You’re passionate about something. You want to share that something with the world. And you want to make some money doing it.
If that sounds like you, you’ve thought about blogging. It’s 2021 and it seems like there are millions of blogs out there. And for good reason: there are.
But you’ve got a unique voice. A unique perspective. You’ve been through a lot, whether it’s your chronic illness or something else, and it’s shaped your personality. You’ve got something to say and you’re ready to get out there and say it – and want to make money doing it.
If you want to make money blogging in 2021 but don’t quite know how to go about doing it, this article is for you.
We’re gonna look at the top 5 ways that people are making money in 2021 by blogging. But first I’m gonna (attempt to) answer the question that is unquestionably on your mind: “How much money can I make from blogging?”
How much money can you make from blogging?
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This is the question that everyone asks me when they find out that I have several websites. Everyone wants a number, but I never give them one.
I was just asked how much I make from my websites about 3 hours ago, actually. The person that asked me knows that I like to vacation often, and am going on one next week. I replied, “Enough that I’m gonna spend all next week in South Beach, Miami!”
The reason I don’t answer the question directly is because it’s a hard question to answer. My income fluctuates from month to month, and comes from many different sources.
What I can tell you is that I’m making more and more, as time goes on. And I can also tell you that it took a while for me to start making money. But I started from nothing. I didn’t know the first thing about any of this stuff.
It took me 9 months before I made my first dollar. Blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes time. But it can be incredibly worth it.
How worth it? Top bloggers make multiple 7-figure incomes. But these are the people that have been at it for years, and spend 40-80 hours a week working on their blogs.
There’s a lot of bloggers out there, some of them part-time, who have 6-figure incomes. Again, it usually takes at least a couple years to reach this point.
One of my favorite websites for all things related to making money online is Smart Passive Income. Pat Flynn, the site’s owner, publishes his monthly income reports. This site is a great resource for anyone trying to make money blogging.
Now let’s look at how money is made from blogging. There’s more to it than just writing blog posts. Here’s 5 of the top ways to make money blogging in 2021.
5 ways to make money blogging in 2021
1. Advertisements
Everybody loves ads, right? Without them, how would we know what products we just have to have?
Advertising can be a good way to make money from blogging. I’m sure you’ve seen ads on plenty of websites.
Here’s how it works: You create a blog, build up a following, and start getting a good amount of traffic. Then you put ads on your site, often in the content or in the sidebar. Every time someone clicks on one of those ads, you make money.
How much money? Anywhere from a single penny, to several dollars, depending on the type of advertisement. Most clicks are only worth a few cents, though.
The most popular ad network is (not surprisingly) Google AdSense. It is pretty easy to set up, and works well for a variety of niches. There are plenty of other ad networks to look into, but AdSense is the most popular.
The biggest downside to using ads is that you need to get a lot of traffic to make any significant amount of money. But once your blog starts getting a decent amount of traffic, this can be a good source of income.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Depending on what niche your blog is in, affiliate marketing can make you a lot of money.
Here’s how it works: You mention a product or service in your blog, possibly in a product review. Then you link to another site where your readers can purchase that product or service. Every time one of your readers buy something, you get a commission.
You are not selling anything directly to your readers. Instead, you are trying to get them to buy something from another site – a site you are affiliated with.
Commissions from affiliate marketing can range anywhere from 4% all the way to almost 100%.
One of the most popular affiliate sites is (again, not surprisingly) Amazon. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Amazon sells….well, just about everything.
Amazon commissions start at 1% and go up to about 10% per item depending on what category they are in. Then there are affiliate sites that sell informational products, like Clickbank. Typical commissions from Clickbank are anywhere from 25% to 75%.
Personally, I don’t use Clickbank, because I think 99% of their products are absolute shit. But I also know people that make over a hundred thousand dollars a month marketing their informational products. If you can sleep at night selling people bullshit, I ain’t gonna judge you. But it’s not for me.
My advice is that if you’re gonna do affiliate marketing, do it with products and services that you actually like and use. First of all, it will be much easier for you to make commissions. Second, you’ll feel good about yourself knowing that you’re turning people onto useful products.
3. Subscriptions
Subscriptions aren’t just for magazines and porn sites. If you provide regular content that your readers find valuable, you can charge them to access your premium content.
How it works: You create a blog in your niche, putting out frequent, high-quality content. Once you have a good-sized following, you start creating premium content that you charge a monthly or annual fee to view.
This is a relatively new way to make money by blogging, but it’s becoming more and more popular. Once you have a lot of regular readers, you create a special, exclusive, members-only, part of your site.
This can include special in-depth articles that aren’t available on your regular blog. Another popular premium feature of many websites is a message board where your readers discuss your niche and ask you questions.
Another option, though much harder, is to create an online magazine. This is exactly what it sounds like. You create a weekly, biweekly, or monthly online magazine and charge a subscription fee to view your content.
The reason this so difficult is because you really need to provide amazing content that people are willing to pay for. But it can and has been done.
A great example of this is the online magazine Foundr. Even after it had only been around for a couple years, it was making tons of money. Foundr provides amazing content about entrepreneurship, and charges a fee to access it.
Once you have a good amount of readers, starting a subscription service of some sort can make you a lot of money.
4. Offer a Service
This isn’t something that is gonna be possible for everyone. But if there is some kind of service that you can provide to your readers, it can be a great way to make some serious money.
How it works: You write quality blog posts, and build up a following. Then you offer that following some kind of service, and charge them for it.
It’s no secret that I’m into fitness, and I regularly check out a number of fitness-related blogs. Many of the fitness bloggers that I follow are also personal trainers. And many of them offer online personal training, for a fee.
In a nutshell, you tell them a bit about yourself and what your fitness goals are. Then they come up with a custom diet and exercise program for you. You regularly check in with them, letting them know about your progress and any questions you may have. They answer your questions and adjust your program as needed. And they charge you either monthly or a one-time fee for the service.
This is just one example of a service you can charge people for, but there are an infinite number of possibilities.
Are you some kind of licensed professional? If you’re starting a law blog (like Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog, for you AD fans), you could charge for legal advice. If you’re a therapist, offer personal online counseling sessions. Are you an RN? Start a blog about getting through nursing school, and charge people for personal online tutoring.
Or if you have some sort of physical or mental illness, you could start a consultation service to help others living with the same illness(es) as you. If you’ve been living with your diagnosis for a long time, you could charge a fee to offer (non-medical, assuming you’re not a doctor) advice to people diagnosed more recently.
But you don’t have to be a licensed, certified, or registered anything to offer a service. You just have to be creative, and have some skill that people are willing to pay for.
5. Create a Product
Last, but certainly not least on our list of 5 ways to make money blogging in 2021 is product creation. Of everything on this list, this is probably the best way to make the most money.
How it works: You put out regular, high-quality content on your blog and build up a following. Then you create some kind of product, and sell that product to your readers.
It can be any kind of product. If you have a food blog, you could come out with your own line of cookware, or perhaps your own seasoning line. Or if you blog about fishing you could come out with your own lures.
Whatever niche your blog is in, there’s some kind of product you can create that your readers will buy. The key is to create something that has real value.
One of the most popular products that bloggers create and sell to their users is ebooks. This should come as no surprise. If you are a blogger, then you obviously like writing.
Creating an ebook is incredibly easy. There’s tons of free/inexpensive ways to publish an ebook. The beauty of ebooks is that it costs nothing to publish them, and you can self-publish rather easily.
One last option is to create an actual, physical book that your readers will love. Most bloggers prefer to create an ebook, since they can make much more money from them as you don’t have to give a cut to your publisher, agent, and distributor.
You could even do what I’m doing. Right now, I’m writing a book about my life with Behcet’s Disease. I was diagnosed as a teen but have been symptomatic my whole life. When the book is done, I’ll use the blogs that I own to promote it to my readers. You could also write about about living with your diagnosis.
Creating some kind of product that you can sell to your readers is, in the long run, the best way to make the most money from blogging. It’s not the easiest way, but it is the most lucrative.
Conclusion
If anyone tries to tell you that you can’t make money from blogging, they’re wrong. I do it, I know tons of others that do it, and you can do it too.
Is it easy? Not at first. But once you get everything set up and get used to writing, it gets much easier. The secret is to pick a niche that you’re passionate about. It’s infinitely easier to write about something you love than some random topic.
The best piece of advice that I could give you is this: Once you start blogging, don’t give up. The internet is riddled with abandoned blogs that would have had so much potential. If you keep moving forward, keep learning, and keep blogging, you will eventually reach your goals.
But if you don’t have something that you’re passionate enough about to write about at least once a week, or just don’t like to write in general, then maybe blogging isn’t for you.
There’s plenty of other ways to make money. You could start a YouTube channel to make money from advertising and selling products. You could start an eBay business and make money that way. Or you could make money in one of the many other ways that people make money all the time. Whatever you decide, stick with it. That’s the real secret to making money from blogging, or anything else.
Do you have a blog? Leave a link and a brief description of it in the comments section at the bottom.
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