How to Monetize a Blog in 2024: 15+ Proven & Effective Ways (2024)

C urious how to monetize a blog?

You’ll be happy to discover that there’s no single option for how to monetize a blog… You can get creative!

And to help, I’ll break down a few of the best ways to help you brainstorm.

So, whether you’ve already started a blog and have been writing awesome posts for a while now and would like to turn it into a business – or you’re a beginner looking to get started – you’ll find something interesting.

Feel free to read through them all or skip ahead to a quick summary here!

Key Takeaways For How To Monetize a Blog

• Promote products from other businesses and earn commissions.
• Display targeted ads on your blog and earn money from clicks.
• Build an email list with a tool like OptinMonster and use email marketing to promote products, generate sales, and increase engagement.
• Set your own prices and sell ad space on your blog.
• Get paid by companies to create content about their products or services.
• Create and sell ebooks related to your blog’s niche for passive income.
• Monetize your blog by selling templates, themes, tutorials, and more.
• Share your expertise and create paid online courses for your audience.
• Engage with your audience and promote your products or services through webinars.
• Provide personalized coaching services based on your expertise.
• Offer freelance services like writing, design, or social media management.
• Sell branded merchandise to your audience to support your blog.
• Allow readers to support your content through donations.

1. Make Money Blogging With Affiliate Marketing

If you’re looking for ways to monetize a blog, you should look into affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways bloggers make money. With affiliate marketing, you promote the products of other businesses. Every time someone purchases the product via one of your affiliate links, you earn a commission.

So, say your commission is $5 for every sale. If 100 people buy the product by clicking your affiliate link, you make $500—cha-ching!

The easiest way to find products to promote on your blog is by joining affiliate programs like:

• ShareASale
• Amazon Associates
• Commission Junction

Sign up and browse through affiliate networks like these to find affiliate products you can promote. There’s pretty much an affiliate program for every industry or niche; fashion, food and drink, education, health, and more.

It’s best to choose products related to your blog’s niche. By choosing products that are related to your niche, you know that your audience will be interested in them and more likely to buy.

For instance, if your blog content is about fitness, you should promote fitness-related products like athletic wear, exercise equipment, and so on.

Once you’ve created your affiliate site and started getting traffic, you can use OptinMonster to unlock even more affiliate revenue.

For instance, Top 6 Digital created this exit-intent opt-in to promote their affiliate links and increased their revenue by 30%!

To learn more about how to monetize a blog with affiliate marketing, check out our ultimate guide on how to start affiliate marketing.

2. Advertise on Your Blog with Google Adsense

Advertising is usually what first comes to mind when thinking about starting a blog for profit.

An easy way to monetize a blog with ads is by using Google Adsense. Google Adsense is an ad network run by Google that displays advertisem*nts on websites. When a visitor clicks on an ad on your site, you make money.

The ads that will be shown on your blog are targeted to the site content and the audience.

For example, the ads that appear on the travel blog Adventurous Kate are travel-related. Here’s one for honeymoon tours:

Plus, adding Google Adsense to your blog is super easy. Once you’ve set it up, the ads display automatically.

You can also track how much you’re making from Adsense and which ads are performing the best with a tool like MonsterInsights.

What are AdSense RPMs?

Your potential earnings from Adsense RPMs (revenue per 1000 impressions) will differ based on the country and language of your site, audience, and niche.

AdSense RPMs for Western countries are generally much higher (because companies are willing to pay more for an estimated higher ROI from ad spend).

And niches that deal with money, insurance, loans, etc., can potentially command RPMs as high as $50 or higher!

But generally, RPMs range from $1-10, but it’s important to note that many bloggers have complained of experiencing a drop in RPMs from early 2024.

3. Build an Email List

There’s one key thing you should do if you want to monetize a blog without fully relying on referral traffic from sites like Google – and that is to build an email list.

The #1 regret most successful bloggers have is that they didn’t start building a list sooner!

Email marketing will help you:

• Boost affiliate marketing revenue
• Generate sales of your ebook
• Get more webinar registrations
• Drive more signups for your online course
• Sell more merch
• And more

With email marketing, you can promote whatever you’re selling directly to your audience. The people who subscribe to your email list are the ones most interested in what you have to say, making them the people most likely to sign up for your course or buy your ebook.

So, how do you build an email list? Start by creating an opt-in form popup on your website with OptinMonster like the one below.

An option form popup will display on the screen and encourage users to sign up; all the user has to do is provide their email address to get your newsletter.

These high-converting opt-in forms will help you build your email list quickly and lay the foundation for making money with email marketing!

For more tips, check out this post of quick and easy hacks to get more email subscribers.

4. Sell Ad Space Directly

While Google Adsense is easy to set up, the amount of money you can earn is limited. So, you might want to consider selling ad space on your blog directly.

By selling ad space directly, you get to set the price. Instead of getting paid a small amount for each individual click on an ad, you can charge a flat rate for a banner ad on your blog. By charging a flat rate, you can get more money, and it’s easier to manage than tracking clicks.

To find businesses willing to buy ad space on your site, you can create an Advertise Here page on your website or use a platform like BuySellAds to connect with companies.

Selling ad space directly is a bit more difficult to manage than Google Adsense because you’re responsible for negotiating the pricing, coming up with the terms and agreements, managing invoicing, and all the other details.

But you can make the process a bit easier by using a tool like AdSanity. AdSanity offers simplified ad management for WordPress. You can easily display ads on your site, track views and clicks, and more.

5. Accept Sponsored Blog Posts

Want to get paid for writing a blog post? If the answer is yes, then accept sponsored blog posts!

A sponsored blog post is a popular blog monetization strategy. In a nutshell, a company pays you to create content about its products on your blog. They may even write the post themselves, so all you have to do is publish it.

It’s similar to how influencers accept sponsorships to promote a product on Instagram or YouTube.

If you have a great-looking blog with quality content, a consistent blogging schedule, and engaged readers, many companies are willing to pay big bucks for you to promote their products or services.

To connect with companies offering paid opportunities, you can join blogger networks like:

• ValuedVoice
• BlogDash
• Massive Sway

You can also reach out to brands directly to see if they’d be interested in partnering with you.

Put together a media kit using a tool like Canva. With Canva’s pre-made templates, you can put together a stunning media kit in no time.

Your media kit should include details about your audience demographics, blog traffic, page views, social media following, and other stats that would be appealing to advertisers. Then, send your media kit to companies you’d like to work with.

But remember, bloggers in the United States must comply with the FTC’s Endorsem*nt Guidelines by letting readers know loud and clear that a post is sponsored. So, make sure to include a message like “This post is Sponsored by XYZ company” at the beginning of the post.

Check out our guide on how to get started with sponsored content.

Now, let’s take a look at another way you can make your blog more profitable.

6. Get Paid for Writing Reviews

Getting paid for writing reviews is similar to accepting sponsored guest posts.

With paid reviews, you can try out a product, write a review about it on your blog, and then get paid!

Of course, you want to write reviews for products that are relevant to your blog niche and your audience. For instance, if you blog about budgeting, reviewing budgeting software and apps makes more sense than reviewing vacuum cleaners.

At Blog Tyrant, we write reviews about tools and plugins that would be helpful to bloggers, like this PushEngage review.

And like sponsored posts, you can reach out to brands directly or you can use a platform like PayPerPost to connect with companies that would be interested in paying you for a review.

7. Turn Your Blog Into a Membership Site

Your most loyal fans will be more willing to pay to read more of your content because it’s just that valuable to them.

When you turn your blog into a membership site, it’s like locking your content behind a door; only people who have the key (a paid subscription) have access to it.

Users can pay a one-time fee to get access, or you can charge users a monthly subscription so that you can get recurring revenue from your blog. As you can see, selling memberships is a great way to monetize a blog.

Using the best membership plugins, you can easily turn your blog into a membership site in no time.

We recommend MemberPress, an all-in-one membership plugin.

MemberPress is easy to set up, offers powerful access rules that let you decide exactly what pages or posts users can see, lets you create beautiful pricing pages and more.

Follow this tutorial on how to create a profitable membership site for step-by-step instructions.

8. Start a Blog Private Forum

Instead of turning your entire website into a membership site, you can create a blog private forum that people have to pay to access.

A forum is basically a page on your site where members can discuss different topics with each other and get one-on-one advice from you.

Having a forum is a great way to increase engagement and build a community around your blog. Plus, with paid subscriptions, you can create a revenue stream for your blog.

You can easily create a private forum on your website using a WordPress forum plugin.

9. Write an Ebook

Selling ebooks is another popular way to monetize a blog, and it’s a great source of passive income.

Passive income is income that requires little to no effort to earn and maintain. When you write an ebook, you only have to write it once. Then, you can sell that ebook over and over again to your readers.

But, if you want your ebook to sell, it needs to be good.

Most importantly, the topic of your ebook needs to be interesting to your target audience. Blogger Sarah Mae wrote an ebook based on a question about forgiveness she often gets asked by her readers.

But you can also simply create an ebook that your audience will love by transforming one of your most popular blog posts into an ebook.

For example, if you have a blog post on SEO that does really well, turn that into a more detailed ebook for your readers.

For more tips on writing an ebook that will sell, check out this guide on how to make an ebook.

Next, let’s find out what other types of digital products you can sell on your blog.

10. Sell Other Digital Products

Aside from ebooks, you can also monetize your blog by selling digital products like templates, printables, WordPress themes, video tutorials, audio recordings like music or podcast episodes, and the list goes on (don’t miss our massive list of the best digital products to sell).

If you have a skill and the digital product is useful to your audience, sell it!

Here’s how the scrapbooking blog ScrapGirls does it, they sell scrapbooking templates and printables their readers are sure to love.

To sell digital products on your site, you can use Easy Digital Downloads.

Easy Digital Downloads is a plugin that makes selling digital products a breeze. It includes features like a shopping cart, customer management, discount codes, and more.

See our detailed Easy Digital Downloads review to learn more.

11. Offer Online Courses

If you have something valuable to teach your audience, you can turn your expertise into online courses that your readers can pay for.

You don’t even need to be an “expert” to teach an online course. As long as you have some knowledge in a subject that you can share with readers, you can sell online courses on your blog.

For instance, if you blog about cooking, you can sell video cooking lessons to your audience.

Cole’s Classroom is a great example of a photography blog that monetized by selling courses:

You can create a course in a downloadable PDF bundle or you can use a learning management system (LMS) plugin.

We recommend using MemberPress to create your online course. As we mentioned before, MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin. And MemberPress comes with built-in features to easily create, manage, and sell online courses.

Here’s a tutorial on how to create an online course on your WordPress site.

By creating an online course, you can help people, become an authority in your industry, and make money.

12. Host a Paid Webinar

Hosting a webinar is a great way to promote your content, showcase your expertise, and sell your products. It’s an effective tactic used by many bloggers and marketers.

A webinar is like a live video training session or online course with a question-and-answer period at the end. So, it’s a good way to interact with your audience as well.

You can use free webinars to promote your existing products or services if you’ve already monetized your blog using another method. Or you can sell tickets to the webinar itself if you have valuable information to share.

To promote your webinar and get more signups, create a webinar landing page. You can easily create one using SeedProd, the #1 drag and drop landing page builder for WordPress.

SeedProd offers a number of webinar landing page templates to get you started and they’re easily customizable.

Want more tips on how to run a successful webinar? Check out this guide on webinar marketing.

13. Make Money with Coaching

Do you have valuable skills and the ability to teach them to others?

Then you should consider monetizing your blog by starting a coaching service.

Coaching is all about giving paying clients 1-on-1 advice and tips. For instance, a blogging coach can give their clients advice on how to get more traffic or build their email list faster.

Your blog niche will determine the type of coaching you can offer. For example, if you have a fashion blog, you could offer coaching and consultations to help your audience develop their personal style.

You can coach people over the phone, or by email, video chat, or instant messaging. Here’s how to create a booking form so your clients can set up their first session with you.

14. Start Freelancing to Earn Money

Using your blog to promote yourself as a freelancer is another popular way to make money online.

With freelancing, you don’t have to spend time or money creating a product ahead of time to sell, you simply offer your services.

Think you don’t have any services to offer your audience? You’d be wrong!

As a blogger, you’re already a skilled writer, so you can offer freelance writing services to businesses. Blogging is how many freelance writers get their start.

Are you great at graphic design? You can offer freelance services to startups that need logo design or infographics.

You can also get freelance jobs for social media managing, content marketing, bookkeeping, web design, and much more.

You can use freelancing platforms like Upwork to find freelance work. But, there’s a lot of competition on Upwork and they take a percentage of your earnings.

So, we recommend using your website to promote your freelance services. First, create a contact form on your site so that potential clients can reach you. You can easily create one with WPForms.

With WPForms, you can add a contact form to your site in minutes. Plus, you can collect payments and signatures from freelance clients right from your form!

You can also cold email clients you’d like to work with or reach out to them on LinkedIn. This way, it’s easier to stand out from the crowd and you’re more in control of your online business.

15. Monetize with Merch

When you go to a concert you usually see a merch table selling band t-shirts right upfront. But did you know that you can monetize a blog with merch too?

Plenty of successful bloggers sell blog merch like t-shirts, hats, phone cases, and other physical products with their blog logos or slogans printed on them.

For example, Evie Chapman, who blogs about coffee, sells fun coffee-inspired merch items like this:

Your biggest fans would love to support your blog by rocking your merch.

You can follow this tutorial on how to create an automated t-shirt shop on your WordPress site, or look into getting started with drop shipping.

Selling products can be difficult but with these options, there’s no need for you to manage any inventory or ship the products yourself.

But if you are interested in eCommerce and selling your own products, check out our guide on how to start an online store.

16. Accept Donations

If your readers love your content, sometimes they’ll just give you money if you ask for it.

When you’re providing entertaining and valuable content to people for free, there’s nothing wrong with asking for donations. Even popular websites like Wikipedia ask for donations from their users.

To collect donations from your readers, you can add a PayPal donate button to your blog.

FAQs About Monetizing Your Blog

Still have more questions about how to monetize your blog?

Here are some popular questions our readers ask us about how to make money blogging:

What’s The Best Way For Beginners to Monetize a Blog ?

People that are just starting a blog for the first time often wonder how to make money blogging as beginners. So, when should you start to monetize your blog? And how will you make money when you’re a new blogger?

The best part about blogging is that anyone can start blogging and make money.

You don’t need to be a popular pro blogger with lots of website traffic to make money, all you need is a few readers. Of course, your revenue will start out small but as your blog grows, your revenue grows with it.

For many of the methods above, the more traffic you have, the more money you make. So check out this tutorial on how to get more traffic to your blog to unlock your blog’s full potential!

In the meantime, you can still make money from your blog even if you don’t have much traffic. Offering services as a freelance blogger or writer is one of the best ways to get started, since you only need a few clients to make money.

Which Blog Site is Best for Earning Money?

Choosing the best blogging platform is an important step if you want to make your blog profitable.

Many blogging beginners are tempted to choose a free blogging platform like WordPress.com to save money. Then, they often ask us how to monetize a WordPress blog. Unfortunately, with a free WordPress blog, you can’t monetize your blog or website.

That’s why we recommend using WordPress.org when blogging for profit. With a WordPress.org blog, you have full control over your site, which means you can monetize your blog in any way you choose.

For more details on the difference between the 2 blogging platforms, check out this WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org comparison.

Then, see our guide on how to start a blog and make money to get started with the best platform, WordPress.org.

Which Kinds of Bloggers Make The Most Money?

According to data, the most profitable blogging niches are credit cards, mortgages, finance, loans, and a few others. But for most people, trying to start a blog in one of those niches won’t work out.

Instead, you should choose a blogging niche that has the potential to be profitable, and is also a topic that you’re passionate about.

When you’re passionate about the topic, you’ll be more motivated to keep working on your blog. Plus, your passion will shine through your writing, which will help readers connect with you.

The monetization methods listed above will work for almost any niche, so there’s no reason to force yourself to write on boring blog topics.

How Much Does a Blogger Earn Per Month?

The amount of money you make as a blogger depends on a lot of factors: the blog monetization strategies you use, what niche you’re in, whether you have great content or not, how much work you put into it, and more.

Starting a blog isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.

It can take a lot of time and effort to make a substantial income from your blog.

How Do I Start a Successful Blog?

Starting a blog and making money sounds awesome, right? But if you’re new to the world of blogging, you might be thinking “Where do I even begin?”

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

Check out our step-by-step guide on how to start a blog and make money. This guide will walk you through the process of starting a new blog, including:

• How to set up a new blog
• How to optimize your blog for SEO
• How to write a blog post
• How to monetize a blog
• And more

Start Your Blog Monetization Journey Today

That’s it! If you’ve been wondering how to grow your own blog from scratch, these proven and profitable monetization strategies will help you.

So, now that you know how to monetize a blog, pick 1 or 2 of these strategies and start making money with your blog today!

And with a little hard work, what starts off as a side hustle may turn into a full-time income!

Want to attract more readers to your blog to increase your money-making potential? Then take a look at our post on how to promote your blog.