How To Make Money With a Blog using WordPress (9 most efficient ways)
Blogging can be a really nice hobby. Your personal blog is very often the best place to express your passion. This is also how real business has started. A lot of people wants to start a blog just to write about things they love (or don’t). When they grow decent traffic they think of ways to monetise it. This is exactly why in this article we focus on exploring the ways on how to make money with a blog. Are you ready? Let’s get started!
Let’s be honest, there’s nothing bad in making money blogging. You invest your time and share your passion (sometimes even very useful tips). It’s totally fine to expect something in return. Sometimes it’s just side money, sometimes it can turn into a full-time job. No matter how you would like to approach it there are some reliable tips on how do bloggers make money using WordPress.
But before we go to the main part of the post we would like to warn you: There’s no legit way to make fast money online. There is no way to get rich in a weekend. Having a blog that brings you money is an investment. You definitely invest your time, sometimes even a bit of money to get up and running, but it’s definitely worth it.
Table of Contents
- Make Money on Blog with Affiliate Marketing
- Discover how to make money with a blog by Selling Ads
- Sell Sponsored Blog Content / Product Reviews
- Be Paid to Write Genuine Reviews
- Can you make money from a blog by Selling Space in Your Newsletter?
- Sell Ebooks to Your Audience
- Sell Online Courses
- Learn How To Make Money With a Blog by Offering Freelance Services
- Sell physical products
- FAQ about How To Make Money With a Blog
đź‘‹ Hey! Before you can start earning money by using one of the methods below you need to have your very own WordPress blog. We have a very detailed step by step guide for beginners on how to start a blog on WordPress, so please give it a try. And remember – if you are stuck we are happy to help get you back on track!
1. Make Money on Blog with Affiliate Marketing
As an affiliate marketer, you recommend a digital/physical product or a service to your readers. You use special tracking links to lead interested people to that product or service. When someone makes a purchase you get a referral commission.
It’s definitely one of the best choices for creating some passive income if you can bring traffic to your site. If you want to be successful you should recommend products you trust and you would use yourself. They should also be related to a niche you blog about.
For example here at Humble Themes, we use affiliate links to promote Blue Host web hosting. Why would you do that? You could ask. Because we make high-quality WordPress themes. And you can’t run WordPress without having a hosting. So those two products are complementary.
But here’s the bottom line: We didn’t pick any hosting or a hosting that would give us the highest commission. We picked WordPress-centric hosting. The one that is featured by WordPress itself. We recommend quality that you can trust. And it’s a win-win-win relationship. Only when you use affiliate link you can get special discounts and/or a better deal. Pretty clear huh?
This is only an example. A real-life example. Hopefully good enough to give you some ideas on how to get paid for blogging. There’s plenty of affiliate programs you can join.
The even better news is that there are affiliate programs that are available to every niche. It’s just about to find them. For example, you can start by searching for a product to promote on Amazon Associates or Share a Sale
There are a few WordPress plugins that will help you handle your affiliate links. You can check PrettyLink or ThirstyAffiliates that will allow you to create branded links, replace keywords into links and will provide you with useful statistics.
2. Discover how to make money with a blog by Selling Ads
It’s very simple and it’s the core of e-marketing. This is how most bloggers start when they want to monetise their blog. Thanks to various advertisement networks you can now serve ads that are targeted for your audience.
Also, in 2020 it means much than just selling banners in your sidebars. You can get paid for blogging by selling space on popups, sticky bars, social media headers or by placing contextual ads.
OK, but how does it work? Usually, you have few models to choose from CPC, CPM, CPL/CPA.
What is CPC?
CPC stands for “Cost Per Click”. It means that you will get paid for every time user clicks on the ad.
What is CPM?
CPM stands for ‘Cost per thousand impressions’ ( or more technically: “cost per mille”). You will be paid a fixed fee for the fact that the ad is displayed on your website. No matter whether a user clicks on it or not. CPM rates are usually a bit lower than the CPC one.
What is CPL
CPL (or CPA) stands for ‘Cost Per Lead’ (or Cost Per Action). It means that you are paid but only when a user performs certain action (ie signing up for a course, taking a survey, filling the form etc). It’s $hardest model to get paid, but the rates are pretty huge and they vary based on how hard is to achieve this goal (usually it’s around $15 – $100 per action).
What are the best ads networks for selling Ads?
Google Adsense
Adsense is an advertising network created by Google. It was founded in 2003 and since then for a very long time, it was a first way to go if you were wondering how to make money on a blog.
Ezoic
It’s the biggest Adsense competitor that offers way higher EPMV. Display ads are personalised for users so you can get quite high rates in any niche. I use it on my hardware blog and I’m pretty happy with the output
Amazon Native Shopping Ads
We already mentioned Amazon’s Associates affiliate program. but Native Shopping Ads are the next great opportunity to earn money with Amazon. It works in a very similar way to Adsense and provides contextual ads that are relevant and dynamic. Amazon has quite high conversion rates and works in a very simple way – You get the commission each time user that followed your link buys something.
3. Sell Sponsored Blog Content / Product Reviews
Some bloggers like to have full control over what’s displaying on their website. Putting some flashy ads on their website is definitely a no-no. That’s where sponsored content comes in handy (which in other words it’s also called an influencer marketing).
What exactly is a sponsored content? It’s when a blogger charges the company a fee in return for writing an article about their product. The product is exposed to a blogger’s audience and the brand gets more recognition/customers/leads.
The most common misconception is that sponsored content is reserved only for big players and celebrities. In 2020 it’s definitely not true anymore. With growing micro influencer’s role in digital marketing more and more people charges for sponsored content. In the most obvious way – take a look at people on Instagram or Youtube.
How much money you can make by writing a sponsored content? It depends on many factors. Most important ones being your traffic size, your traffic quality and your niche. Some bloggers charge $100, some $500, and some even $5000 per sponsored posts.
4. Be Paid to Write Genuine Reviews
It’s yet another answer for ‘how do you make money as a blogger’ question. It’s actually very like the previous one. With some exceptions. The main ones are:
- You get the product for free to test
- You write genuine product review with all pros and Cons
- You are not always paid for the review (sometimes the product itself is a reward ie a GoPro camera)
The most important question for writing a sponsored content / review is how to get people interested in you recommending / reviewing their product? It’s likely that they won’t come to you and that you may need to do the first step.
It’s OK to approach a company you like (and that fits your blog profile) and send them an offer to partner up on a sponsored content for your audience. An alternative for that may be to use websites that match bloggers and businesses. The most popular ones being: PayPerPost, PayU2Blog, SocialSpark, FameBit
5. Can you make money from a blog by Selling Space in Your Newsletter?
You definitely do! And it’s getting more and more popular day by day. As a blogger, you probably have a newsletter signup form (if for some reason you don’t then you should create one ASAP! You can also check those email marketing tools [link do posta] we recommend).
How much you can earn? It largely depends on your audience profile and number of subscribers. Some people make $100 per email, some of them even take $1000 per one email for a highly profiled audience.
6. Sell Ebooks to Your Audience
Selling ebooks is also a smart choice that allows you to make money from blogging. Ebooks are a low-risk way to start generating revenues. They are quite simple to write and publish. In many examples, bloggers combine a few posts that they have written on a common topic. Then they enhance them with extra content and/or their private experience.
How to create an ebook?
For you, as a blogger, it should be simple. But if you don’t have enough time or you prefer someone to do it for you you can use websites that provide such services. The most popular ones are Scripted and Fiverr.
Once your ebook content is ready you can think about how to design it. The most common way is to use tools like Canva, Venngage or Viseme.If you think that you need to add your ebook more unique look then you can hire freelance designers that will create ebooks that in 100% match your brand. You can try to find some freelance designers on Upwork, Fiverr or 99designs
How to sell an ebook?
There are a few ways to sell your digital products from your site. The easiest way to start is to use 3rd party services that integrate with your WordPress website.
The most popular ones are Gumroad, Sellfy or Payhip. They allow you to start your online shop in 5 minutes, but they also take a small provision from every sale. It’s a good option for the beginning, but as your business grows you may start thinking about alternatives that will leave more revenues with you.
Luckily you are using WordPress what means that you can extend it with e-commerce features. Our recommendation in this area is Easy Digital Downloads plugin. It’s quite simple to start with and includes all features you can think of (some of them are paid addons though).
7. Sell Online Courses
Yet another way to make money with a blog is by selling online courses. Courses usually require more effort than ebooks, but on the other hand, you can also sell them for a much higher price.
Probably the most common misconception is that you have to master the topic or be an expert in a given area to prepare the course. It isn’t necessarily true. Don’t get me wrong, obviously, you need to have knowledge about the topic but in the first place, you need to solve people’s problems. If you don’t do that then even being a guru won’t help.
How can you host your own courses?
You have two options:
You can use third-party platforms that will host your courses for you. They will obviously charge you a monthly fee or they will take a cut of your sales.
The alternative is to host your courses on WordPress. This means more work with preparing/setting up the course but also it means that you keep most of the profit to yourself.
The most popular self-hosted Extension for WordPress courses is WP Courseware and LearnDash.
The most popular third-party platforms that will host your courses are Udemy, Teachable, Podja.
8. Learn How To Make Money With a Blog by Offering Services
The more popular your blog is the more people treat you as an expert in your niche. Coaching, consulting or making freelance gigs can be effective monetisation strategy.
Freelancing is a really popular idea to get paid for blogging because it doesn’t require much extra investment of time and/or money. You can start by offering your services to your readers and use the most popular freelance services like Upwork, Fiverr or Solid Gigs.
If your services are successful you can even start your own agency (like this one) and start to hire more and more people.
9. Sell physical products to your audience [and Create a SWAG shop]
Another way to monetise your blog is to sell products that are related (or semi-related) to your blog content. You can sell products that will solve your audience’s problems. Or you can sell t-shirts, hoodies, cups, stickers. Whatever your customers may like. Having a SWAG shop is so popular that there’s even official one for WordPress
Launching your physical store is not much more complex than launching a digital one. You can also use Gumroad or similar third-party tools or you can use the most popular WordPress solution which is WooCommerce.
FAQ about How To Make Money With a Blog
Can you really make money from a blog? Do bloggers make money for real?
Yes, there are many successful examples on the web. Many people can blog for a living and it’s a legit business. But you need to remember that making money blogging is not an easy process (many people tends to think so!) but hard work. And it’s also not quick. You won’t start earning money in a week. But if only you are serious about what you do you will also start earning money.
How much money can you make from blogging?
Blogging is no different than any other industry (like music, web design, programming). Some people make less, some people make more. Few of them make millions of dollars, some of them get extra side money out of it. It depends on how much time, the effort you are ready to put into it.
How do you start your own blog?
Getting up and running with a WordPress blog is super easy. WordPress is famous from its super quick 5minutes installation and it’s super easy to use.
To start a blog you will need a domain name (average price is $10-20 a year) and hosting (with an average cost of $59 per year). This may be considered as a quite big investment upfront for starting a new blog.
Related topic: How to find ideas for a blog name
The good news is that we have a special offer prepared by Bluehost for Humble Themes readers. (Bluehost is an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider that powers over 2 million websites!)
What’s the deal about? You not only get a special price and a free domain but on top of that, we will give you a 50% discount for Salzburg theme! Click here to claim your special offer
We hope that this article gave you some ideas on how you can monetise your blog and how you can make money online by doing what you love.
All images and illustrations taken from freepik.com and pexels.com