Have you ever wondered how people make money from blogging?

Blogging is a great way to make extra money are, but I’ve realised that many people aren’t quite sure how bloggers do this. So I thought I would put this post together to help you answer that question.

Blogs can make money from just one, or any combination of the ways I’ve listed below.

Sponsored posts

A sponsored post is where a company ask you to write about them, their products or their services for a fee. This can be a great boost to any blogger’s earnings and how much they are paid often depends on their stats. Every company is looking for something different, it could be a high number of page views, a large social media following or just good domain authority. As a blog reader you should be able to tell which posts are sponsored, as they need to have a disclosure telling you that they are sponsored.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is where you promote a product or a service and you earn a commission for every sale or sign up that you drive. There are so many positives to affiliate marketing – one of the biggest is that someone doesn’t have to buy a product or service that you have linked to there and then. If they come back and make a purchase at a later date, you can still earn a commission.

Affiliate marketing can also be a passive income stream for bloggers – create the content once and keep earning from it in the future.

Advertising

Selling advertising space on blogs is a great way to earn money from blogging. The easiest way to get started with display advertising is to use a service such as Google Adsense and Mediavine. Display the code on your blog and earn some advertising income every time that your advert is displayed, and also when it is clicked. Bloggers can also sell advertising space to brands and other bloggers, either privately or with the help of an agency.

Social media

There are companies and brands who are looking to get their products or services in front of many consumers, and one way that they do this is to ask bloggers to advertise items on their social media. The great thing about this is that anyone can make money from social media, not just big blogger. If you have developed a decent social media following then consider monetising your social media accounts.

Link selling

Another way for bloggers to make money is through link selling. When brands and companies want to get higher results in search engines they need other websites to link back to them. This can be done through a variety of methods, but a very common one that saves time is to just pay for a link from another blogger. Typically this is done with a company buying a guest post on your blog, and then including a link to their client in that post. These posts are quick and easy to copy and paste, meaning you can generally make money quite quickly.

Selling related products or services

Bloggers typically have an area of expertise, and therefore they are known as an authority on that subject. This means that they can offer additional products to their readers. Massive bloggers like Zoella have created beauty ranges, but it can be anything. Publishing books, creating products, selling printables or even making courses to sell to readers is a great way for bloggers to make money. Another way for bloggers to make money is to offer virtual assistance to other people, usually bloggers or brands who need some help with blogger outreach (finding other bloggers to work with) and social media.

Read more: Why Selling Digital Products Is The Perfect Side Hustle

Public speaking & event attendance

Similar to selling related products and services, if a blogger is well known in their area of expertise then they could be offered paid public speaking jobs. It could be anything from a short speech to an entire day’s workshop. Alternatively, brands may pay for bloggers to attend their event – the blogger gets a fee for attending and usually a fee for their travel and the brands get publicity.

Reviews

Every blogger has a different policy on accepting items for review – some bloggers are happy to accept the item as payment, whereas other accept the item and charge a review fee on top. Regardless of whether they accept the item as payment or they take an additional payment, the review should be honest and unbiased, and the blogger should be telling you that they received the item for free.