So, you came here to read about making money with your blog and find out how exactly you’ll do it by remaining calm, cool, and collected? Great, I’m all about creating a balance and keeping your blogger chill, butt here’s a catch and you might not like it.

Making real money and income with your blog is going to take a little while. That’s why we’re going to talk about how to do this the relaxed and easy way. There are a few things you’ve got to do first. So, sit back and come to terms with the fact that making money with your blog is a marathon and not a sprint. A marathon doesn’t actually sound very chill – so let’s call it your masterpiece, a classical piece of music, and this whole “making money with your blog” thing will be the gradually increasing crescendo, and in due time you’ll quickly give yourself enthusiastic applause!

So, while you’re still feeling chill, not overly excited, and not desperately trying to quit your 9-5 job (just yet), go ahead and read / save these few beginner steps below. Remember to take your time and do it right!

Where blogging begins:

First, you have to start a blog.

Maybe you’ll want to pick a niche market for your blog too.

Design a logo you love and will be proud of

Create some design elements and organize your blog

Make sure you establish a  beginner blogger schedule for content creation and social media

This checklist will help you before you publish your first blog article.

Don’t forget to set up a Pinterest account  to create traffic and a place for people to find your blog easily

Consider different Plugins and Widgets to make your blog easy to share on twitter and facebook too

Learn exactly how to create opt-in’s and collect email’s from your audience so your can send them emails and newsletters

You’ll probably want to bookmark this page so you can eventually automate the rest of your blogging and life too

Do you have to do all of the above before you can make money?

No, you probably don’t have to do all of these things above to make money with your blog, but each one of them is going to help, because making money with a blog requires an audience and consistency from you. It doesn’t need to be a huge audience, but if you haven’t started a blog yet, and haven’t created something user friendly and appealing for readers to click through, then you’re probably not going to gain the trust of your reader, which is exactly what you need to make money in the first place – trust!

Now that we’ve covered the basics and the beginner steps, we can dive into the fun stuff- making money with your blog!

Here are 8 different ways to make money blogging

Ad’s (Pay per Impression or Click)

Google Adsense

Affiliate Links (pay per purchase)

Creative Market

Amazon Affiliates

Share a Sale

E Junkie

Commission Junction

Rakuten

Avant Link

Sponsored Blog Posts (Pay per Article)

Pay You to Blog

Matomy SEO

Pay You to Post

Product Reviews / Product Giveaways (Pay per Article)

Sponsored Reviews

Social Spark

Sponsored Social Media Post (Pay per post)

Tap Influence

Activate By Bloglovin’

Sell Physical Products

Create an online store through Ebay or Etsy and sell T-Shirts, handmade products, printed goods, and more.

Sell Digital Products

Sell your personally created and helpful eBooks, Online classes and courses, sell Domain names, Photos, or premade templates and graphics

Provide and Sell Services

Charge for your one-on-one Coaching, Design products, become a Social Media Manager, become a content writer, or a Virtual Assistant.

Where do you start with monetization?

To decide where to monetize your blog, you should start with yourself, what you buy, and the audience of your specific niche. Understanding the needs of the people you talk to everyday through your blog will help guide you. What do you buy and what do you need? Are you your own target audience?

If monetizing your blog seems daunting, I would encourage you to do some simple research. Find 3 – 5 different successful blogs in your specific niche and see if you can identify how those blogs and businesses are making money. Do they publish an income report telling you exactly how they earn money? Is there side bar filled with ad’s? Do their blog posts direct people to purchase certain services or products?  Are they seen writing for others, advertising on other blogs, or on social media too?

Find out where they putting in most of their effort and you might get inspired too. Think about what you’re willing to do that they are doing and try and identify at least one thing they aren’t doing that you can and will do.

Relax and double your money with digital products!

Once you do some research, I bet you will find a lot of information, but one common thing. Bloggers make money all different ways. The honest, most practical thing anyone will tell you about making money blogging is that it takes work and time. You just have to decide what work you’re willing to put in and if you can continue doing that.

Digital products, like eBooks and online courses have gained popularity among bloggers for making money and the reason is simple. It’s considered passive income that can sell while you sleep.

As a blogger, have you ever gone to bed and woken up the next morning to find out there had been a hundred new visits to your blog over night? What if you could consistently make money through those visits?

Place the right kind of compelling and sought after content that people are willing to pay for  on your blog, you’ll find that making money in your sleep isn’t that difficult.

Double your money with digital products

Put affiliate links INSIDE your courses and eBooks! Yep, I’m serious and here’s an example. Let’s say you want to teach a course on beginner digital photography. Most people who take that course will likely have the basic tool like a digital camera, but you need to share tips about lighting and other tools that will help their digital photography. So, you might want to send them to an online store like Amazon to purchase a tripod or a lighting kit. If you sign up for Amazon Affiliates, these links can make you money too!

Use affiliates inside your digital products

To successfully use affiliates inside your digital products, be genuine, because genuine sells! Be honestly excited about the product. Don’t just share a link to something on amazon and say “Buy Now”. If you don’t have a story you can tell about the product / affiliate, then you might not want to recommend it. Having first hand experience using their products or services will help you convey passion to your readers and they will be more likely to click and buy. Apply the thinking above and you have just sold a digital product and increased your chances of making an affiliate sale too.

Start your digital product sales with an eBook

I would begin with the blog content that you’ve already got. Do you have a popular blog post that drives a lot of traffic to your blog?

If so, could you write MORE on this topic? One super simple way to write an eBook is to take a popular and traffic generating blog post of yours and expand it. Add details, go in-depth, and provide more examples!

How easy would it be to use one of your older blog posts and just expand it? I bet you’re wondering how long should an E-book be? Anywhere between 30 and 300 pages. But the sweet spot is known to be 30-70. Anything less than 30 pages, your customer might feel “ripped off”. Anything over 70 won’t be considered very “printable” for those who like to print E-books.

As long as the content teaches your audience something, makes them laugh, or helps them in any way with inspiration or ways to improve their life, they’ll gladly pay for 30 pages from you.

How much can you charge for an E-book?

I would think about this in terms of $1-$3 per every 10 pages page.

Examples:

30 Pages = $2.99 – 9.99
70 pages = $6.99 – $20.99

Some additional things to consider would be if you plan to make this E-book a printable workbook that is actionable and very valuable, then you may want to charge more. The best thing you can do is survey and test it with your audience.

So, what can you turn into an Ebook?

Make money with your blog by starting your own Affiliate Program