How To Make Money Blogging

If you want flexible work or to be your own boss then making money from blogging is a great way to do it!

You can make money from blogging through adverts placed on your site by a network such as Google Ads or Mediavine, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, selling your own products or link insertion.

I have been blogging since 2017 and have grown my websites (I have two that make money and one in development) to a point where they now bring in between £5,000 and £7000 a month (before tax).

Income fluctuates a little depending on the time of year, but I know I can now rely on my blog to make me more than my old full-time office job made me!

Plus I work just three to four hours a day (during the week) on my blogs. This means that I have way more time to spend caring for (and enjoying) my kids than when I was working for a company.

Want to know how you can do the same? There are lots of ways to earn money blogging and we’re going to look at how you can do that in this article.

This article contains affiliate links.

What is blogging?

First of all it’s worth pointing out that blogging isn’t really the same as it was back when the first blogs were published in 1994 (well before social media was a thing).

Back then blogging was like an online journal where you updated people on your thoughts on life and what you had been doing that week.

Now blogging for money really involves providing informative and/or entertaining content that serves your audience with something useful.

Some professionals prefer to refer to their blogs as niche sites. This is because successful sites focus on one particular topic, or if they do have a few topics then they would all serve a particular audience.

For example a parenting site may write about family food, crafts for kids and home-making.

The reason for niching right down in terms of your blog content is that unless you’re famous – like Kardashian famous – people aren’t going to read just about anything from you.

You need to show expertise and articles covering every corner of your niche to keep people coming to your site and help new people to find it.

Most niche sites bring their audience back again and again, and get new visitors, through focusing on good SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) practices, so that their articles rank well on Google.

An alternative to this is traffic from social media. Some bloggers bring in huge amounts of traffic from both.

In both instances, you need to build a solid bank of great content regarding your niche to post on your blog.

Check out my article on how to start a blog here.

Ways to make money blogging

If you’re thinking of getting started with a blog or you have one and aren’t sure how you can monetise it, then try these methods for making money.

You don’t have to just pick one, in fact most people have at least two income streams from their blog.

I use affiliate marketing, ads and selling my own products. I have also done sponsored posts and link insertion in the past.

We’re going to explore all of these methods and how to get started with them here.

Affiliate marketing

Making money from affiliate marketing is fantastic because once you’ve got a great article that ranks well in search engines then it can bring in money from affiliate sales on a daily basis.

Affiliate marketing is where you recommend products or services, and link to them from your site using special trackable links.

You then receive commission on any sales that are made after your reader clicks through to the site.

Not all affiliate programmes are the same. Some pay as little as 1% – Amazon is a popular network as it has so many different products and everyone trusts it for shopping but the returns are terrible. Others pay as much as 50%!

So shop around for affiliate programmes, and see if you can get a better commission rate on a product that’s relevant for your niche! Smaller businesses may be willing to enter into a special partnership with you.

You can read up on the best affiliate networks in the UK here.

Partnering up with an advertising network is a very popular way to make money among bloggers. It means you continue to make money seven days a week!

The ad network places adverts on your site and then pays you based on how many people view them or click through to read more.

Pretty much any blog can sign up to Google Ads. This will pay pennies for a blog with low traffic, but it’s still money coming in!

When bloggers get more traffic they tend to graduate to one of the bigger networks, such as Ezoic and SheMedia.

The big networks, with high traffic threshold requirements to new members, are Mediavine and Raptive. Members of these networks benefit from the great partner support from the networks and much better rate of return on your traffic.

I have been a Mediavine partner since 2019 and I am a huge fan! They’ve totally transformed my earnings and I really recommend making this a goal of yours if you are starting out with a blog.

If you want to make big money from ads – and there are some bloggers making $50,000+ a month just from ads – then you need to be heavily focused on growing traffic.

Read more about how to get your blog into Mediavine.

Selling your own products

You do not need to have an audience of millions to make money from selling your own products.

Some people start a blog and then decide to create or sell some products from it. Others decide they want to sell their own products, and build a blog in order to reach the perfect audience for their product.

Whichever way around you end up doing it, this is a method that can make you huge returns! Much better to sell your own products, than to rely on affiliate income which only gives you a slice of the profits.

Your own products might be:

Physical products you ship out to people. For example craft kits for kids.
Digital products you send via email. For example planners, stationery, invitations and checklists.
Courses and eBooks.

Link insertion

Making money selling links is similar to sponsored posts, however generally you would be inserting a do-follow link into an existing post.

In this instance the brand tends to be less fussy about your article being focused on their actual products or services, they really just want a follow link to a particular article.

Generally speaking companies paying for link insertion will want this to be from an article that has some relevance to them, say a travel company may want an article that talks about Spanish holidays.

Link insertion is likely to pay less than sponsored posts as you’re not making an new content as part of the paid work.

Freelance writing

Many bloggers take their new-found blogging skills and make money by writing for other blogs and companies.

I myself have written many freelance blog articles for bigger sites. The fees vary massively, from as little as £50 for an article to as much as £400.

Which of these methods of making money should you focus on?

There’s nothing to say you cannot focus on ALL of these money-making methods. However of course you want to avoid spreading yourself so thin that you hold yourself back.

If you are prepared to wait a few months to make some cash on your time investment in your blog, I recommend going for money from ads, affiliate marketing and selling your own products.

That’s not to say people don’t sell follow links in sponsored posts and link insertion and end up doing absolutely fine. It’s just it does put you at risk of a red mark from Google.

If you want to make money from ads, then this is a problem because Google is a very important source of traffic.

So my views on selling links? I’ve done it in the past, and made money. I don’t do it now, because I make way more money with the methods I follow now.

I’m going to focus on what I think you should do from my own experience. Other bloggers may tell you they’re doing a cracking income off of selling links, and that’s totally cool. But from my experience this is what I suggest you do:

Pick a niche and set up your site. Don’t wait until you have 10 articles written. Do it right now and allow the domain to start ageing, Google doesn’t like infant blogs!
Research keywords. I use Keysearch to do this. You can also use Google to do basic keyword research – start by typing in your niche and then hit space and see what suggestions Google comes up with. There may be some ideas in that list.
Focus on writing great content.
Write at least 100 articles (a decent article is at least 500 words, generally 1000+). Life is busy and I get that writing what is effectively a novel and a half isn’t easy. Aim to write 500 words per day.
Check how your blog is doing in Google Analytics. Setting up Google Analytics is something you want to do very early on with your blog. Don’t expect traffic for the first six months. Once you hit 12 months of publishing regularly you should have an idea of what type of content is working.
Focus on one or two social media platforms. Social media is a tough gig. It takes a huge amount of time and the algorithms are constantly shifting. However it is worth trying to build up a following on one platform. Which platform you choose really depends on the niche you have chosen – fashion will do well on video platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Marketing blogs tend to do really well on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Add affiliate links. Find some affiliate networks for products that are relevant to your niche and add relevant affiliate links throughout your content.
Build an email list. You can get the first 1000 subscribers free with Mailerlite. In order to get people to sign up to your mailing list you can offer a freebie, such as a checklist.

How to make your blog a money-making success

So a successful blog is really a website that is focused on a specific topic and provides its audience with great and useful content. Plus it has a clear strategy for bringing in traffic.

Sadly it’s not just a case of “if you build it, they will come”. You need to think a little more strategically than that.

It can really help to have a key goal in mind when getting started with your blog, and then break the journey down to that goal into steps.

For example, let’s say you want to get your blog into Mediavine. You’ll need to hit 50,000 sessions per month to meet their traffic requirements.

Your steps to doing this will be extremely laser focused on creating content. So you will be focused on keyword research and writing as much as possible.

My tip that I repeat again and again to new bloggers is to have patience and stay the course. You won’t make money in the early months, and it’s unlikely you’ll make anything until your blog is one year to 18 months old.

For me the key is to stay consistent and keep focused on great SEO practices.

When it comes to blogging, your learning is never over. Some great, free learning resources I would recommend are:

Income School’s YouTube channel.
Ahrefs – their blog on getting started with keyword research is great.
Bloggers Facebook groups. There are loads on there, join a few to find one that appeals most for you and your niche. They’re a great way to get ideas and read up on latest good practices.
Bloggers on Twitter. There are lots of successful niche website owners tweeting about their experiences. I recommend following @NicheSiteLady – who has a UK based travel blog and earns five figures a month – and check out others tweeting around the relevant blogging hashtags to see their tips.

There are also a couple of super good value ebooks I recommend you check out for help:

Debbie Gartner’s backlinks book. This will explain how to build backlinks to your site – essential for growing your traffic as backlinks send a signal to Google that your blog is awesome.
Angela Vaz’s SEO and Keywords bundle – a great beginner’s guide to good SEO and keyword research.

What if you already have a blog?

If you already have a blog but are finding that it’s either not making anything at all or that you want it to grow to a full-time income, then you may be wondering what you can do.

It can be frustrating when you put a lot of time into your blog and feel that you’re not getting any return for those hours.

Steps you can take if you have an existing blog:

Research what content brings in the most traffic. Use Google Analytics to see what articles are already bringing in traffic from Google. This will tend to be evergreen articles – content that remains relevant long-term and isn’t time sensitive.
Pick a niche. If your blog has been focused on multiple different topics then now is the time to pick one and go all-in on that topic. This can be really hard if you have spent many years on a scattergun approach. Take a deep breath and think about what niche will work for the traffic you already have and has lots of potential for writing great new content.
Write content clusters. Focus on the type of content that is working and make more of it. For example if you are a green living blog and you get clicks to your articles about sustainable living with kids then write articles about every possible search term related to reusable nappies.
Improve existing content. If you have content that is on page one, but not in the top three spots for Google results, then look at improving that content with more up-to-date information and better pictures. Adding some infographics, which you can create for free in Canva, can also really help.
Reach out to brands you want to work with. Making money through sponsored posts is a great way for established blogs to bring in money. Think about what brands would be a great fit for your site and reach out to them with a pitch for how you can work together.
Brainstorm potential products. Consider what the pain points of your audience are and what products you could sell that will help. If you have a parenting blog then printable activity sheets for kids could help, or reward charts. You can sell products from your website, using a plugin like WooCommerce to collect the money or try Sendowl which will collect the money and send the product for you if you are selling digital products. You could also sell via Etsy. Remember though to be aware of your tax obligations, including in other countries where your customers may be based.

Final thoughts

As you can see there are lots of ways that you can make money from a blog.

It may take a year from when you first get a blog live to when you make any money from it. However that first pound you make can be the first of many!

If you are still stuck for making money from a blog then you may like this article about why your blog isn’t making any money.

How To Make Money Blogging

What is blogging?