Last Updated on November 18, 2020 by Jessica Adams
Whether you’re new to blogging or a seasoned pro, you’re here to make money, right? So you’re likely always looking for new ways to make money with your blog. Fortunately for you, there are so many different ways to make money online and most are with a blog!
Some avenues have a quick turnaround but only make the kind of money that covers your monthly business expenses. While there are other ‘roads to riches’ that may take, what feels like forever, to turn a profit but when it does, just proves that ‘slow & steady wins the race’! The kind of race where you create several solid, steady income streams over time. Income streams that you can consistently count on.
Ultimately, you want to make money with your blog that’s best for your particular niche. However you prefer to make money with your blog, there’s no denying that affiliate marketing is at the top of most blogger’s list. But there are still many other ways…so we asked our readers to share with us, their top five. Join me as we cover our readers’ top five favorite ways to make money with (their) blog, besides affiliate marketing.
How to Make Money
With Your Blog
Besides Affiliate Marketing
Online Advertising
Have you ever heard of PPC, which stands for Pay Per Click? How about Google Adsense…I know you’ve heard of Google Adsense. It’s the most popular Ad Network, along with Clicks and/or Media.net from Yahoo/Bing. And, if you’re a blogger yourself, you’ve probably seen an ad from Mediavine on a fellow bloggers’ site (if not your own!).
Each of these Ad Networks is relatively easy to set up on your page. They’ll also display ads based on the content that appears on your website or the content that your reader has been recently viewing on their own browser. Eerie huh?
PPC is simply a method of advertising where you get paid per click on a particular ad that you placed on your site from Google Adsense or Mediavine. When someone clicks on that ad, you receive a small fee (and I do mean small, unless your traffic is massive and constant; think pennies per click).
BUT it is a great avenue for bloggers just starting out or for anyone who wants to try to cover some small business expenses. It’s not much at first but it has long-term potential and ‘not much’ is still more than nothing!
Publish an e-Book
If you have a blog, chances are you’re a writer. At least you’re aspiring to become a good enough writer to get your message across to readers. You know when you visit someone’s site and they offer you a ‘freebie’ when you opt-in to their newsletter with your email address? Well, most of those freebies are considered e-Books.
Granted, the freebies you get as opt-ins are usually much shorter than the ‘average book-length’ ones that you download to your Kindle Reader off of Amazon. Those e-Books run anywhere from $.99- $35, depending on the content of the book itself and in some cases, the length of the book may askew a books’ price.
Usually, the most important factor is whether the author is considered to be an authority in his/her niche. As a writer, you’re fully armed with the skill to craft an e-Book of your own. Perhaps you’ve posted similar content on your blog in a single category?
That could be combined into an e-book? You can go through all of your posts and pick out as many favorites that are directly related to one another. Then lay them all out and just ‘fill in the blanks’ to create anywhere from a 15-25 pg (to start) e-Book!
You can make good money selling your e-Book directly on your website. You could also throw flash sales that only your email subscribers get to enjoy. Or you could independently publish your e-Book on Amazon with Kindle Direct Publishing. Any/all of these methods will not only bring in money but help establish your credibility as a writer too!
Sell Merchandise From Your Own Site
If you’re already planning to sell an e-Book (maybe!), why not sell some more stuff? You’ve got industry-leading ‘giants’ like Shopify, an e-commerce platform that allows anyone to set up an online store and sell their products. Then there’s Shopify’s ‘brother’ Merchify which “allows you to upload your own logo or any other company-related artwork.
Merchify will then produce, manufacture & ship whatever merchandise you choose to sell from your site. Merchants can also sell their products in person with Shopify POS Once you install the software onto your site you can begin creating whatever products of theirs that you want.
You can then add your brand’s logo or a funny cartoon with a catchphrase (just remember, you have to draw it out yourself!), then they’ll send it directly to your customer through their “sister store” Shopify.
Nowadays, there are sites like Oberlo that help you navigate the entire “dropshipping” (what all of this is technically called) experience from choosing merchandise to fulfilling orders and sending them off. Everything is done directly from there site and yes, they seamlessly integrate Shopify, Merchify, Aliexpress, Amazon and other huge names in the dropshipping industry already! It’s all very cool and completely genius if you ask me!
Become a Brand Ambassador
It’s such an official-sounding title isn’t it, Brand Ambassador?! Essentially, we’re all brand ambassadors for the products and brands we love. From our favorite dishwasher soap to our favorite pair of jeans.
We already “work” for the brands we love every day without even realizing it! Wouldn’t it be great if we could get paid to wear the clothes we already love and talk about with ease? Well, this is a type of advertising.
Companies that you like send you stuff that you’re already going to buy. And on top of that, you’ll get to keep what they sent you, usually as your payment but in rare cases, get paid too. Sound too good to be true? It is and it isn’t. For example, it won’t always work out where you get free products AND money but that’s cool, right? Oh, and it may not be Gucci that’s willing to ‘dress you up’ in their latest duds BUT… Target might!
Target has tons of super-cute brands. Once you get the product (clothes in this example), you’ll write a blog post telling your audience how you like the clothes that they provided. You’ll want to get very specific. How do they make you feel, how does the material itself feel? How does the style of what they sent you compare to what you feel the current trend is?
And that’s not even the most important thing a brand is looking for when deciding whether to name you their “Ambassador”. What that is, is that your blog’s niche market is an audience that is also just as likely to buy their products as much as you are!
Ghostwriting
You may have heard me talk about the benefits of ghostwriting on here before. But I’ll say it again! If you don’t mind not receiving credit for your work as a writer (many writers would never allow that) but you still get paid well, then being a “ghost” might be perfect for you!
When I started ghostwriting professionally, I was a nervous wreck! Then I remembered that my name wouldn’t be on the content I was producing! At the end of the day, all I cared about was if my client was happy.
They liked what I wrote and they paid me for it. Why should I care if I sounded pretentious in that last chapter? It’s their voice, after all. Eventually, I found my comfort zone with my writing and found my voice too. Once that happened for me I decided that I wanted credit on some of the content I was putting out there! When I saw my clients getting re-tweets and “likes” for my content, my voice, I decided to ‘ghost’ them (not really, just sounded cute here)!
Occasionally, a client really likes the “voice” you’ve given them. In some cases, they’ll offer to pay you more or keep you full-time in order to maintain the ‘voice’ that’s gaining her (or him) such popularity! Kevin Anderson is a popular name in this ‘niche’ business. Check out a few of his best articles about how to break into the ghostwriting biz! In my humble opinion, it’s one of the best ways to make money with your blog!
Jessica Rose Adams
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