How to monetize a blog or website will depend on your niche, audience, and goals.
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Thinking of how to monetize your blog? Well, that’s smart of you. Your website or blog should be treated as a business, and one of the ways to accomplish this is to understand how you can monetize your website or blog.
For every business, revenue is like the engine that keeps it moving. In learning how to monetize a website and make money online, you will discover different monetization options and strategies for websites depending on the niche they serve, their audience and their goals.
“ The best way to monetize a website or blog is to focus on creating value for your audience”.
The Business Bird
Do not underestimate the importance of providing value to your audience, as it helps build trust between your audience and your brand.
Another thing you should pay attention to is you should not underestimate the power of building a unique brand for your website or blog.
When it comes to monetizing a website, websites that portray a higher brand value have higher chances of making more money online by monetizing their websites or blogs than those with a lower brand value.
How To Monetize a Blog – 15+ Best Ways to Monetize a Website Blog
- Advertise with ad networks
- Sell ad spaces directly
- Start affiliate marketing
- Sell your services (freelancing)
- Write and sell e-books
- Create and sell online courses
- Sell physical products
- Email marketing
- Accept sponsored blog posts
- Host and Sell Webinars
- Accept donations
- Start a membership site
- Create a Job Board
- Brand partnerships
- Sell your website or blog
In this post, you will learn the 15 best ways to monetize a blog or website. Let’s begin with your bonus. I know bonuses are usually given at the end but today is your lucky day.
How to Monetize a Blog – 1: Target and grow the right audience
This was supposed to be a bonus point, but indeed, today is your lucky day. If you must learn how to make money blogging or you are interested in learning how to monetize a blog or website and make money online, you should first think of targeting, growing and building trust with the right audience.
If your website is already up and running, ask yourself if you are using the right tactics and tools to target the right audience and grow your blog.
Attracting the wrong audience to your blog is unhealthy when monetizing your blog. You should aim at creating and sharing high-quality content that targets the right audience and builds trust.
Make sure your site is secure enough and user-friendly to make your audience trust your site and feel comfortable. Also, derive ways to keep bringing in a steady flow of traffic to grow your blog and make money blogging.
When you feel ready, start thinking of the right monetization strategies for your blog.
How to monetize a blog quickly – 2: Advertise With Ad Networks
When most people think of how to make money blogging, the first idea they think of is to join an ad network like Google Adsense. Advertising networks are like middlemen who take a cut from your earnings by bringing you adverts from different advertisers so you do not have to go through the stress of looking for advertisers.
These ads are administered, sorted and maintained by these ad networks, and you get to generate money from these ads when displayed on your site, either on a per-click or per-impression basis.
Some popular ad networks include
- Google Adsense
- Mediavine
- Ezoic
Benefits:
- Easy to set up and start earning
- Guaranteed source of passive income
Drawbacks:
- It may affect users experience
- You may earn less, as compared to selling advert spaces on your blog, by yourself.
How to monetize a blog quickly – 3: Sell ad spaces directly
With this approach of making money with your website, you find and work directly with advertisers. Selling ad spaces to advertisers directly on your blog enables you to bypass ad networks and earn more. This can be more difficult since you would be responsible for finding clients, negotiating the terms of the agreement, negotiating pricing, managing invoicing, managing advertisers on your website and lots more.
For a start, consider creating an advertise with us page on your site to let interested businesses know you accept adverts. You can also contact businesses directly and pitch them an offer to advertise with you. There also exist platforms like BuySellAds that help you to connect with businesses.
Benefits:
- It can be more profitable as you get to keep all of the profits
- It is a great way to build partnerships and work with different businesses in your industry
Drawbacks:
- You are responsible for finding and managing advertisers
- If you set a fixed price for ads, an increase in your website traffic on the pages displaying these ads won’t increase the amount you will earn.
- It may affect users experience
How to monetize a Blog without ads – 4: Start affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for bloggers to make money online from their blogs. It is by far one of the best ways to monetize a website. With affiliate marketing, you recommend the products and services of other businesses to your audience, and you earn a commission whenever a sale is made via your affiliate links.
For example, say you recommend a product which has a $10 commission to your audience, and you can get 20 customers to buy through your affiliate link, you will earn $200 just for that single product. There exist high-ticket and low-ticket affiliate products you can promote.
High-ticket products offer higher commissions in hundreds to thousands of dollars for a single sale, while low-ticket products offer a lower commission for a single sale.
Very few people buy high-ticket products due to their expensive nature, which is one of the reasons for the high rewards, while many people buy low-ticket products, so you get to earn more as more people buy.
Choosing to promote a high or low-ticket product will depend on your website or blog niche. It is always a good idea to have a balance by promoting both high and low-ticket products. By testing both, you will know the buying potential of your clients and the kind of products to promote more.
Some affiliate programs you can join include
- Amazon Associates
- ShareASale
- Commission Junction
Benefits:
- Can offer higher revenue than ads
- You can earn recurring commissions
- Great source of passive income
- You may earn higher commissions if you can generate more sales
- Connect and build relationships with industry leaders
Drawbacks:
- You may take time to build a successful affiliate marketing blog
- Low website or blog traffic may lead to lower sales and commissions
Best ways to monetize a blog – 5: Sell your services (freelancing)
This is a great way to monetize a website, even if you are still in your early days. If you have skills in areas your audiences need, you should consider selling your services on your blog to make money online. The services that you market on your blog should be services that can enable you to work remotely and serve your clients from any part of the world.
Depending on your niche, some services you can offer online include web development, application development, graphic designing, tutoring, writing for blogs, copywriting, consultancy and lots more.
To get started, create a page on your blog that contains the service(s) you are offering and all the details needed to get hired.
You can call this page Services. Also, think of where your audience is coming from and the best payment solutions to adopt that make it easy for them to pay for your services online.
Benefits:
- Easy to get started once your blog is up and running
- It is an early blog monetization strategy that may pay more than ads
- It is profitable
- Easy to convert visitors on your blog into clients
- You can set your prices and choose your clients.
Drawbacks:
- Your revenue is uncertain as you will experience times of highs and lows
- To earn, you must exchange your time for money
How to monetize a blog quickly – 6: Write and sell e-books
Many high-authority blogs write and sell e-books to their audience. You can write and sell e-books on your blog as one of your blog’s monetization strategies.
If you can identify something your audience may like to learn more about, putting these ideas together in an e-book can be a great idea. E-books often have a high conversion rate as they are usually quite affordable. You can make great sales even when you are just getting started with your blog.
Writing e-books is a great way to build the authority of your blog and establish yourself as an expert in your niche. As your blog grows in popularity, you will have numerous opportunities to earn more money through your blog.
Benefits:
- It is an early blog monetization strategy.
- It helps to establish you as an expert in your niche.
- It is profitable
Drawbacks:
- You need a high volume of traffic to earn more.
Make money blogging – 7: Create and sell online courses
If your blog has been around for a while, and you have established yourself as an authority in your niche, then chances are high that your audience may love to learn more from you.
They will want to learn the approach you used to become successful in your niche. Putting together your ideas in a video course you can market on your blog is a great way to monetize your website and make money blogging.
To get started, ask your audience what they would love to learn from you. This is a great way to identify topics you can build a course on.
Once you’ve decided on what the course will be about and the topics to cover, you can start creating your course materials. As you work on the course, sharing your journey with your audience is a great way to keep them updated with what you’ve been up to.
Benefits:
- It is a great way to monetize your blog
- You can make more money from selling your online course
- You can create and sell courses on different topics
- It is a form of passive income
- It is a great way to share your expertise with others and help them succeed in their journey.
Drawbacks:
- It takes time and great effort to create an online course
How to monetize a blog without ads – 8: Sell physical products
Selling physical products is a great way to monetize your blog. This can’t work for every niche, but many blog niches can sell physical products on their blogs.
For example, say you run a fashion blog, and you’ve been getting quite a handful of traffic lately, you can monetize your website by setting up an e-commerce store on your blog.
This will enable you to start selling fashion merchandise like clothes and footwear. You can create and sell your own branded products, or you can sell products from different companies.
If you run a WordPress blog, WooCommerce can help you set up an e-commerce store on your blog in just a few hours.
Benefits:
- Highly profitable as many people now buy online
- It is a great way to monetize your blog
- There is no limit to how much you can earn
Drawbacks:
- To earn more, you need to constantly bring in quality traffic to your blog.
- Managing inventories can be stressful
Ways to monetize a blog – 9: Email marketing
Email marketing is so powerful, and it is a great way to monetize a blog. Building an email list can be a powerful tool for every blog as it can help you to make money from your blog in numerous ways.
Why email marketing?
- It can help you to get old visitors coming back to your blog as you share information with them via email. This helps to build your brand and also converts email subscribers into leads, which can enable you to earn more from your blog.
- Email marketing is a great marketing tool you can use to promote your old and new blog posts and earn affiliate revenue, or earn from ad clicks or impressions.
- You can also use email marketing to share new ideas with your audience, promote your products and services and lots more.
Benefits:
- A single email can make you lots of money
- It is easy to set up
- It is a great marketing tool
- Can help you to promote your products and services to your subscribers
Drawbacks:
- You need time to build an email list before you can start earning from it.
- Sending poorly crafted emails can make your subscribers unsubscribe.
How to monetize a website – 10: Accept sponsored blog posts
If you’ve been around the web for some time now, you must have come across blog posts labelled as sponsored.
Most blogs that have taken the time to build an online audience and brand for themselves get contacted by other businesses and blogs for sponsored posts.
These businesses want to have their posts featured on your blog, and all you have to do is publish them on your site.
Sponsored posts can be a great way to monetize your blog and earn more money online.
To get started, consider creating a separate page on your site which says you accept sponsored posts.
Also, try to include the kind of posts you accept and set guidelines to help people know if you are the right fit for them before they contact you.
Benefits:
- A good blog monetization strategy
- Highly profitable
Drawbacks:
- Can associate your brand with businesses which do not add real value to your audience
How to monetize a website without ads – 11: Host and Sell Webinars
You can use your blog to promote paid webinars to your audience. You may decide to host a paid webinar on a topic your audience may be interested in learning more about and have them pay a small amount to partake in the webinar.
This is a great way to make some quick cash from your blog. Just ensure to offer value to your audience, and they will be happy to hear from you whenever you are hosting a webinar.
Another way to monetize your blog using webinars is by making a collection of all your previous webinars and putting a price tag on it so those who missed out on the live events can subscribe and watch.
Benefits:
- It is a great way to make quick cash from your blog.
- It is a great way to share your expertise with your audience.
Drawbacks:
- It can be exhausting talking for several minutes or hours.
How to monetize a website – 12: Brand partnerships
If you have an authority blog in your niche, monetizing your blog through brand partnerships can be highly rewarding. Brand partnerships are mutually beneficial agreements between two or more businesses.
These businesses often have a common goal when entering into brand partnerships. They may want to increase brand awareness, drive sales, generate leads, or whatever.
So as a blog, think of ways to partner with other blogs and businesses and offer them value while receiving value in return.
These partnerships can be in the form of sponsorship, endorsements, affiliate marketing, co-branding and lots more.
Benefits:
- Provides a platform to help brands achieve their business goals.
- Creates new opportunities
- Helps brands to reach a larger audience and increase their market share
Drawbacks:
- It may result in conflicts between brands.
Monetize a blog – 13: Start a membership site
Another alternative to make money blogging is by turning your site into a membership site. Membership sites are not that common on the web, but they do exist.
Your loyal fans will be willing to pay to gain access to your special content. Users may pay a one-time, monthly or yearly subscription fee to gain access.
Ensure the content you offer for paid subscribers is really of great value. This way, you will be able to have recurrent subscriptions from your readers and earn recurrent income over time.
To transform your blog into a membership site, consider using an all-in-one membership plugin like MemberPress.
Benefits:
- You can make more money just from a few subscribers
- It can be a great way to earn recurrent income
Drawbacks:
- You may not have many people who are willing to pay for subscriptions.
- Members will unsubscribe if you fail to provide them with valuable content frequently.
Best ways to monetize a blog – 14: Create a Job Board
This method of blog monetization can be very profitable, especially if your blog has gained popularity in your niche and is having lots of monthly visitors.
If your blog is still new with a low traffic volume, we advise you not to venture into this form of monetization as there is a high chance it will be unprofitable for your blog.
Consider marketing your job board to create awareness and attract advertisers and job seekers. Also, adopting an attractive pricing model is a sure way to attract advertisers.
Benefits:
- Highly profitable
- Easy to set up
Drawbacks:
- Not a profitable monetization strategy for new blogs
Best ways to monetize a website – 15: Sell your website or blog
Selling your website can be quite profitable as it can help you earn a large chunk of money at once. Many people have sold their websites for hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
You may be thinking of quitting blogging, or maybe you need a large sum of money for your other ventures. Selling your blog can be an option and can help you to earn more.
Assuming your blog currently makes $10,000 monthly, you may decide to sell it based on a 12 to 24-month revenue.
So, you can sell your blog for $240,000.
As a blogger whose blog generates $10,000 monthly, it would be hard to save $240,000 in 2 years from the revenue gotten from your blog if you have to consider other expenses you will incur along the way.
If your blog is an authority in your niche, you can expect to sell it at a much higher price.
Benefits:
- You get a lot of money at once
- You earn enough money that can sustain you for a long time
Drawbacks:
- You lose a passive income machine.
How to monetize a blog quickly – 16: Accept donations
Accepting donations from the public is an old blog monetization option that has been around for ages. This form of blog monetization is mostly used by humanitarian blogs and news blogs, which have difficulties in using or adopting different blog monetization strategies.
If you run such blogs, one of your best options will be to ask for donations from the public.
Benefits:
- You can earn some money to keep up with your activities
Drawbacks:
- It is highly uncertain.
Wrapping Things Up
Blog monetization is a journey. Testing different blog monetization strategies is a sure way to know what works best for your audience.
But before adopting any monetization option, try to be realistic. You should review different blog monetization strategies to check if they are a good fit for your blog and audience.
You should also be able to analyze the current stage of your blog, as it will help you to know the monetization options to incorporate into your blog.
In all, we wish you good luck on your blog monetization journey.
Keep Walking Beyond Limits
To your Online Success,
– Clevis AKA THE BUSINESS BIRD