How to make money blogging fast as a freelance writer

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June 28, 2021
5 minute read

If you’ve got a passion for writing, blogging can be a fantastic way to make money online. There are not only multiple ways to make money blogging, but many opportunities to increase the revenue you get from your blogging business. But there’s a catch: the most successful bloggers don’t act like a casual writer. They treat their blog like a serious business. And that’s what you have to do if you want to make money blogging.

In this guide, we’re covering how to make money blogging as a freelance writer.

What is a blog?

On a foundational level, a blog is content published online, much like the digital version of a newspaper, magazine, or serial book. More practically, blogs are also an opportunity for newbie writers to get their voice out there, build a community, demonstrate their expertise, and pave their way towards becoming a freelance writer for hire.

Business models for blogs

The way you run your blog will depend on how you want to make money (see more in the monetization section of this post), but the main business model formula is the same:

Page views = revenue opportunities

The more page views you have, the more opportunity you have to make money blogging. It’s that simple. That’s because your website operates almost like a digital billboard (or in some cases, a digital storefront). Your content is either a product that you sell to readers or you use content to attract people to your blog, which gives you more ways to make money blogging.

Non-monetary considerations

Blogs are also digital homes for ideas and perspectives—even ones you don’t try to monetize. Depending on which topic you choose, you have the opportunity to showcase your style, opinions, knowledge, and more.

The main elements of a blog

Regardless of the topic, ways you hope to make money blogging, and overall goals you may have, every blog has the same foundational elements:

Domain name: This is the URL you type in to access the website and it’s how Google’s search bots crawl your website for SEO purposes. If you build on Wordpress or similar, you can often get a domain name included.

Primary topic or focus: Every blog needs a primary topic, type of writing, or focus area that readers can rely on. If you don’t have this focus, you’ll confuse readers or draw in the wrong kinds of readers to your blog.

Categorization: Your website needs some form of categorization, even if it’s just a news blog run chronologically. Good categorization means you can produce a wider range of content, giving you both more creative freedom and more SEO opportunities. Blogging platforms like Wordpress make this process relatively easy.

Content: No blog is complete without blog posts! This can be any kind of content, from written posts to quizzes and more, but it’s the lifeblood of your blogging business.

Backend business model or goal: Blogs take a lot of effort to sustain, so you’ll need some sort of business model (or passion) that makes a blog worth it. Since every website has expenses that happen regardless of how you plan to make money blogging (like hosting costs), you need a plan to cover those expenses.

The keys to making money as a blogger

If you want to make money blogging, you need to have the four keys in place: mindset, content, monetization, and traffic.

Mindset: The first thing you need to remember is that you are an entrepreneur, and your blog content is your product.

Content: You need to produce consistent, high-quality content to succeed with a blog. Further, it must cultivate topical authority, meaning you become the go-to resource for a specific topic or type of content.

Monetization: You need a plan in place to make money blogging, both to start and one that you hope to expand into. Blogs make money through a variety of means, and the most successful bloggers will often mix their revenue strategies to some degree.

Traffic: Every successful blog needs traffic and every strategy you can use to make money blogging relies on traffic to some extent.

Types of blogs

There are an estimated 500 million blogs on the internet, covering nearly every topic imaginable. That means good news: you can write about any topic you want and chances are there’s an audience for it. If you already have an established blog, consider these topics as guideposts to expand into. If you’re thinking of starting a blog as a business, here are the key types of blogs to consider.

Personal/opinion/experiential

The personal opinion or experience blog is almost like a public journal or diary. You explain your world, what’s going on, and what you’re up to.

What you focus on: Yourself! Your life, your interests, and your world.

Common topics included in this type of blog: Shopping hauls, personal product reviews, or explaining a concept through your own experience (such as talking about money by sharing your money habits and experiences).

Expertise on a subject

An expertise website is when you want to become a go-to resource online for a specific topic.

What you focus on: The topic itself. For example: a website about ecommerce. You could go down a practical route (“how to start an ecommerce blog”), a history route (“the history of ecommerce”) or something else entirely (“how ecommerce is changing the world”).

Common topics included in this type of blog: Pretty much any topic in the world. Popular topics for expertise blogs include: entrepreneurship, blogging, and money.

News or reporting

While most traditional news organizations started with a geography in mind—think The Washington Post or The New York Times—news bloggers tend to focus on a specific subject or niche, covering the news with a mix of editorial ideas and in-depth content that mainstream media might not pick up.

What you focus on: Any niche subject that has an active community. You report the facts of different stories or provide op-ed commentary for people to understand what’s going on contextually.

Common topics included in this type of blog: Tech news, crypto news, ecommerce news, political news from a unique angle, or business news from a unique angle.

Human interest

As the name suggests, human interest blogging is all about humans. You tell stories, connect with people, and give people a digital spotlight for their work.

What you focus on: People. Who they are, where they come from, and what they are doing.

Common topics included in this type of blog: Any topic, but you focus on the human angle. A famous example is Humans of New York, where a photographer shares stories of regular New Yorkers. But you could also write a fashion website focused on models or designers, for instance.

General knowledge on a subject

If you know a lot about a specific subject, you could produce a general knowledge website where you write content for all expertise levels in a way that’s easy to understand.

What you focus on: Explaining concepts to all different kinds of audiences.

Common topics included in this type of blog: Science, business, money, investing, real estate, and more. Any topic that has sophisticated people at the top and a lot of uneducated people at the bottom could benefit from a general knowledge blog.

Specific types of content blogs

Think quiz blogs, longform blogs, hot take blogs, etc. Essentially, you write about a variety of subjects but always within the same type of content.

Sometimes you don’t want to become known for a topic, but rather for the way you present content. That’s when a specific type of content website can be valuable.

What you focus on: Any topic and how it can fit into the structure you choose (only longform, only quizzes, only short form, etc.)

Common topics included in this type of blog: All topics work, but the most successful blogs tend to focus on entertaining and shareable content.

7 ways to make money blogging

To make money blogging, you need a business model and a monetization plan. Here are the main ways that a website can make money.

Ad revenue

What it is: When you place digital ads throughout your blog. You’re paid for how many people see the ad (called CPM) and in many cases you’re also paid if someone clicks an ad on your website (called CPC).

Difficulty to set up: Very easy. Most blogs can get approved for Google AdSense and start earning money from the beginning because you don’t need much traffic to apply for Google AdSense.

Difficulty to scale: Moderately easy. Premium monetization platforms like Sortable or Mediavine have traffic requirements. The applications themselves are simple, but you need to prove that you’re generating tens (or hundreds) of thousands of website visitors per month to qualify. After that though, you will make money blogging a lot more easily - you might even find your revenue doubles overnight.

Who it’s best for: Newbie bloggers (because it’s easy to set up) or blogs with a lot of traffic, since it's one of the easiest ways to make money blogging.

Affiliate marketing or affiliate programs

What it is: Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money blogging when you advertise someone else’s products or online courses in your site content, using a custom affiliate link. If someone clicks on your link and buys a product or online course, you get a commission (called CPA). You can also sometimes earn affiliate commissions for lead generation (called CPL), but that depends on the brand you’re working with.

Difficulty to set up: Very easy. Amazon Associates, Clickbank, ShareASale, Rakuten, and other affiliate programs make it simple to sign up for an account, get custom links, and start promoting products on your blog.

Difficulty to scale: Moderately high. Scaling affiliate marketing requires high quality SEO, great content, and a lot of trust with your audience. Plus, premium affiliate marketing networks (that pay much higher commissions) are by application only.

Who it’s best for: Blogging if you regularly talk about products or online courses, since affiliate marketing is geared towards selling things.

Sponsored articles

What it is: Sponsored articles are a way to make money online where a brand pays you to write a feature on them (or a topic of their choosing) and publish it on your blog. The brand gets to put out a custom message to their target audience - the readers of their site - and you are paid to produce the articles.

Difficulty to set up: Medium. Selling sponsored articles can be lucrative, but you have to build authority on your site so brands want to work with you. From there, you have to cultivate relationships with individual media buyers and compete with other blogs in your niche.

Difficulty to scale: Hard. Sponsored content is a delicate balance of telling a great story, promoting a brand, and staying within any sponsored content guidelines from the FCC in the United States. It takes a lot of effort to get right.

Who it’s best for: Blogging if you have a background in partnerships or sales who can more easily manage the business side of sponsored content.

Lead generation for your services

What it is: This is way to make money online where you use blogging, and the content on your website, to attract potential customers who might hire you for freelance services or as a consultant.

Difficulty to set up: Medium. Content marketing takes time to set up, and you may not close any clients off your blog immediately (or for months).

Difficulty to scale: Medium to hard. Once your site starts attracting clients, attracting more is relatively easy because you’re connected into the right community. You’ll just need to be mindful of your capacity, since more clients means more work and growing a blog also means more work.

Who it’s best for: Freelancers and consultants that also enjoy writing.

Selling your own products

What it is: Using your website articles to build credibility and sell your own products, whether digital (a course or download) or physical (merchandise or other actual products).

Difficulty to set up: Medium. Blogging to sell your own products requires an SEO strategy, highly relevant articles, and potentially an email marketing engine running in the background.

Difficulty to scale: Medium to hard. Like selling services, if you have a system that’s working then you can usually scale it without too much difficulty.

Memberships and subscriptions

What it is: When you sell articles as a product. Readers pay monthly to access the articles and you focus all article development efforts on your subscribers.

Difficulty to set up: Hard. Building trust with readers is challenging. You also have to balance producing just enough free articles to entice people while ensuring you keep great articles behind the paywall so subscribers get extra value.

Difficulty to scale: Hard. Even with a great marketing engine behind you, scaling a membership site is difficult. You have to continually provide value to paying subscribers, build a free audience, and create a free-to-paid funnel.

Who it’s best for: Bloggers who come from a marketing background or experts in a specific subject who can teach people via your articles (which makes a subscription valuable).

Patronage

What it is: When your audience wants to support you as an individual creator and writer. In return you provide them with exclusive articles or access to you (via Q&As, etc.).

Difficulty to set up: Hard. Patronage is usually based on having a brand, and that means setting up a significant number of free articles to build a community.

Difficulty to scale: Hard. Even with a trusting community, it’s difficult to scale the free-to-paid pipeline because you need to continually create free articles to draw new people in and manage the increasing demands of a growing patron base.

Who it’s best for: Writers who are also creatives, such as fiction writers, storytellers, artists, etc.

11 things high-revenue bloggers do that low-revenue bloggers don’t

The most successful bloggers plan for success, whether they do it as a side hustle or full-time gig. Low-revenue bloggers, on the other hand, just write blog content and hope for the best. Here are some of the things that high-revenue bloggers do to stand out.

1. They think of their blog as a business

First and foremost, being a professional blogger is a job and running a successful blog is a business. The most successful bloggers know that. They understand that articles are a product that must align to a broader strategy of how they plan to make money online. Further, they have things like a media kit in place so they can more easily become cited experts in their field, which helps build their blog’s authority and open up new business opportunities.

2. They treat every monetization opportunity like a business line

Many bloggers will consider multiple different income streams, such as having banner ads from different ad networks, selling a course, joining an affiliate program, or selling sponsored articles on their blogs. Or selling both products and services via their site.

The most successful bloggers that do this are the ones that view each monetization opportunity like a business line and a different way to make money online. For example: It’s not just about being able to place an ad. It’s the fact that earning ad revenue requires a whole different funnel (high traffic, high engagement) versus something like selling services (focusing on the right kind of traffic—people with budgets for services).

3. They understand the value of paid traffic

While organic and SEO traffic is highly valuable - and should be the goal of any blogger looking to grow, the most successful bloggers understand the value of paid traffic. They know running an ad for a high-converting affiliate products blog can generate way more profit than relying on organic traffic alone.

4. They focus on high-intent and high-value items

When you run a blog for business purposes, you have to focus your efforts on marketable goods and services. Yes, you can focus on your passion (for example, real estate), but if you want to make money with your website then you need to focus on high value items (for example, getting a mortgage or redoing a whole kitchen) versus small items (for example, a single discount doorknob).

This is especially valuable for affiliate bloggers, since they can get bigger commissions from high-value items, but it applies to any type of blogger. While “intent” might mean something different if you’re selling courses, you still have to focus on the big win people are willing to pay for.

5. They have a unique voice

Because there are over 500 million blogs in the world, there’s a solid chance someone else is already writing about the topic you want to. A successful blogger knows they need a unique take on their topic that is authentic to them.

For example: The Penny Hoarder. It’s a personal finance website, so there’s a lot of competition. But when it got started, founder Kyle Taylor didn’t try to compete with blogs writing about budgeting or mortgages. He focused solely on sharing the odd jobs he did to get out of debt. With that focus, TPH became known as a go-to site for people who wanted unique ways to make money. That helped the company build a foundation, which led to its 2020 acquisition for over $100 million.

6. They understand funnels

Successful bloggers don’t just count visitors on their website. They check where those visitors came from, assess how valuable the visitors are, and work to optimize all sources as much as possible. That’s because successful bloggers optimize funnels, not just traffic. They know that certain visitors are worth more based on different strategies they use to make money blogging (for example: people browsing should see an ad-optimized page, while people looking to buy should see an affiliate-optimized page). They then plan different user experiences via newsletters or marketing automation so the right visitor sees the right articles.

7. They cultivate connection with their readers

A successful blog relies, at least at the start, on the blogger’s personal brand. So the most successful bloggers are ones who cultivated connection with their readers, putting their face at the forefront and engaging with anyone who had questions. Some blogs will evolve beyond the blogger’s personal brand, but the reader trust will remain. For many other blogs that stay connected to the blogger’s personal brand, reader trust is critical.

8. They iterate and do what works

In keeping with the idea that running a successful blog is a business, the most successful bloggers are happy to run experiments to see what generates the most money. They don’t get stuck on a certain layout or blog type and hope for the best. Instead, they are willing to try new things, test new concepts, and stick with what works. If something isn’t working, they move on.

9. They sell their own products and services

While you can make a lot of money selling products for other people, the real money is in selling your own products and services. The reason for this is one word: margin. When you sell someone else’s product, you might get 0.5% to 10% as a commission. When you sell your own products and services, you could get 50% to 95% plus as your profit margins. You’ll need to put in the actual work to build the product or deliver the service, but you end up with significantly more money at the end of the day.

10. They view sponsors and brands as partners

A beginner blogger might think of ad revenue or sponsored articles as a fun way to bring in money. A successful blogger knows that it’s a business partnership. There’s so much that goes into a high quality (and profitable) advertising relationship, and successful bloggers think of it all: running sales calls, contracts, sending professional invoices, and more. They also think longer term. Instead of trying to get every dollar today, they talk about ongoing contracts that could last months or even years.

11. They start with one monetization strategy and grow from there

Beginner bloggers want to set up every channel possible to make money with their website. The most successful bloggers know that every monetization channel is a business line that requires thought and effort. Because of that reality, successful bloggers hone in on one strategy, get it to work, then assess whether adding another strategy is a good idea. It might work, but it also might be better to further optimize a single strategy rather than spread yourself too thin.

23 ways to drive more traffic to your blog

Regardless of strategy, if you want to make money from your blog, you need traffic.

1. Pinterest

What it is: Pinterest is a social media platform where you can build visual boards. Instead of posting a text update, you “pin” an image with a hyperlink out to your blog.

Top tips:

  • Make infographics and other visuals that capture people’s attention.
  • Make sure to hyperlink to your blog.
  • Pinterest loves content, so be ready to pin 10+ times per day if you want to see success.

2. Mix.com

What it is: Mix.com is a content aggregation platform where people can post articles for others to save in their private collections or share with their followers.

Top tips:

  • Create topic-focused boards that people can follow.
  • Share all articles to your main feed.
  • Curate other people’s articles to your boards as well so they become more enticing to follow.

3. IndieHackers

What it is: A social network where solo tech entrepreneurs (called “Indie hackers”) talk about every possible aspect of building a solo business.

Top tips:

  • Always make sure to read the topic of a thread before commenting.
  • Focus on sharing practical how-to posts, not just idea posts.
  • Consider sharing some (or all) of your article in the actual Indie Hackers post so people can engage on the platform and click out for more info.

4. SEO

What it is: Writing optimized articles that will increase the chances of your blog showing up on the first page of Google (or Bing).

Top tips:

  • Use a professional keyword research tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs.
  • When blogging for SEO, don’t keyword stuff your articles.
  • Consider an SEO optimization tool like Postpace, Surfer, or Clearscope.

5. Guest blogging

What it is: Writing blog posts to publish on other people’s blogs. Usually you get a link back to your blog in exchange for contributing the articles for free.

Top tips:

  • Focus on a blog topic that the other blog’s readers will like.
  • Only link to your blog when absolutely relevant (don’t link-stuff).
  • Only guest blog on topics you have expertise or experience in.

6. Public relations

What it is: Submitting tips and expertise to the media (or other bloggers) looking for expert commentary.

Top tips:

  • Answer every question in a prompt.
  • Write your answers as if the person won’t reach back out to you—give them everything they need (your web link, your bio, etc.)
  • Use tools like HARO and Help a B2B Writer to find new sources.

7. Twitter

What it is: Twitter is a massive social networking and “micro-blogging” site. But it’s more than that: it’s also a huge community of people that use Twitter to talk about any and every topic imaginable.

Top tips:

  • Join Twitter chats relevant to your niche or to blogging.
  • Tweet your opinions and expertise out to build a following (you can include links to your blogs posts).
  • If someone asks a question and you have a blog post that answers it, respond to their tweet with a short answer plus a link to your blog post.

8. LinkedIn

What it is: LinkedIn is the largest professional social network in the world.

Top tips:

  • Share 2-3x per week.
  • Use hashtags to get more visibility on your posts.
  • Consider re-posting some of your blog posts on LinkedIn natively, with a link out to your blog.

9. Reddit

What it is: A forum and chat website with threads for every topic imaginable.

Top tips:

  • Always read the subreddit rules before posting.
  • Don’t just post your blog link—always include content in the post itself.
  • Engage with people in the subreddits, especially those that ask you questions.

10. Quora

What it is: A question and answer forum.

Top tips:

  • Set up your profile correctly with a picture and your blog link.
  • Only answer questions that are relevant to your blog to build expertise on Quora.
  • Only link out to your blog 30% of the time. Otherwise, answer the question fully in the post with no link. Quora has great SEO, so your name could show up in the top result in Google if you answer questions genuinely.

11. Paid ads

What it is: Spending money to drive traffic to your blog.

Top tips:

  • Only use paid ads on high-converting pages (otherwise you won’t make money back on the ad spend).
  • Don’t only rely on Facebook and Google.
  • Try multiple variations of ad copy and images to test click through rates.

12. Lead magnets

What it is: Giving away something for free (for example, a checklist or ebook) in order to build newsletter subscribers and entice people to check out your brand.

Top tips:

  • Use technology like exit intent popups to encourage people to download your free offering.
  • Make it easy to sign up (for instance, adding a subscription widget in your blog’s sidebar).
  • Make sure the lead magnet genuinely provides information or value.

13. Writing a book

What it is: Write a book around the same topic as your blog in order to build your credibility as an expert in that topic.

Top tips:

  • Think of the book like its own product. Try to sell it and make money online with it.
  • Create a landing page on your blog for your book.
  • Think of your book as a tool to help your other efforts (for instance, public relations).

14. Adding a newsletter to your blog

What it is: Instead of just hoping a reader comes back, collect their email addresses and start a newsletter. That way you build a direct connection with your readers and can send them content to keep them coming back.

Top tips:

  • Add extra value to your newsletter so subscribers get something regular readers don’t (for instance, more commentary or more access to you).
  • Consider using a lead magnet to draw people to subscribe to your newsletter.
  • Think of your newsletter as a product unto itself: you can sell ads or promote affiliate products within a newsletter.

15. Packaging content as a learning center, guide, or mini-course

What it is: Most blogs run chronologically. A learning center, guide, or mini-course packages your blogs together in a specific way to help readers complete a whole journey with multiple touch points.

Top tips:

  • Build a landing page for the learning center or guide so you don’t have to change your blog’s home page.
  • Think of your learning center or guide like a digital book with chapters. Each chapter is a different blog post.
  • Link back to the learning center home page within each blog, so readers don’t get lost.

16. Make the UX easy

What it is: Designing your blog layout so that it’s easy to click through, read content, and stay on the blog for a long time.

Top tips:

  • Add “next post” buttons or infinite scroll to your blog so readers can easily see the next post.
  • Increase your font size to make it easier to read.
  • Remove distractions from your blog pages so they are easy to focus on.

17. Repost and reshare your articles

What it is: Resharing older articles that are still relevant.

Top tips:

  • Schedule posts for resharing on social media so it’s semi-automated.
  • When planning blog posts, note how long you think each one can be shared for (for example: something about major breaking news might only be valuable for 2-3 days. But an ultimate “how to” guide could be shared for months or even years).
  • You can share with notes like “ICYMI” (“in case you missed it”) or “From the vault” so people know you’re resharing and don’t expect the blog to be newly published.

18. Update articles

What it is: Adding new commentary or updating statistics in old blogs so they become relevant again. This is really helpful when the core of a blog is still valuable, but about 25-30% of it is out of date.

Top tips:

  • Focus on updating blogs that used to generate high organic traffic but have fallen lately.
  • Edit the blog to say the original publishing date and the updated date.
  • If you’re updating the URL (for instance: “best-blogs-2020” to “best-blogs-2021”) then make sure to set up a redirect so you don’t lose any organic search traffic.

19. Newsjack

What it is: Writing articles based on an emerging or breaking news story. Or, if you happen upon new news before major outlets pick it up, you can “break” the news on your blog.

Top tips:

  • The news has to be relevant to your blog topic in order to be effective.
  • Don’t lead people on with clickbait.
  • Share the article on social media as well to encourage virality and sharing.

20. Interview or feature people

What it is: Instead of only writing from your perspective or experience, interview other people and share their opinions (or do a feature interview on them for your blog).

Top tips:

  • Ask people for quotes that you can insert into your blogs.
  • Create quote graphics with tools like Canva that make sharing more appealing.
  • When posts go live, send them with anyone quoted and ask that person to share the post.

21. Create a resources page

What it is: A single, living, expandable list of resources that people in your niche might want to use. This can be great for both SEO and affiliate commissions.

Top tips:

  • Add a form so people can submit their own tools (or things they think should be on the page).
  • Design the page with a page builder in Wordpress or something similar, so it’s attractive and easy to use.
  • Expand the list over time so the page stays fresh.

22. Write articles for different experience levels

What it is: Making sure that you write to different expertise levels so anyone can engage with your blog. For example: if you usually write expert articles about ecommerce, consider an “ecommerce for beginners” section.

Top tips:

  • Put all articles in one level (“For Beginners”) into its own category so it’s easier for readers to see what information is for what type of person.
  • Add buttons to your site that make it easy for readers to self-select into their experience level.
  • Before announcing an expansion, make sure you have multiple blog posts (at least 3-5) in the new expertise level.

23. Launch a free community

What it is: Using tools like Facebook Groups or Circle, you can create a free community for people to join. There, you can share your blog posts for people.

Top tips:

  • Invest in community management—having rules, being helpful, and moderating the group.
  • Make it a request to join type of group, and ask a few questions from people to understand why they want to join the group.
  • Provide value in the group itself. Don’t only share your blog post links.

9 ways to increase the money you make from your blog

If you already have a blog that you’re monetizing, then the next step is to maximize how much money you can earn. The key to that is thinking of your value levers and how you can pull them as much as possible.

1. Go up the ad and affiliate value chain

If you’re looking to make money blogging with general tools like Google AdSense, Wordpress Ads, or Amazon Affiliate, then move up the value chain as your blog gets more successful.

One of the best things about blogging is it’s not just that successful bloggers make more money from volume. They also make a higher return. For instance, tools like Sortable and Mediavine pay bloggers 2-5x more than Google AdSense or Wordpress Ads.

2. Get premium ad and affiliate partners

If you don’t want to use an affiliate program or ad platform, you can also expand into setting up your own advertiser relationships. These are much harder to maintain and take effort, but you can end up earning 5-10x more money than if you rely on a network to do it for you.

3. Build audience size

No matter what, more page views on your website means more opportunities to make money blogging. If you can build your audience, such as newsletter subscribers, community members, and loyal readers, then you open up more ways to make money.

4. Build audience engagement and trust

Talk to your audience. Earn their trust. Get their feedback. All of this is critical in the blogging world. There is so much information out there, and people want to get information and insight from someone they trust. If you become that trusted partner, then you are more able to sell to your audience authentically.

5. Raise your rates

If you sell sponsored articles, products, or services, consider raising your rates, especially if your articles produce demonstrable value for people (sales for a brand partner or transformations from your products or services). You might lose some customers, but the higher prices can make up for it. Or, you might even find people buy more at higher prices because it’s higher perceived value. If you’re worried about alienating customers, run a few experiments privately before officially publishing your “new” rates.

6. Add more products and services to sell

One great way to make money blogging is to increase the number of ways you monetize. If you’re only doing ads, try affiliate marketing. If you’re doing ads and affiliates, consider sponsored articles or selling online courses. These options are open to you as long as you’re careful: focus on keeping trust with your readers and being transparent with any changes.

7. Create a membership offering

If your readers regularly tell you how much value they get from your articles, launching a membership or patronage can be a great way to earn more money. The key is to make sure you’re putting high-value articles behind a paywall whil still providing good value for free so you can grow your audience. Further, make it really easy and clear to people that they can pay a little bit ($5-$25 per month usually) to access all of your premium articles.

8. Launch an online store

If your blog focuses on physical products or product reviews, consider selling your own through an online store. If you have a big personal brand, you can sell merchandise. If you don’t, you can launch a Shopify store with drop shipping or product on demand so you don’t have to manage any inventory.

9. Create a premium niche job board

If you write about a topic that people actively hire for, a premium niche job board could be a great way to earn additional money, even if you're only blogging as a side hustle. You can charge companies either per-post or a subscription basis for unlimited posts, making it easy for them to advertise their jobs to your audience. Job boards can also be a great source of new page views for your website, since job seekers regularly scour job boards looking for opportunities.

Remember: Blogging is a business

Blogging can be a lucrative business, generating thousands per month once it gets set up even as a side hustle. But making money online is also a really, really difficult path for many people. Even famous bloggers like Pat Flynn and Darren Rowse took a long time to build their brand. If you’re a writer and want to grow your blog, there are a lot of opportunities open to you. The key is to be open to experimenting, trying to see what works, and moving on from the failures.