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How To Make Money Blogging

Last Updated: January 6, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 168 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

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Today’s post is the one that many of you have been waiting for. I don’t think a single day goes by without me receiving an e-mail regarding how a person can make money blogging online and/or how to make money online.

If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.49 per month (this low price is only through my link) for blog hosting. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free blog domain (a $15 value) through my Bluehost link if you purchase at least 12 months of blog hosting. FYI, you want to be self-hosted. This is essential if you want to monetize your blog as you will appear more professional and this will help you monetize your blog tremendously. 

Sometimes it’s bloggers who e-mail me, but half the time the e-mails are from readers who do not have a blog but are interested in starting a money making blog.

As most of you have seen, a big bulk of my income every month comes from my blog in some form (I made over $320,000 online in 2015): advertising, affiliate income, consulting and so on. This How To Make Money Blogging post will be all about various ways that you can make money blogging.

 

When I started my blog in August of 2011, I never thought I’d be where I am at today. Now, I blog full-time, earn a great income, and I travel full-time, as you can see from my monthly online income report updates.

My extra income from my blog started slow, but within the past couple of months it has jumped significantly. I spend all of my extra time on finding extra income methods, and it definitely seems to be working.

 

Don’t forget these other posts in my blogging series:

  1. Tips for Beginner Bloggers Part 1 – The Basics – This post is all about tips for beginner bloggers and I talk about mistakes that I made and also how you can get ahead.
  2. Blogger or WordPress – Tips on How to Move – Are you still on Blogger? There are SO many reasons why you should switch to WordPress now.
  3. How to Start a Blog – Tips for a Beginner – This post had a very similar title to the first post on this list, but this post is mainly about how to get started with your hosting, picking a domain and actually starting your blog.
  4. My Monthly Online Income Reports – I show you exactly how I earn a living each month along with valuable tips to help you along the way.

 

How to make money online blogging:

 

Use advertising networks to make money online.

This includes Adsense, Media.net, and many, many other companies.

You can place Adsense or other ad networks (such as Media.net) ads pretty much anywhere on your blog. Usually, bloggers place them in their sidebars, but you can also place them within posts, only on your homepage, as a banner above your header or within your blog’s footer.

It’s an easy way to make money blogging as all you have to do is insert the code that is provided to you. In general, the more page views you receive, the higher your income from ad networks will be.

 

Take part in affiliate marketing to make money online.

You can sign up for the waitlist for my affiliate income strategy online course here. I will be sharing tips on how I earn over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing. By signing up for the waitlist, you will have access to it as soon as possible!

Affiliate income is something I’ve been working on more than ever lately. I am earning around $30,000 a month from it, and I believe it will continue to grow.

Affiliate income is great because you can create a post, review, etc., and then that post may earn you money years down the line with minimal work needed to maintain that article. It can be somewhat passive, which is what I love about it.

I believe recommending products you believe in is best. A lot of my affiliate income is from my How To Start a Blog post and that is because I include everything a person needs to know about blogging in that tutorial.

There are many affiliate programs out there, and you can always check out your favorite products to see if they have an affiliate program.

Affiliate income is where you will have a link (such as with my Bluehost link) and you recommend products in your blog posts. Then, when someone clicks on your link and buys something (according to the requirements of the affiliate program), you then make money. There is usually a 30 or 60-day wait on your funds, but that seems to be normal as Adsense does something similar as well.

Max Bounty – This is one of the largest affiliate programs that exists. Highly recommend!

Avant Link – This is an affiliate company that I highly recommend. They have many different companies that you can sign up for and they are easy to work with.

Link Vehicle – This is a relatively new affiliate website, but they have several affiliates that you have probably heard of.

Flex Offers – This seems to be one of the top affiliate programs/companies out there. There are a lot of companies on Flex Offers. You just sign up for Flex Offers and then after you are signed up, you can sign up for individual companies to promote. There are numerous companies for which you can get affiliate links for, such as clothing stores, Starbucks and so on. If you like a company, I bet you will find an affiliate program on there for it.

Commission Junction – This is another favorite affiliate program website of mine.

EJunkie – I’ve promoted a couple of ebooks that I love through here. There are tons of books on this site and I’m sure you could find something to promote.

Amazon’s Affiliate Program – I just started using Amazon’s Affiliate program, but I am excited about it. You promote products from Amazon and hopefully readers click on your link. You then get a percentage of the sales.

Swagbucks – I also use Swagbucks as well. I don’t make a ton of money from it, but I do cash all of my referral points for Amazon gift cards.

Related articles:

  • 75+ Ways To Make Extra Money
  • 10 Ways To Make Money Online From The Comfort of Your Home
  • 10 Things I’ve Done To Make Extra Money
  • Ways To Make An Extra $1,000 A Month

 

Direct advertising.

Direct advertising is when a company reaches out to you and asks you to either publish a post on their behalf that they write or you write a post for them. The post may be about a product that they sell, a review of their company or product, a post about something related to their industry, and so on.

If you decide to do direct advertising, please be aware of how much you should be charging. There are numerous websites out there that have guidelines publicly available. The other day on Facebook (I won’t say who it was), I noticed that someone was offering $5 text link ads to her readers who blog as well. There were TONS of people who jumped at this and were commenting saying that they wanted in.

People, your blog is worth much more than $5!

I always recommend that a person charge at least $150 for a blog advertisement, and once your blog is more established you may be able to charge a few thousand PER post.

 

Staff writing/consulting in order to make money online.

I don’t know if this should be included in today’s post, but it does fit in. You can write for other websites and there is usually a set fee that either you or the website owner sets. It seems like many websites have staff writers, and I even have one of my own (Jordann). Read my post So You Want to Become a Freelance Writer to learn more.

Blog consulting can be a variety of things. Perhaps you can help other bloggers learn how to blog and are staying on call to pretty much be their “coach.” You can also offer market research opportunities for advertisers and companies and offer them consulting on their new products, companies or websites.

Are you interested in learning how to make money online? Are you interested in making money through blogging?

 

Please check out my article How To Start Your Own WordPress Blog if you are ready to start blogging.

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168 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Extra Income Tagged With: Blog, Extra Money

About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  1. Mae Polzine says

    December 31, 2015 at 3:22 pm

    Amazing post with a lot of helpful tips. Im going to apply them to my own blog. One thing I feel I’ll need is to grow my audience. But it has been increasing over the past month so I’m taking that as a positive.

    Reply
  2. Amanda says

    January 4, 2016 at 9:47 pm

    I just tried signing up for amazon affiliates so I can promote books etc on my new blog. I am SO confused. Taxes? I don’t know anything about taxes I still live with my parents when I’m not at school! What exactly do they want me to input and why?

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      January 4, 2016 at 10:58 pm

      What’s the question specifically?

      Reply
  3. Zascha says

    January 6, 2016 at 12:23 pm

    Great tips as always. It’s definitely possible to make money from blogging – I’m finally starting to make money from my blog. Best. Feeling. Ever. 🙂

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      January 6, 2016 at 6:09 pm

      Thanks!

      Reply
  4. John says

    January 12, 2016 at 7:21 am

    How many months did it take you to gross $5,000 in a single month?

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      January 12, 2016 at 10:41 am

      Hey John!

      You can find all of my extra income reports here https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/extra-income

      Reply
  5. Kristina mercado says

    January 16, 2016 at 7:29 am

    Did you have to pay bluehost all at once?

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      January 16, 2016 at 12:07 pm

      You have to purchase at least 12 months.

      Reply
  6. danielle says

    January 27, 2016 at 1:45 pm

    In order to use the tools described do you have to use wordpress. Can one do this if they have a blog page from within their website? I am creating a squarespace website to cater to all of the multifacets of my business which allows me to have a blog page within the site…. can I do this from there? I want to make the right decision now before I get to far in. I originally was going to have a setwebsite created and then have an external link to a wordpress for blog but I though maybe my above idea was better overall for my own business.

    Reply
  7. Gloria says

    January 27, 2016 at 8:42 pm

    Awesome post! I just created my very own blog! I’m excited to start blogging. This was a very helpful and inspiring post Michelle!

    Reply
  8. Dani Howard says

    January 28, 2016 at 11:45 pm

    Hi Michelle,

    Can I ask which affiliate programs are free and best to start out with?

    Thanks,

    Dani

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      January 29, 2016 at 1:18 am

      Most affiliate programs are free. I only belong to free ones. I recommend checking to see if the companies you already use have affiliate programs, then signing up for those.

      Reply
  9. Allie says

    February 6, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    Great post! I love your blog! How do you post the affiliate links on your page so they only come up with the words you choose? I am new to affiliate links and when I use Flex Offers the links show up as long sentences and I can’t figure out how to change it. I’d appreciate any help!
    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      February 6, 2016 at 11:52 pm

      Download the Pretty Link plugin. Highly recommend it 🙂

      Reply
  10. Erica says

    February 9, 2016 at 10:11 am

    Thank you sooooo much for this post. This one along with others of yours have really helped me establish my own blog: http://www.booksunveiled.com
    I cannot thank you enough for your advise!

    Reply
  11. Bonnie says

    February 14, 2016 at 7:47 pm

    So are blogs only about money or are there blogs that are about other things? Don’t mean to sound dumb, but I not been out in the blog world much.

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      February 14, 2016 at 11:14 pm

      Blogs are about anything. There are blogs about life, being a parent, fashion, money, traveling, animals, and more.

      Reply
  12. Claire says

    March 25, 2016 at 10:17 pm

    I’m trying to sign up for FlexOffers. I have a WordPost blog through Bluehost (thanks to this post).

    FlexOffers is trying to verify my webpage with a HTML meta tag. How do you do this on WordPress? I don’t think WordPress is HTML compatible.

    Help!

    Reply
  13. Amy says

    April 13, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    Thank you for your great tips! I am just putting the finishing touches on my website and am excited to try thing new journey in making money by blogging!

    Reply
    • Alene says

      April 8, 2017 at 4:50 pm

      Amy, I’ve just branching out. How are you doing in this adventure?

      Reply
  14. Kirstie Hakanson says

    May 30, 2016 at 10:34 am

    Way cool! I was worried about blogging with my income but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Thank you, I needed this! 🙂

    Reply
  15. Kirstie Hakanson says

    June 12, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    Goodness, you are truly an inspiration! I am looking for financial freedom and have been scouring Pinterest for ideas such as yours to grow my blog. It’s really hard work but it seems to pay off. It’s starting slowly but surely. This is pretty awesome. Thanks for the inspiration!

    Reply
    • Michelle Schroeder-Gardner says

      June 12, 2016 at 4:39 pm

      Thank you! 🙂 I currently have a waitlist for an affiliate marketing course that will be live later this month if you are interested http://www.makingsenseofcents.com/waitlist 🙂

      Reply
  16. Charity Beckham says

    September 13, 2016 at 8:59 pm

    Awesome post! It was really helpful. I’m getting ready to start my blog and I’ve been scowering the web reading every post I can to learn all I need to learN and this was by far the most detailed and informative. Thank you!

    Reply
  17. Omar Saady says

    November 18, 2016 at 6:56 am

    For me as an affiliate marketer for a while, I`d prefer to build various websites in different niches marketing and promote other people products, no need to create my own products since I have every thing to get started and make money each and every month.

    Thanks so much
    Omar

    Reply
  18. Hannah says

    February 18, 2019 at 7:25 am

    Hi Michelle – I just wanted to let you know this blog post inspired me to get my butt into gear and start a blog of my own! I gave you a little shout-out in the first post 🙂 https://www.justourtwosense.com/importance-of-having-a-plan/

    Thank you again for motivating me. I plan to follow you and your successes for years to come!

    Reply
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