5 Ways to Monetize Your Blog

Whether you started blogging because you heard that it could be a real money maker or you started blogging because you wanted to share your wisdom and insight with the world, you may be discouraged with your readership—and yes, with your blogging income.

Blogging can be an extremely lucrative business, but to make it so, you must remember that it is just that – a business.

You must put forth a significant amount of effort, develop a blogging strategy, and implement systems designed to increase readership and therefore, boost your income. Below are a few suggestions on how to get started improving your blog performance.

Offer a Product or Service

More than a few blogging influencers suggest offering a product or service as a way to earn money while blogging.

Neil Patel suggests offering a coaching service to motivated clients. Identify your unique strengths and skill sets as well as the challenges your ideal readership faces.

Offer one-on-one intensive blogging coaching sessions geared toward helping clients react to problems in a positive way and to equip them with the knowledge they need to overcome those challenges.

If you have a ton of information you wish to share at once for a small fee, consider writing and selling an eBook. Use your blog as a teaser of what your book offers.

If you're passionate about a particular product, or if you make your own products, consider focusing your blog around that specific item.

Discuss the different ways in which you can use a product, who the product is suitable for, how one's life can benefit from the product and more helpful information about your product.

Though physical products take a significant time to scale, once your blog takes off, sales are sure to start rolling in.

Offer an Online Course

Online courses are similar to coaching services in that you share your knowledge on a specific subject.

However, whereas coaching is done on a one-on-one basis, which requires more of your undivided attention, you can create online courses for the masses.

Classes can be presented as a professional-style video or as simple as a PowerPoint with voiceovers.

A great thing about online courses is that there is no shortage of subjects on which you can teach. Society today turns to the internet for answers on everything, from how to say hello in Swahili to how to survive in the wild.

Like online coaching, focus on your strengths and then create content that teaches others how to develop those strengths themselves.

Another great thing about online courses is that they are easily scalable. After you create and publish a few classes, you can take on as many clients as you want.

While one course continues to work for you, you can be making others to generate even more income.

Partake in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to monetize your blog. It is especially useful if you are just starting, do not have a huge following, and do not currently have any products or services to offer.

Affiliate marketing refers to the process of creating content that is in harmony with whatever affiliate offers you plan to promote.

For instance, say you run a green cleaning hacks blog. You can easily sell all-natural cleaning products and green cleaning supplies.

Because your blog is already attracting people who are interested in green cleaning, it will not be difficult for you to generate interest in organic supplies.

You may sell even more products if you use them yourself and feature specific brands in your blog.

Use Your Status as an Influencer

If you have established yourself as a knowledgeable and authoritative individual by sharing helpful and relevant information via your blog (or social media channels) and nurtured a relationship with your followers, you are an influencer.

When your readers trust your blog content, you can have a significant impact on their purchasing decisions.

There has been a growth in using influencer marketing to promote a company's products or services because it works.

Potential buyers put more trust in those they know, like, and trust than the companies who promote their own products or services via advertising or other marketing efforts.

How can you get paid for your blogging based on your influencer? For example, let's say you blog about travel and have already built an audience.

Companies or brands in your industry like hotels or restaurants will look to you as their brand advocate to drive their message to your shared audience.

Consumers today are different than they used to be. They tend to turn a deaf ear to radio and television and a blind eye to advertising.

They also tend not to trust large companies. They do, however, listen to and believe what others write and say about brands.

Email Marketing

Once you have a substantial list, you may discover that email marketing is the number one money generating technique you use for your blog.

However, it's getting to that "substantial" point that can become a problem for many people. Building a solid email list takes time and patience, and at first, it may seem as if your efforts are for naught.

However, if you keep offering quality content, and if you keep asking for subscribers, your efforts will be rewarded.

Once you build a rapport with your clients via email newsletters, you can easily sell affiliate products, as well as your own, directly through email.

Blogging is an excellent source of passive income, but if you've been at it for a while and have still yet to generate any money, you may have figured out by now that blogging is anything but passive.