Blogging should be something you are passionate about, but it could also make you money
When you are a beginner at blogging it might seem hard to do all at once. Both write interesting content that lets your creative animal strive and at the same time care about monetizing it.
It is not that hard to become a freelancer blogger right now with all the platforms for writers and different tools. And it is not that hard to write blog for money, all you need to do is have a focus, voice of your own and know some monetization methods. And if you know all of this you are on the right track to making money online, not just writing for fun.
How bloggers make money
Affiliate marketing
Being an affiliate in simple words means that you promote a specific brand on your blog and get a share of money from every sale you make or from traffic you generate to your partner’s website.
There are many affiliate programs for blogs you can find online, one of the most popular one is Amazon affiliate program. My advice would be to go with smaller brands, it will let you keep that unique blog of yours and stand out in the crowd of all the Amazon (or similar big brands) affiliates.
For example one of my most valuable partners is Surfshark, which is a VPN. It is not a mainstream brand and at first it seems hard to promote such product. But I have found some interesting angles to build my content around their brand (I have a small blog about traveling), like showing how can you buy cheaper plane tickets with the help of it.
What I wanted to say, when you are an affiliate for a brand try to find interesting and natural looking ways to promote them, don’t just jump to selling people stuff with no explanation and your personal experiences with that brand.
Allow ads on your blog
Allowing ads on your blog is one of the easiest ways to make money from your blog if it has a decent traffic. But this is also the least aesthetic one. Of course a small amount of ads won’t hurt anybody, but if you put a lot of them, it will be not very compelling for the readers eyes. So find a balance here.
Sell your knowledge
You can meet a lot of bloggers who sell different digital products on their blogs. From their e-books, webinars, journals, online courses. Any digital asset where you put all of your knowledge on a specific topic.
Most important thing here is not to question yourself and have a little bit more self-esteem than usual. I really think that everyone has their unique view on different things so show it, talk from experience and people will love it.
Email Marketing
Building your readers list and sending them updates about new articles or maybe old articles that you updated recently will directly increase your success in earning those extra bucks. How? If you participate in affiliate marketing programs, if you sell some digital assets email marketing will increase the number of people interested in what you have to tell or sell and this affects your sales in a positive way.
You can use such tools as https://www.drip.com that will help with your email marketing campaigns and will help you build a strong relationship with your readers.
Make money on Medium
If you have your personal blog you can simply share your stories on Medium and earn money from it. If you are a blogger on Medium I hope you are already participating in Medium Partners program.
Here on Medium you can earn money in a few ways:
- You can earn money from claps
- You can earn Author Bonuses
Just know that to earn those extra bucks on Medium you need to write quality content, there are many tips you can find online about what content is most likeable on Medium, Medium writers success stories and etc. Just do a little bit of Googling.
For me Medium looks like a perfect place to promote your own blog and drive readers from Medium to your blog. If you want to gain even more readers on Medium find Medium Publications you can write from. Since they have already collected a much bigger number of followers than usual Medium user, if your content gets published on their publication you will reach a much wider group of readers.
Many publications accept other users stories and have ‘submit stories’ feature. If not you can try finding out emails of Publication creators and drop them a pitch for your story.
More about Medium Partners Program: https://medium.com/creators
