as the price.

There are several entrepreneurs who are looking to buy old and successful domains for their own business ventures.

All you need to do is start a website, get some traffic, and flip it to another entrepreneur. Of course, to flip and earn profits as a regular thing, you would need to understand the market and the requirements.

Pick up a popular niche, understand what sells, and drive traffic to your website. The more traffic/revenues you have, the more you can ask for when flipping it to someone.

17 Creating a paid job board

Companies and start-ups often find it challenging to hire the right candidate from major job portals because of the massive chunk of candidates.

With your niche powered blog, you can come up with a paid job board where companies will pay you for any job listing.

This will help the companies to get the right candidate from an already narrowed down pool of candidates in the same niche/industry.

This earning method is quite reliable and works well for established blogs in a particular industry/niche.

Pro-Blogger happens to be one of the best examples for this. They charge $70 for a job post. You could probably try creating a job listing and charge for a subscription/priority position.

18 Organizing paid webinar sessions

After creating a successful blog and establishing yourself as an authority, you can conduct knowledge sharing webinar sessions with your audience. 

Paid webinars will help you discuss and engage with your audience groups while ensuring a regular flow of income and revenue.

Quite similar to the online course or lessons you might plan in the future, the webinar happens to be more attractive for your audience – as it is live and will give an opportunity to your audience to interact with you live one-one.

You could advertise your paid webinar sessions on social media or simply offer your regular audience base to see you teach/speak live.

19 Selling your other gigs/services/products

Another common method of earning through blogging, you could have people check out your gigs/products and services, much like upselling.

Your audience is there to consume the content – you can subtly nudge them in the right direction and offer your own products/gigs.

For example, if you have a blog about WordPress development or plugin development, you could easily offer to build a simple website and set up the blog for a fixed amount.

However, this should not look like an overdone job or you are at the risk of losing your audience base in the future.

20 Accept Donations

Yes, as lame as it might sound, you can try this method as well – it is tested and has worked for several bloggers/writers out there.

You could whole-heartedly ask your bloggers to help and support you if they like your content and would like to continue seeing you put up more of it in the future.

You could either set-up your own donation or funding page or can also choose to go with reliable platforms like Patreon, where fans/patrons/audience groups can subscribe to your content and pay you for your content.

However be advised, this is not a preferred method of earning if you are looking to cater to the premium niches and are dreaming to become an authority in the chosen niche.

As rewarding as this might be, it does have the potential to toss your reputation for good.

21 Paid social groups

Establishing a strong website driving a ton of traffic is not that easy but if you have achieved that, there are a plethora of ways to monetize that. One such way is to go for paid social media groups.

Not the average groups for regular updates on your content- these closed groups will have you personally answer the queries asked by your audience and guide them.

It doesn’t have to be a Facebook group or closed community always – you could use other channels like Slack, Discord, etc. as well.

With these paid social groups, you can upsell more and ensure that you are always engaging with the most loyal of your audience base.

22 Traffic arbitrage

Buying something for a lower cost and then selling it off at a higher price – that is perhaps one of the most straightforward business models.

When you apply that to website traffic, you get one of the most convenient ways to generate money through blogging- traffic arbitrage.

Now, as easy and simple as it might sound, there is a bit of technicality involved and if you are a beginner, you might not be able to do that right away without some help.

But if you are a successful blogger and have a strong social media presence, you can leverage your social media impressions/reach and social media ads to bring more traffic to your website.

And this website in turn, will give you major revenue through affiliates/ad network commissions.

With Traffic Arbitrage, always remember that the profits depend on your media buying capabilities.

If you cannot acquire the audience from other platforms at a lower cost, traffic arbitrage might not work for you at all.

Easy Steps to get started blogging

Blogging can make you money. Now that you know it, you are probably wondering where to start, especially after getting yourself acquainted with so many money-making techniques.

As overwhelming as it might be, you need to understand that blogging is a crowded space, with millions, we repeat – MILLIONS of entrepreneurs already having a headstart over you.

But does that mean you should give up? No. Your journey would be full of efforts, commitments, missed parties, and probably some leisure time too.

But with the end result of leveraging your passion and being able to work from anywhere in the world to earn thousands and maybe millions of dollars, it would be worth it!

So, here we are with some tips to get you started on your blogging journey.

1. Find your niche

The first and foremost step is to find a niche. When we say that, we do not just mean to check your passion and decide on a particular theme, your blog would be based on.

You might be passionate about potatoes and might even be able to spare all the extra hours to put in the hard work.

Sadly, that doesn’t put you on the path of becoming a successful blogger unless the audience out there is ready to pay attention, act, and buy those potatoes.

When we say find your niche, we say find a PROFITABLE niche. People out there have dreams, they like to have value being added to them.

Be it healthcare, lifestyle, home-made products, website development, gifting, or even automobile accessories – find a profitable niche and get started.

2. Deliver quality content and add value

Content is the King – yes, but the best content is the Emperor. Content helps you get traffic but the best content that is able to engage and offer value to your readers rules the space.

To be frank, it is easier said than done and it takes years of hard work sometimes, if not months, to perfect the skill of content generation.

But is the skill of writing enough to bring traffic? NO. Your content generation has to be result-oriented and not just driven by interest or passion.

You might think of a topic, jot down a few points, and stick to making engaging content on that topic for your blog.

Unfortunately, the cutthroat competition wouldn’t allow you and your passion to succeed unless you are taking the right direction, which is –

1. Giving the people what they want to read
2. Posting the best content on that particular topic/niche
3. Having and following a proven successful framework

Become an exceptional writer with out of the box yet result-oriented techniques, which then brings us to the next step.

3. Pick a strategy for traffic

One of the biggest mistakes made by all beginner bloggers is choosing the wrong traffic strategy.

Most of the traffic generated by successful blogs comes from either Search engines (powered by SEO) or from social media channels (advertisements, engagement posts, etc.)

You might have seen several bloggers crib about the niche but here’s the truth – most of the time, it is the wrong traffic strategy that is hampering their chances of becoming successful.

Now for example, if you want to know how to set up a blog or become a successful blogger, chances are that you might not find such information on any of the social media channels.

But you would search and be able to find plenty of content on search engines like Google.

On the other hand, if you are a fashion or entertainment enthusiast, you wouldn’t go about checking search engines for trends but would prefer checking them out on social media channels first and then on blogs.

Thus, you need to understand the audience’s behavior and the platforms to be able to pick the right traffic strategy. There’s no fixed formula for success – it all depends on what you pick and want to achieve.

4. Grow your subscribers and email list

You have people coming on to your website to consume content- great, but what next?

To engage with your readers repeatedly and build a loyal audience base, you need their contact details to tell them about the next updates or additions. And thus, you should work upon building your email list.

Now, the user might not be interested in leaving behind contact details but if he does exit without leaving behind the email address, you might never be able to re-engage with them back again.

Thus, we advise bloggers to use popups to build their email addresses. If you believe you have value to offer, authentically use popups to build your email list and leverage it later on to monetize your blog.

5. Monetize with affiliate programs

Let’s say you have decent traffic coming to your blog website and have been able to get people on board for your email subscription as well. What next? You monetize.

The easiest way to monetize traffic is to join an affiliate network. Not only does it help you earn money from the traffic that you are already generating, but it also helps you understand the type of audience you are getting on your blog.

But do ensure that you choose the products/services carefully and they should be related to the niche of your blog.

If the audience is not motivated enough to buy the products you are selling, you can either change the products or change the monetization technique as well.

Thus, joining early on the affiliate networks help you experiment and learn more about your reader base.

6. Develop a unique way/USP

Go UNIQUE or go home. If you are not different from your competition, you might just never be able to crack through and become the successful blogger you dream to be.

You need to showcase why you are superior and why the audience should choose you over the other players in the market.

This could be done by talking more about the products/services you have to offer, your personal experience, and how you might add value to the readers.

With your unique ways and established authority, there’s no stopping you from selling even the priciest (yet value for money) products/programs to your audience in the near future.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

We hope that you now have a clear idea on how you can monetize your blog and make money from it.

Do share your views in the comments section below.