7 Ways To Make Money Blogging - The Humble Penny (2024)

Blogging is a really interesting medium for self expression.

Thinking back a few years ago, I heard about blogging and often thought it was for people with a hardcore passion for writing.

I even mildly envied such people and wondered why I was born with no creative gene in me at all.

I was ofcourse wrong and each day I commit my precious spare time to blogging, I realise how ever more creative I am becoming.

What I have come to understand now is that blogging is a medium for people with stories to tell.

It is a beautiful way of bringing your ideas out of yourself, whilst pausing and really considering your thought process.

I have previously introduced you to how mind mapping helps my blog process as I explore more ways to flex my creative muscle.

Today, I am looking at blogging differently and scratching the surface on the possible commercial aspects of blogging.

In 85 Ways to Make Extra Money, I introduced blogging as the number one way to make extra money.

Ofcourse there a tonne of ways to make money. However, the reason I think many will benefit from learning about how to make money blogging is because:

• It's extremely cheap to start and run from anywhere in the world
• You can do it in your private free time, with minimal time commitment
• It is something you can begin immediately and run however you want. Key is to Start.

Making more money is a lever on your path to plotting an escape plan and choosing Financial Independence.

Not all blogs make money or are interested in it though.

However, if you’re ever intrigued by how blogs make money, or if you’re considering starting your own blog, then you’ll find the below interesting.

Below are 7 Ways to Make Money Blogging –

1. Affiliate Marketing (passive)

This is a major income source and requires deep learning. It easily makes up 50% of blogging income. See chart further down.

It is where you (the affiliate) market a product or service on your blog by placing a link in your blog posts and earning an income as a result of people performing certain actions such as making a purchase through that link.

[yellowbar]It's an opportunity for you to promote products or services you have used or love or you think will be helpful and add value to people.[/yellowbar]

There are a variety of ways of promoting your products, some of which include doing a review or writing a blog post about it etc.

The beauty of this is that once you have done that, that post or review may earn you an income many weeks or months down the line, and you only do minimal work to maintain it.

It is a mostly Passive Income source, which means you can actually make an money in your sleep, on holiday or whilst chilling somewhere.

HERE'S THE CATCH – You MUST invest in learning how to become a guru at Affiliate Marketing as many people get this wrong.

To have blogging income success, you should definitely invest in learning how to make life easy for yourself!

There are techniques you NEED to learn, which cannot be covered in this blog post.

Feel free to join the waiting list for my Affiliate Marketing Course, which will be hosted on Teachable.

Alternatively, grab me for a face to face Power Session.

2. Blog Sponsorship(passive)

This is where you get paid to place a piece of content on your blog as an advertisem*nt.

These could be a sponsored review, a link in your blog sidebar, a guest blog post or even an advertisem*nt in your newsletter.

You can get these by going directly to companies to advertise or you can simply join one of the many advertising networks (such as Mediavine, AdThrive etc)

3. Private Coaching (active)

You can get paid here for your expertise in a hands on capacity.

With Private Coaching, you spend more of your time listening, with the focus on helping someone arrive at the answer to their problem.

Coaching isn't for everyone though as you really have to be a people person and interested in genuinely helping someone solve their problem.

Not all coaching involves money neither. I have for example been coaching and mentoring students at the University of London for the last 6 years, 100% pro-bono!

4. Corporate Consulting (active)

Again, you get paid here for your expertise in a hands on capacity.

However, consulting is very different as you are there to offer direct answers to problems.

Both coaching and consulting require different approaches to communication, but from an income perspective, they command high margins as a result.

5. Display Advertising (passive)

This is where you place an advert (text, image, flash, video or audio) from an ad network on any location on your blog.

This could be in the sidebar, below a header image or blog post.

The more people view this advert, the money you stand to earn. This is an easy way to make money blogging as you simply insert the code that you get provided with.

6. Selling Your Own Product (passive)

You can make alot of money from selling digital products, but you have to work very hard and think very differently here.

With digital products, it's really not about traffic per se. It's more about how loyal your audience is and how well you can serve them by solving their specific problems.

[redbar]Digital products can help you help people in a much more in depth way than you can do from just a blog post.[/redbar]

There is something really satisfying about making money from something you created yourself.

The best part of selling your own digital products (ebooks, courses etc) is that you only need to do the work once and you have access to possibleforever passive lifetime income without you ever needing to be there.

This passive income is also of high margin and profitability as all you have to do is pay a platform like Teachable to host your products.

And let's not forget, the assets are yours and can be sold in multiple different ways and markets.

Note that you definitely don't need to have a huge following or have been blogging for a long time before creating your first eBook or digital product.

7. Speaking engagements (active)

This option is open to those who have the time and passion for speaking.

I personally enjoying speaking and see it as a way of pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

Of course not all speaking engagements have anything to do with money. However, one can get paid for their expertise if it is something they desire.

How much can you actually make blogging?

Sam at The Financial Samurai did an amazing job of breaking down what a pro blogger's income could look like:

If blogging is something you're interested in for fun and/or for an income, then you should definitely join my Free 7 Day email course below:

I personally absolutely love blogging and see it as a TV replacement activity.

I'd totally recommend it as a way to improve your communication, whilst also having fun and influence.

It can also serve as a great way of improving an already existing business through thought leadership.

Related:

7 Reasons Why You Need To Start A Blog Today

Plot Your Escape. Choose Financial Independence

Ever considered starting a blog? What's been your hold back? Do comment below.

Do please share this post if you found it useful, and remember,in all things be thankful and Seek Joy.