How do bloggers actually make money?
It’s a question I hear a lot from my community, so in this pep talk I want to break down the strategy behind creating a money making blog.
In episode 149 I broke down for you the difference between a blog and a website, so go back and listen to that if you missed it!
The beauty of making money as a blogger is that you don’t have to have your own product, or service to offer to make an income. You can take an interest or a passion you have, blend it with your personality, build an audience around it and make money from it.
So yesterday I shared that when you’re a blogger, your main objective is to create consistent content and get as many eyeballs on it as possible.
Bloggers talk in page views.
That’s the main metric by which they measure the value of their blog when they are going after advertising and sponsorship dollars.
The more blog posts that are on the blog, the more a reader of that blog can read and every time they click from post to post to post, that’s counted as a page view.
The more pages and the longer that reader’s eyeballs are on that blog, the more money sponsors and advertisers will pay.
That’s why when you have a blog, you have your blog posts right there on the homepage of the website so that there are 5-10 pages right off the bat for someone to read.
But how do they actually make money from page views?
Today we’re going to talk about the top 3 ways bloggers make money:
- Advertising
- Sponsorships
- Affiliate Marketing
And at the end, I’ll share a bonus way that bloggers make money.
#1 – Advertising
There are a couple of options here.
The first is to sell your own ad space. My fave website for solopreneurs, One Woman Shop sells sidebar ads. The Work at Home Woman also sells her own ads for a monthly fee.
This could work really well for you if you have a very niche audience and you don’t have the volume of traffic needed for option #2 that I’m going to talk about in a moment.
You can also partner with an ad network. This is where you let an ad network insert ads onto your blog in specific locations.
The most commonly known one is GoogleAdSense, but there are others like MediaVine, Monumetric, and the Blog Her Network.
Here are a few websites that provide reviews and pros and cons of these and other networks:
With this advertising model, you don’t control the ads that are seen – you know how you have those ads that follow you around the internet? You would give an ad network space on your site and they dynamically insert ads. Everyone is seeing something different and even personalized to them based on other things they are viewing online.
My favorite email marketing program, ConvertKit, has an awesome blog post that breaks down the different pricing structures for how ad networks pay out – whether its cost per number of times the ad is seen, or if people have to actually click on it, or if they have to click on it and buy something or if they’re just renting the space regardless of the clicks.
So depending on your niche and how much traffic you get, different models are going to work better for you than others.
In my opinion, advertising shouldn’t be the sole focus of your blog. It can be really affected by spikes in traffic which is why everyone freaks out every time an algorithm changes, they have all their eggs in the traffic basket. Advertising is just one tool bloggers can use for monetization.
#2 – Sponsorships
A sponsorship is where you partner with a brand to write a blog post about your experience using their product.
And how big and engaged your audience is determines how much you can charge for sponsorships and collaborations.
To land sponsorships, build a highly engaged audience that trusts your recommendations.
And then you don’t just sit back and wait for the brands to come knocking on your door, you put together a media kit of how many page views you have on your blog, how many social media followers you have, how many posts, how much engagement and you take that to a brand and say,
“Hey, I use this product of yours, I love it, and I have built a community of this many people who really trust what I have to say. Let’s partner so that you can get access to these people and a trusted recommendation from me, and you’ll pay me for giving you that access and putting my name and reputation behind your product.”
Brands are recognizing the power that bloggers and social media influencers have to INFLUENCE the purchase behavior of their followers – and they’re moving away from the Kim Kardashians of the world and focusing on real people with smaller but more engaged audiences, known as microinfluencers.
If you want to learn more about this, there are a couple of resources to check out – LadyBoss Blogger Elaine Rau’s 12 Most Profitable Niches and her Sponsorships Masterclass.
#3 Affiliate Marketing
The third way bloggers make money is affiliate marketing, and in fact, this is a big way that I make money too!
Just like sponsorships, tons of businesses recognize the importance of getting a recommendation in someone’s buying decision. Think about it – ads, commercials, whatever, they just make you aware that something exists. They don’t make you buy things.
If you’re on the fence about buying something, it’s the recommendation of your best friend that’s going to seal the deal for you to buy it.
That’s what affiliate marketing is.
There are affiliate programs out there for anything you can imagine!! Just google your favorite products and services and add the words affiliate program to your search.
I made the very first money I made in my business by recommending someone else’s products and services that I already used and loved.
Amazon is the largest affiliate program. Every time I mention a book or a product, I look it up on Amazon and grab an affiliate link. I personally don’t make much from Amazon, but I have a few partners that make me over a thousand dollars a month at the time of this recording.
Key things to know about affiliate marketing:
- Know the program’s rules. Amazon has really specific rules about what you can and can’t do with your affiliate links.
- Always disclose that you’re an affiliate to your readers.
- Some affiliate programs will only accept you if you have a certain level of traffic, others will let anyone in. Do your research.
The best affiliate marketers only promote products they use and love, and if they can add a teaching element to it or a problem-solving element to it, that’s even better. Instead of just talking about the product like you’re a commercial, incorporate it into a larger story.
I’m all about affiliate marketing, especially in your side hustle. I learned about it from Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, he’s the king of affiliate marketing in my opinion.
Okay so we talked about advertising, sponsorships and affiliate marketing. All require the same thing – for you to build an audience for your blog. So if you don’t know how to do that, go sign up for that webinar I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.
BONUS Monetization Method
Okay, here’s the bonus monetization method I told you I’d share with you:
Monetize your own expertise.
You can create something, an e-book, an online course, and coaching program, whatever, around your niche and sell it to your audience.
Why not?? Why always promote other people’s stuff for a piece of the pie?
If you’ve spent all this time cultivating an audience as a blogger, you will stumble upon that thing. Just keep your ears open, develop a relationship with your readers and you’ll be able to create something that will help them accomplish whatever goals they have!
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
