How to make money blogging: Top tips

(Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash)

Are you looking to make some (or a lot of) money online? You can use blogging to earn money doing what you love from the comfort of your home.

Maybe you already have a blog but don’t know how to monetize it, or you’re thinking of starting one but aren’t sure how.

In this article, we will share with you the top tips on how to make money blogging. Some of them include opportunities to become SkyRefund’s partner. Read on to find out more.

---

---

How to make money blogging?

Here we have listed the best strategies out there - you can choose to try all or just several of them.

Use affiliate marketing

This is an easy way to monetize your blog. Here is how affiliate marketing works:

• There is an advertiser who has a product to sell. They agree to give you a commission from each sale when the buyer is coming from your website.
• You then receive a unique link that tracks your affiliate code so that it’s clear when a buyer uses your link to make a purchase.
• You need to include this affiliate link on your site. You can do so directly in the content or through banner ads. If one of your readers clicks on your unique link and buys the product you have recommended, you will earn a percentage of what they purchased.

Once you include the link in your blog, it will work for you and allow you to make money passively - even while you sleep.

However, it’s best to be authentic and genuine when recommending something so that you sound more believable and your readers trust you. You don’t want to lose your reputation and your loyal audience by recommending products or services that are obviously unrelated to you or of low quality.

To begin, you can go to ad networks like Amazon Associates, or you can find advertisers and businesses with an affiliate program and create private partnerships with them.

You can work with us too!

Do you want to be part of our affiliate program? Are you a travel blogger or write about similar topics?

Then it’s highly possible to become our partner! Contact us for more details.

Place CPC or CPM ads

This is one of the most common ways for bloggers to earn money - simply place ads on your site. There are two popular types you can start with:

1. CPC/PPC ads are “cost per click” or also known as “pay per click” ads that are usually banners you place in your content or sidebar. How they work is, each time a reader clicks on the ad, you get paid. The user doesn’t have to make an actual purchase - that’s why these ads are highly preferred.
2. CPM ads (“cost per 1,000 impressions”) pay you a fixed amount of money based on how many people view the ad.

It’s easy to implement these types of ads. The most popular network for that purpose is Google AdSense. What’s great about this program is that you don’t necessarily need to be in direct contact with advertisers. You just place the banner on your site, Google chooses relevant ads to display based on your content, and your visitors click on them.

There are many similar programs you can try if this one doesn’t work for you.

Sell private ads

If you accumulate enough traffic, you can expect some advertisers to come directly to you and ask you to place their ad on your website. But you can also contact advertisers yourself. That way you are independent and can set your own ad rates.

Private ads can be in the form of banners, buttons, or links.

Moreover, you can make some serious cash writing sponsored posts on your blog or giving a review of an advertiser’s product or service. Another option is to write an underwritten post or series, which means that you can write about any subject, but the advertiser pays for a “Brought to you by” mention in the content.

You can also decide how to charge advertisers. For example, you can ask for a one-time fee for a link within a post. Or, if you are hosting banner ads, you might want to charge your business partner monthly.

Does this sound like a good way to make money blogging? Then you’ll be happy to know we might become your next partner!

Do you think your target audience will be interested in our services? Contact us. Let’s protect their air passenger rights and help them claim compensation for delayed and cancelled flights together!

In addition, you can maximize your income by selling sponsorship space in your podcasts, videos and email newsletters (with the help of easy to use email marketing software).

Sell digital products

Do you prefer selling your own products insteading of advertising someone else’s?

You could sell digital items such as:

• eBooks;
• PDFs, worksheets, etc.;
• Online courses and workshops;
• Apps;
• Plugins;
• Themes;
• Images, video, or music for people to use in their own content.

However, before you develop a product, make sure to do some careful research. It’s important to find out what your audience will consider helpful and will actually pay for.

Use your blog as a content marketing tool

Do you own a business?

You can use your blog the old-fashioned way and actually sell physical products on it. The idea is not to think of it as your official online store but as a content marketing tool that will drive visitors to your business website.

Publish only quality content on your blog so that you convert readers to loyal customers. When you consistently publish great articles that are relevant to your business, this will help you build your brand and become more recognised.

Use it to build credibility

You can start as a blogger, gain recognition and later develop your own business. Then you’ll automatically have your first clients - they’ll be your readers whom you have won with your quality content.

Moreover, once you have authority, you might be approached with different offers, such as:

• co-authoring a book related to your expertise;
• speaking at conferences;
• running employee training days.

Or maybe you already have a small business and it’s difficult to find customers? Why not try blogging about relevant topics? This will help you reach your target audience better and build credibility.

Sell memberships

Another way to make money blogging is to sell memberships to exclusive corners of your site. For example, a career blog might charge a reasonable monthly fee for users to gain access to the job board. A startup business blog can sell memberships to its forum where readers can get personalized advice about their business.

What’s essential is that your exclusive membership needs to be valuable enough so that it’s worth paying for.

How to make money blogging? Before you start

What’s key to understand is that you need to put in some serious work if you want to become a successful blogger. There is no easy and miraculous way to do it.

Before you start blogging, here is what you should know:

1. Focus on creating quality content

   Naturally, people need to want to read your blog for you to make money from it. Always think about them first and try to engage them.

2. Experiment

   See what other people in your industry are doing and start there but don’t be afraid to experiment. Try different methods to see which work best for you. 

3. Connect with people

   Don’t focus solely on your blog. If you want to be successful, you need to build relationships - with sponsors, affiliate partners and/or other bloggers who will direct traffic to your site. Spend some time on forums and other blogs, for example, so that you can work on creating those relationships.

4. SEO is important

   Are you familiar with the term “search engine optimization”? If you want your blog to reach more people, it needs to appear on the first couple of pages of search engines. Achieving this task requires good research of competitors and keywords, optimization for mobile and more. Luckily, you can learn everything you need online for free.

   Now, let’s see a more detailed approach to successful blogging. Here are the essential steps of the process.

---

---

How to make money blogging: Step by step

1. Do some research

   First you need to pick a profitable blog niche. What are people searching for? What can you bring to the table?

   What’s successful and what’s missing? Find the gaps in the market.

   It’s important to be interested in what you’ll write about because otherwise, readers will notice your lack of passion and will be bored too. Track current trends - apart from social media, you can use Google Trends to see what people want to know more about. Look at forums and what common FAQs are.

   However, you should know that if you count only on your passion to make you money, it won’t happen. You need to combine your interests with what’s actually profitable. Many new bloggers fail to grasp this, and that’s the number one reason they don’t succeed.

2. Create your own blog

   Once you’ve done the research and decided what your site will be about, it’s time to actually create it.

   If you want to have complete control over design and customisation, as well as the URL, and to be able to implement adverts and affiliate links as you like, you’ll have to pay for a domain name and for hosting.

   A good option is to use self hosted WordPress - it’s a common choice for those who want a professional money making blog.

3. Create good content

   Your content needs to be of high quality. There is so much competition out there that you really need to shine. People have to want to read and even share your posts.

   For that purpose, make sure your articles are well-formatted, with relevant images, engaging and helpful, providing links to other posts expanding on the subject.

   You can provide different types of content - tutorials, how-to guides, reviews, interviews, lists, ebooks, and so on. It all depends on your niche, abilities and preferences.

4. Find your audience

   Use social media to your advantage and promote your blog. Use hashtags and tags, get involved, respond to current trends and relevant news (so called “newsjacking”). Communicate with and tag fellow bloggers, even if they’re your competition. They can return the favour and since you’ll have a shared audience, this will be a great way to gain new readers.

   In addition, there are several Wordpress plugins that can help you put social sharing buttons on your blog posts. You can choose one or several that you most like. Just don’t go overboard because they can make your site heavier and slower to load, which will frustrate users, and we don’t want that to happen because it can drive them away before they have even given you a chance.

   What’s more, learn enough about SEO to apply the main principles to your site so that users find you organically as well. Those include using your main keyword in your title, the first and last 100 words of your article and a few more times.

   Bonus tip: Maybe you haven’t thought much about this, but it’s better to have a consistent logo and design throughout all your accounts and pages so that you’re easily recognisable and memorable. It also looks way more professional and credible.

5. Consider paid advertising

   If you are able to target your audience well on the right channels, you can easily build it with some help from paid adverts. Paying for clicks and traffic on social networks or search engines can be a great option to market your blog.

6. Grow your email list

   It’s important to be able to retain your fan base. Start collecting email addresses by offering readers to sign up for your newsletter. It works best with an incentive, for example free access to exclusive content.

Tip: Successful bloggers use various tools to help them. The easiest way to build your email list is by using pop ups. You can quickly create amazing page banners and pop ups with an easy to use digital marketing tool like Catchfull.

Apart from attractive email capture forms, you can implement smart exit-intent pop ups that will retain your visitors and convert them into subscribers or customers. You can choose from various similar on-site messages that will help you achieve your goals. Visit Catchfull to find out more and take advantage of their limited offer for a 3-month free trial.

How to make money blogging: To sum up

Everyone can start a blog. It’s best to pay for a domain and hosting as it’s not overly expensive but looks more professional and allows for better customisation and freedom.

What’s essential is to have a good plan before you start and be aware of what your target audience needs. That’s why research is crucial. And so is great content, SEO, building your brand on social media and collecting emails.

There are many ways you can choose from to make money with your blog - affiliate marketing, advertising, and selling digital products, to name a few.

Here is a direct affiliate marketing opportunity coming your way. Simply contact us and we could become partners. We’ll work together to help air passengers understand their rights and protect them.

Finally, remember that blog monetisation takes time. It certainly won’t happen overnight. 

The important thing is to be consistent and not to lose hope. It might take more than a year, but if you’re serious at what you’re doing, you’ll succeed - good luck!