Whenever you speak about making money online most of the time people will think about doing some work for a client residing somewhere else and using the internet as your channel of communication and the computer as your sole tool. Or they will think about online stores and selling things online to internet shoppers.

Many will hard time believing that blogging can also be a profitable and legitimate online business. People tend to believe that blogging is a most of all hobby and not the way to make money online.

The truth is blogging is not only profitable but some bloggers are making even six-figure incomes from their blogs. If you have a love for writing and have knowledge and experience to share with others then you too can create your blog that you can grow over time and make a part-time or full-time income.

Why starting a blog is a good idea?

There are many perks of running a blog in addition to the possibility to make money. To create a successful and profitable blog is not easy but it does have its fair share of advantages. Some of them are:

It is cheap to start a blog

Blogging can be a great way to create an additional income stream and earn extra money but unlike ordinary brick-and-mortar business requires very little upfront minimal investment. You need to invest in at least two things. One is domain name registration and the other thing is web hosting. Domain name registration will cost about $10 a year and web hosting only a few dollars a month.

If you decide to outsource other activities related to running your blog, your writing, or social media management it will cost you additional expenses, but still at least, in the beginning, you’ll only need a domain name and web hosting, other things like WordPress themes and plugin you can find for free.

You can even start your blog for free if you use free blogging platforms like Blogger. Yes, it’s true, a true blog with n a single penny from your pocket.

You don’t need to be tech savvy to create a blog

Thanks to blogging platforms like WordPress you don’t need any special skills and experience to launch your blog. You can start your WordPress blog with a click of a button.

You can also customize and add or remove features of your blog easily through various plugins available for free. You can also change how your blog looks by changing the theme.

Blogging is fun and you get to connect with like minded people

Many bloggers have started their blogging adventures simply because they love to write and share their experiences and connect with other like-minded people.

When people look for information online and come to your blog they can bookmark your blog ad follow you on social networks. They will also visit regularly and leave comments on your posts. In time you will create a genuine relationship with your readers.

You can blog about anything you want

Money-making blogs today provide information on many topics. Bloggers are making money writing about many different things. You can easily find a profitable niche that is also you are passionate about and make money by blogging bout something you love and enjoy doing. You can build a money-making blog about food, travel, financial advice, fashion, computer games, health, parenting, and many other niches and make money.

10 best ways to make money from your blog

1. Start selling different products

If you blog about different products and write reviews of products then you can start making money with your blog by selling products. Many companies use blogs are a method of attracting potential customers. You can sell anything, from electronics, books, tools, jewelry, etc

If you own an online store and run your own dropshipping business then you can direct blog visitors to your online store. Or you can create your own product like a book, some sort of designs, tutorial videos then your blog is the perfect promotional tool.

2. Make money with your blog using online ads

You can also make money with your blog if you place ads on your blog. If you are wondering how to put ads on your blog then you should know it is easy. There are many different types of ads like text ads or banner ads and many different formats. There are also video ads and pop-under ads.

Monetizing with ads is easy but blogs will need a lot of traffic and to make any significant income. If you decide to monetize your blog by putting ads your earnings will depend on the number of ad impressions or you will get paid for every click.

Putting ads on your is not difficult and you only need to join one or more advertising networks and paste of code they give you on your blog. After this relevant ads will start appearing and you will start earning money. The best-known ad network is Google Adsense, but there are others like Ezoic, AdThrive, PropellerAds, Media.net, Sovrn, Infolinks, PopCash, and others.

3. Promote affiliate products on your blog

This way to make money from your blog is similar to the previous in the regard that you need to place ads on your blog. The difference is that with affiliate links you get a percentage of the sale when a visitor coming from your blog to a merchant’s website buys something. You can also write product reviews and place affiliate links in the blog posts.

For some bloggers making money promoting affiliate programs is much more profitable than putting ads, and this way even blogs with low traffic can make decent money if their visitors are highly targeted.

You can promote both physical or digital affiliate products on your blog. As with online ads you can find many affiliate products to promote if you join an affiliate network. Some of the best affiliate networks are CJ Affiliate, ShareASale, Clickbank, Amazon Associates affiliate program, eBay Partner Network, Awin, FlexOffers, AliExpress affiliate program and others.

4. Publish sponsored posts

If you own a blog and your blog has targeted traffic then one great way to make money with your blog is to publish sponsored posts. You will publish a post promoting a product or service and then you will be paid for doing so by the sponsor. How much you will get paid depends mostly on how much traffic your blog is getting.

There are many influencer networks that you as a blogger can join and be connected to potential sponsors ready to pay for posts on your blog. Some of the best are IZEA, Acorn, Tap Influence, Linqia, BlogMeetsBrand, and others.

5. Use your blog to sell your services if you are a freelancer

People from all over the world make a part-time or full-time income by working on freelance jobs online. Writers, programmers, designers, photographers offer their services and connect with customers on freelance jobs websites like UpWork, Fiverr, or PeoplePerHour.

Having a blog is not necessary for a freelancer but many freelancers have discovered that a blog is a perfect promotion method and an excellent tool to help them reach their business objectives. If you have a blog you can showcase your skills, build your portfolio and make it possible for your clients to contact you directly.

6. Sell ads on your blog for a fixed time period

As previously mentioned placing ads on your blog is an easy and legitimate way to earn money from your blog. But instead of getting paid depending on the number of impressions or for every click on ads, you can ask a fixed amount of money for a defined time period for an ad to be placed on your blog. Depending on traffic and the position of the ad you can make even thousands of dollars for a monthly placement of a single banner.

You can sell ad space on networks like BuySellAds or you can cut out the middlemen and negotiate with advertisers yourself and keep all the money yourself. If you decide to sell ads yourself place a link on your blog where potential advertisers can contact you.

7. Sell access to premium content on your blog

If you constantly provide useful and valuable information to your visitors you will establish in time, reputation as an expert in your field. Once your readers trust you, you can create premium content, offering even more value and in-depth information you can make it available for a certain membership fee.

This premium content can be in form of a more detailed and upgraded form of your existing free articles. If your readers are interested then they will be willing to pay for it.

8. Create email list and monetize it

Many bloggers are building their email lists. The email list is one of the greatest assets they have for driving traffic to their blog and making money online. Once your visitors subscribe you can send promotional emails promoting affiliate products, which is another way to make money with affiliate marketing other than placing affiliate links on your blog.

To start building your email list from scratch is easy and you can use one of the email marketing service providers like Aweber, MailChimp, Mailer Lite, Sendinblue, Getresponse, Constant Contact, and others. Many of them will offer free plans for beginners.

9. Ask for donations from your readers

This is another way to make money with your blog that is a bit unique. Instead of using ads, affiliate links, and charging for access to the premium content you can ask your readers to donate to your blog. If they like the content you provide they might consider donating a small amount of money to keep your blog running.

You can place a Paypal donation button on your blog or you can use donation platforms like Patreon, Kickstarter, BuyMeACoffee, and others.

10. Sell your blog

Finally, if you have created a blog that has a large targeted audience, lots of traffic, and is well established but you have grown tired of it or you want to move on to create a new blog or something else then you can sell your blog. Depending on the traffic and the niche your blog can fetch quite a good amount of money.

You can list your blog to sell on online marketplace websites like Flippa, Trustiu, EmpireFlippers, and others. Good established blogs and websites can be sold for hundreds of thousands.

Conclusion

Blogging is a legitimate way to make money online. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme and the amount you will earn depends on the amount of work you will put in. Also, you can not expect to see profit from day one. It requires a lot of work to be put in upfront before you see some financial benefit.

Remember that the most important thing for a successful money-making blog is the traffic or number of people that visit your blog. The more visitors you get to your blog using SEO, social media like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and others, the more money you will make.