How Do Bloggers Make Money - Blog Income Streams

If you are wondering how bloggers earn money then read on. I will be enumerating some of the most popular ways to earn money using your blog. If you don’t have a blog yet then this is actually a great opportunity to familiarize yourself with the available blog income streams.

I have been blogging for almost two years and now that I have started monetizing my blog, I realized that I should have done this as early as possible. The reason why I didn’t start learning about monetization was that I wanted to learn how to generate blog traffic first.

However, after all this time, I realized that they could actually go side-by-side. And that it’s actually possible to learn how to generate traffic while also figuring out how to best monetize your blog.

Table of Contents

Why You Should Monetize Your Blog

There are so many reasons why you should monetize your blog and some of those are:

Blog Operations/Maintenance Fee

If you do not have a self-hosted blog then chances are, you’re not spending that much on your blog, you’re just spending your time and effort.

However, if your blog is self-hosted, then chances are, you’re paying for your domain name and for your hosting services.

If you monetize your blog, even if you just put some advertisements on it, then you could potentially recoup the money that you are spending on your blog.

I just want to be clear though, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme, thus, the money a blogger would earn will vary depending on a lot of factors.

Additional Source of Income

Regardless if you live in a high-cost country or a low-cost country, earning money from your blog is a great way to augment your income.

You could use this additional source of income to further grow your wealth by investing it in various financial vehicles such as stocks, etc.

You could also use this money to grow your savings in your bank or to fund your day-to-day needs.

Learn Business

Most people often overlook the fact that monetizing your blog is a great way to learn how to do business. There are various business mechanisms at play that you could have a hands-on experience with if you monetize your blog. Some of those include but not limited to:

Keyword Research (Learn Market Research and the Law of Supply and Demand)
Traffic Generation (Learn Marketing and Sales)
Backlinking (Networking and Relationship-building)
Blog Maintenance (Learn HTML and other Tech stuff)

On top of that, you will also learn customer service skills since you’ll be interacting with your readers/audience and a lot more.

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Photo by Riva Ferdian on Unsplash

Things to Do Before You Monetize Your Blog

I spent my first two years (almost two years) learning how to generate traffic. I realized that I should have started monetization at the onset.

I recognize now that it’s one of my blogging mistakes.

If you have not started your blog yet, and if you’re planning to earn from the blog that you will create, then you can incorporate early on your monetization plan into your design and content strategy.

So before you even start making a blog, or before you start monetizing your existing blog, I highly suggest that you do the following:

Target Audience = Target Market

Just like any other business, you should also know who your target market is. Some of the questions that you should ask yourself include:

Who are you writing for?
Where are they located?
What solutions are they searching/looking for?

Knowing these will help you write content that is valuable for your target market.

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Best Monetization Option for You

This is also VERY important to consider early on.

Let’s take my blog, for example, I’m from the Philippines and I write mostly about personal finance and online selling stuff.

Unfortunately, where most of my traffic is located (my home country), the Cost-Per-Click, Page Impression Costs, etc are very low compared to other countries.

And also, as of the time of writing, there are not many affiliate programs available.

So my workaround is, to write articles that are relevant to many countries and not just to my Philippines’ traffic. This way, I can attract readers from high-cost countries especially, the US/UK and Canada.

By doing this, I can help improve my CTC/CPC, etc rates.

Build Relevant Content

Once you know your target market and the best monetization option for yourself then you can start relevant content that is SEO-optimized. In essence, your content will drive the traffic that you need in order to generate an income from your blog.

If you consistently build relevant and SEO-optimized content, then you will definitely start seeing your traffic grow.

It will also help if you will learn a variety of ways on how to market your blog. Personally, my main source of traffic is Google but you should know that it’s not the only available source of traffic. You can also get traffic from popular social media sites such as:

If you’re planning to sell your own product in the future, it would also help if you build your email list early on. You can easily do this by adding a subscription box to your blog just like the one that you see below my post.

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Photo by Dmitry Demidko on Unsplash

How Do Bloggers Earn Money – Blog Income Streams

One of the things that I love about making money from a blog is that one blog can have multiple sources of income. As of the time of writing I have two potential sources of income on Thrifty Hustler – Advertisements and Affiliate Marketing.

Here’s a list of the most common blog income streams:

1. Google Adsense: Google Adsense is the most common way to put advertisements on your blog mainly because it’s easy to get approved for Google Adsense compared to other advertising networks. Adsense does not have a minimum required number of sessions or traffic to qualify.

However, bear in mind that you should have high-quality content and you should follow your Terms of Service (TOS).

I wrote a more detailed explanation about it here – How to Make Money with Google Adsense.

2. Media.net: Media.net is another advertising network that is relatively easy to get in. I got in even when I was still very new. Most of the ads though are contextual, unlike Adsense which is mostly graphics and media.

The good thing is you can have both Adsense and Media/net on your blog as long as there is way more content than ads on a page. This may change though in the future so always check their TOS before putting ads on your blog.

3. Ezoic: Ezoic is currently the advertising network that I’m with and I’ve also written a separate article about it which you can see here – Ezoic Review – How to Make Money on your Blog with Ezoic.

4. Monumetric: Monumetric requires a minimum of 10,000 pageviews before you sign-up. There’s also a set-up fee that you have to pay. If you are interested to know more you can check the review by Graham of Reverse the Crush on this link.

5. Mediavine: Mediavine is one of the most premium advertising networks out there and a lot of bloggers want to be part of it because of its high payout. However, the entry requirement is quite steep for newbies as they are requiring at least 50,000 sessions in the last 30 days and the majority of your traffic should come from the US/UK and Canada.

6. Ad Thrive: Just like Mediavine, Ad Thrive is another premium network known for its high payout rate. The minimum requirement though is 100,000 monthly pageviews for you to qualify.

There are also other smaller ad networks out there, but so far, these are the biggest in the market (as of the time of writing).

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Affiliate Marketing

I’ll try to make this brief and concise but this is a very broad topic to discuss.

Affiliate marketing basically means promoting a company’s product or service via your blog and/or social media accounts.

You can do this by writing an article about a product or at least an article highly relevant to the product and then you add a link back to the web page of the product that you are affiliated with.

The links from affiliate programs are trackable, meaning, they can trace that the link came from their affiliate partner websites (your blog for example).

At the end of a defined time period, your earnings will be finalized and validated and will be sent to you via your preferred payment method.

Some of the links on these posts are affiliate links. If readers click on those links, and if they buy something using my affiliate links, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to them.

Aside from inserting your affiliate links, you can also insert their banner as on your posts.

Here are some of the most popular affiliate programs

1. Amazon: Amazon is probably the largest (or one of the largest) e-commerce websites in the world that sells almost anything imaginable. And luckily, they do have an affiliate program that enables people to earn by promoting the products that are available on their platform.

I do have Amazon affiliate links on my blog but since the majority of my traffic is from the Philippines, I really don’t earn a lot from these affiliate links for now.

However, since I am writing more articles that are geared towards audiences from any country, I’m noticing a steady increase in my US traffic and this will help me generate more sales in my Amazon links.

2. Involve Asia: If you are located in Southeast Asia then this is definitely one of the affiliate programs that you should check out. I just recently signed up with them and there are many available affiliate programs in my biggest market which is the Philippines.

Some of those companies include two of the most popular and widely used e-commerce platforms – Shopee and Lazada.

I have written a separate post about Involve Asia and you can read it here – How to Make Money on Your Blog with Involve Asia.

3. Commission Junction: Commission Junction is another popular affiliate program however, it’s geared towards the US and Canada market. If you do have huge traffic coming from those two countries then I suggest that you sign up with them.

4. Products and Services that You Use: Not all products and services signed up with any affiliate marketing companies. A lot of them actually either have or don’t have their own affiliate programs.

This is actually the most ideal way to do affiliate marketing. To actually use the products and services and to make an honest review about your experience with using them.

I will list below some of the products and services that have their own affiliate marketing or referral program in the Philippines and the articles that I have written about them so you can learn more about them:

Citibank Philippines: Citibank Philippines Citi Simplicity Credit Card Review
Citibank Philippines: Citibank Citi PremierMiles Credit Card Review – After 10 Years of Use
GCash: GCash Philippines Review 2021 – How to Open an Account with GCash
Diskartech: How to Earn Money from DiskarTech App

Before you can start promoting them, you have to have an account with them first so you can get your referral links. Once you have your referral links, you can start sharing them on your blog.

Be sure to read their TOS to avoid accidentally breaking their terms and conditions.

You can also promote the blog-related services that you use since almost all of them have their own affiliate programs.

In my case, aside from including their links in relevant articles, I also included the link on my ‘Recommendations‘ page since I really use them anyway.

Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

Offer Services

Your blog also serves as your portfolio. When people read your blog, they can basically tell what you’re good at. And if they’re looking for someone that matches the skills and competencies that you have showcased on your blog then you might get a job offer.

You can also actively offer your services via your blog and social media accounts and use your blog to show prospective clients/employers your sample work.

I actually got a part-time job recently because of my blog. I wasn’t really looking for one since I already have my hands full already. I’m a full-time online seller and I’m a part-time blogger.

However, since my online sales are very slow in recent months, I figured, why not accept something that could help me some money to help me pay for my day-to-day expenses.

So when a startup company asked me to write for them, I said yes!

Here are some of the jobs that are also related to blogging that you should consider in case you also want to offer your services:

Writer
Proof Reader
Editor
Art and Graphics Designer
Photo Editor
SEO Manager
Social Media Manager
Website Designer
Ebook Writer/Designer
Virtual Assistant
Consultancy
Coaching

This list could actually be endless because you could use your blog to practically sell a variety of non-blogging-related services such as Accounting, Customer Service, Lead Generation, etc.

Sell Products

If you don’t want to offer your services, you can sell your own products instead.

A few bloggers that I know of are selling digital ebooks about a variety of helpful topics.

Some are selling T-shirts and other merchandise via print-on-demand websites.

I also know some bloggers who are selling artwork, handmade items, and a lot more.

Speaking

Once you become well-known in your chosen niche, you can also start offering speaking services to various organizations.

A few bloggers that I know have had speaking engagements with schools, universities, and even with corporations.

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Final Thoughts

Can you imagine the monetization possibility of just one blog?

It’s amazing, isn’t it?

If you work hard and smart enough, then you will definitely be able to earn money from your blog.

Another thing that I love about monetizing a blog is that it’s almost an equal level playing field for all of us.

As long as you can provide value to your target audience then things such as race, the color of your skin, personal beliefs, age, etc, wouldn’t matter. 🙂

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I hope that you learned a thing or two from this post. If you want to add some tips and suggestions, feel free to comment down below.