One of the biggest misconceptions that I see bloggers having about monetising blogs is that they have to do it in one of a handful of ways. The reality is that there are many ways to make money from blogs.
A few years ago I decided to sit down and list all the ways that I saw bloggers making money from their blogs and created this ‘money
map’
As you’ll see there are quite a few options that bloggers have to derive income from their blogs.
Don’t worry though – while this map is quite overwhelming at a first glance there are a few main ‘clusters’ of income streams that you might want to focus upon rather than all the specific ones.
1. Advertising Income
This is where many bloggers start. In many ways this model of making money from blogs is not dissimilar to how a magazine or newspaper sells ads. As your traffic and brand grows you’ll find advertisers will be willing to pay to get exposure to your audience.
While you need decent traffic to do a direct deal with an advertisers there are ad networks (like Google AdSense) that act as a middleman and enable smaller publishers to run ads on their blogs. This is where many bloggers start (I did too).
2. Affiliate Income
A recent survey of ProBlogger readers found that affiliate promotions was the most common type of income that our readers have.
To put it most simply – affiliate income is when you link to a product that is for sale on another site (take Amazon for example) and if someone follows your link and ends up buying that product you earn a commission on that sale.
There’s more to it than that but this is another great place to start with monetising your blog as affiliate programs are easy to sign up for and if you have an engaged audience you will find they follow the recommendations that you make on products.
3. Products
While I started out making money from my blogs through advertising and affiliate promotions today my #1 source of income is through selling eBooks and courses on my blogs. These ‘virtual products’ take work to create but have been lucrative for me and many other bloggers.
Products can of course take many forms and income virtual information products like eBooks or courses but also other virtual products like software, reports etc.
The other type of product some bloggers sell is physical products. This is most common when the blogger has a business but sometimes bloggers also create merchandise (T-shirts etc) or other physical products to sell.
4. Continuity Programs
A continuity program is when you set up some kind of subscription for readers to buy that gets them access to something exclusive. A reader pays you a monthly or annual fee for access to some combination of:
exclusive content
community area/forum
coaching/mentoring/mastermind group
other benefits like access to products, services, software
5. Services
The last main way that I see bloggers making money from their blogs today is through selling their own services in some way.
The first time this happened to me was here on ProBlogger where many years ago a reader asked if I would do a coaching call with them. While I no longer offer this service it opened my eyes to new ways of making money from my blog.
I know of many bloggers who offer coaching, consulting and mentoring services but others who offer a wide variety of freelance services from web design, to social media management, to book keeping, to speaking, to event management etc.
The key is to use your blog to highlight your expertise to the point that people want to hire you as a result of what they see that you know and can do.
Multiple Income Streams
Most full time bloggers make money more than one way and end up with multiple income streams.
Diversifying your income in this way not only is smart and helps you spread the risk from having all your eggs in one basket but it also speeds up the journey to going full time.
I learned this lesson the hard way after having most of my income coming from one source in the early days but after a bit of a bad experience began to diversify my income streams (read about that here) – it was one of the best things I ever did!
Today I make money from around 12 different streams.
Direct or Indirect Income?
One last little distinction in terms of income streams…. Some bloggers make money directly ‘from’ their blog while others make money indirectly ‘because’ of their blog.
Direct Income – when I started making money from my blogs it was through ‘direct’ income streams. I put AdSense ads on my blog and promoted some products on Amazon as an affiliate and the more readers I had the more income began to trickle in (it really was a trickle at first). In time as my traffic grew this income grew and I was also able to experiment with other direct forms of income such as selling advertising directly to advertisers.
Indirect Income – later on in my blogging journey opportunity has come for ‘indirect’ income streams. As my blogs and profile grew as a result of my blogging I was able to sell my services as a speaker and consultant and was offered the opportunity to author a book with the publisher Wiley. Later I was able to start an event for bloggers which also made money. None of this income came directly from the blog – but rather it came ‘because’ of my blog.
While the way that I make money blogging is a combination of direct and indirect income many bloggers focus upon one or the other.
http://www.problogger.net/make-money-blogging/
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