How to Make Money Blogging – My Exact Methods

Last Updated 3 months by Emily Standley-Allard

“So how do you make money through a blog?” is the #1 question people ask me when they find out I’m a blogger. I always want to say “I write my a** off!” And this is true. Some pro bloggers say you can post too much. There’s too much content out there. I don’t believe this. Let me digress, if you post a lot of mundane content that your readers don’t give a crap about…then it’s a waste of time and Google will push you down in the ranks. Post worthy relevant, valuable content that your audience wants and can’t get enough of, then the money will eventually come in. This post outlines exactly what I do to make money blogging, how I do it, and how you can make money blogging too!

This post contains affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase we get a commission from our partners which helps keep our blog running. Please read our disclosure for more information.

Related: 6 Proven Ways to Monetize Your Blog

9 Blog Posts That Will Always Make Money

How to Make $900 Per Hour Writing Quotes for Instagram

How to Earn Money With a Blog

My first chunk of money earned was due to affiliate marketing, the remaining big dollar amount was from a combo of social media work, blogging for others and freelance writing.

Boom! I started this blog in Feb. of 2018. Income details are below.

When I first started blogging I immediately signed on for Google AdSense but I wasn’t pleased by how spammy the ads looks. Some of them were not too bad but some were downright cheesy looking.

I didn’t feel the couple of cents per week I was making for them was worth compromising the look of my blog.

So I switched over to MediaNet and chose only high paying affiliate products and partnering with well known brands and businesses that provided outstanding products and services.

Companies that help you make money blogging

• ShareASale: Is a popular affiliate network. It includes popular merchants such as Tailwind, Stella and Dot and thousands of others.

• Skimlinks – Another very popular affiliate network. Over 48,000 Global merchants like Ulta, Target, Expedia, Priceline, Sam’s Club Airbnb and more.

• Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing: This is a very practical and simple way to learn affiliate marketing from a blogger who earns over $150,000 monthly.

• Bluehost: This is the host I am using for my blog and I’ve had no issues with it since I’ve begun. I wrote a post about how to start a blog in 5 simple steps that can help you get started.

• Clickbank – Another highly popular Global affiliate network filled with merchants in every niche. Affiliate marketers have made thousands of dollars with Clickbank. I wrote a post containing a tutorial on Clickbank and how to get started.

For more of the best blogging resources (free and paid) you will need to start and run a successful money making blog go>>> here. 

The Exact Steps I Take to Make Money Blogging

1. I picked a blog niche and chose a name
2. I registered for a self hosting blog
3. I read Jon Morrow’s Smart Blogger, ProBlogger, and Blog Tyrant
4. I went from 200 to 500K viewers on Pinterest with the help of this amazing strategy book
5. I read the Copyblogger’s copywriting tips on how to write magnetic headlines 
6. I started an email list and developed 20 Resources to Grow Your Online Business to share all my resources.
7. I made my first affiliate sale by recommending Be Your Own Blog Boss to other bloggers.
8. I took the FREE Wealthy Affiliate course and Michelle’s popular Affiliate Marketing course: Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing
9. I sent out broadcast emails whenever I thought of a great solution that would help my readers – I also switched to Constant Contact which boosted my conversion rate immensely!
10. I wrote consistent blog posts every week. Approximately 3-4.
11. I created 3 new pins with Canva Design for each of my blog posts and kept scheduling them to Pinterest using Tailwind.
12. I stopped looking at Google Analytics every single day! But I did take note of which posts were the most popular to know what my audience likes to read.
13. I revised and pushed out these posts more and embedded more affiliate marketing links in the posts so that the article could be monetized as much as possible.
14. I wrote more content related to my most popular posts.
15. I obtained lots of Freelance writing jobs due to my blog – people and companies were contacting me!
16. I remained patient, stayed positive, did not compare, and did not let self doubt get the better of me! Crucial tips!

Income Made Through Affiliate Marketing, Products, Services & Freelance Writing

Here’s a break down of income made blogging:

ShareASale:  $5,223.00

Be Your Own Blog Boss: $245.00

Bluehost: $580

Skimlinks: $132.00

Swagbucks: $117.87

Clickbank: $581.00

Google AdSense: $83.00

Freelance Writing: $21,000.00

Other affiliate programs: $3,369.00

eBook/digital products: $12,495

Course: $1,392

Website Sale – $2500

Social Media: $6,250

Amazon Affiliates – $116.00

Commissions from Services – $500

Total – $54,583 

What I Learned About Making Money Blogging

1. Getting rich from ad income takes a ton of traffic

Unless you get a hundred thousand page views per month, like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, PennyHoarder, or another Viral type blog you can’t make big bucks from a network like Google Adsense.

I’m not saying it’s impossible though. The guy who started Viral Nova did it and then sold it for a huge profit. It just takes a huge amount of content generated on a daily basis.

In my case I only earned a measly $83 from my ads when I was on Google Adsense. Plus like I said, I hated the way they looked and it also made my bounce rate go way up!

I think the cleaner you can make your blog look and exchange ads for opt ins the better off your blog will do.

Now there are other higher paying ad networks like MediaNet, Monumetric and Adthrive and others but each one of those require a certain amount of traffic.

Monumetric is the lowest at 10K PV monthly.

You can read the requirements for traffic for each ad network in this post:

6 Proven Methods to Monetize a Blog

2. Affiliate marketing takes longer but is far more lucrative

I knew right away I wasn’t going to get the traffic from Google Adsense so I switched gears to affiliate marketing. Thank goodness I did.

It takes a little longer to implement the links into your site but if you use a nifty plugin called ThirstyAffiliates  – once it’s set up it’s totally automatic. You just add your keywords, and your link is embedded in your posts or pages or wherever you want it.

I partner with several top notch companies and bloggers who create elite material, and most importantly I know they will help my audience grow their traffic and improve their businesses, and for this I get a commission from them.

The company makes a sale, my reader gets a great product for no extra cost from clicking my link. It’s a win/win situation all around.

Now I don’t worry about traffic as much, I focus more on attracting more readers in my target audience and solving problems they have.

If I can recommend products or services that will help them along the way and help me as well, now that’s a good thing!

Master Guide to Blogging for Profit

3. It’s tough to get sponsored posts as a newbie blogger

Sponsored posts are a wonderful way to earn income as a blogger. As a newbie it can be tough since you don’t know what you’re doing yet.

Just so you know, most of the companies that handle them like Izea and others require that bloggers have a certain number of followers or traffic.

But! If you have <10,000 followers you can sign up with certain companies as a micro-influencer.

This can take some time but provide you with a lot of inspiration because this is where the big moola is!