You’ve created a blog. Your blog is not only a means for you to express your ideas on a specific topic, but it’s also a way to market yourself, connect with like-minded people, and even make money.
It doesn’t matter who your target audience is (from fashionistas to any given software development company, such as BairesDev – https://www.bairesdev.com/software-development-services/), you might have reached a point in your blogging experience where it’s time to start monetizing your work. This is especially true if you’re spending considerably more time on your blog than you originally thought you would. After all, in order to gain steady and significant traffic for your venture, you’ve had to put in the time.
Your time is valuable, so why not get paid for it?
The big question is how you can do it. I want to offer up a few unique ways you can monetize your blog. Although some methods do require quite a bit more work than others, you could easily see results with one or more of these options.
Patreon and Kickstarter
Patreon is a means for artists to find patrons to support their efforts monetarily. You create a Patreon page and then either wait for supporters or find people to pledge monthly subscriptions for your effort. The trick with Patreon is that you’ll be creating separate content for both your blog and your Patreon site. And it is important that you create regular content for that Patreon page, otherwise, your supporters will feel they’re getting nothing for their subscription.
But if you’re serious about turning your blog into a profit-making adventure, you won’t mind creating even more content.
Kickstarter is another option you can use. The difference is, you’re looking at a one-time effort, where people can help you get your money-making blog off the ground. Where Patreon is a monthly “subscription”, Kickstarter is a one-and-done donation from supporters.
Either way, these are great routes for either getting your project off the ground or supplementing your other monetization efforts on your blog.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is usually the easiest to work with. Essentially affiliate marketing is the promotion of other people’s products, in exchange for a small commission. That commission comes when a recommendation from your site leads to a sale.
With this type of marketing, you must set up affiliate links, in the form of http://product_link/?affid=ID (Where “product_link” is the link to an actual product on an affiliate site and “ID” is your affiliate ID). This means you must set up an affiliate program with the site that sells the product. Amazon Associates is a good example of a company that offers affiliate marketing.
Affiliate commissions tend to be in the 5%-70% range, with most of them leaning hard toward the 5% mark.
You’ll want to find an affiliate marketing service that is related to the content of your blog. For example, if you blog about software development services, you’ll want to find a company that either sells software, hardware, or even related app development.
Freelance Services
If you blog, you write. If you write enough, chances are you have developed the necessary skills to outsource that service. With those skills at hand, you can ghostwrite, guest post, or even find companies that offer similar products and services to write for.
Businesses are always looking to outsource copywriting and editing. If your blogging skills are up to the task, seek those companies out.
Or maybe your writing skills aren’t as strong as your ability to build a website. If you’ve crafted an amazing design for your own blog, and feel confident in that skillset, why not capitalize on that ability?
What about social media? Have you become a marketing ninja on social media? If you’ve found a groove in spreading the word about your own blog on the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, maybe you can hire yourself out as a freelance social networking guru.
Online Classes
So you are a ninja with social media and marketing. Or maybe your blogging skills are unrivaled. If that’s the case, you can create online classes people can pay to take and learn from your mastery of the craft.
To do this, you’ll need to get your video skills up to par, so you can record yourself giving lectures on the subject at hand. Once you’ve filmed a few lectures, you can then either put together the right WordPress plugins (such as Easy Digital Downloads) or use a service like Teachable to then begin selling your video classes.
Selling Products
And speaking of selling—now that you’ve got the blog up and running, why not create a product to sell. If you’re a developer, create an app to sell on your blog. If you’re a writer, sell short stories or signed paperback copies of your books.
With the help of WordPress and addons like Woocomerce, selling actual products on your site is actually very easy. Once you have enough products to sell, you’ll find monetizing your blog becomes a no-brainer.
Conclusion
Don’t think you’re limited to only one of the above options. Get creative and use any combination of what you see listed (or use all of them). The monetization of your work doesn’t need to be terribly challenging. Besides, isn’t your effort worth the time and energy it might take to create an income stream from your passion project?
Disclaimer: This article contains sponsored marketing content. It is intended for promotional purposes and should not be considered as an endorsement or recommendation by our website. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and exercise their own judgment before making any decisions based on the information provided in this article.
