How to Make Money Blogging: how do bloggers really earn money online?

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How do bloggers really make money blogging?

That’s probably one of the most googled questions from the past 5 years or so.
Everyone is curious about it. Everyone is talking about it.
Many people nowadays want to know how to earn an income online so they can quit their 9 to 5 desk jobs.

We’ve all read, at least once in our life, those success stories about unhappy, unemployed people who turned millionaire within a couple of years thanks to the blogging world.
And we all have wondered how they’ve done it and how we can do the same and replicate their success.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY BLOGGING

Making money online isn’t impossible. Actually, it’s pretty much a reality nowadays and it’s not even a rare thing or a miracle.
More and more people today are quitting their 9 to 5 jobs and joining the digital nomads’ movement, earning money from the comfort of their own home or while travelling the world.
But how do they really earn a living just by blogging?

Before I give you an answer, you should know that earning money with a blog is possible, yes, but it will require a lot of hard work, sweat, patience and dedication.

And maybe even a little bit of luck! So, if you are looking for a fast and easy way to earn money online, this post won’t be useful to you.

So, how did these lucky, unemployed people turned millionaire just by blogging?

BLOGGING

Well, this is self-explanatory, but I might as well put it in here.
The first way to earn money online blogging is to, of course, start a blog. Blogging is a great way to build an audience of loyal readers who could turn into customers and make you earn money online.

Another reason why many people choose to start a blog is that it requires just a small initial investment. For example, [rad-hl]with SiteGround (the provider that I’m currently using) you can start a WordPress blog for just as little as £2.75 per month![/rad-hl]

Read also: A list of the 30 most profitable niches for bloggers to make money online.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

For most bloggers, the most profitable way to make money blogging is through a referral system called affiliate marketing. As quoted by Wikipedia (yes, I do use Wikipedia from time to time, don’t judge me! lol):

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.

What does it mean?
You basically join an affiliate program through an affiliate network and promote on your blog, or social media profiles, other people’s products or services using an affiliate link. If a person who visits your blog decides to buy the product or service you are promoting (by clicking on your affiliate link), you get a commission on that purchase.

ADS

Another way bloggers earn money is by placing ads on their blogs, usually using Google AdSense, Infolinks or AdThrive.
So, when people visit your blog, if they click on one of those ads, you earn a small commission.

ONLINE COURSES

A great way to make money blogging, especially once you’ve built a solid ”fan-base” of trusting readers, is creating online courses teaching people something about a particular topic like how to start a blog, or how to start an Amazon FBA business.

You can also sell your courses on platforms like Teachable, Skillshare and Udemy.

This is a very effective way of earning money if you are blogging about: make money online, blogging, social media, marketing, personal finance, web design.

PRODUCTS

Another way to earn money with your blog is by selling physical or digital products.
Products can be anything: printables, ebooks, media kits, graphic design/web design, business cards, books and so on…

COACHING/CONSULTING

A very successful way to make money blogging is offering private consultations or coaching sessions to people, usually via Skype.
To do that, you need to establish yourself as an expert on a particular topic.

OFFER SERVICES

This is a good one for creatives.
You can offer a variety of services to people online:

• Design a logo
• Build a brand identity
• Virtual Assistant
• Blog Audits
• Develop themes for WordPress
• Content writing
• Social media marketing and management
• Bookkeeping
• Proofreading

SPONSORED POSTS

Bloggers who have a certain authority on the web get paid by other websites to write articles.
These are some of the websites that pay you to write articles or tutorial: HubPages, Transitions Abroad, Wanderlust, Vibrant Life, A List Apart.

MEMBERSHIP

Some bloggers earn money by selling to their audience special memberships to access exclusive content on their website that won’t be available to people without the membership.
To do that, of course, you need to offer something really valuable!

FREELANCING

Almost 80% of the people who own a blog make a living be doing part-time freelancing gigs as proofreaders, virtual assistant, translators, designers and so on..
You can find a gig as a freelancer using websites like UpWork, Freelancer, Guru, Fiverr.

BEFORE YOU GO…

Being your own boss comes with a lot of responsibility, so you do need to learn to be multi-talented in order to make a living with a blog.

Bloggers don’t do just one thing, they do many things in order to make money blogging.
Also, if you want to make a passive income, don’t rely just on one way (like affiliate marketing or ads).

Successful bloggers usually use more than one way to earn money online.