I get asked a lot of questions about blogging and with almost 10 years experience at blogging, I guess by now I know most the answers whether I realize it or not.
Two of the questions I get asked the most about blogging are, “Can you make money blogging?” and “How do you make money blogging?.
Can I make money blogging?
The answer is yes, you can make money blogging, but it isn’t easy.
If you have not started your blog see my tips for starting a blog.
There are a handful of ways to make money on a blog and you have to figure out which work best for you. What works for one person may not ever work for your site. I know because I have tried so many different ways to make money blogging that at some point I lost count of how many I have tried.
What I have found is that although there are hundreds of programs out there that promise you will make money using them on your blog; very few are worth your time. Here are some I have tried and can recommend.
Make Money with Sponsored Posts
Each of these is essentially a middleman type company. All of them hire bloggers to promote products through their blogs and social media channels.
Clever
Izea – With Izea you can bid for paid work for your blog or for your social media channels.
Make Money Through Affiliate Marketing
There are lots of ways to add affiliate links to your site, but this can be extremely time-consuming.
Skimlinks – Takes every link on your website and turns it into an affiliate link. All you have to do is install the code.
LinkShare – I have used this in the past, but currently I am not running any ads from them. I have nothing negative to say about them and there is no particular reason I am not using them at the moment. The one ad I did run in the past with them was a Lego ad. Join LinkShare Today! You can sign up for an account and browse through the companies available through them.
Commission Junction is another ad network that has lots of different companies you can choose from. I have been trying their ads for a while, but have yet to make any money off of them. That is where I got the Travelocity and Priceline ads. They charge you fees to work with them, which they take out of any revenue you make.
Goldstar – The newest way I’m trying to make money blogging is with Goldstar. They have discount tickets for shows and plays in different cities. Chances are they offer 50% off tickets in your city or a city near you.
ShareASale – I have not been using shareasale.com for very long, but I was able to meet with the people behind this website while I was at Blogher and I was very impressed. They like working with bloggers and want you to succeed. They are growing too. With Google ending their affiliate ad network, Shareasale has picked up many of their merchants. Which means there is a high chance they work with a company you might want to work with.
Make Money on Your Blog with Ads
Google Adsense – You can make about $100 per quarter if you have 14,000 pageviews a month on your website with Google Adsense. Typically Google Adsense is the lowest-paying ad network, but they do not have minimum page view requirements. If you are building your blog, chances are this is better than no money at all. Also, once you build up your YouTube channel you can add Google Adsense ads to your videos.
Media Vine – I have not used Media Vine yet, but I do plan to apply. I have many blogging friends that use this as their only ad network and they are really happy with it. So, happy that after all these years I am going to switch over. You have to have a minimum of 25,000 unique monthly visitors to apply.
SheKnows / BlogHer
Monumetric / The Blogger Network
CafeMedia / AdThrive
