Whether you are looking for a side hustle to bring in a few extra dollars each month or if you are ready to replace your 9-to-5 job with a steady, passive income stream, starting a blog can be a great way to earn money. If you are just getting started with blogging, it can seem overwhelming, but this guide has the information for beginners to start a blog for money.
What Type of Blogs Make the Most Money?
You will hear a lot of bloggers say that you should only choose a blog niche that you're passionate about. But the truth is, if you want to make money online blog, then you must choose a profitable niche. Ideally, you will have an interest in your chosen topic, but it is not a necessity.
The good news is, there are many profitable types of blogs. Here are a few of the best:
- Finance - There are so many topics that fall within finance. You can blog about budgeting, paying off debt, starting a business, real estate, best credit cards, and more. The best way to get into the finance niche is to start with a specific topic, such as paying off student debt. This market is saturated, so it's not a good idea to start too broad.
- Health and Fitness - People are always striving to be healthier, feel better, and look great. It is easy to make money with health and fitness because you are not selling people a product. You are selling them the potential of what they could be.
- Hobbies - People are willing to spend a lot of money on their passions. If you want to monetize your blog for the most profit, choose a hobby with a lot of expensive gear, such as golf.
- Relationships - Readers are often looking for love and they may turn to the internet to find it. Your blog can focus on the best dating apps, dating advice, or even dating coaching. You can get creative with how you monetize a blog in the relationship niche.
- Beauty and Fashion - Beauty and fashion can be lucrative because there are so many products in this niche. Again, people want to look better, so beauty and fashion are an easy sell.
- Technology - Technology moves fast and people need lots of information to help them keep up. If you are an expert on tech, you can easily make money from a blog in this niche.
How Much Can I Earn?
If you create a blog for money, you can earn as little or as much as you want. It really comes down to how hard you are willing to work and your talent with choosing the write topics and keywords to focus on. Your earnings will typically be based on your ability to rank in Google. If you can rank on the first page in Google for a keyword that gets a pretty high search volume, you will get traffic to your page.
The more traffic you get, the greater your potential to make money from your blog. Trying to earn money from your blog is really a numbers game. More people visiting your blog increases the likelihood that someone will click an ad or affiliate link, purchase a product, and more.
Higher traffic volumes also allow you to join more lucrative ad networks, which we will discuss in more detail below.
Ways to Monetize a Blog
There are so many ways to make money from your blog. The best option is to diversity. That means do not pick just one of the ways to monetize a blog listed below. Instead, pick a few. It is never a good idea to only earn money through one avenue. If something happens to that income stream, then everything is lost.
Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are a great way to blog for money. Basically, you sign up for a program and are given a special link for a product. You then review or recommend that product on your blog and use that special link. When your readers visit that link and make a purchase, you get paid a percentage.
Affiliate programs have different rules and some programs are more profitable than others. Affiliate programs are a nice way for beginners to monetize a blog because it's fairly straightforward.
Sponsored Blog Content
As your blog grows in popularity, you may begin to get offers for sponsored blog content. Companies may send you a product and pay you a fee to discuss or review that product. This can be a good way to earn money if you are in a niche with a lot of products or services you can review.
Ad Networks
There are so many ad networks out there. Google Adsense is a good place to start for beginners. It is fairly easy to get accepted to the program and you can start to get paid as your traffic grows. Once your traffic numbers really pick up, then you can join a more prestigious ad network, like Media.net. These networks offer better ads and much higher payouts.
Products
If you don't want to share your profits with others, consider selling your own products. If you can make a digital download that is related to your blog topic, you can earn quite a bit. This type of product has little expense on your part, other than the time it takes you to make it. Then, you get to keep all of the profits.
Develop a Course
As you gain a loyal following and become regarded as an expert in your field, you can develop a course and sell it to your readers. In many cases, the most you will spend on course development is time, and you can turn a pretty nice profit.
Once you are ready to start your blog, BlogWeb is a cloud-based platform where you can start your blog for free. All that's left to do is get your blog online and get paid.
