How to monetize a blog – In Depth Guide – 16 Methods, 37+ Options, Criteria

Today I want to help you find your strategy in regards to:

How to Monetize a blog ?

When it comes to "Making money blogging", there is no shortage of articles:

The quick list of options
The 'look how well I did' and why you should do exactly the same
The 'Get ready to make millions' article
And some good ones too... let's be honest 🙂

But still I have not seen a complete guide to establish a strategy considering your personality and your blog.

How to monetize a blog - Monetizing a blog - Blogging for Money - Make Money Blogging

This is why I created this in-depth guide to monetizing a blog with:

Criteria to help you decide with methods to go for
Guidance and resources to get your started
Examples from various niches to be inspired

Since I am not telling you how to become a millionaire in 6 months, this article might not get shared as much but I truly hope it will help you head in the right direction and build the life you want.

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Note: This article contains affiliate links to products I use and trust.

Find what you need:

If this is the first time you read this article, please don't skip to the options, but consider the strategy part first. This is for your own interest!

Quick Navigation

About "making money" with a blog

Today we are not talking about "Making Money with your Blog"

I want to help you strategize and monetize your blog according to you.

Definition of "to Monetize" according to the Oxford dictionaries:
To earn revenue from (an asset, a business)

Not to make it, to EARN it!

So if you want to earn what your want in a way you love, let's develop your strategy!

The #1 requirement to monetizing your blog

Of course, real monetization can only work if you know your audience and publish the high quality content they need in the first place!

So please don't write empty posts just for the sake of publishing something or adding an ad or a link.

ADD VALUE TO THE INTERNET!

StructurInfo always fighting information overload! 🙂

How to Monetize a Blog - Develop your Strategy

Now let's see how you can define how to monetize your blog (and look at a realistic example).

Strategy monetizing a blog - How to make money with blog

1. HAVE A CLEAR OBJECTIVE

The first step is to identify your objective in terms of:

Income generated (how much a month)
Time and effort spent
When do you want to reach that

Of course it needs to be proportional. You can't expect a full time living within 6 months by doing 1h every week.

Example:
With my Travel Blog ZigZag On Earth, the objective was to

Earn Side income (I don't want it to become my job)
Keep having fun
Be a short effort and then as passive as possible

2. IDENTIFY YOUR SKILLS AND STRENGTHS

Next you identify your skills and strengths. What are you good at?

Inspiring people to take action?
Simplifying processes?
Building a community?
Designing beautiful images
Influencing people?
...

use your strengths - how to make money blogging

No need to pick monetization options that need skills that you don't have!!!

You will loose too much time trying to improve where you are not good. Better to focus to make you excellent at what you are already good at and use those skills to monetize your blog.

Example (continued):

I am good at organizing and simplifying information, creating processes and not too bad at photography

3. KNOW YOUR READERS AND WHAT THEY WANT

Next you need to understand your readers and why they are on your blog.

Who are they? Age, location, personality...
Are they on your blog for information, for inspiration or for your personality?
Are they looking for something specific or just browsing?
What are their expectations?
Those who stay on your site what do they love?
Is your social media following the same?
...

Example (continued):

My readers arrive on my blog looking for specific information to help them plan their trip to a specific destination. They stay because they see I provide a lot of details to help plan road trips to those destinations.

They are slightly interested in photography, and not interested in blogging at all.

4. CLARIFY TO POTENTIAL OF YOUR BLOG

Your monetization strategy will of course evolve with your blog and its influence. But you need to look at your blog right now, and what your focus is for the coming months.

4 Major Criteria to consider when evaluating your blog:

How high your Influence is
How established your Expertise is
How high your Traffic is
How narrow your Niche is

You can ask questions such as

How much traffic do you get?
What is the average time on site and page views?
How are readers engaged with your content, so they comment?
How many social media followers?
How active in your community on social media, how are they interacting?
How narrow is your niche?
...

Note: To set up, grow and manage your blog, you can use The Blog Cookbook and its practical checklists.

Example (continued):

Traffic is good and growing with a great time on site.

Not much engagement in terms of comment (but I am not really asking for them)

My niche is the planning of scenic road trips - not that narrow...

And Social media is not my thing. I focus only on Pinterest.

5. KNOW HOW YOU LIKE TO WORK

And then you have to consider what you like doing and mostly what you don't like doing.

You will always have to do things you don't like, but no need to choose a road where you know most of the activities will make you unhappy (unless you outsource to someone who loves it)

Do you like social media?
Do you like exchanging with real people
What is your feeling about managing stock?
Do you like giving your opinion?
What is ethically important to you?
...

Example (continued):

As I said, I don't like Social Media. So any options related to it are out.

I like when things are clear and laid out and do not require much back and forth.

And I get very annoyed with ads on other people's blogs so this is out for me.

6. IDENTIFY THE RIGHT MONETIZATION OPTIONS

Now considering all that, check out all the options to monetize your blog listed below and see which ones are worth a try.
You might want to try several and see what works best.

And you should include at least 3 approaches in order to manage risks.

Don't forget to come back to this strategy regularly and see if it remains the right one.

Note: If you can't answer most of those questions above you may not be ready to monetize. You can still try a few things to learn how to do it.

Example (continued):

So here is how I monetize it:

eBooks - I create destination guides with maps, practical info and many photos - Alternatives to the industry travel guides with lots of words and thousands of location - in the same vibe as my free online information
Prints - I love photography - My articles are full of photos! I use a SmugMug account to store them and embed them in my website. This also allows me to set up a passive option for people to purchase prints
Travel related Affiliates e.g. Booking.com which I always use to book my accommodations
No ads - I can't stand them on other blogs (personal opinion here) so I don't use them
No sponsored posts - I feel uncomfortable

And I am very happy with the result. I don't feel pressured to work on my blog. I pay my bills with that side income and once the book is written (which I love doing) it is all passive except for the very occasional email saying how they like it or asking a question such as which one to choose.

This was my approach but there are so many different ones. For example in the travel industry, TwoMonkeys aggregated some information about how a group of 30 travel bloggers earn money.

Now, let's have a look at all those options!

Once you have your strategy, I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Monetizing a blog - Direct Methods and Examples

There are no criteria for potential earnings because some bloggers are killing it with all methods, and some are not able to do anything with the same...

1. AFFILIATE Methods

Monetization Options

#1. Affiliate Links on your Blog

#2. Affiliate Links direct on Social Media

#3. Affiliate Links inside your Newsletter

Criteria

Requirements: Traffic and Influence on the medium used
Investment: Writing good free content to include links - Manage several affiliate accounts
Skills Required: Building trust with your audience, how to promote a product

How you earn Money

By building trust with your readers and promoting products you believe in.

You use your personal link (which includes your affiliate reference) and earn money when readers use your link. Depending on the program, you earn:

for each lead from potential buyers
or a fee for each sale
or a % of each sale

Affiliate programs use cookies with different lengths. For some, the buyer has to purchase right away. For others, your affiliate reference is still valid for a purchase after several months.

High-Level Process

Find a Brand or Product you like: service, product, course... (blog host, cooking course, jewelry line...)
Find their affiliate programs (Some use networks such as Shareasale (e.g. WP Engine, Tailwind, Studiopress themes) or Commission Junction - others have their own
Apply if your meet their criteria
Get your links and add them the relevant articles: product reviews, "how to" articles, blog resource page

BEWARE! Always disclose the presence of Affiliate Links before they appear + Make your links Nofollow

Useful Tools and Resources

Free resources

Monetize Pros has an in-depth guide about Affiliate Marketing
And once you are launched, Darren from Problogger has a nice short article about the 3 questions to consider when your affiliate links are not converting
I have yet to find a good article on using affiliate links directly on social media

Course + Support Group

Michelle from Make sense of cents has created a great course to start your journey with affiliate marketing. It works for every niche you might be in. And it includes how to use Pinterest for affiliate marketing

Examples

Travel Niche Example

The Travel Blogger behind "Where's Sharon" has been able to create a strong community who trust her recommendations. She makes most of her income from Affiliates. In her Income report, she explains that:

"As a rough approximation, about half of my affiliate income is from hotel booking websites: HotelsCombined, Booking and Agoda. A third is from Amazon and the rest is a mixture of small ones like Wild Earth, eBay and Airbnb."

Resource pages are a great way to include affiliate links as readers often ask the same questions about the tools you use. Sprouted Kitchen has a great page with the tools. Sara And Hugh have a great page with their photography and cooking tools.

Food Niche Example

Mom Niche Example

Paula from easy Baby Life shares her affiliate income that is coming mainly from products on Amazon.

Wedding Niche Example

The wedding industry has many vendors with affiliate program. Mythemedwedding.com is build around that.