Blogging

Blogging 101: 5 Ways to Make Money Blogging

posted on June 15, 2015 | by Amanda Holstein

The most common question I get from aspiring bloggers (and anyone who asks about my job) is, “How do bloggers make money?”. While for some this can be a touchy subject, I am more than happy to spill the beans! If you break it down, there are basically two categories of revenue streams: marketing campaigns and e-commerce.

But before we get into the details, it’s important that, no matter how you generate revenue to your blog, you stay true to yourself, your style, and your brand. It’s very clear when bloggers participate in campaigns just for the money and it’s a huge turn off to readers. Since your readers are top priority, it’s important to maintain your relationship with them. Now, let’s walk through these opportunities in more depth.

1. Brand Sponsorships

The most popular form of revenue for bloggers is brand sponsorships. This could mean an array of things: sponsored blog posts, social posts, video, event coverage, etc. A brand (i.e. Gap, Anthropologie, L’Oreal) will pay a blogger to promote their products by authentically integrating them into their content. In return, the brand gets exposure to thousands of loyal and engaged followers. This is also called content marketing.

In order to make a decent amount of money through brand sponsorships, you definitely need a large following to back you up. What does “large” really mean? Typically, as an aspiring blogger, your initial goal should be to reach 50,000 unique visitors a month and about 10,000 total social followers. Once your numbers hit around that threshold, you should be able to start generating revenue. Of course, every brand and media agency may have their own requirements, but those numbers are typically what I’ve seen.

Shiseido Sponsored Post & Pinterest Campaign

2. Banner Ads

Of course, there’s always old school advertising. This is when you have banner ads on your site, coming from various advertisers. You make money based on the number of impressions your banners receive. You can also make money from users clicking on the banners. The revenue for banner ads is not super substantial, but it directly increases as your site’s page views increase. It’s a great way to generate passive revenue (you can focus on other things and allow the ads to bring in revenue for you). Typically bloggers will sign up with an ad network who has their own ad server and clients. Examples include Mode Media (Glam) , Federated Media, AOL Stylelist, Google Adsense, and more.

example of a Target ad that appeared on my site

3. Product Collaborations

A fun and creative way to generate revenue is to collaborate with a brand on a line of products. They may ask you to help with the design process, to be a brand ambassador for the products, or to simply attach your name to the product line. Brands tend to want to work with bloggers who have strong followings (sometimes celebrity-like followings) on projects like this. Why? Because they want the name associated with their line of products to be recognizable to a large audience.

Oh Joy! Collaboration with Target

4. Affiliate Links

You’ve probably all heard of RewardStyle and LiketoKnowIt by now. These are companies that allow bloggers to generate affiliate revenue. When you recommend products to your readers, on your blog or on Instagram, and this leads to readers purchasing, you get a commission (anywhere from 2%-25%) from the sale. It’s important to only recommend products that truly fit your style so that you can be authentic and true to yourself.

earn a commission off of products you share

5. Speaking Engagements

Finally, many bloggers participate in speaking engagements to generate revenue. Once you have a strong enough following, people may want you to speak at their conferences or events. You can earn revenue for not only speaking at the event, but for traveling and taking time out of your schedule as well.

Hilary Rushford hosting a panel at the IFB Conference

If you’re wondering how much you should be charging for these kinds of opportunities,
shoot me an email with some information about your site
(including your number of monthly visitors and page views), and I’ll help ya out!

15 Comments

Lauren English Says

Thanks for sharing these tips! I love that even as you share these things you remind us to stick to what we love and are passionate about. I totally agree…that is what keeps loyal readers coming back!

Leah Says

This post was very informative and helpful. I’m new to the blogging world, so it’s interesting to see how the business side of the blogging world works!

Ree Says

Thanks for the tips! I agree that it’s super important to stay true to your brand. And also to limit the amount of sponsored posts to no more than one or two a month. I tune into a blog because I’m genuinely interested in what that person has to say. Not what they’re being paid to say.

Lisa @ Strum Simmer Sip Says

Great tips! I’m pretty new to blogging and it can be a little overwhelming to figure out which kinds of opportunities work best for my blog. I recently did my first sponsored post and had so much fun incorporating the brand into my content!

♥ Lisa
Strum Simmer Sip

Kelly Says

These are such great tips and I never thought of speaking at conferences!

xx Kelly
Sparkles and Shoes

Lily de Grey Says

Thanks for writing this article, Amanda! I have a home improvement blog that I’ve wanted to make money on, so I’m glad that I stumbled upon your article! I think I’m going to start off doing something easy—like banner ads—so I can figure out what I’m doing before the bigger stuff. Thanks for sharing; Hopefully I’ll be on my way to making more money! Wish me luck!

kenzie negron Says

awesome post! have never heard of AOL styleist, but definitely gonna check into it! xx, kenz
http://sincerelykenz.com

Brenda Smith Says

Indeed a great post about making money online.

Nowadays people are getting very much creative and wants to make some extra money from home.

The topic ” Make money from home ” is very much interesting and people get very much excited when they get to know about it. But people should understand, this isn’t that much easy as they are thinking.

According to me, Making money through Blogging and affiliate marketing is the best ways among all others explained here.

But to earn through blogging and affiliate marketing, You must need to work hard with lots of dedication.

You must have to follow these important steps.

1. You have to choose a profitable niche from which you can earn by promoting affiliate products.
2. Build a blog on that niche and provide helpful content to others.
3. Promote your content among potential readers
4. Drive traffic to your site and make money through it.

These are the basic steps you need to take to earn through blogging.

BTW Thanks for sharing such a wonderful post with us. :D

disney dining Says

Great post.Never knew this, thank you for letting me know.

Pingback: Blogging 101: Revenue Patterns to Expect Each Year – Advice from a Twenty Something

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