As I'm currently in my third year of M$M being up and running, I'm trying to take some time to enjoy how incredible this whole process really has been. In a fairly short time, I've been able to guide this thing from a website with zero engagement to one that currently has over 100,000 consistent monthly readers.
M$M Version #1
I've still got a long way to go with this site, which is actually really exciting. To project a little bit for 2017 – I think my online business will bring in about $200,000!
10 Ways to Make Money Blogging
At the time of writing, I've had about 20 people start a blog this month using my how-to startup guide. There is definitely money to be made in blogging, but it is NOT a short term money maker. I treated M$M like a business from the beginning, which is why I've had success so far.
This is just one of the many ways I make money blogging!
A lot of people wonder how you can make money by starting a blog! Some of the following strategies are short term and some are long term, but they are ALL something I've done to make money online.
1. Affiliate income
In my opinion, affiliate income is basically the holy grail of blogging income. It's not quite passive because there is work that goes into it, but it's the least like trading time for money on this list. You basically get emails that say you made money, which is nice. 🙂
In a nutshell, you make money by introducing products or services that are legitimately helpful for your readers. When a sale is made on your site, you make a cut of the sale.
Affiliate income takes time and traffic, so this would be part of your long term plan in terms of monetizing a website.
I highly recommend you take Michelle Schroeder-Gardners “Making Sense of Affiliate Income” course if you're serious about blogging and actually interested in making affiliate income. You can use my exclusive link to get started and be sure to check out my full review of the course.
2. Marketing Services
I make thousands of dollars a month by running websites, social media, email campaigns, paid advertising and more for small businesses. This is the ultimate income stream for new bloggers! I'm creating a complete course for building this income stream from the ground up that will be available later this year.
Sign up below to get on the waiting list for my marketing course:
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I'll break down the different ways that I make money this way below.
3. Freelance Writing
This is the easiest way to make money in the beginning stages of a blog! If you have writing talent (which you'll probably figure out pretty quickly if you are honest with yourself) you can make money this way.
A lot of small businesses have blogs, which means they need great content written for them!
4. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Work
Small-mid sized businesses pay well for SEO work, mostly because it can be very tedious and requires a lot of research and execution from you. It's the practice of getting a site to rank higher in Google.
Most small business owners want this service, but don't have anyone on their staff that knows how to run a website or write content that would rank in Google. If you can become a proficient blogger you'll have an opportunity to offer this service to small businesses!
5. Social Media Management
This is probably the easiest service on this list, but it's important. Small business owners are busy, and usually don't have time to manage their online presence. The smart ones know how important this is right now in the business-to-consumer environment and will continue to be in the coming years, so you can make good money by providing this service for them.
The key is to charge a business less than it would cost them to hire a full-time social media manager. It makes it a no-brainer for them!
6. Email Campaigns
Similar to social media management, you can charge companies for managing their email campaigns or helping them grow their list! This is something I would try to package in with some of the other services on this list.
Personally, I use ConvertKit for all of my email management. It's hands down the best in the game right now and also reasonably priced.
7. Sponsored Content
From time to time, you'll see a sponsored post on M$M. These are great because they pay well, but you have to be CAREFUL when you do them. There are a lot of crappy companies out there that try to use a blogger's influence to push…well…their crap product.
I'm extremely picky about which companies I work with, and will always turn down a company I'm not comfortable with. You might have noticed I don't have any sponsored content on the site this month – I didn't receive any offers I was comfortable sharing with my readers in November!
8. Blog Coaching
I LOVE blog coaching, but this is another one that is a long term plan for your blog. You have to have success with blogging (which means making good money) before people will pay for your advice.
When I see non-money making bloggers offering blog coaching it reminds me of a 20 year old “life coach”. It just doesn't make any sense! Hold off until you are showing consistent profits.
9. Google Adwords
Plenty of mom and pop stores want to show up in Google, but don't necessarily have the resources to pay for SEO or blogging content. Managing their Google Adwords accounts can be a great way to provide value to their company while getting their brand seen on Google.
10. Facebook Ads
This is actually my favorite type of ad (I have a lot of success with this for M$M). Facebook ads give you the ability to very specifically target potential customers! I'm not affiliated with him in any way, but Jon Loomer is a great resource to learn more about Facebook ads.
As you can see – most of the money I made in the beginning of my blogging career has been providing marketing services for small businesses. If you are hoping to make money quickly in blogging, that is probably your best bet.
If you decide to start a blog – be extremely patient and learn as much as you can. Not only will it give you more skills to monetize, but it will help your own site grow over time.
If you're interested in starting a blog, take a look at my how-to setup guide. You'll be set up in just a few minutes and receive a free domain!
About Millennial Money Man
Bobby Hoyt is a former band director who paid off $40,000 of student loan debt in 18 months on his teaching salary and then left his job to run Millennial Money Man full-time. He helps other Millennials earn more through side hustles, save more through budgeting tools and apps, and pay off debt. He is a personal finance expert who has been seen on Forbes, Reuters, MarketWatch, CNBC, International Business Times, Business Insider, US News, Yahoo Finance, and many other personal finance and entrepreneurship media outlets.
Comments
Mrs. Picky Pincher
I agree that affiliate income is probably the best way to make money on blogging. The trick is that you need to already be presenting a quality product before you introduce your audience to affiliate products. Otherwise you can come off scammy and lose your readers!
It does sound like many bloggers run side hustles to increase their online income. For me, I’d enjoy freelance writing or marketing the most. But as far as creating the blog plus a side hustle, it’s almost impossible if you already have a 9-to-5! I’m working out ways to do the blog + my full-time gig, but even that’s a challenge. I’m not as brave as M$M to quit my job to blog full time. 😉
Millennial Money Man
I truly don’t think it’s impossible to do a good freelance business on the side in addition to a blog…but it does take organization and some planning like you mentioned. Also, maybe a little less sleep. 🙂 I had already started that before I left my 9-5 and could have easily made it work. I just saw so much opportunity that I decided to take the leap!
You’re right on affiliate income. I didn’t even really introduce it on the site until I was about a year in. It’s a great long-term goal though!
Ms. Montana
I’ve started doing more content writing along with developing the content marketing strategies. I’m doing an SEO course right now, and am excited to be able to offer that along side actually helping fix the content. I just finished a project writing all the content for a website. It’s really fun to think of all the natural questions a customer might have and craft those into the brand and storyline for a company. You’re totally right, it’s something that small business owners just don’t have the time to do or figure it out on their own.
Millennial Money Man
There’s a lot of money to be made in content marketing/SEO! That’s such a great side-hustle for anyone that gets into blogging and is pretty serious about it. I think too many bloggers ignore that what you do creating and maintaining a website is a skill set.
FIREin' London
Hi M$M,
I think its really important to call out that as you say, its not a quick buck method to making money. You have to build up the readership and the credentials, I just love the idea of a 20 year old life coach – I dont think I could take it seriously!
The main thing is that you shouldnt start a blog to make money – it will show through in everything you do with it! I only just started but the aim was just conversation and knowledge, never $$ (dont get me wrong if in 10 years its making a fortune I wont be complaining!).
Really useful tips on ways to generate side income from the blog and something for people to keep an eye on! I am always intrigued to see the difference between the UK and US FIRE community as it seems more that matched betting is the bigger thing in the UK than some of the ones you mention, but who knows!
Keep up the good work!
FIREin’ London
Millennial Money Man
Thanks, glad you liked the post! I didn’t really start M$M to make money either. It was honestly just something I was super passionate about and wanted to get a message out. Then it turned out that I could actually do this haha! It’s not fast, but there are ways to make money doing it. Most of them just don’t involve the site directly, it’s more from indirect marketing services that you can provide for a great price.
Jon @ Be Net Worthy
Thanks for sharing your tips M$M, you are certainly right that blogging is not a quick money maker. It is fun though and as you said, you can use it as a platform to develop skills that you can market to small businesses or even other bloggers!
Millennial Money Man
That’s really the key in the beginning honestly – I make about as much with my marketing business as I do with actual blogging. I think that will start to shift over the next year as I figure out more things with affiliate sales, but if you want to work online faster the marketing component is the way to go!
Stephen
I’ve recently started trying to monetize my blog, so this helped give me a few avenues to look into! Thanks M$M!
Millennial Money Man
Glad it helped Stephen!
Lance @ My Strategic Dollar
Re-reading this post. Really love your message here. As with previous comments, I didn’t start my blog to make money, but man it should would be nice if I do.
Justin Nuckles
Here’s a conundrum I’d love to get some perspective and opinion on:
my brother and I recently started a blog/website where we’ll be discussing ways, benefits, and reasons to live a more simple lifestyle, and that simple is plenty.
Such being our goal, it feels a bit duplicitous to make money from affiliate marketing and things similar to that. That aside, are there any other ways to directly monetize from a blog itself, rather than the services of providing those skills to others’ blogs and sites?
Millennial Money Man
You can run ads or try to get sponsorships (which might go against what you are writing about, not sure), or sell courses that maybe give people an A-Z roadmap to simplifying their lifestyle.