One of the biggest misconceptions that I see bloggers having about monetising blogs is that they have to do it in one of a handful of ways. The reality is that there are many ways to make money from blogs.
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As you’ll see there are quite a few options that bloggers have to derive income from their blogs.
Don’t worry though – while this map is quite overwhelming at a first glance there are a few main ‘clusters’ of income streams that you might want to focus upon rather than all the specific ones.
1. Advertising Income
This is where many bloggers start. In many ways this model of making money from blogs is not dissimilar to how a magazine or newspaper sells ads. As your traffic and brand grows you’ll find advertisers will be willing to pay to get exposure to your audience.
While you need decent traffic to do a direct deal with an advertisers there are ad networks (like Google AdSense) that act as a middleman and enable smaller publishers to run ads on their blogs. This is where many bloggers start (I did too).
2. Affiliate Income
A recent survey of ProBlogger readers found that affiliate promotions was the most common type of income that our readers have.
To put it most simply – affiliate income is when you link to a product that is for sale on another site (take Amazon for example) and if someone follows your link and ends up buying that product you earn a commission on that sale.
There’s more to it than that but this is another great place to start with monetising your blog as affiliate programs are easy to sign up for and if you have an engaged audience you will find they follow the recommendations that you make on products.
Further reading on affiliate income:
- The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with the Amazon Affiliate Program
- 10 Popular Affiliate Programs for Small and Medium Sized Blogs
3. Events
While not something most bloggers do I have noticed an increase in the number of bloggers making money by running events.
These range from big conferences and events like our Blogger Conference which hosts hundreds of bloggers every year right down to smaller meet-ups for a blogger’s readers where money is made either through charging readers to attend or by finding a sponsor for the event.
Alternatively online events or summits are getting more popular.
4. Recurring Income
Another growing category of income that I’m seeing more and more bloggers are experimenting is recurring income streams (sometimes called continuity programs or membership programs).
This is where readers pay a regular recurring amount (usually on a monthly or annual basis) for access to either premium content, a community area, some kind of service, tools, coaching (or some combination of these things).
6. Promoting a Business
Many brick and mortar businesses indirectly make money from their blogs by using their blogs to grow their profile and direct readers to their business.
7. Services
A common way that many bloggers make money is through offering services to their readers. These might be anything from coaching and consulting, to writing or copywriting, to design, training or other freelance services.
8. Products
While I started out making money from my blogs through advertising and affiliate promotions today my #1 source of income is through selling eBooks and courses on my blogs. These ‘virtual products’ take work to create but have been lucrative for me and many other bloggers.
Products can of course take many forms and income virtual information products like eBooks or courses but also other virtual products like software, reports etc.
The other type of product some bloggers sell is physical products. This is most common when the blogger has a business but sometimes bloggers also create merchandise (T-shirts etc) or other physical products to sell.
Other Income Streams
There are of course other forms of income that bloggers experiment with. Some include asking for donations, syndicating content to other sites and lastly selling their blogs.
Multiple Income Streams
Most full time bloggers make money more than one way and end up with multiple income streams.
Diversifying your income in this way not only is smart and helps you spread the risk from having all your eggs in one basket but it also speeds up the journey to going full time.
I learned this lesson the hard way after having most of my income coming from one source in the early days but after a bit of a bad experience began to diversify my income streams (read about that here) – it was one of the best things I ever did!
Today I make money from around 12 different streams.
Direct or Indirect Income?
One last little distinction in terms of income streams…. Some bloggers make money directly ‘from’ their blog while others make money indirectly ‘because’ of their blog.
Direct Income – when I started making money from my blogs it was through ‘direct’ income streams. I put AdSense ads on my blog and promoted some products on Amazon as an affiliate and the more readers I had the more income began to trickle in (it really was a trickle at first). In time as my traffic grew this income grew and I was also able to experiment with other direct forms of income such as selling advertising directly to advertisers.
Indirect Income – later on in my blogging journey opportunity has come for ‘indirect’ income streams. As my blogs and profile grew as a result of my blogging I was able to sell my services as a speaker and consultant and was offered the opportunity to author a book with the publisher Wiley. Later I was able to start an event for bloggers which also made money. None of this income came directly from the blog – but rather it came ‘because’ of my blog.
While the way that I make money blogging is a combination of direct and indirect income many bloggers focus upon one or the other.
I hope that this article has helped you on your journey to make money from a blog.