Have you found yourself wondering how bloggers get paid? Maybe you are wondering how bloggers make their money and manage to live off it. Or are you curious and want to know more?
Whatever the reason might be that brought you here today, I am here with the answers you need!
As an industry, blogging is still fairly new. This means there is a lot about it that you might not know.
This guide will walk you through the different ways bloggers earn from their blogs.
Who knows, maybe it will be the inspiration you need to start your blog!
How Do Bloggers Get Paid?
Typically bloggers earn money from their blogs in one or more of these six ways:
- Ads
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsored content
- Services
- Lead Generation
- Products
Each of these methods works differently and you must understand how they work before trying them. Today, I will dive into them in closer detail to help get you the answers you need!
Ads
Ads are one of the easiest ways to monetize your blog!
Bloggers typically sign up for one of the available ad networks.
Ad networks have built technology platforms that integrate with your blog and provide a way to connect advertisers and publishers.
Targeted ads change depending on:
- who is viewing the blog
- the content of it
- the content the viewer has previously viewed.
Ads offer blog readers products and services that might be of interest to them. The goal of an ad is for visitors to click on it to reach the website of the company placing the ad.
There are a lot of ad networks out there. In the past, the most popular one bloggers would use was Google Adsense.
But things have changed…
New ad networks have entered this market in the last few years, some examples are:
Compared to other ad networks, with Google Adsense, there isn’t a minimum monthly pageview your blog needs to have before you can apply.
Other networks like AdThrive require your blog to have a minimum of 100,000 monthly pageviews before you can apply.
The way bloggers are paid from ads is usually per impression which is how many times and for how long ads are seen. The blogger is usually paid directly by the ad network every month. This means that the focus of the blogger is to increase monthly pageviews to increase revenue.
For ads to make bloggers serious money, their blog needs thousands of people visiting it every month. The more people that see ads or engage with them, the more money you can expect to make!
As a rule of thumb, you can start thinking to place ads on your blog when it reaches 10,000 monthly pageviews.
Joining an ad network when your blog reaches 10,000 monthly pageviews can really give you as a blogger a boost in motivation because it gives you a reward for your efforts.
Personally, I have used Ezoic and I’m really happy with the experience and customer service it provides to me as a blogger. It’s great to see how their AI-based platform has continuously evolved in the last few years.
Patience is one of the main skills you will have to develop if you want to become a successful blogger.
In the beginning, when starting a blog, it can be challenging to publish content when you don’t see any traffic to your blog. When no one reads the articles you publish.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a popular way for bloggers to make money. Companies will have affiliate marketing programs that bloggers can sign up to.
Once part of the program, bloggers receive a unique URL to the company’s website. They can use this URL in blog posts, directing their readers and followers to products or the website in general.
Bloggers use affiliate marketing by linking to third-party products specific to their niche. If a reader of the blog clicks on the link and purchases a product from the company, the blogger receives a commission.
The commission is either a fixed amount per sale or a percentage of the item sold. Bloggers receive affiliate commission payments through an affiliate network, where you can track link clicks and sales.
The money is often paid monthly, but on the stipulation that the minimum amount of sales are made.
There are lots of different affiliate programs bloggers can join. Some of the most popular are:
- Amazon Associates
- Shareasale
- CJ Affiliate
- Rakuten Linkshare.
You can find out how to join an affiliate program on the company’s website.
How much money bloggers make this way depends on how many sales they get and on the commission the specific affiliate program pays.
If you are a homeware blog with a large following that continuously links to products on Amazon, then you could do quite well!
However, if your blog is extremely niche and you don’t have many links directing people to your affiliate programs, then it will be tricky for you to make a lot of money.
Sponsored Posts
You probably see a lot of these on Instagram, but sponsored posts or content is a good way to make money on a blog too.
With sponsored posts, a company pays the blogger to create content for them, usually about a specific product or service they offer.
For example, it might be a blog post that talks about a new razor or streaming service.
The blog post will then link directly to the product and often, they will offer a discount code to encourage people to purchase it.
This might be 20% off or free shipping, any offer that can help the blogger give something different to their following that is worth purchasing.
Sponsored posts or content vary from blog to blog and brand to brand. For larger bloggers, brands will contact them directly and offer the opportunity to work with them.
Lesser-known bloggers have more work to do and can either pitch to brands directly or use sponsored networks to find brands that want to work with them.
Bloggers are either paid directly by the brand or through a sponsored network. The pay varies depending on the brand, the following of the blogger, and the type of content the brand has ordered.
Services
Bloggers can also make money by offering services such as consulting and coaching. This could be in any subject they have expertise in, from organizing a home to managing your finances.
These services help bloggers regularly make money on their blogs, depending on how popular or in-demand the service is.
Blogs with larger followings or that are run by people who are respected in their field tend to do better than smaller blogs.
However, over time bloggers can increase relationships with customers and clients and grow their blogs.
Bloggers are typically paid by the customer or client directly with this method.
Lead Generation
This is self-explanatory…
With lead generation, your blog generates leads for another company and that company pays you as a blogger for those leads.
This approach to earning from your blog requires a bit more effort and time on your side considering that you have to come up with an initial agreement with the companies you work with.
An example could be a blog that writes about life in a specific city or area and does lead generation for local businesses (e.g. restaurants).
Products
Finally, we have products.
If a blogger makes their own products, they can advertise them on their blog as a way to make money. This might be a book, beauty product, app, or anything they have created.
Depending if the product is made and distributed by the blogger or shipped by a wholesaler will determine how much of the money the blogger keeps.
They can advertise their product in blog posts with links directly to the product that customers can click through.
Doing so helps to create more business for their product and increase views on their blog, which could help them make more money if they monetized their blog with ads too!
Bloggers earn either directly from the sale of their product, or from the wholesaler with a deduction for the cost of their time and postage.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it, six ways that bloggers get paid!
Bloggers will often use a mixture of these methods to generate as much income as possible from their blogs.
While this means having lots of irons in the fire, it is a surefire way to boost the worth of your blog and create multiple streams of income.
Also, these different ways of earning from a blog are not all implemented at the beginning of the blogging journey.
Often bloggers would start with ads and affiliates to then move to their own product which usually requires more effort to create compared to promoting someone else’s product.
I’m a blogger and entrepreneur. I want to help you in your journey to build your business online.
