4 Ways to Make Money from Your Blog

Want to make more money but don’t want to leave the comfort of your home? Consider starting a blog and implementing the following tips to make it go from hobby to additional stream of income.

Treat Your Blog Like a Business

• Create a realistic posting schedule. When first creating your blog, it’s tempting to promise readers a new article every day. You may even be able to keep up with that for the first few weeks, but then what? Running your other business, taking care of your family or even getting sick can take you off of this schedule. Instead of being overly ambitious, set a schedule you can easily maintain and then ramp up when you’re ready. You don’t want to abandon your readers by posting every day and then disappearing.
• Make sure your blog solves a problem. Put yourself in the minds of your readers. What would they be searching for when coming to your site? What problems might they need help with? Create quality articles with those solutions in mind. It’s not just about what you like to write. It’s about what your readers want to read. That doesn’t mean you can’t mix it up, but keep it related.  If you run a gaming site, you can talk about video games, card games and other forms of entertainment.
• Organize your writing. Once you’ve decided on your posting schedule and your focus, put your ideas into a content calendar. Rather than one-off topics, you could create a multi-article series to encourage readers to come back for more. For example, if you run a fitness blog, you may publish a series on five ways to lose weight during the holidays. One article may focus on healthy eating. Another could talk about exercise and a third could talk about avoiding temptation at holiday parties and family gatherings.

Sell Your Own Products

Digital products can be checklists, eBooks or online courses, for example. If you’ve been running your blog for a while, you can likely repurpose some of your existing content. Got a popular blog post? Think about how that can be expanded into a checklist. Check the comments and see what questions your readers have been asking. Turn that into a book or a course.

You can also use your expertise. For example, I’ve been working from home running my own business and in contract positions since 2003.  I took that knowledge and put it into a creating an online course that teaches people how to find work from home jobs.  What’s great about digital products is that they give you passive income. Create a high-quality product once, and you can sell it repeatedly.

Sell Someone Else’s Products

Affiliate marketing is a popular monetization method because you don’t have to have your own product. Instead, you sign up as an affiliate to receive commission whenever someone clicks through your link and buys the product. The possibilities for what you can promote are endless. If you run a blog about achieving work/life balance, for example, you may promote online gaming as something to do during downtime or recommend a scheduling tool that encourages blocking time for work and breaks to make sure you achieve your goals. Create a quality article related to the product or service you signed up under, and make sure to include your affiliate link to receive credit.

Sell Your Time

You’ve put in the work to create a blog that reflects your expertise. Use that knowledge to help someone else via consulting. You can advertise your content marketing consultant services, for example, via a separate services page on your blog and in your author bio. Make it easy for people to buy from you by having your calendar link or buy now button visible within only one click.

Do you currently make money from your blog? What methods have been most effective? Share them in the comments.