Are you passionate about specific topics? Do you love to write?
Are setting your own schedule and working from home or while traveling on your wish list?
If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you might be a perfect candidate for launching your own blog.
Blogging can be more than a creative outlet. Creating a blog can be a lucrative side hustle that can turn into your main job.
Read on to learn how to make money blogging to boost your income while doing something you love.
Can Blogging Make You Money?
The answer to whether blogging can provide additional income is yes, but the key question is how much bloggers can make.
The most successful bloggers can earn millions of dollars a year and six figures each month.
However, most bloggers earn far less than that.
According to blogger survey data, only about 8 percent of bloggers earn an upper-class income of $10,000 or more a month or more from their blogs.
More than half of bloggers earn less than $100 a month from blogging, and only 15 percent of bloggers make the equivalent of a full-time income blogging.
What Kind of Blog Can Make Money?
Blogs that make money are generally those that interest large numbers of readers.
Different types of money-making blogs can include blogs devoted to fashion, food, travel, personal finance, parenting, technology, health and fitness, marketing, personal development, technology, sports, lifestyles, home decorating, do-it-yourself projects, and more.
Your blog should attract a growing audience with information as well as photography and other images that make a blog fun to read and establish you as an authority on your blog topic.
How Many Views Do You Need to Make Money on a Blog?
Advertising through AdSense on your blog is based on the number of page views.
Depending on your blog niche and country, you can earn about $4 to $6 per 1,000 page views.
For a blog to come close to generating a full-time income through advertising, a blogger would need several hundred thousand page views per month.
How Fast Can You Make Money Blogging?
Blogging can be profitable but generating page views and building an audience that will create a stream of income takes time.
Generally, a blogger will need at least six months to a year or longer to begin to make money blogging.
Building an audience can take time, and advertising payments based on pageviews must be above $100 for a check to be issued.
Blogs with smaller audiences can make money faster when they add additional income streams to their blogs, such as affiliate marketing.
Marketing their blogs through social media can help beginning bloggers grow their blog’s number of pageviews each month.
How to Make Money Blogging: 6 Easy Methods
Bloggers have plenty of potential income streams from their blogs.
Monetize your blog by adding these money-making options to your blog.
1. Sell Digital Products
Selling digital products such as e-books and courses is tailor-made for blogs since they can be downloaded online immediately after payment.
Digital product sales can be automated through your blog, so your blog can generate income around the clock effortlessly.
While you’re sleeping, your blog can be making money.
2. Sell Digital Services
Offering digital services such as coaching or advice on personal finance and investing since these interactions can be done entirely online or over the phone.
Services from astrology to career coaching can be offered online through blogs as an additional source of income.
3. Join an Affiliate Program
Affiliate marketing provides another stream of blogging income but doesn’t require the blogger to develop or ship products.
Commissions from affiliate marketing can come from networking on ClickBank.
Making money on social media often includes affiliate marketing as well.
4. Sell Ads
Advertising on blogs doesn’t have to be through Google AdSense, MediaVine, or Ezoic.
Bloggers can sell advertising space on their blogs to companies with products or services related to the blog’s niche.
Making advertising purchases available online will make selling ads on your blog easy.
5. Charge for Subscriptions
Some bloggers set up paywalls for their blogs and then charge readers for subscriptions.
Often news, commentary, and financial bloggers sell subscriptions, so only readers who pay each month can access the information on their blogs.
Some bloggers allow a few free pageviews each month to give readers a sample of their content and then charge for subscriptions.
6. Try Consulting for Clients
Bloggers are often experts in the niches they post about, so their services as consultants can be in demand.
Consulting services can be offered through blogs, leading to additional income.
Frequent readers of your blog could be potential consulting clients.
How Much Do Bloggers Make?
Indeed.com reports that the average blogger earns about $37,000 a year.
Some bloggers make far less, and some make many times that amount.
A blogger’s income depends on how large their audience is since the number of page views will determine the advertising revenue of a blog.
How Much Do Small Bloggers Earn?
Beginning bloggers make anywhere from nothing to $1,000 a month during their first few months of blogging.
Small bloggers can also refer to the size of their audience or the amount of time they want to spend blogging.
Some bloggers blog as a hobby and don’t want to make their blogs a full-time job, while others start small but plan to make blogging their profession.
Within a year, a small blogger can earn thousands of dollars each month, depending on the number of readers and the streams of income that can flow through their blog.
How Much Do the Most Popular Bloggers Earn?
The most popular bloggers can make $100,000 or more each month, adding up to millions of dollars a year.
They earn money through advertising as well as through affiliate marketing, sales of their own books and courses, appearances, and more.
Some highly successful bloggers can even earn millions of dollars a month through their blogs and multiple streams of income.
How Much Do Beginning Bloggers Make Per Post?
The average blogger can earn anywhere from $15 to $1,500 per post.
This range of profits is based on how much traffic the post generates and whether the blogger boosts the number of page views through advertising and email marketing strategies such as e-newsletters.
The smart blogger will pay attention to the posts that do well in pageviews and those that aren’t as profitable, tailoring content for higher profits.
Keyword research and search engine optimization can boost a blog’s position on a search engine results page, giving higher page views.
How Do Bloggers Get Paid?
Bloggers usually receive advertising revenue from their blogs monthly, which is where most of their revenue comes from.
Bloggers often have five streams of income or more from their blogs.
If affiliate marketing is among a blogger’s income streams, ClickBank is a great way to make money.
ClickBank is an online platform that helps digital product creators and affiliate marketers form partnerships.
Once an affiliate marketer sells the digital product, they earn a commission.
No inventory or shipping is required, making affiliate marketing an easy stream of income to add to a blog.
Bloggers can also sell their own products and services on their blogs.
The sale of e-books and courses can be automated, so sales happen while the blogger is doing other things.
Your blog can earn you money while you’re on vacation.
Bloggers often work as consultants since they’re experts in the niche of their blogs.
Make your consulting available for readers who want your expert advice.
Public speaking and in-person seminars are another stream of income for bloggers who have built reputations through their blogs.
Blogs that offer exclusive content may sell subscriptions to make their content available only to those who pay a monthly subscription fee.
Paywalls can give blogs with subscriptions cachet, plus bloggers who charge their readers a subscription fee will have a better idea of their income each month.
Do Bloggers Get Paid Monthly?
Advertising revenue for bloggers comes in monthly, representing the past 30 days’ worth of advertising page views and clicks.
Since earnings per month can vary, beginning bloggers shouldn’t include blogging income in their budgets at first.
Our Take: Is Blogging a Good Way to Make Money?
Blogging can provide you with a profitable home-based business – or one you can run while traveling the world – but it does have a few disadvantages.
Pros of Blogging
The advantages of blogging as a business include these pros:
1. You Don’t Have to Invest Much to Get Started
Starting a blog as a hobby or side job requires an investment of $100 or less, putting blogging within reach of most aspiring bloggers.
Since the initial investment is low, bloggers have a good chance of a high return on investment.
2. You Have a Flexible Schedule
One reason many people love blogging as a side business is because they can set their own schedules and work from home or anywhere they have a WiFi connection.
Bloggers can take their blogs on vacation, work in their favorite coffee shop, or lose the commute and work from home.
3. There are Different Ways to Make Money
Bloggers don’t just make money from advertising on their blogs.
If you’re wondering how to monetize a blog, affiliate marketing, selling e-books and classes, and marketing services such as coaching are a few of the many ways you can make money blogging.
Cons of Blogging
Though many bloggers love what they do, blogging does have a few disadvantages.
They include:
1. You Have to Put a Lot of Time and Effort into It
Blogging requires many new blog posts and photos since your audience expects fresh content every few days.
Many bloggers are excited to write their first blog post but can get weary from creating content after a few weeks.
2. There’s a Lot of Competition
More than 32 million Americans are blogging, so you will likely be competing with many other bloggers for visitors.
The internet is home to more than 600 million blogs.
Bloggers can get around this by working together since the audience of one blog in a niche might also want to follow a similar blog.
3. It Takes Time to Make Money from It
Starting a blog won’t result in making money immediately.
Most bloggers say it took about six months to a year for them to begin to make money blogging.
Frequently Asked Questions
You may want more information about making money by blogging.
The answers to these FAQs may give you the additional details you need.
Who is the Richest Blogger in the World?
The title of the richest blogger in the world goes to Arianna Huffington, founder of HuffPost.
You may think of HuffPost as a reputable news organization, part of the national media, but it began as a blog, the Huffington Post, in 2005.
Today, Huffington makes more than $2.3 million a month, making her the richest blogger in the world.
Can I Start a Blog for Free and Make Money?
The short answer to whether you can start a blog for free and make money is yes.
However, as your blog grows in readership, you’ll need to pay for web hosting.
As you’re starting, those monthly costs are affordable, so overhead shouldn’t be an issue.
Wrapping Up
Blogging can be a big business, with a monthly income resulting in your blog side hustle becoming your main job.
Many bloggers launch their blogs because they’re passionate about their niche, so being able to blog for a living can be their dream come true.
For others, blogging allows them to work anywhere there’s WiFi – so they can keep their own schedule while working from home or traveling the world.
Treating blogging like a business by devoting time and planning to its operations can result in a blog being a significant source of income, either as a part-time job or a career.