How to Make Money Blogging in 2024 [Free Guide With Examples]

Starting a blog is one of the best ways to make money blogging. However, it may take some time to build up traffic. But, with enough effort, it is possible to earn up to $50,000/year through blogging.

When it comes to the most effective ways to monetize a blog, it all comes down to your blogging niche and audience type. It may take some time to figure out which strategy works best for you, but with enough dedication, you will be able to make a substantial income.

In this article, we’ll show you some of the best ways to make money blogging online in 2024.

What is Blogging?

Blogging is the process of writing blog articles and posting them on a website. The website may be owned by an individual or a company, and the posted content can be articles, images, or other digital media.

Blogging often involves posting long-form articles on a specific topic. Most blogs have a target audience, and bloggers often choose topics that are of interest to their target audience.

How Much Money Can You Make With Blogging?

In general, blogs that focus on popular and profitable niches, such as travel, fashion, etc., tend to make more money than blogs that focus on less popular niches.

Furthermore, the amount of traffic you get to your blog is also important. The more traffic you get, the more money you can make from different monetization methods that we will discuss later.

On average, a blogger makes around $50,000/year. However, there are many bloggers who make much more than that. For example, Adam Enfroy, who blogs about blogging, generated $200,000 monthly from his blog.

How Long Does It Take Blogs to Make Money?

On average, it takes 6 months to 2 years for blogs to start making money. Factors include the niche’s competitiveness, content quality, and marketing efforts. High-quality, niche-targeted content and active promotion can accelerate this process. Some bloggers see income within a few months, while others may take longer or not monetize at all.

Factors Affecting Blog Monetization:

• Niche Competitiveness: Less competitive niches may yield quicker results.
• Content Quality: Engaging, well-researched content attracts and retains readers.
• Marketing Efforts: Effective SEO, social media, and email marketing drive traffic and revenue.

How to Make Money Blogging in 2024

Before we jump into the best ways, let’s go through how we’ll be ordering them. We’ll start with the most common monetization ways and slowly get more narrow as the list goes on. So, if you’re already aware of the basics of how to make money with a blog, you might be able to skip the first few ways. Otherwise, start from the beginning!

1. Join Affiliate Marketing Programs

When it comes to making money from blogging, affiliate marketing is one of the best ways you can start using today. Affiliate marketing means when you promote or sell a product or service from another site to your target audience by including links in your content. Whenever someone goes to that affiliate’s site and purchases the product after clicking your link, you will earn a referral commission for that sale.

What’s great about affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to create or own a product. You just serve as a “virtual salesperson” for the company with whom you are affiliated. As a result, you will not have to deal with orders, delivery, or customer service.

Furthermore, as an affiliate marketer, you can make thousands of dollars from affiliate marketing. For example, bloggers like Pat Flynn, the creator of Smart Passive Income, earned over $145,000 per month through affiliate links.

To get started with affiliate marketing, you need to join an affiliate program. Here are some of the popular Affiliate marketing programs that you could check out:

• ShareASale
• ImpactRadius
• PartnerStack
• Commission Junction
• Awin

After being approved for an affiliate program, you will get an affiliate link to the product’s sales page. You can add this link to your content and receive a commission once a visitor makes a purchase.

All in all, Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn passive income streams from your blog.

2. Use Google AdSense Ads

Google AdSense is a program run by Google that lets you earn money by showing ads on your websites or blog. It shows ads to your website based on your site content and target audience. You’ll get paid whenever someone clicks on your ad (known as cost per click) or just views your ad (known as cost per impression).

To be eligible for the Google Ads program, your website must meet certain requirements. These include:

• Your content must be high-quality and original
• You are 18+ years old
• Your site should be six months old
• Have key static pages, like a contact page and privacy policy page

For more, check out our guide on how to get Google AdSense approval for your blog.

Once your website is approved for the program, you can add AdSense code to your website’s pages. This code will display ads that are relevant to your content and audience.

What if Google rejects or doesn’t approve your site for Google AdSense?

There are some cases when Google rejects or does not approve your site for AdSense. In that case, you can check out some of the best Google AdSense alternatives that offer similar services and offer a higher pay-per-click (PPC) rate than Google AdSense.

3. Accept Sponsored Posts

Did you know that there are several companies who will pay you to write an article about them? Such posts are known as sponsored posts. And if your blog has a significant amount of traffic, many companies will pay for the opportunity to sponsor an article. This is how you can monetize your blog.

For example, Alexis, a personal finance nerd, charges $750 to $1,500 for each sponsored post she publishes on her blog Fitnancials.

The best way to attract such opportunities is to create a page on your own site advertising your traffic and pricing for sponsored content. That way, advertisers can find you. And trust us, sponsors are always looking for new opportunities!

4. Sell Digital Products like eBook

Ebooks are an obvious choice for digital product creation. They are easy to write and create. If you have been blogging for a long time, you can repurpose some of your blog posts into chapters of a book.

After you’ve written your book, you can make a cover using a blogging tool like Canva and create a PDF of your ebook. While it does need some initial effort, this is a pretty common way to make money from your blog.

For example, the ProBlogger team has created six different eBooks that they sell via their blog:

Furthermore, if you are using WordPress as your blogging platform, you can use eCommerce plugins for WordPress to sell your digital products easily.

5. Make Money by Selling Online Courses

Selling an online course is another great way to make money online.

The best part? Creating an online course is as simple as producing a series of short instructional videos that teach your readers how to do something valuable based on your own blogging skills and experiences. If you’ve succeeded at anything, there are individuals out there who would gladly pay to benefit from your knowledge and streamline their learning curves.

For example, bloggers like Ryan Robinson earned over $400,000 per year selling a course that teaches individuals how to start a blog and grow a profitable side business.

Furthermore, you can use platforms such as Udemy or Coursera to create and sell online courses.

However, if you want to sell courses using WordPress, use WordPress plugins like LearnDash or Teachable.

6. Become a Freelance Blogger

If you already enjoy blogging, you may use your own blog as a big advertisement to attract clients eager to pay you to blog. This is a good approach to make a living. And it’s quite common in several blogging niches.

For example, Francesca runs a personal freelance writer blog called Be a Freelance Writer that she also uses to find freelance blogging clients:

The best way to do this? Create a Hire Me page like Francesca did. Then, if someone likes your writing, they know exactly how to get in contact with you.

7. Build a Membership Site

Another way to start a money making blog is to convert it into a membership site that only allows subscribers to access the content. This strategy works well for bloggers who already have a following of followers who are willing to pay for access to new blog content.

Here are some of the benefits of launching a membership website:

• Recurring revenue: Membership sites generate recurring revenue, which can be a more stable source of income than one-time sales.
• Build a loyal community: A membership site can be an excellent way to grow and retain loyal members.
• It can be automated: A membership site can automatically deliver content, making it an excellent passive income stream.

Furthermore, you can easily create a membership site using a WordPress membership plugin. We recommend using MemberPress, one of the best membership plugins for WordPress.

8. Charge People to Read Your Posts

We know that this appears to be a far-fetched way to make money blogging. Charging people to read all of your posts? No one would ever pay, right?

But it all depends on your niche. We would not suggest this strategy for most sites. However, some bloggers have achieved success with this strategy.

For example, Mark Manson charges readers $9.99/mo to read their premium posts:

9. Encourage Donations

Another best way to make money from blogging is to ask your users to donate. Users will be more than glad to support your work if you have uploaded free content that shows the quality of your work, and they rely on it on a regular basis.

Furthermore, if you want to reach a large audience, you may establish your own GoFundMe campaign.

The communities on these platforms are more interested in supporting or funding projects than individuals are. As a result, you have more opportunities to be featured and become more popular among a larger audience.

10. Guest Blogging

If you’re looking for ways to make money online blogging while also increasing your exposure, writing for other websites might be a good option. As a guest blogger, you can earn up to $50 to $500 from a single post.

For example, a blogger like Elna Cain earns money in dollars per month by guest blogging.

Aside from helping you earn money online, guest blogging helps you show your expertise within the industry, especially if you write for reputable brands. As a result, this can increase your blog traffic for free while also increasing your trustworthiness and conversion rates.

11. Speak at Conferences/Events

Your blog is evidence of your hard work and knowledge in a specific field or topic. It also shows your commitment, consistency, organization, and reporting skills, as well as your passion. These are the qualities that any event organizer would like their invited speakers to have.

So, anything you do on your blog has the potential to be monetized in a number of ways, and events are one of them.

If you want to make money blogging using your public speaking skills, include a section on your blog/website where an event organizer can hire your services for an event or schedule a Skype call with you.

12. Build an Email List

To earn more money from your blog, you must have a loyal reader base that values your advice.

The easiest way to do so is to build an email list for your blog. When a user sign up for your blog newsletter, they permit you to contact them via their inbox. And successful bloggers know the importance of getting their messages into the inboxes of their followers.

Check out our handpicked list of the best free email marketing services to start building your email list.

Furthermore, to encourage users to join your mailing list, you need to put a popup form. This form aims to convince readers to hear from you by offering them an incentive. Check out some of the best popup plugins for WordPress to create popup forms for your blog.

The most common incentives you may offer to your blog visitors include:

• Free checklists
• Lists of resources
• Blog content packaged in a PDF
• eBook
• And so on.

Here’s an example of a popup used by well-known tech blogger Adam Enfroy:

Once they’ve signed up, keep nurturing the relationship by offering useful resources. In this way, you’ll build an audience ready to purchase things based on your suggestions.

13. Create a Job Board

If you have a large audience of people who are interested in a particular topic, you may leverage that audience to create a job board in your niche. Then, you may charge companies to post a job ad to your targeted audience.

ProBlogger’s Job Board is a great example of this. Companies looking for freelance bloggers pay ProBlogger for the privilege of posting a job ad:

14. Sell Leads to Other Companies

Another best way to earn passive income while blogging is to sell your leads to other companies. For example, if you had a blog about insurance, an insurance company would love to pay for access to your readers’ information.

A “lead” is information that is specific to each reader. And, as long as you’re transparent about it, you can collect this data and sell it to other companies. You’re simply connecting an interested person (the lead) with a company that meets their needs for a price.

15. Make Money by Offering Consulting Services

Running a successful blog means that people identify your name with the topic you write about and see you as an authority in the industry.

As a result, it’s only natural for you to capitalize on your growing audience and organic traffic by offering consulting services. This is exactly what blogger like The Nerdy Me does on her blog:

However, consulting business for a living is not something to be taken lightly, so only claim to be a consultant if you have plenty of experience. Your blog’s content acts as “proof” of your expertise; thus, it’s essential that you only offer high-quality information.

Furthermore, you may easily promote your service using your blog. It might be a dedicated landing page or a display ad in your sidebar that allows you to hire new clients.

Overall, consulting is an excellent blog monetization strategy that can generate a lot of money.

16. Create a Podcast

Podcasts are an alternative medium to online courses. You can use it as an additional source of income for your blogging. While video may appear to be more successful, you’ll notice that it’s a terrific platform for promoting B2B businesses.

One of the great examples is Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast:

The nice thing about podcasts is that you don’t have to create new content for them. Since you already have a blog, you can repurpose content to create a digestible podcast episode. This can help you increase visitors to your blog and establish your authority in the industry.

Furthermore, running a podcast as a blogger might lead to podcast sponsorships. You can even contact brands in your niche to discuss potential partnerships. This is excellent since you earn a sponsorship fee while companies benefit from a faster route to their target audience.

Final Thoughts on How to Make Money Blogging

Making money blogging depends on several factors, and it does take time to get started. Choose a profitable niche, build a relationship with your readers, and offer content that adds value to them. You can always improve your efforts by using channels like email, social media, and SEO. Finally, as you grow, be sure to try new ideas and optimize your blogging strategy.

But first and foremost, focus on creating great content!

We hope this article helped you find plenty of ways to make money online by blogging.

For more, check out these other helpful resources:

• 15 Actionable Blogging Tips for New Bloggers
• 9 Best Free Blogging Sites & Platforms
• How to Promote Your Blog
• Blog vs Vlog: Which is Better for Make Money Online?
• 10 Best WordPress Paywall Plugins for Content Monetization

Lastly, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.