I knew more readers would equal more money and that’s what I focused on. Which is great but there are much more effective ways to make money than just focusing on getting more viewers.

The first thing you need to start making money blogging is, well, a blog. If you haven’t started a blog yet, I recommend using Bluehost as your hosting company. You can start your own blog for as little as $2.95 when you sign up through my link.

For more information on starting your own successful blog, check out my step-by-step tutorial to get your blog up and running.

The four main ways bloggers make money

1. Display advertising

Having higher page views doesn’t always mean more money, but it certainly helps. When you display advertisements on your website, you usually get paid per 1000 page views (RPM) from whatever advertising company you partner with.

I started out with Media.net in the beginning and was getting paid ~$1.5 per 1000 page views. You could also go with Google Adsense, but they are a bit harder to get on with. Once you have a larger number of page views you can join with an elite company like Adthrive. I am now making between $7-$10 per 1000 page views (much better, right?)

2. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you partner with companies and promote their products or services within your posts or on your social media accounts. Each company will give you a special link that when someone clicks on it there will be a code that tracks that the link came from you. Then you receive a commission from each sale.

Many companies pay 20-40% commission rates to their affiliates. So you see there is big potential in affiliate marketing. I highly recommend taking Michelle’s course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. She makes $50k a month just in affiliate income! Crazy, huh?

3. Sponsored content

Companies like Izea find opportunities where other companies pay you to write posts about their product or services. I’ve gotten paid up to $400 for writing a post and sharing it on my social media accounts.

You can also get paid for sharing sponsored Tweets and Instagram or Facebook posts with your audience. That’s the importance of growing a following. The larger and more engaged your audience is, the more you can get paid.

4. Product creation

This is the best way to make money with your blog, but so many bloggers are scared to create a product.

Here are a couple of ideas of products that you could sell, depending on your audience:

• Courses teaching your knowledge
• Ebooks
• Printables
• Drawings
• Crafts
• Handmade items
• Photos (stock photos)
• Podcasts
• And the list goes on

If you want to start your blog the right way, I highly suggest checking out the Blog to Online Business Strategy Guide. Most bloggers simply create a website and write blog posts without any real plan or course of action to start making the kind of money that could change their lives.

You will walk away with your own business plan in place (and it will be perfect for your unique business), the tools you need to put your business plan into action, ideas on how to bring traffic to your website, how to grow your email list full of potential customers that love you, and how to use that list to sell to your readers over and over.

You can learn more about the Blog to Online Business Strategy Guide here.

How long before you will start making money?

There is no set time for when you start making money in the blogging world. I’ve known bloggers that started making $3000 in their 3rd-month blogging and some that are making tens of thousands a month after just a year or two. And there are also some bloggers that don’t make anything.

I was making $2300 a month in my 7th-month blogging but didn’t really make much until a couple of months before. It all depends on how much you learn and how much you do.

You will have to put in work to start making money. There is a learning curve to being in this business. You should definitely expect to work hard for a while and you will see all of your hard work pay off later down the road. For me, I worked my butt off in the beginning and made very little. But now I make a full-time income and I don’t have to put in much effort at all to stay where I am at now. I’m focused on continuing to grow my blog so I still have to work a lot if I want that to happen.

Simply put, you make what you put into it.

Freelancing

Many bloggers acquire skills along the way and this helps them to do jobs on the side. For example, some bloggers that really learn how to use Pinterest for driving traffic could work as a Virtual Assistant for a blogger that doesn’t have time to work on their Pinterest account.

You could also start a Fiverr account and offer services there. If you get really good at creating graphics, editing, writing, etc. you could easily start doing that for other business owners. Freelancing is a great way to make money while you are building your blog up.

Have any questions or comments? Let me know down below!

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This post may contain affiliate links. Products ordered through this link may result in a commission, which helps to keep the content on this site free.  The opinions expressed in this post are my own.  Any health advice that may be in this post has not been evaluated by the FDA. The products and methods recommended are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any illness or disease, nor is it intended to replace proper medical help. Read my full disclosure policy here.