5 Pillar Ways to Make Money Blogging
Special thanks to QUID for sponsoring this post. Learn more about QUID payment solutions, and ways to make money blogging, below.
Earning money through a blog is not an easy goal to achieve. I am sorry to burst your bubble this soon in the article, but it’s a true fact. But, I did not say it’s impossible! I have been blogging for the last 5 years and my blog has had steady income since my second year blogging.
First and foremost, to make money blogging, you need to have all the tools of the trade in place. With those skills, instruments, and equipment at hand, and putting several hours of hard work and preparation, you will be able to offer a great product or service that people -and companies- will be willing to pay you for.
How Do Bloggers Get Paid?
Well, you don’t get paid for blogging. You get paid for offering a product or a service promoted through your blog.
One of the most important lessons I learned through Elite Blog Academy is that your blog is not your business but an asset to your business. But paradoxically, your business starts with your blog.
I have been creating content about home organization, homemaking, and time management for quite some time. I have also branched out to share crafts, DIY projects, and some home improvement projects.
Blogging about blogging is another passion of mine. Hence, this article. I like to teach people how to blog, make money from their blogs, and build an audience.
All these categories have helped me create a money-making blog. And each category on its own brings me income through different kinds of income streams. So let’s dive into five pillar ways to make money blogging.
Pillar Ways to Make Money Blogging
Even though making money through a blog is a hard -and slow- process, the beauty of it is that blogging allows you to earn money through several income streams. You can try them all, a couple, or just one. It’s up to you!
Below is a list of ways you can use to make money blogging.
- Advertisement (a.k.a Ads)
- Donations or Tips
- Affiliate Sales
- Sponsored Opportunities
- Sales of Your Own Products and/or Services
1. Advertisement
Ads are the most known and most popular way to make money blogging. Even those people who are not in the trade or can’t fully understand the concept of blogging, know that ads make money.
After all, we are bombarded by ads everywhere. Ads on Facebook, ads on Instagram, ads on Youtube and Amazon, ads on Google, and of course, ads on this blog of mine. Sorry! Wherever you go online, ads follow you.
Ads make the internet go round. If there weren’t ads, you wouldn’t find interesting articles and cool new products. And those blogs and businesses thrive on ads. So thank you for reading this article. Your views pay my hard work of writing interesting content for you.
The difficult part about earning money through ads on a blog is that you need to have a fair amount of page views to make just a few dollars per/day. Sometimes even just cents! It all depends on the company that is serving your ads, and the type of ads that are served. Some ads pay more money per view (or impression), some ads pay only per click. No clicks, no money 🙁 – Been there, done that.
So for those blogs that do not have enough page views to earn money through ads, there are options. So keep reading! QUID is one of them!
2. Donations or tips
Of all the income streams you will read about today, I have yet to try ‘Donations’. You can also call them ‘Tips’.
Asking for tips or donations on your blog may sound like you are ‘begging’ for money. I understand. But the truth is, blogs are FREE. We are not charging people to be able to visit our sites and read our blogs. All the content that I have written for 5 years, is completely free! And so many lives have been enriched, thanks to those free articles.
Think about it, like going to a restaurant. You sit at the table; you read the menu; all the dishes have a price; you pay for the food you eat. But, the service you are receiving from your waiter or waitress is -most of the time- amazing, and it’s free (or at least they’re not charging you separately for it!). It’s up to you to tip your waiter/waitress, and it’s up to you how much you tip him/her.
If you received outstanding service, you will most likely leave him/her the suggested tip or even more. Am I right?
Using QUID as a Payment Platform
So, let me ask you. Doesn’t it make sense to you to leave a tip or a donation to the blogger that has written an article that has served you? If and when you find an answer to all those questions you have, and you feel that you have been well served (for free!), wouldn’t you feel like saying thanks with a few cents?
QUID can help bloggers collect tips and donations. QUID allows you to receive tips as low as 1¢!
Not every payment provider lets you transact in pennies at very high volumes. Most payment providers will charge you a minimum of 30¢ + 3% commission per transaction, so accepting payments under $1 (one dollar) becomes expensive. With QUID, you can actually charge a dollar or 10 cents, or even a penny for your product, with very low transaction fees.
Better yet, if you don’t like the look of ads on your blog, you can use QUID as an alternative to bring revenue by asking your readers for a small donation after reading your article.
You can do this by adding a widget like the one I added at the end of this post!
3. Affiliate Sales
Affiliate sales are also a great income stream most bloggers use. This type of earning comes from indirect sales of affiliate products promoted on blog posts and pages.
While affiliate sales are a passive way to make money blogging, it still requires a lot of work. When promoting products and services on your blog, you need to be as authentic as it can get. They need to be included in your blog posts in an organic and natural way.
Here is an example of one simple post, my Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Baby Shower, which brings me the highest amount of affiliate income through all the products and resources I share with my audience.
But what happens when you write an article that does not lend itself for affiliate links? Again, you can resort to asking for a tip or a donation through QUID!
For example, my post Prayers for First Communion Preparation is very popular, and it ranks well on Google, but I have no way of monetizing it through affiliate links. I supply my readers with a very informative post about the prayers kids need to know by the time they make their First Communion, and also give a free printable set of prayer cards.
With the help of a QUID donation slider, I can bring some income by asking or suggesting my readers to leave a tip, if they have found my post and my free product (the prayer cards) useful for them.
4. Sponsored Posts
With the boom of social media and blogs in the past 5 to 7 years, companies have resorted to promoting their products and services through these platforms. Us bloggers are the new magazine. Companies pay us to try, test, use, and write about their products in order to spread the word with the world.
When a company pays a blogger to write about their product, that is called a ‘sponsored post’. This, my friend, is the true example of a sponsored post. I have a written disclosure at the very beginning of the post, letting you know that I have been paid to write this article.
By writing this sponsored post, I am educating my audience about QUID payment solutions and how they can make extra cash blogging by using their service.
And just like when you are writing posts with affiliate products links in it, when writing sponsored content you need to be authentic. Only accept opportunities to share products and services you find valuable and that you would use yourself.
5. Sales of Your Own Products and/or Services
Finally, you can also make money by selling your own products and/or services through your blog.
Neat House. Sweet Home® has a shop of its own, where I sell my own digital products. An average of 10% of my ‘blogging income’ comes from this income stream. I put blogging income in quotes because it is not really income that comes directly from the blog.
These are products I have developed to support articles and tutorials I have written on my blog, and now have become a part of the brand and business I have built thanks to this blog.
If you do not have enough products or services to offer, to justify opening up an online store like mine, you can use QUID as the payment solution to monetize a post where you offer things such as a printable or an ebook.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are several ways to make money through your blog. You can basically control how do you want to monetize your blog. And QUID can help you with that!
- If you don’t like the look of ads in your blog, you can ask for donations through QUID.
- When you only have a handful of products to offer but can’t justify having an online shop, you can sell them for a very low price. QUID can help you collect those payments with a low transaction fee.
- If you can’t monetize a post through affiliate product links, you can request a tip to your readers through a QUID slider like mine.
So, what do you think? Would you try QUID?