If you’re like me, you dread the question “What do you do?” When I was in the classroom, it was easy to say that I was an educator, an elementary school teacher… Most people understood what I meant and didn’t need clarification.

Now when someone asks me what I do, I tell them I’m a blogger. The confused looks on their faces are priceless. The next question some of the brave ones ask is how do you make money blogging?

 

This is a good question because two years ago I didn’t understand how someone could make money blogging. When bloggers claimed to make thousands of dollars a month, I just assumed they were either lying or selling a lot of ads.

I noticed Google Ads everywhere on many blogs, so this had to be the way most bloggers earned their money. Right?

Then I stumbled upon Pat Flynn’s website Smart Passive Income and read his monthly income reports. I was amazed and was motivated to continue on with blogging because I had concrete evidence it was possible to make money with a blog.

It was also obvious I didn’t have a clue what I was doing since I hadn’t made a dime from my blog at the time.

Most bloggers don’t make half of what Pat Flynn makes, but there are many making full-time incomes from their blogs.

I found income reports from Michelle Schroeder-Gardner (Making Sense of Cents) and Abby Lawson (Just a Girl and Her Blog) very eye opening- to say the least.

These reports inspired me to keep going, even when I wanted to give this whole blogging thing up.

How I Make Money Blogging

If you think that you can put up a blog and make money the next day, you will be sadly mistaken.

Blogging is hard work. It will take time, patience and ingenuity to start making any money.

There are bloggers who are making tens of thousands of dollars a month whereas most aren’t even making enough to pay for their hosting costs.

There are many ways to make money blogging. Of all the ways there are out there to make a living from blogging, many bloggers only use a few of them.

I believe in order to make substantial money, you’re going to have to diversify your income streams. I take that position and I’ve listed the ways I personally make money blogging.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is, in fact, my largest income stream from blogging. I highly recommend any blogger, new or old, to include affiliate marketing as an income stream while blogging.

Affiliate marketing involves recommending products and services that you absolutely love and have used to your followers. If someone clicks on a link and purchases something based on your recommendation, you’ll receive a percentage of the sale.

Now to be totally transparent, I dabbled in affiliate marketing before I started blogging.

It has only been within the last year that I have transitioned from internet marketer to blogger. I’ll speak more about that in a later post, but my focus is more on educating and less on selling.

You can use affiliate marketing while you’re creating your own products. Though there’s a strategy to being successful with affiliate marketing, it’s one of, if not the easiest income stream you can have.

Michelle makes over $50,000 a month from her blog, primarily from affiliate marketing. If you’re looking to up your affiliate marketing game, check out her course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

I only believe in recommending products I use or have used and it’s no surprise that my biggest affiliates include Amazon Affiliates, Bluehost, Genesis Framework and more recently blogging books. These tools have been monumental in my blogging journey.

Display Advertising

Your blog’s traffic can bring you income with display advertising. By putting ads on your blog, you will make money based on impressions (how many eyeballs that come across your ad) or clicks. Google Adsense is the biggest network out there, but not the only one.

Now I admit, I’m like everyone else who vomited Google Ads all over their blogs. On every blog I run, I placed Google ads throughout them. Of course, I found out much later that Google frowns upon having more than two ads on every page.

 

I don’t make much money from Google Ads because you will, in fact, need a lot of traffic in order to make money from it. I don’t make a lot of money from Adsense, but thought I would mention it in case my income increases later on.

I recommend using Google Adsense if you have a lot of traffic or blog posts that can’t be easily monetized in other ways. If you’re looking for an alternative to Google Adsense you may want to consider Media.net, Chitika or Bidvertiser.

Selling Ebooks and E-courses

I haven’t produced a lot of my own products, simply because I haven’t really had the time to do so. I’ve created an ebook How to Make Money Planning Cabaret Parties which is currently listed on Amazon and two e-courses Jump Start Your Online Biz and Blog Your Way to 3k.

These courses are only available twice a year, but I’m working on making both of these courses evergreen programs.

I like the idea of creating my own products, especially e-books, because once you’re done – you’re done.

You can keep selling the same product over and over again without any more effort on your part. You literally can make money while you sleep.

Coaching

I coach women entrepreneurs who are looking to build and grow online businesses. I’ve included coaching on this list because I use blogging to advertise and support my clients.  I blog and sell coaching services over at Bossy in Heels.

I am in the process of cutting down on the number of clients I take because working one-on-one is time-consuming. There’s only so many clients you can work with on a daily basis, therefore minimizing the amount you are able to make.