How Exactly Does A Blogger Make Money?

It is now just short of one year that I have been blogging full time and it has been the most amazing journey. I am finding so many people now asking me the same question: how do you make money blogging?

To some people it seems almost impossible that you can provide no tangible product, share your thoughts and make money doing it. The thing is that the internet is an amazing thing.

As long as you have some people reading your blog you can make money. Now a blog can be in any niche, so if you are crazy about dogs you can write about dogs.

I am a mom and I am passionate about being a mom, so I love to write about anything to do with my family, running my home and all that goes with it and that is why I have this mommy blog.

In case you weren’t aware of it, I am a recovering alcoholic and addict. I am 8 years clean and I am really passionate about sharing about my life as an addict, how I got clean and how I stay clean. For this reason I have a website where I blog about my addiction too.

I plan on sharing some of that information here too, since addiction really is a family problem and I am sure that a lot of my readers here will be able to get some value from that.

Then I also love working online, I love the process of getting my websites to rank, social media marketing, making money online and well just anything and everything about being an online marketer. So for this reason I have an online marketing website too.

Each of my websites bring in an income for me and I make money from blogging in various ways. That is the beauty of working online, you can have various things that bring in an income and some of if becomes a passive income after a while as your website and your audience grows.

So now how do I take writing about things I love and turn that into money?

***Disclosure -The links in this post contain affiliate links and Kaboutjie  may receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link.***

Advertising Income from Blogging

There are a few different ways that you can make money with offering advertising on your website.

One of the most common ways to make money from advertising is to make use of an advertising program. This is where you sign up with a company and allow them to show advertisers advertisements on your website. The biggest and most well known of these would be Google Adsense.

You can get paid in various ways by advertising programs. Some advertisers pay per amount of ad views, some pay per click and others pay per action (sale or signup).

In addition to making use of an advertising program, or instead of, you can also choose to offer advertising yourself directly to other businesses. If you have people reading your blog businesses will want their banners or ads on your website.

Affiliate Marketing Income

This is something that I really enjoy, affiliate marketing is like being an independent sales rep for online stores. Most large online stores have an affiliate program that you can sign up to for free. Once you have been approved by the company you will get your own unique links to use on your website.

In this way I can tell my readers about really awesome products that I love and if any of my readers clicks on the link from my website and makes a sale then I get paid commission by that online store for that sale.

Take Amazon for example, they have a great affiliate program.

You can also find loads of other affiliate programs. I am sure that no matter what niche you choose or country you are in, you will be able to find online stores to affiliate with.

Just do a Google search for your niche and affiliate, you will come up with loads of options.

Just be wary and keep in mind that not all online stores are equal, so be careful who you choose because firstly you want to make sure you are actually paid for your efforts, plus you will want to affiliate with a store that provides great service, as well as quality products otherwise you will be promoting rubbish on your website!

Something to keep in mind is that you are the one recommending the product to your readers, so do your homework and make sure the products that you are saying are fantastic really are. The best is to actually buy those products and test them yourself.

Sponsored Content

Just like businesses will pay for a banner of an advertisement to be on your website, they will also pay you to write content for them and share it on your website.

So perhaps a new store is being launched and they want people to know about it, they might contact you to tell your readers about it. They may have a product they would like reviewed, or perhaps they are holding an event that they want people to know about.

Keep in mind though that although some people might offer you lots of money to review a product or share some information, always stay true to yourself.

The same thing applies here as it does to the affiliate marketing. If you don’t like a product and you think it sucks, then do not accept any amount of money to promote it. Rather politely decline and just say it is not in line with your company vision.

It can be painful at times turning down nice money offers but it really is important to stay true to your values. Your readers trust you for a reason, don’t break that trust.

You may get some money right now, but think about the longer term consequences.

Become an Online Influencer

If you are a blogger you most likely also have accounts on social media, I mean you should really if you want to be successful and reach a wide audience.

I suggest that you are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest and Instagram as well as Youtube.

Now if you are growing your social networks as well as your blog then you have more resources that businesses and online marketers will be very interested in.

You can either offer your own advertising packages that include social media promotions or you can join a website like Webfluential.

On Webfluential you create a profile, connect all your social networks and your websites. Then you set a rate for sharing on each social network and your website.

If anyone wants to work with you they book you through Webfluential and everything is managed from their platform, including payment.

Create and Sell your own Products and/ or Services.

Once you have your own audience you can create your own products and sell them to your readers, or you can buy products and resell them to your readers.

You can do this either on your own website, or using an external marketplace.

A good example of this is that I wrote an ebook about my days in active addiction and I promote it on my website and sell my addiction ebook on Fiverr.

I’ve also sold a number of services on SeoClerks too, from social media promotions to content writing and doing on page SEO for customers.

Get paid to publish Guest Posts on your websites

Once your website has some authority and has some decent traffic you might find other bloggers and online marketers chomping at the bit to write guest posts for you.

You can charge them to publish their guest posts on your blogs.

Youtube Income

Youtube is a great way to add to your income. You can monetize your channel either through Google Adsense or through another Youtube partner. In the same way that you earn money through Google Adsense you can also earn from people watching your Youtube videos.

In fact there are some bloggers that only blog on Youtube. Bloggers that make use of video are vloggers.

Now I can’t stress enough how awesome Youtube is. Yes you can make money from monetizing your videos, but there are so many more benefits to having your own Youtube channel.

Here are some cool reasons to be on Youtube (while we’re talking about Youtube already):

• Embedding Youtube videos to your website posts will increase your post rankings
• It will increase your audience reach since people can find your videos (and in turn also your website) through Youtube search and Google search
• You can add Youtube video promotions to your advertising packages and with Webfluential
• You can add links into your videos for people to buy your products or affiliate offers

So here’s the thing about working online and blogging, you don’t need to limit yourself to just one thing. You can use all of these ways to make money from your blog, or you can pick and choose some that appeal to you. You can also get really creative and come up with new ways to make money from your blog.

I hope this has shed some light on how to make money from blogging!