How To make money with blogging

Are you wondering how you can make money with blogging? 10 years ago I realized that there were bloggers who actually made money with their blog. Most of them were "ordinary" people, who often also started earning money with their blog.
I myself started a blog and I also earned some money. But soon I noticed that it was not so easy to get an income from a blog in Flanders.Today I view a blog completely different. A blog is not "just a blog", a blog is really a "business", and that's the way you should tackle it.

How do bloggers earn money?

There are several ways to make money with a blog . In this article I show you 14 ways to make money with a blog. It is up to you to find out which way suits you best and what works for you.

I hope that after reading this article you will see that you can also perfectly use a blog to promote your company, products or services. In this way, a blog does not provide a "direct" income, such as through advertisements, but for an indirect income. Your blog will then provide new visitors who will eventually become customers.

How much money can you earn with blogging

How much money you can earn with a blog depends on many factors . If your blog is a reference in your profession, you can certainly earn a nice amount thanks to your blog.

Is your blog rather personal and there are some ads here and there, then you will be happy with a few euros per month.A common mistake is that someone starts to blog about a bit of everything . The chance that you will earn money on the basis of such a blog is really small. If, on the other hand, you demarcate your subject and become the reference on that subject, the chances are that you will eventually earn money through your blog (but then the road is long!).

I myself have a number of customers who have grown their business through a blog. They do not see themselves as bloggers, but thanks to their blog they attract sufficient new customers. In my view, this is the most feasible way in Flanders to generate a nice income via a blog. Unless you start blogging in English, of course, the cards are different. But in this article I mainly assume that you are Flemish and blogging in Dutch.

How can you make money with blogging?
In this article I discuss the following 14 ways to make money with blogging:

Google Adense
Affiliate marketing
Develop an online course
Create a paying newsletter
Publish a newsletter (free or not)
Organize free webinars
Publish sponsored articles
Write articles for other websites
Promote the products / services you sell
Organize a workshop
Coach your followers
This way you can earn money with Instagram
This way you can earn money with vlogging
Join an influencer program

1) Google Adsense

Advertisements are the easiest way to make money with blogging , but the chance that you will become rich in this is almost nil. Google AdSense is easy to implement on your blog, making it a popular option.

Unless you really have a lot of visitors, I do not recommend this. Finally, advertisements often have a negative impact on the user experience. If you only earn a few euros / month of ads, this is not worth the trouble.

However, if you have a blog that attracts thousands of visitors every month, it will be a different story. In that case, it might be interesting to get started with Google AdSense. Once again, you will not get rich, but it can provide an additional source of income.

2) Affiliate marketing

In affiliate marketing you promote a product or service on your blog . When your visitor goes to the website via the blog that sells the service or the product and actually makes a purchase, you get a commission.

How much the commission amounts to affiliate marketing depends on various factors. Then it can be a few euros, but it can also involve dozens of euros. The final amount often depends on the price of the product or service.

Among bloggers, this is a very popular way of earning money . Keep in mind that this may seem simple at first sight, but in the end it is not that at all. To make money with affiliate marketing you have to have a nice number of visitors.

Around 2010 I had an English blog with tutorials about WordPress. One of those tutorials was about software to create templates for WordPress. That software, however, had one major disadvantage, but just about that I had written a workaround. The result was that many of my visitors went to the purchase of that software after reading my article, most through an affiliate link on my blog. Depending on the version of the software, I got between $ 30 and $ 100 per sale via my blog! The result was that in just a few months I had earned around 1,000 eur (until the developers of the software solved the error).

In addition to tutorials , reviews are also an interesting way to make money from affiliate marketing.

3) Develop an online course

Successful bloggers often also develop an online course . This can be about the topic they blog about, but sometimes also about blogging or about online marketing, about how they have dealt with the business and have become successful.

Such an online course can take various forms. This way you can also give access to a protected part of your website, where deeper or more detailed content is offered. Nowadays such a thing is often combined with video . Thanks to video you can approach a 1-to-1 experience.

Online courses are also regularly supplemented with coaching via, for example, a Skype call. Personally, I find that very interesting. This way you combine a theoretical course with advice and tailor-made feedback during the Skype call. This gives a real added value.

The advantage of such an online course is that it is easily scalable ; you make that 1x and then you can in principle resell it unlimited times. But do not be mistaken, making an online course, especially if you work with video, requires a lot of work. If you use WordPress, you can easily expand your blog with such an e-learning platform. There are several plugins for this.

4) Create a paying newsletter

There are also successful bloggers who have a paying newsletter. They then send a newsletter with exclusive tutorials or tips at certain times. You often see this, for example, with bloggers who give tips about shares. There are some very successful bloggers in which readers are willing to pay for interesting information, sent via newsletters.

5) Publish an e-book (free or not)

E-books are also a very popular source of income for bloggers, both paying and non-paying.

Paying e-books:The most obvious form of e-books are paying e-books. For bloggers this is also a relatively easy way to make money (provided you have a regular audience).Often we start from the most popular posts that were already written on the blog . These will then be modified or supplemented with (a lot of) extra information and tips.

For example, a few years ago, I followed an American blogger who shared tips on how he approached it very cheaply. That went from booking cheap airline tickets, tips on how you could easily earn extra miles or how to book the best rooms at a lower rate. That blog was so popular at a certain point that the blogger released his own e-book. And actually that was really no more than his most popular blog posts that he had rewritten and supplemented.

Maybe you wonder how you can make money from a free e-book? Well, that is certainly possible, even if it is in an indirect way.

For many bloggers collecting e-mail addresses is very important . When they publish a new blog post, they immediately send out a newsletter to people who are already interested in the type of content they publish.

If you as a blogger earn your money through advertising or affiliate marketing, e-mail marketing is a tool that should not be underestimated. But even if you want to sell (over time) products or services, such an email list is very important.However, there is a small "but". Namely, your visitors do not just leave their e-mail address so you can chase them with e-mails (even if they find your content interesting). That is why it is a good idea to give something in its place. A free e-book is a great idea! Collect your 10 most popular blog posts, create an e-book, and you have a free "gift" to give away if someone signs up for your newsletter.

6) Organize free webinars

Free webinars are also an indirect form of income. With a free webinar you give interesting information first and you create trust for your visitor : your visitor gets to know you and will be more inclined to become a customer with you. This is especially interesting if you offer services or products in addition to your blog.

Even though webinars are now easy to set up, you still have to take into account some technical aspects :

good quality of camera
good quality of microphone

It is often started with the webcam and microphone that are standard in your computer. Even though the quality is ok for a normal Skype call, for professional use these are often too short.

That is why it is interesting to invest in a better webcam (if necessary) and especially a better microphone.Free webinars are often used by software developers. It is an ideal way to give an information session from a distance to potential customers worldwide .

But you do not necessarily have to be a big company to organize a free webinar. Also as a "small independent" you can perfectly organize a free webinar. The goal is the same; present your products and services and "create" trust for your potential customers .

There is a lot of software available to organize webinars, both free and paying. An overview of some possibilities can be found in the article "15+ Best Live Webinar Software" from TutsPlus.com .

7) Publish sponsored articles

As your blog becomes more popular, you will also receive requests for sponsored articles. If you have a small blog, you will get questions from companies that would like to have a link to their website, often a supplement to an article you have written.

If your blog reaches a certain popularity, companies will also be willing to pay for a link to their website . The correct amount depends on many factors, but the more specific the subject you blog and the more readers you have, the higher the amounts will be.

Important here is that you "connect" your visitors with your blog; this can be done via social media or a free newsletter. As soon as you publish a new blog article, you can also let us know via your social media channels and via your newsletter.

8) Write articles for other websites

Here too I will make a distinction between writing free articles (= guest blogging) and paid assignments.

Write free articles = guest blogging

With guest blogging you will write an article for another blog, usually an authority within a certain topic. It is not the intention that you earn money directly with it. The aim is then to attract a new audience , readers who click through to your blog by reading your article. As a blogger (or as a company) that is important, because you depend on the number of readers you have on a monthly basis.

Paid orders

It may be that your writing style and expertise catch the eye of other companies. Or maybe you have a certain name or authority built around a certain subject, so companies will pay you to write for them . Fixed amounts do not exist here, everything depends on your expertise and your reputation. It may be that the amounts for this are relatively low at the beginning, but as you build up expertise and experience, you can ask for higher amounts.

9) Promote the products / services you sell

If your blog is part of your corporate website , you can also use your blog to promote your products and services. Think not of ordinary advertising, but of informative or inspiring blog articles .

Inspire your visitors . Some companies use their blog to inspire potential customers. The Colora blog is a good example of this. They do not advertise their products directly, but post a lot of how-to's and decoration tips on their blog. Of course with each time the reference to which products they used. Because they offer informative, interesting, blog articles that are a real added value, their blog articles always appear at the top of Google .

Another common technique is that you publish blog articles and give away a little bit of valuable information . If your readers want customized advice, then they should contact you. For example an accountant who publishes an article with general tax tips for entrepreneurs, where you can contact us for customized advice.

10) Organize a workshop

Another option to make money with blogging is organizing workshops.

Suppose you have a popular blog about photography, it can be interesting to offer workshops to your readers . Your readers are already following you because they find your blog articles interesting. Just be assured that some are willing to pay money for an interesting workshop . An advantage is that they already know you, you already have a (trust) bond with them, so you no longer have to convince them of your knowledge and expertise.

Preparing a workshop requires some time, but the advantage is that you can give the same workshop a number of times. An additional advantage is that different people can register for the same workshop.

11) Coach your followers

This way of making money with blogging is similar to the above, but with the difference that you will coach your followers individually . Certainly if you have a certain authority in your domain, your readers will be open to it and sometimes even ask questions. Individual coaching requires a lot of time, of course, but the amounts that are asked for this are usually also a lot higher.

12) This way you can earn money with instagram

Nowadays Instagram is also a popular channel to make money . That is not really by blogging, but by posting beautiful, inspiring photos. This is especially popular with fashion and travel bloggers. Here too, the more followers you have, the greater the amounts you can ask for sponsored posts.

But let money here is not your first motivation, because then you will give up quickly. It takes a lot of time before you build a nice number of real (!) Followers. It is more important that you start from your passion . Keep it with 1 topic, which is easier for followers to follow you for a specific topic.

If you are a blogger, Instagram can be an interesting channel to find new followers or to keep your followers up to date on new blog posts. Your most recent Instagram posts are easy to integrate on your website, which also has several advantages.

If you want to know more about this, then also read this article with an explanation of how you can earn money with Instagram .

13) This way you can earn money with vlogging

At vloggen you do not write blogs but you make " video blogs " and you prefer to place them on YouTube . Because YouTube shows ads with videos, it is possible that you earn money by publishing videos / vlogs. Here, the more your video is watched, the more you can earn. But do not worry about it, with hundreds of views per month you will not earn anything.

The most popular vloggers are currently very focused on entertainment . As a company it is very difficult to get enough views to earn anything with it. Yet there are also possibilities here!

You can start your own YouTube channel and post tutorials or "how to" videos here , because that kind of video is still very popular on YouTube. Not that you will earn anything from advertising revenue, but that way you can attract new visitors to your blog or website.

You can also easily place YouTube videos on your website. In some cases this will lead to higher rankings in Google! Video is also an ideal way to create more trust among your visitors; so they see or hear you really busy.

14) Join an influencer program

Do you have a lot of followers, via which channel, then you are interesting for companies. It is much more interesting for companies to have their products promoted by influencers , who are much closer to their followers than simply through traditional (impersonal) advertising.

This is still relatively new, but the number of influencer programs is evolving rapidly. Both worldwide and in Belgium. Even more traditional marketing agencies roll out influencer programs, just because the ROI is very interesting for companies.

Above I have described a lot of ways to make money with your blog, but as a blogger (or influencer) you often get products for free. This can range from smaller items (software, perfume) to even trips. This, in turn, depends on various factors.As a novice blogger this will often be your first form of "income". You do not immediately make money with it, but it is an indication that you are on the right track and that you have to continue doing what you are doing!

Can you earn money with a free blog?

As a starting blogger, the first (logical) step is often a free blog. And that's perfect to start with and you could even make money with it if your blog becomes popular.

But it is far more interesting to move quickly to a platform with your own domain name. The reason is simple; your own domain name is yours and you manage yourself. If you blog on a free platform, and that platform stops, you will lose your entire blog in one go. With your own domain name such a thing can not happen. And it simply comes across as much more professional.

Do you have to have your own business?

To make money as a blogger you do not have to "own business", but it is wise to visit a bookkeeper once you make money with your blog. Especially since income from your blog is often not one-off.

Conversely, if you have a business and you have a company website, then a blog is a perfect extension. The regular publication of blog articles has many advantages:

blogging is good for SEO, your website will rank higher in Google!You can attract new potential customers by blogging about related topics to your products / services.you can also use your blog as an information or inspiration channel.Especially in small companies, a blog can be interesting to inspire confidence with your visitors

Make your blog personal

Keep it at 1 topic and make sure you become the reference.
It takes a while before you start seeing results from your blog, so many bloggers give it up early. Count on at least 6 months .

Be sure to start making money in the beginning in different ways. As you become more popular, you will notice what works best for you.Content is king, publish content that your target audience really wants to readDo not be a copycat of another blog, it is important that you are unique and the reference in your domainBlog initially not for the money! If that is your main goal in the beginning, you will never keep it going.

Do you want to learn how to make a successful company website with blog?
Then sign up for our Webdesign training (WordPress + SEO) . In this practical workshop, which takes 1 day, you will learn how to set up a WordPress website with a blog. This is ideal for starters who want to promote their services or products through a blog.

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How To make money with blogging