How Do Bloggers Make Money

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This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

Learn the ways bloggers are able to make part and full time incomes blogging. Blogging can give you a way to free yourself from the 9-5 grind and do something you are really passionate about.

For instance, I run a food blog (Went Here 8 This) because I am incredibly passionate about food and developing new recipes. I also run a lifestyle/personal finance blog because I love writing about money, finances, and living your best life.

While I do still work full time (not for long!!), I make enough money to cover all my current living expenses. I live in Southern California, so the expenses are higher than in other parts of the country. 

Being able to work from home on something you love doing is priceless. Blogging has allowed so many people to realize this dream of making money working from home on something they are actually passionate about.

Before we move onto how bloggers can make money, I want to touch on the basics of getting started blogging.

Before you even set up your blog, you’ll want to choose a niche. Find your passion or choose something you think you’ll enjoy writing about. 

That’s not to say you can’t start a blog purely to make money, but it will be MUCH easier to get started and stay excited if you’re doing something you’re passionate about. Because it will get hard. 

Once you’ve chosen a niche, check out this tutorial to learn how to set up a blog and read these proven tips for beginner bloggers. 

You may also like the 10 best blog planners, 10 best blogs about blogging. and how to make your first $1,000 blogging. 

How Much Money Can Bloggers Make?

Last week I was enjoying Friendsgiving with some friends, and the topic of my blogging career came up. As I explained to my friends that my blogs income more than covered my monthly expenses, they were very surprised.

A lot of people don’t realize that not only can you make money blogging, but you can make SERIOUS money blogging. There are bloggers out there making more than $100K per MONTH.

That’s not quite me (I’m at around $6K/month on average), but it’s definitely a goal I’m working towards. Here are some bloggers that are really killing it in the income department:

Pinch of Yum – One of the first food blogs I started following, Pinch of Yum doesn’t do income reports anymore, but the last one they did in November 2016 showed almost $100K in monthly income. And the blog has only grown since then. 

Making Sense of Cents – Michelle Shroeder-Gardner is a highly successful blogger in the personal finance space and I have been in love with her blog for a long time. She makes about $150K a month blogging. 

Went Here 8 This – I stopped doing income reports in December 2019, but this past December 2020 I made $6,170 from the blog. 

Horkey Handbook – Gina runs a site about becoming a VA and makes in excess of $20K/month blogging! Learn how to become a VA with her course. 

Just a Girl and Her Blog – A lifestyle blog, Abby makes more than $40K/month blogging. 

Club Thrifty – A blog about finances, I love to read this one as well. Greg and Holly make more than $20K/month on the blog. 

Pulling Curls – Hillary runs a lifestyle and parenting blog, and makes over $7K/month on her blog. 

Now these blogs are obviously some of the larger, more successful blogs out there, but there is no reason you can’t be one of them! Just remember blogging takes hard work and dedication, and you can’t get there overnight, no matter what some people might tell you.

If you’re interested in starting a blog, learn how to start a blog with this post. If a food blog is your passion, this article on how to start a food blog is very helpful. 

The Benefits of Blogging

There are so many benefits to blogging. Whether you decide to do it as your full time career, or as a side gig while you save for early retirement, it can be incredibly fulfilling. Here are some of the other benefits:

 – You are able to work from anywhere in the world you can get an internet connection. This allows you so much freedom to experience everything the word has to offer.

 – You are your own boss. I can’t emphasize enough how great this can be. Not having to ask for days off, deal with office politics and do meaningless tasks just because your boss wants you to is such a great feeling.

 – Save money commuting. This will vary from person to person obviously. I have a 45 minutes (one way) commute, so eliminating the commute is a huge benefit (though I’ve been working from home this year due to quarantine). 

 – Blogging allows you to channel your creativity in a way that also make money. What can be better than doing something you LOVE to make money?

 – And speaking of money, the amount you can make is limitless. If you are willing to put in the work and spend time learning everything you can, you can be hugely successful in the blogging world.

How Do Bloggers Make Money?

This is not an all-inclusive list as there are so many ways anyone can make money it would be impossible to include them all here. But these are the main sources of income for most bloggers. 

Affiliate Marketing

I absolutely love affiliate marketing for making money. Once you have a good affiliate marketing strategy set up, you can kind of just sit back and watch the money roll in. 

Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but once it’s set up, the income is pretty passive. 

Affiliate marketing is basically defined as earning a commission through the promotion of other people’s products. In a nutshell, you find a product(s) that you like, become an affiliate, then promote that product on your site to earn a commission from sales.

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing from Michele Shroeder-Gardner is an awesome affiliate marketing class for beginners. Read more about it in this Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing review.

Sounds pretty sweet? It is. Not only do you not have to make the product, but you are promoting a product that your audience will already love, and you earn a commission from that.

And even if you don’t have a blog, you can start using Pinterest for affiliate marketing!

On Page Advertising

While I love affiliate marketing, on page advertising is even better (in my opinion) because it’s totally hands off. On page advertising is when an ad company pays you to have ads shown on your site. 

For instance, I belong to an ad network called Mediavine (best ad network ever BTW). They set up ads on my site and I earn ad revenue based on my traffic volume (among other things that I’m not going to get into here).

This is a great method if you use a full service ad management company like Mediavine as you don’t need to do anything. Examples of some ad networks that use on page advertising:

• Mediavine
• Adthrive
• SHE Media
• Adsense
• Ezoic
• Media.net
• Monumetric

On page advertising is great, but it does require you get traffic. I find the best way to get traffic is through SEO practices. Stupid Simple SEO is a class that offers training on SEO and Mike does a really great job. Read the Stupid Simple SEO Review.

Digital Products

Another way to make money as a blogger is to create your own digital product to sell. This can come in the form of an eBook (for instance, I created this eBook on Amazon affiliate marketing strategies), printables, templates, presets, worksheets, photos, among others.

Basically, anything of value that you can create digitally and sell to your audience can be a great stream of income. 

Membership Sites

Some bloggers choose to create membership sites where the audience members can join a site for fee to get exclusive content. 

This can be an awesome way to earn income, especially if your focus is coaching and/or tutorial like content. I used to belong to a membership site called Food Blogger Pro where I had access to content, training and forums to help me learn more about creating a successful food blog. 

The key to a membership site is to have an active, engaged audience first. If your audience doesn’t know you, they will be less likely to join your site. Offering free content first is a great strategy.

Once you have a customer base, then it’s a great time to offer them access to your membership site.

Sponsored Posts

If you love collaborating with brands and making connections, doing sponsored posts can be an awesome way to make money on your blog. 

A sponsored post is a brand/company that pays you to write about their product on your site. You receive compensation in exchange for writing about this product. 

A sponsored post can work two-fold. First, it provides immediate compensation from the company you do the sponsored post for. Second, you can continue to get traffic and earn ad revenue on that post going forward.

I will note, however, that for whatever reason, my sponsored posts tend to perform poorly in comparison to my other posts. The traffic is usually substantially lower, so weigh the costs and benefits of doing the post (they can take a lot of time as well). 

It can sometimes be hard to find brands to collaborate with, so there are networks that work to bring creators and brands together to collaborate. Here are some great options:

• Social Fabric
• Linqia
• Izea
• Sway
• Markerly

Here is a complete list of blogger networks to join to make money!

Offer Services

Some bloggers choose to offer services on their site for a fee. If you have a certain service you offer, this is a wonderful way to make money!

I have seen bloggers that offer photography and videography services, coaching services, social media management, etc. If you have a service you can offer within your niche, this can be a great way to make money with your blog.

Your blog will help you to build credibility with your audience so they are more likely to purchase your services.

Courses and Workshops

Not too different from offering services above, you can also offer courses and workshops for your audience. I love this idea as it can be passive once you get your course completed. 

I always think of Michelle’s Shroeder-Gardner’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course here. She developed this course that bloggers purchase time after time and it provides her a virtually passive income. 

It’s a course that provides many written modules, and a ton of valuable information and I can only imagine it took a ton of work to put together. But once complete, it’s ready to passively make some moolah.

Now, that’s not to say you won’t need to go in periodically and tweak the content, but what better way to be able to be able to reach that dream of sipping cocktails on the beach?

In Conclusion

Making money blogging can be greatly rewarding. In addition to allowing you to be your own boss and work anywhere in the world, blogging allows you to do something you are passionate about, which is just plain awesome.

Do you make money blogging? Comment below and let me know your top income sources!