- Chris R.
- One Comment
- Published: August 23, 2018
- Modified: April 15, 2021
“MoolahNinjas main goal is to help our readers improve their financial lives. We partner with other companies that share that same vision. Some of these links in this post may be from our partners. This is how we make money.”
Here’s a secret though:
It turns out that as long as you have a strategy and know the step-by-step process, that making money with a blog is EASY and FUN. You can start a blog in under 10 minutes and join those making $30,000+ every month just from their sites!
In this article, we’re going to walk you through what exactly a blog is, how much money you can make with one, and the main methods for income generation. We’ll then walk you through, step-by-step, exactly what you’ll need to do to get started TODAY.
Difficulty
Time
Commitment
Earnings
Potential
What is a Blog
Why You Should Start a Blog
How Much Money Can You Make from Blogging?
Why you Should Use WordPress to Create a Blog
How to Start Earning Money with a Blog
CHAPTER 1
What is a Blog?
A blog is a collection of posts organized on a website about a topic. It’s typically run by one person or a small group of people and it’s updated regularly. MoolahNinjas is an example of a blog: We write and publish information all about how to earn money online.
Most blogs sell products to their readers like e-books and courses, but some even sell clothing items, nutritional supplements, and more. It all depends on who’s coming to each blog and what they want.
You can also just promote other influencers, their businesses, and list ads to make money with your blog!
We’re going to get into the exact ways of how to make money blogging and walk you through them.
But, first…
Why You Should Start a Blog
Can you imagine getting paid to write, think, and talk about what you love every day?
That’s what starting a blog is all about and why you should learn how to make money blogging: You create valuable information, build up an audience, and then sell them products that they like and want to buy.
- Extremely customizable design, features, and functionalities
- Can incorporate third-party tools
But, it gets even better:
Not only does starting a blog let you do what you love every day, but you also get these awesome perks:
- You can work your own hours and at anytime you like
- You can make passive income - the money you earn from your blog doesn’t have to be from you sitting at the computer from 9 to 5!
- You can work in your pyjamas, at home, or at a coffee shop. There’s nobody saying you have to show up at 9AM sharp at some office that’s a 2-hour drive away
- You don’t have a boss telling you what to do and can take your blog in any direction you want, post what you want, and sell what you want
- You can travel to other countries as you work if it’s something you’ve always dreamed of
- You will become a better writer, thinker, and get smarter at making money
CHAPTER 2
How Much Money Can You Make from Blogging?
When it comes to learning making money with a blog, some people think they’ll never make a dime. But we’re here to tell you that there are LOTS of of success stories:
For example, bloggers Create and Go show income reports as proof of reaching nearly $100,000 in their first year of blogging! They average $15,000-$30,000 per month…and that’s all PASSIVE INCOME. They don’t sit at their computers working like they would at a job: It all comes in after they did the work before of writing and making products.
Can you imagine just sitting on your couch watching your bank account balance go up while your blog makes you money?
Another example is pro blogger Ramit Sethi. He’s been featured and reported to earn millions blogging, having products that sell from $4.95 all the way up to $12,000.
Can you get there right away? Of course not. But, getting started along the road to success is easy and you can do it too.
Blog Glossary of Terms
Before we get into how to make money blogging, we just wanted to talk about some of the common terms you’ll hear when it comes to setting up a blog, in case you aren’t familiar with the terminology.
But, don’t worry!
If you have a Facebook account you can set up a blog – it’s easy. Here are a list of a few words you’ll probably hear over and over:
A domain name identifies your blog and website and locates it on the internet. For example, the domain name of the company, Google, is www.google.com.
If you are interested in buying a domain at a low price but with excellent service, we can recommend checking out Namecheap. When you buy a domain name from them, they guarantee it will be handed over to you with superior standards of service and support. Their primary goal is to build a customer-focused atmosphere filled with the happiest customers in the galaxy.
A hosting company stores your website on its servers which connect to the internet. Imagine hosting like your computer and a hard drive, except you pay a company to host it online so you can have readers and customers come see your website from all around the world.
Siteground
This is an excellent hosting company that gives you secure and cost-effective hosting. You can also purchase a domain name from them. If you’re a beginner and just want to have basic hosting, you can get a great deal here.
If you’re a bit more advanced and already have some traffic, you can go here to upscale your hosting service.
Reseller Club
ResellerClub is built with the goal of becoming a one-stop-shop of Web Presence products for Professionals and SMEs. They partner with a variety of world-famous providers of Web Hosting, Email Hosting, SaaS and security products to offer you the best products to fit your every need.
If you want to check out their offers, you can find them here.
CloudWays
CloudWays is a Managed Cloud Hosting Platform, a platform that facilitates choice, simplicity and performance. All this is backed by caring expert support so that you stay focused on what you do best, win as an individual and succeed as a business. Learn more about them here.
This is the standard blog hosting platform, which lets you have a lot of freedom over the design of your website (which is what you want). It is very easy to use and get started with. You can start for free, and upgrade to a paid version where you get to choose your own domain. You can learn more here.
A special link from a product you have researched, which if a reader clicks on and buys, will send you a commission. Affiliate links and products are a great way to make money and we will talk about them more later in this article.
An affiliate network you can check out is AdPump, the global performance marketing network in UK,GR,US,FR,ES, IT & Asia focused on enhancing business effectiveness for both advertisers and publishers. They have tons of great offers and ways to help you make money from your blog.
Usually sold in the form of online delivery, like an e-book or course, this is how many bloggers make their money. Once you know who is coming to your blog, you can do research and figure out what they want to learn from you. You package this solution into a nice format, and then sell it to them.
You can also consider making non-online products like clothing, custom physical products (think coffee mugs and equipment), and more.
Looking for a reliable and good dropshipping service to get your products out in the world? Spocket allows you to choose the best products to sell from thousands of dropshipping suppliers all over the world.
A collection of files that work together to produce an interface that your readers see when they visit your blog. These files form the instructions telling WordPress how your blog should look.
The most popular WordPress Themes are bundled into ElegantThemes, the ultimate visual page builder. If you are interested, you can check out their offers on this page.
A collection of files and software you install on to your blog that can extend the function of your website. One plugin might help show you more information about your readers and another helps you show your Instagram pictures somewhere on your website.
There are endless plugins and possibilities for how you can customize your blog, and they can all help you make your blog inviting and amazing for your readers and customers ($$!).
A very popular plugin is Elementor, the best WordPress page builder, which enhances the user experience and ease of use when setting up your blog. We can highly recommend this one!
CHAPTER 3
Why you Should Use WordPress to Create a Blog
Now you know what a blog is and some general terms about blogs. Before we get into the actual process of how to make money blogging, you might be wondering why we recommend everyone builds their blogs using WordPress.
Here’s the deal:
WordPress lets you skip MANY of the steps that could cost you thousands of dollars when it comes to getting a website built.
To summarize, WordPress is a content management system (CMS) for your website, that gives you a lot of control, and allows you to manage all of your content from one place. This means you can easily manage your blog posts, titles, pages, and more on your blog.
This is exactly what you want because when you start learning monetizing your blog, you want to keep things as simple as possible. WordPress is the most popular CMS and many companies, from small to large, use it every day.
Here are some quick points to know about WordPress:
Cost – Typically, you will pay less than $200 per year for hosting and your domain name including using WordPress
Theme – You can start your blog and download many themes for free. However, we usually recommend you upgrade to a premium theme which would be a one time fee of $20 to $100. Elementor lets you do a lot more than free ones and usually looks a lot nicer. This makes it more likely that readers will want to stay on your site, come back again, and buy from you.
- Drag and drop builder
- $89 with one year of support and updates. (unlimited websites)
We have an article ready for you which teaches you how to make a website and how to set everything up including your, domain, hosting, and more.
CHAPTER 4
How Do You Make Money Blogging? Here Are The 3 Main Ways...
- Making your own products
- Using affiliate links
- Showing advertising and promoting sponsors
We already covered products and affiliate links earlier, but we’ll go over them again quickly:
- When you make your own products you package information into an ebook or online course your readers can buy
- With affiliate links, you recommend another person’s or company’s product or service
- You receive a commission if your reader actually makes a purchase from the other company with affiliate links
Advertising and sponsors are the third main way of making money with a blog.
With advertising, you can place images showing readers potential products they could buy from other vendors on your website. You want to be careful you don’t do this too much as it could make your website look like you are a used car salesman.
Sponsors are another way to make money, where companies will pay you to talk about their product and recommend it.
You can see this a lot in YouTube videos or Instagram photos: Clothing and fashion companies will pay famous bloggers to showcase their items and say that they are wearing a certain brand.
You won’t really have the option for sponsors when you are just starting to learn how to make money blogging. But as you grow, you might find sponsors start to reach out to you (or you have more pull when reaching out to them).
CHAPTER 5
10 Steps to Learn How to Make Money Blogging
Now that you have a good overview of what is involved in a blog, let’s talk about the 10-step process for making money with your blog:
Before you get started reading the 10 steps, we’d like to give a big shout out to AuthorityHackers.com. This website has some of the best information on how to get started making money with blogging, and if you are serious about making money online this is one of the best places for information.
The website is made by two guys by the name of Mark Webster and Gaël Breton who both know alot about the industry.
You should check out their course “The Authority Site System” which teaches you more or less EVERYTHING you need to learn, to make money on a blog.
1. Pick a topic or niche for your blog and stick to it
One of the biggest mistakes we see people making when it comes to learning how to make money blogging is to start their blog say about, sports, but then suddenly change direction.
Maybe they saw that cats are now really popular, so they think they should write an article about cats on their sports blog.
NO! Don’t ever do this!
Once you decide on your topic or niche for your blog, stick to it. Not only do your readers expect that topic and will be confused if you publish something else, but search engines like Google will move you lower in the rankings and reputation if your blog isn’t focused on one subject. This is really bad when it comes to making money with your blog.
Pick something you want to focus on, and stick to it. If you want to write about something else, you can always start another blog!
- Extremely customizable design, features, and functionalities
- Can incorporate third-party tools
2. Think about who’s reading your blog, NOT yourself
Too many bloggers write just for themselves. They confuse a blog with a journal.
PLEASE pay close attention to this:
Writing to express yourself is great, and yes, part of your blog will be expressing yourself…
But the way you attract people and make money is by creating content that your READERS love.
You should always put yourself in the shoes of your reader asking, “What do they want?” Create your content based on the answer to that question and you’ll find out how to make money blogging. Period.
Now we’re not saying that just because your readers want something that you don’t like or believe in that you have to write about it. Don’t do things that go against your values or feel unethical, but always put your reader first.
3. Set goals
Without a goal, how do you know if you’ve scored?
You need to set goals for your blog and take it seriously if you want to follow the process of how to make money blogging. Treat it like a business that will make you money, and potentially take care of you and your family for the rest of your life.
It has that power if you work on it!
Over the course of one day, one month, 3 months, and one year, you should be thinking about setting goals for yourself. Here are some sample questions to ask to get an idea for some good goals to set:
- How many readers do I want to have?
- How many articles do I want to have written?
- What products do I want to create?
- What work do I want to have done on my website or social media?
- What tools do I need to install?
Think about the answers to these questions, and write down your goals. Keep them somewhere where you can review them whenever you want or need some inspiration.
4. Start with one social media channel at a time and make it successful before adding more
Are you still wondering how to make money as a blogger? Social media is a powerful, and FREE way to find readers, get customers, and make money. By social media, we are talking about things like Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook.
The mistake you don’t want to make is trying to create all of these channels at once and working to make them successful.
That is not how to make money blogging.
Pick the one channel you like the most and focus there. Say you like taking pictures or posting them, then you should use Instagram. Maybe you want to make videos? Then you should choose YouTube.
Either way, pick one, and get on a schedule of posting consistent content and getting people subscribing to you. Once you’ve done that and your channel has grown well, then you can add another.
It’s way better for readers to come to your blog and see that you have millions of followers on a single channel, than maybe 1000 on each because you’ve spread your attention too thin.
5. Choose 1-2 core affiliate offers and focus on them
Affiliate links and offers are a great way to monetize your blog. Someone’s done all the hard work of making a product, all you do is recommend them, and you get paid!
Make sure you only choose products you genuinely believe in and think will help your readers. Never choose offers that are only based on how much commission or money you make.
- Very active affiliate marketing portal
- New products are being added every day
- Payouts are always on time
- Most famous ‘Cost-Per-Action’ advertising companies globally
- Made up of thousands of campaigns and affiliates
- Specialized in maximizing ROI of both advertisers and affiliates
6. Focus on creating good content. Quality is better than quantity
While you can’t just write a single blog post and hope that your blog will make millions, don’t just try to write 5 posts a day if the quality is going to be poor.
Here’s why:
It’s better to write fewer articles that are really high quality, compared to more than are poorly written and edited. High quality posts will help show you how to make money blogging.
7. Create your own product
Most blogs make A LOT of money by selling their own products. While you can make money off of affiliate links, you still might only be earning 50% of what a product costs.
Imagine if you had your own $100 product, and you made 50, 100, or 1000+ sales a day.
It makes a BIG difference.
Of coruse, you’d need some way to sell your very own products. That’s why you would be wise to look into ecommerce software, the engine behind the scenes of an online store, making it possible to easily manage inventory, add or remove products, calculate taxes, … Basically everything you need to open an online store!
We would recommend BigCommerce for this, as you can try them out for free for 15 days. (No credit card required)
Once you’ve been writing for a while and have an email list, you can ask them what type of product they’d like. Maybe they want an ebook, or a video course? If you have a blog about baseball, maybe they want to know how to throw a ball better, or how to hit the ball harder?
All you need to do is ask them to make money with your blog!
8. Build an email list from the first day you start, and collect emails in as many ways as you can
Of all the regrets pro bloggers have when we talk to them about how to make money blogging, the #1 thing we hear them saying is, “I wish I had started building my email list sooner.”
An email list is where you use online forms to collect email addresses (and sometimes names) of those that are interested in your blog.
An email list is a great way to learn how to make money by blogging, and is also like a money printer: Once you have a new product or offer, you can send it directly out to a curated list of people who have said that they’re interested in what you’re talking about and selling. It makes it way more likely that these people would buy compared to someone who randomly sees your blog on Google.
We recommend that you use Aweber to grow your email list: This software is very easy to use and set up, and can grow with your blog. We also have a guide ready for you on email marketing.
The Different Ways to Collect Emails on your Blog
There are several different ways and places you can collect emails on your blog. Note that when we say “opt-in” below, we simply mean a form field where users can type in their email and be added to your email list.
Here are the ways we suggest you consider when you’re thinking of how to make money blogging:
A. Opt-in callout at the top of the menu
Most bloggers have a special menu item at the top of their page offering a free guide or something enticing to get readers to click. Once they click, they are taken to a page with the free offer, which they get if they provide their email and sign up for your list.
B. Hello Bar WordPress plugin
The Hello Bar plugin places a horizontal bar at the top of your website where readers can click to head to a page with the free offer, or directly submit their email in a field that shows up on the bar. It looks like this:
This is an easy way to catch a reader’s attention because it appears right at the top of your website. You can learn more about Hello Bar by clicking here.
C. Opt-in box at the end of each WordPress article
Once a reader reads a great blog post, they’ve enjoyed it, or have gotten great information from it, they are ready to get more. Having a box at the end of the article is the best way to take advantage of this.
The easiest way to do this is by can installing the plugin Magic Action Box. This lets you easily design an opt-in form that will automatically be inserted at the end of every blog article you publish.
D. Opt-in box at the side of each WordPress article
E. Pop-ups
Pop-ups are one of the best ways to “convert” readers while trying to monetize your blog. By that, we mean the chance of getting someone to sign up when they see a pop-up is very high compared to the other methods.
However, some people find pop-ups annoying as I’m sure you might have seen a few yourself. It’s up to you if you’d like to use one on your site.
You can set a timer for how long someone is on your site, and after, say 10 seconds, a pop-up will come up telling them they can sign up for a free gift, discount, etc. We recommend the OptinMonster plugin to start using pop-ups with your blog.
F. Exit intent
Plugins like OptinMonster also let you create automated pop-ups that only come up when someone is about to exit or close your site.
This is sometimes the last chance to convert them, so a great exit intent offer can really build your list.
9. Continue to improve your knowledge on blogging
To learn how to make money blogging, you’ll always need to be studying and learning how to write better, rank higher in search engines, improve your products, and more.
There’s no end to how limit you can learn, but there’s also no limit to how much you can earn when you do this!
10. Stay true to the vision of your blog
Finally, always remember why you started your blog and what it’s there for. Don’t let anyone make you change your topic, your strategy, or what you’re doing if you truly believe in it!
Your readers will come and buy from you when they know, like, and trust you. And the only way to get them to do that, is to be authentic.
- Extremely customizable design, features, and functionalities
- Can incorporate third-party tools
CHAPTER 6
How to Start Earning Money with a Blog
You can start learning how to make money blogging if you follow the guide we’ve written for you here and the other information we’ve written for you on this site.
Remember: You can either continue doing something you aren’t really enjoying in your life, or you can start a blog based on something you love and make money from it.
You can do it! We’ve seen MANY members go through our guide and become successful and we want you to be too.
Here’s a summary on how to get started:
Get a domain
Setup a hosting account
Install WordPress using your hosting account’s instructions
Install your choice of premium WordPress themes
Install Hello Bar, Aweber and Magic Action Box
Get started writing your first blog post!
With this guide, you now know how to make money blogging, and it’s just up to you to get started.
This article really made me realise how important it is to stay consistent with my blog. I have been at it for a couple of years, but never really become too successful with it. It’s about consistency. Thanks for this, I feel motivated now!