I always dread this question, “well how do you make money blogging” or “where does your income come from on your blog?”. I mean, it’s a valid question they aren’t asking me how much I make or anything but still it’s rather difficult to explain where I make my money on my blog because there are so many various areas of my blog that make money for me. Every little bit of revenue on my three blogs {one blog isn’t updated often and it’s a Blogspot blog but still brings in a little revenue} adds up! I use Outright.com to ensure I am keeping accurate records for tax purposes and I use an Excel spreadsheet to document all of the free products I get, because YES they have to be claimed on taxes.
WHERE CAN BLOGGERS MAKE MONEY?
Here are the top places I recommend you check out or get started with to make some revenue and eventually you can be like me and live on it, well of course that depends on your cost of living. My cost of living is rather cheap, I live well within my means and so I can live on this money with the three kids!
- Amazon Associates – use at least two Amazon affiliate links within each blog post.
- Project Wonderful – advertising tool, low cost advertising for others but I have been making a steady revenue from this service.
- Direct Sponsors For Text Links – Meaning pitch various websites and companies to have their ad on your sidebar but watch out too many text link ads are not good. Keep it relevant to your site content for best revenue.
- Paid Blog Posts – These can be direct contacts to you, you contacting a company directly or using services like Sponsored Reviews, Blogvertise or PayPerPost.
Lately in all honesty I have just been writing away and getting pitches, but when you first start you must do all of the leg work to build up your presence online and this means working with SEO, my rank is a 3 and it goes from 4 to 3 and 3 to 4 quite often lately, I don’t know what is up with Google but I have seen bloggers with lower ranks get great paid gigs, so it’s all about proving who you are, that you are here to stay and companies will work with you and pay you to have their brand on your blog!
What methods have worked for you when making money blogging? Share your tips/tricks and places!
I’ve been using bucks2blog lately and it has helped increase blog revenue. I’m still searching for better gigs but very few are for international besides e-book reviews.
I use CPM ads and some affiliates. I also do some sponsored posts and campaigns.
I have found that relying on a single method is not a good idea, you need to diversify and experiment and find which option work best for your site. A few smaller means of income adds up to a single larger one, so don’t be afraid of earning a small amount so long as it doesn’t take up valuable “real estate”.