The Internet is full of content of all sorts. And it is quite amazing to see how individual bloggers (or even those who have grown to become companies) occupy a decent portion of the pie. Blogging definitely presents some amazing opportunities to earn money online.

We have talked quite extensively about how you can start your own blog. The process has become extremely easy now compared to 10 years ago. So, there really is no excuse why you should not give blogging a try as a form of passive income.

In this article, we will look at all the different ways you can monetize your blog. These are some of the best (if not all) ways you can earn money from your blog right now. As the Internet evolves and advertisers and consumers evolve along with it, there might be newer and better opportunities for monetization. For now, though, these will earn you a decent side income.

Best Ways to Earn Money from a Blogging

1- AdSense

Let’s face it! AdSense is most likely going to be a blogger’s first love when it comes to earning money. AdSense by Google is an advertising network that allows publishers to monetize their blogs through text, images, video, or interactive ads.

Publishers love Google AdSense because it is very easy to join their network. They have very minimum requirements to join the network. Even if your blog is getting 0 viewers a day, you can still apply and get on the ad network. However, AdSense does look for quality; your site must have original, copyright-free, and legal content, it should be at least 3 months old and should have at least 15 blog posts. If you don’t meet these criteria, you should not anyway think about monetizing your blog.

AdSense keeps 32% of the revenue your blog generates and pays you 68%, which is not too bad. A major drawback of AdSense is their earning capacity is rather low compared to a premium ad network. Also, AdSense cannot even be compared to some optimization and improvement tools provided by some premium ad networks.

2- Premium Ad Networks

Moving on from AdSense, we come to the place where bloggers can make some real money. Premium ad networks provide publishers with text, image, video, and responsive advertisements. The specialty with these ad networks is that usually, their minimum requirements to join are quite high. But since these requirements are high, they are also able to attract high-quality advertisers which in turn mean higher revenues for the bloggers.

Even better are some of the analytical and performance enhancement tools provided by these ad networks. For example, Ezoic, provides publishers with some amazing tools such as comprehensive revenue breakdown reports (by ad unit, by geography, by article, etc.), website speed improvement tools, SEO tools, content design tools, and most importantly, shows articles that do not earn revenue and how to improve them. Their Ezoic Premium gets your blog dressed in premium advertisers such as Facebook, Amazon, Adidas, Microsoft, Dell, Dodge, Ford, Nike, and so on. What’s even more? Ezoic uses machine learning AI to figure out the best ad types, layouts, and positions for individual blogs. So, over time, the ads on your blog get better and better in terms of revenue generation. I have been using Ezoic for over two years now and am very satisfied with what it offers.

Some other popular premium ad networks are; Media.net, PropellerAds, AdThrive, MediaVine, and Monumetric.

3- Affiliate marketing/referral marketing

Moving on from earning from advertising on your blog, we come to another ‘big bucks’ arena. That is only if you do this right. Affiliate marketing or referral marketing is where you use your blog to recommend a third-party product or service. If your readers purchase those products or services through your affiliate/referral links, you will earn a commission. Affiliate marketing or referral marketing can break any revenue records earned by advertising, depending on the products or services you are selling on your blog.

Affiliate marketing does not work if you just randomly place irrelevant products and services on your blog. It only works if you do the exact opposite. The products or services recommended on your blog should be native–relevant to the niche of your blog and to the article you are writing. Your blog readers will find these recommendations more genuine and increase the chance of a conversion.

Some popular affiliate marketing networks are Amazon Associates, ClickBank, Rakuten Advertising, Partnerize, and so on. Many big vendors have their own affiliate or referral program.

4- Sponsored content

Another great opportunity for bloggers to monetize their content is through sponsored articles. When your blog gains substantial traffic, you will most likely be approached by advertisers directly. These content promoters will pay you very decent amounts to publish their articles on your blog with a link or more pointed at their client’s contents.

The price you can charge largely depends on how much traffic your blog is attracting. Other factors could be the niche your blog is in, how many backlinks are in the article, and whether you write the article or whether you get a fully written article.

5- Sponsored ads

Much like sponsored articles, companies can reach out to you to promote their products and services in the form of mere advertisements. You will essentially be selling your static blog space, which will be visible to all the visitors on the blog. This is more valuable than posting an article on the website (sponsored article), which will only be visible to a person visiting that article. So, sponsored ads give bloggers a bigger monetization opportunity than sponsored articles.

6- Selling backlinks

A ‘backlink’ is a hyperlink (a clickable link) from your website to an advertiser’s website, product, or service. You can charge a smaller (compared to sponsored articles or ads) to post one or more links into already existing content on your blog. If your blog is a high-authority domain, you can charge more these backlinks just for ‘transferring’ some online reputation from your blog to advertisers’ platform.

7- Article writing for others

If you are a blogger, chances are you love writing or creating content. Your blog is successful because of the content you put on it. And others do notice that your content is of high quality and they will be willing to pay for your content creation talents. Building on your blog’s success, you have the freedom to decide the competitive rates you want to charge for these services.

8- Social media promotions

A successful blog must have a strong social media presence. This is your fanbase and a very valuable asset that will help you in many ways. Your social media builds around your blog, but it can be its own platform. One Facebook post or one Tweet about your advertiser can earn you some sizable earnings. The amount you can charge will depend largely on the audience you have on your social media platforms.

9- Consultation

The success of your blog is a direct reflection of your skills and talents. So don’t be surprised if other companies start reaching out to you to pick your brain. From best practices in content creation, SEO, social media promotion, website design, and what-not. Consultation services can earn you A LOT.

10- Brand partnerships

One of the biggest opportunities to make money is to strike a brand deal with an advertiser or a company. These are usually long-term partnerships that present mutually beneficial terms to both parties. Nine out of ten times, the companies will approach you for such partnerships, but you could actively pursue companies in the same niche as your blog.

Brand partnerships often require you to commit to some form of allegiance to the company’s brand throughout the agreement period. For example, if you partner with Booking.com to recommend travel destinations on your travel blog, you might not be able to link competing services such as Agoda.com, Hotels.com, or Expedia.com. So, pick your poison wisely.

11- Premium website content/subscriptions

Another incredible opportunity to monetize your blog is through your loyal fanbase. If your readers find real value in your content, they would not mind paying a small fee to keep on reading your content or get access to a premium section.

You will not be able to charge $100 per fan per month. One of the leading blogs in the world, Bloomberg, charges $35/month for digital access. This is the cream of the crop. For anyone starting out, maybe $2/month will be a good place to test the waters.

The way to go with earning through subscriptions is to grow your subscriber count and not increasing the monthly premium fee.

12- Donations

You can easily set up a donation button on your blog so that any reader who thinks they are getting good value off of your blog can send you a few bucks. Of course, this is not going to be your primary revenue stream since donations will be highly unpredictable. So, maybe you can set up donations on top of other forms of monetization mentioned here. But do this smartly–for example, donations on top of a premium subscription fee would not make much sense.

13- Sell merch

Another popular way to monetize your blog is through selling merchandise of your own. Again, this relies on the number of loyal fans your blog amasses over time. So it’s definitely more important to build your fanbase before diving into selling merchandise.

Cool t-shirts, mugs, hats, handwritten notes, and any other thing you can think of can be sold as merch. It really depends on how you market yourself and how loyal your fanbase is. Teespring is a good example of a company that allows you to sell your merchandise.

14- Sell your website

Last but also last, you can sell your website. If you feel like it is time to move on from your blog, selling it before you give up on it and traffic dies down, is the best thing you can do. Platforms such as Flippa and EmpireFlippers allow you to list and sell your website. The price you can sell it for is usually a multiple of your latest earnings. Some multiples can be as high as 40 – 50 times, depending on other qualitative factors such as social media presence, age of the website, niche, upkeep expenses, type of monetization, and so on.

As you can see from this list, there are quite a few ways you can earn money from your blog. However, the success of most of these depends on the amount of traffic you can generate, and the size of the fanbase you can build. So, don’t give up. Keep trying out different forms of monetization and some are bound to work out for you and your readers.

Let us hear what are your favorite methods of monetizing blogs in the comments below.