HOW TO MAKE MONEY BOGGING

Make Money Blogging
Do you want to make money blogging? If you
do – you’re not alone. More and more bloggers
are finding that blogging is a profitable medium.
Whether it be to earn a few extra dollars a week
to feed their coffee habit, or making enough
money to stop them having to get a part time job
to get through college, or whether they’ve got it
to a point where they are able to make a full time
living from their blogging – there are tens of
thousands of bloggers who make money
blogging.
How to Make Money Blogging
In this page I want to share some information for
beginners on how to make money blogging. For a
very quick and broad visual intro – check out this
Make Money Blogging MindMap which visualizes
just SOME of the ways bloggers make money
blogging.
Firstly – lets get our expectations right. Not
everyone who tries to make money blogging
becomes rich. In fact those who do well from
blogging are in the minority. I’m sorry if this
disappoints you – but I’m not here to hype this
up or make any promises. It is possible to make
money blogging – but it takes time and a lot of
hard work – and it doesn’t happen for everyone!
For a picture of how realistic it is check out my
post – Can You Really Make Money Blogging: 7
Things I know about Making Money from Blogging
.
Secondly – let me start by sharing my own top
Money Making Methods but below that point you
to some great resources and teaching on how to
increase your income from blogging.
What follows is a quick summary of my main
income streams from blogging. Before you read it
though – keep in mind that every blog is unique
in how it can make money. Some of the following
income streams will work on some blogs a lot
better than others – the key is to experiment with
as many as possible and see what works best for
you.
The following income streams (from a number of
blogs) have helped me to earn a six figure income
each year for the last 5 years from blogging. I’ve
ranked them from highest to lowest.
I hope you find it useful to see the mix and
variety of ways that I earn a living from blogging.
1. AdSense
Despite not using it here
at ProBlogger any more
( here’s why) I continue
to use AdSense with
amazing effect on my
other blogs. I have them all set to show image
and text based ads and find that 250×300 pixel
ads work best (usually with a blended design). I
don’t have much luck with their ‘referrals’
program but their normal ads work a treat and
continue to be the biggest earner for me.
2. Affiliate Programs
I run a variety of affiliate
programs on my blogs –
most of which bring in
smaller amounts of money
that don’t really justify a
category of their own (but
which certainly add up).
These include recommending quality products
like these here on ProBlogger: Thesis WordPress
theme, Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Coaching Program
and How to Launch the F*** out of your E-Book
(and others) as well as some great products on
my photography blog including 123 of Digital
Imaging, David DuChemin’s amazing
Photography E-Books and Mitchell Kanashkevich’s
great ebooks.
The great thing about many of these programs is
that they are of such high quality that they sell
themselves and I am being emailed from readers
who sign up to them thanking me for the
recommendation!
3. E-Book Sales
Last time I did a wrap up
of how I make money
blogging this category did
not exist for me – I didn’t
really have any of my own
products to sell at all.
However in the last year
or so I’ve released 3 E-
books – 31 Days to Build a
Better Blog, The Essential
Guide to Portrait Photography and Photo Nuts and
Bolts: Know Your Camera and Take Better Photos
. While these products all only sell for under $20
they certainly add up and some months this has
been my biggest category of income. The reason
they were only ranking at #3 in the last month
was that I didn’t do a product launch (I wrote
about one launch which brought in $72,000 in a
week here). This is an income stream I see
growing as I add more E-books to my range
(expect 3 in the coming few months).
4. Continuity Programs
This is another newer
category for me but one
that continues to grow.
A continuity program is a site where you earn a
recurring income from people who subscribe to a
service you offer.
For me this includes two sites – ProBlogger.com
and Third Tribe Marketing. Both programs are
membership sites and generate monthly income
from the thousands of members that they have
as a part of them.
5. Private Ad Sales/Sponsorships
Private ad sales directly to
advertisers have fallen for
me in the last year (they
previously ranked #3 on
this list). This is partly due
to a change in my own
focus but also partly due to
the economy as it is. I
should note that this area
does vary a little from
month to month depending upon the campaigns
we’re asked to run – we’ve had a couple of
months where it actually ranked #2 in the last
year.
This includes ad sales of the 125 x 125 ads here
at ProBlogger as well as a campaign or two at
Digital Photography School.
6. Chitika
Chitka continues to be a great performer for me
on my blogs. They traditionally have worked best
on product related blogs although their Premium
ad units now convert well on a larger range of
blogs.
While I’ve focused a little less on Chitika in the
last 6 months (mainly as I’ve released my own
products and moved a little away from
advertising) they do continue to perform well
where I use them and over the time I’ve been
using Chitika they’ve now earned me over a
quarter of a million dollars – as a result I can’t
recommend them enough!
7. Amazon Associates
Amazon’s affiliate
program has been one of
my big movers in the last
12 months. I used to
make a few odd dollars
from it – however in recent times it has become a
significant earner for me ( in fact it’s now earned
me over $100,000 since I started using it
). Christmas time (and the lead up to it) is a
particularly good time for Amazon – last
December it would have ranked #2 on this list.
8. ProBlogger Job Boards
The job boards here at ProBlogger continue to
grow each month in the number of
advertisements that are being bought. This
enabled me to invest most of the money that
they’d earned a while back into getting a new
back end for the boards and to redesign them.
These job boards now bring in over $1000 a
month in revenue which is pretty nice
considering that they are so low maintenance to
run. They also offer a service to readers and add
value to the overall blog.
The only problem that I face with the job boards
is that there are so many bloggers looking for
work that the demand for jobs far exceeds the
supply. On the good side of things is that
advertisers are reporting getting amazing quality
of applications.
9. Speaking Fees
I get asked to do a lot of speaking and
increasingly they are paid opportunities. I’m not
able to do as many as I would like (mainly
because I live in Australia and most of what I’m
asked to do is overseas and I only travel 2-3 times
a year) – however in April I did a couple of events
and the income was enough to include in this list.
Other Income
In addition to all of the above there are many
smaller incomes. Many of these are from smaller
advertising programs that I test but none are big
enough to really rate a mention here.
The other income stream that there was no actual
money from in April was book royalties from the
ProBlogger Book. These are only paid every 6 or
so months (not in April). It’s probably also worth
mentioning that authors don’t tend to make a
whole lot of money on book royalties – you don’t
write books to get rich (unless you sell a lot of
them).
Useful Resources for Bloggers Wanting to
Make Money Blogging
A lot has been written on the topic of making
money online from blogs. There is a lot of
wonderful information out there – but also a lot of
hype and sometimes dangerous information.
Below are a number of articles that I’ve written
exploring some of the different ways that
bloggers make money.