Blogging is a lot of work and you’re probably wondering how to make money with a blog – especially if you’re at the beginning.
When talking with new bloggers, I hear these two statements often.
“I would just love to be able to make a little bit of money from my blog.”
“I love the idea of making money from writing about things I enjoy.”
Obviously, when a blog is established, it’s easy to monetize it, but how about new blogs? How to make money with a blog for beginners?
This is exactly why I’m writing this article. I want to help you make money blogging from the beginning so you can clearly build your blogging strategy from the start.
In this post, we’ll talk about blog monetization strategies, user intent, and ways to monetize your blog content.
But first, let’s see at what point you should be focussing on blog monetization strategies.
How Soon Can You Monetize Your Blog?
There are different opinions on the matters – but in my opinion, you can start monetizing as soon as your blog is live. While you’re probably not going to get any sales at first, it’s important to have a clear strategy to monetize your content from the beginning.
Now, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding blog monetization.
- Affiliate programs might have minimum traffic requirements. For example, Amazon will terminate your partnership if you don’t get any sales within 3 months. That said, you may want to wait until you have enough traffic before applying to their affiliate program. Alternatively, you could start with Skimlinks.
- The best ad networks have minimum traffic requirements. You won’t be able to monetize with ads (unless you apply for Adsense) until you reach a minimum of traffic (around 10,000 pageviews depending on the ad network chosen).
- You should make sure your blog has the correct setup before you start to monetize it. You’ll find more information about this in the following section.
At the end of the day, you need traffic in order to make money with a blog. I’d recommend starting applying for affiliate programs as soon as you get 1000 monthly pageviews. Although, some programs could accept you before.
I managed to monetize a blog with just 500 monthly pageviews but since I already had a couple of established blogs, I did not have to reapply for affiliate programs.
If you’re a bit lost here, keep reading, we’ll talk about ads and affiliate programs further.
What Do You Need To Make Money Blogging?
Now if you’re wondering if your website is ready to be monetized, here are a few questions for you.
- Is your blog self-hosted? If you’re using a free platform, you may want to reconsider. Free platforms are quite limited when it comes to monetization and you won’t be able to display ads. I’d recommend you get a hosting plan and a domain so you can go self-hosted. You can learn more about web hostings or see how to set up a WordPress blog with Bluehost here.
- Is your blog looking great? The look and design of your blog should look professional. Would you click on links from a dodgy website? I wouldn’t. Make sure your website looks decent. I personally use Divi by Elegant Themes, but there are plenty of other options.
- Do you provide value? In order to be successful at blogging, you must provide value to your readers. They will be more likely to click on your affiliate links if they trust you and they want to support you.
That said, to make money blogging as a beginner, you’ll need a beautiful self-hosted blog so you’re set for success. Then, you’ll need to generate traffic to your blog so you can monetize using different techniques.
How Long Does It Take To Make Money Blogging?
It could take you one month, or six, or twelve, or twenty-four. It really depends on your commitment and your time.
For example, if you’re blogging one hour per week, it will take you longer because you don’t have a lot of time to create new blog posts and promote your content.
If you’re blogging 10 hours per week, it will take you a few months too, but it will allow you to publish 1 or 2 articles per week.
And if you’re blogging full-time, then, you can monetize in just a few months.
While time and commitment are important, it’s not the only thing that matters.
If you’re writing without a clear strategy, then, good luck! Having a content strategy is a must with blogging. Think about it – there are so many blogs out there. The competition is higher, and picking the right niche is very important these days.
Not only do you need to be able to provide value, but you need to publish a lot more content in order to stand out from the crowd.
Let’s see a couple of examples.
When I started my main blog, A Broken Backpack, the travel blog niche was competitive, but it was not as competitive as now. I focused on long-term travel and I managed to monetize my content after a few months.
I was working on my blog full-time for two years, and I managed to make a full-time income around year #3. In the meantime, I worked as a freelancer to support myself.
When I started Nomad Life 101, the digital nomad niche was less competitive than travel, and I knew I could deliver great content that could beat the competition.
I managed to monetize my blog in around 18 months working only a few hours per month on it. My focus was still on my main blog. I started this blog in 2018 and this niche is much smaller than the travel niche.
I make money mostly with affiliates but it’s not a full-time income. I see it as a nice extra.
Nomad Life 101 continues to grow every month, and I’ve been focussing more on it in the last year. As the traffic grows, the income grows too. In fact, you can check our blog income report for 2021 if you want to learn about blog income sources.
That said, it really depends on the niche and your level of knowledge. If you’re still new at blogging, you’ll need to learn things like SEO and you’ll be spending hours educating yourself while blogging.
It takes longer, but when the blog starts to make money, you won’t have to work as much if you don’t want to.
Wow – that was a lot of information, but if you want to dive deeper into this, I have a full article on how long it really takes to make money with a blog.
How to Generate Traffic to Your Blog?
Traffic is required in order to make money with a blog. Here are the top blog traffic sources:
- Organic traffic (traffic coming from search engines like Google)
- Direct traffic (when I user type your website directly in their bar)*
- Socials (traffic coming from Pinterest, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, etc.)
- Referrals (traffic coming from other websites or blogs)
* Direct traffic could also be from Google Discover or Google Web Stories.
In my opinion, the best type of traffic is organic and direct. This means you get traffic without having to promote your content on social media. Your traffic comes from Google via the search engines, Discover, or Web Stories.
Direct traffic also means your brand is on point because people can remember your URL. You can expect direct traffic when your blog is more established.
To get organic traffic, you’ll need to make sure your content is optimized for search engines. That’s what we call SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
If you want to learn more about SEO, take a look at our online course SEO from Scratch. It’s designed for newer bloggers who want to learn how to get organic traffic and build a solid blogging strategy.
The social media traffic is also great but it can really vary in function of your niche. For example, some niches work well on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook. But to get this type of traffic you must promote your blog posts on your social media channels.
You’ll need to create pins, graphics, and social media captions. This is why I prefer organic traffic because I don’t have to spend hours promoting content on social media.
Although, you’ll still find me on Instagram and Pinterest – I spend a couple of hours per week working on growing these channels – but my main focus remains on SEO.
Finally, referrals are also a great way to grow your blog traffic. For example, if you write a guest post on another blog, you’ll get a link to your website.
This helps your blog because having backlinks help you grow your domain authority. The domain authority helps you rank higher on search engines. You can learn more about this in SEO from Scratch. Bonus: you could also get clicks to your website.
How To Make Money With A Blog?
Once you have traffic to your blog, the next step is to monetize your content. There are several ways to monetize a blog, but my favorites are displaying ads and affiliate marketing. Let’s take a look at your options.
Displaying Ads
Displaying ads on your blog is the best way to monetize your content. It’s a passive income stream – as long as you have traffic, you’ll make money. My main website is affiliated with Mediavine – you can learn more about Mediavine requirements here.
To display ads on your website, you can either go with Adsense (never used it because the ads don’t look great, and they barely make money) or wait until you meet the minimum traffic requirements.
Usually, great ad networks accept bloggers who have 10,000 monthly pageviews.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a fun way to monetize your content and can become a passive income stream for your blog.
For example, if you become an affiliate for a brand, you’ll get access to a dashboard in which you can create affiliate links. You can then add these links to your content. When a reader clicks on the link and purchases a product, you’ll get a commission on the sale.
All my websites are making money with affiliate marketing, but you’ll need to grow your traffic enough to see the money coming in.
One of the affiliate programs I like the most is SafetyWing. I’ve been generating money every month since I joined in 2018.
This program is one of my favorites because you make a commission on the original sale. Still, if a nomad uses the Nomad Insurance for multiple months, I also get recurring revenue. Take a look here.
That said, if you have a travel blog, you can learn more about the best affiliate programs for travel bloggers.
Brand Partnership
When your blog is established, brands might contact you to partner with you. You could become a brand ambassador. The brand will pay you to promote them or to wear their products.
This is a great idea, especially if you want to build a long-term collaboration with brands you love. Having a contract and knowing how much money you’ll make every month is always welcome.
Selling Digital Products
Finally, you could sell your own products. Creating a course, an eBook, a program, or PDF files to monetize your blog is a great alternative especially for smaller bloggers.
If your audience builds trust with you, they will be more likely to buy from you. You could use your blog posts or mailing list for advertising your digital products.
Selling your own products also means you get all the money from the sales (unless you’re using a third-party app to deliver your products, such as SendOwl).
Understanding the User Intent
Having a clear blogging strategy is often forgotten by new bloggers. You won’t be able to monetize your content if you have no monetization strategies in place or if you don’t understand the user intent.
This applies mostly to search engines, so let me give you an example.
If you’re googling “cupcake recipes”, you’re looking for a recipe. You don’t want to buy premade cupcakes. You want to bake them yourself.
If you’re googling “Best Cupcake Decoration Tools”, you’re interested in buying cupcake decoration tools. You’re looking for comparisons and recommendations on the best decoration tools for cupcakes.
A good blog should provide informational content and “money content”. That said “cupcake recipes” are informational blog posts and “best cupcake decoration tools” are money blog posts.
You should have a mix of information and money content.
If you only provide information, you’ll need to display ads or sell digital products to monetize your content.
If you only provide money content, your readers may not trust you because you’re always trying to sell things.
You can learn more about user intent and buying stages in this article on how to monetize a travel blog. It gives many examples so you can understand how to write “money content”. You can apply these tips to any niche.
Final Thoughts On Blog Monetization For Beginners
It’s possible to make money with a new blog, but blogging requires patience – especially if you’re new at this. If you need help setting up your blog, head to our blogging section so you can dive deeper into this blogging thing.
Remember that to monetize your blog, you’ll need a solid content strategy (a mix of informational and money content). You’ll need traffic and ways to monetize your content.
It takes time and dedication, but with the right strategies, you could be blogging full-time soon.
