So you’ve seen all the blog income reports and pins from bloggers making six figures, so you know it’s possible, but how in the world do bloggers actually make money?
The answer is actually super simple, and they are things you can quickly and easily start doing yourself!
In this post, I’m going to show you the top 5 ways bloggers make money, PLUS exactly which of these I do to make $45,000+ every month from my blog!
1. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is the most common way bloggers make money. Affiliate marketing is when an influencer/content creator/blogger recommends and promotes a product and earns a commission every time someone purchases that product through their affiliate link.
When I was starting out, I promoted books and other products through Amazon and Target, which both have super easy affiliate programs to sign up for.
I also promoted other bloggers’ courses, like Michelle Gardener’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, which is actually how I learned how to make money through affiliate marketing and is hands down the best course on affiliate marketing out there.
As an example, in my blog post The 9 Books That Helped Me Go From Broke To Multi Six Figures, the links to the books contain my unique affiliate ID, and when someone purchases a book after clicking my affiliate link, I earn a commission.
Now, I make money through affiliate marketing mostly by recommending the programs I actually use on a daily basis to run my business:
ConvertKit
SamCart
Kajabi
Canva
and I definitely still promote products from Amazon!
2. Digital products
Digital products are a product that a blogger creates that can be delivered to the customer and downloaded electronically.
Though they take some time and effort to create, digital products are a great source of passive income because you create them once and then you can sell them over and over again forever, on autopilot!
Some types of digital products include:
Ebooks (e.g. how-to guides or workbooks)
Printables
Canva templates
Social media templates
Website themes
Audio downloads (e.g. meditation tracks)
Stock photography packs
3. online Courses
Courses are my absolute favorite way to make money blogging and are my absolute favorite to create.
Online courses are digital courses you create by putting together videos, audios, workbooks, or a combination of those, that teach something you have learned that others would want to learn, too.
Online courses are how I jumped from making a couple thousand dollars per month with just affiliate marketing to $10,000 a month, and now my little online course alone brings in $20,000+ consistently every month.
Courses can take a lot of time and effort to create, but they can turn your blog and business into an absolute passive income machine.
4. Coaching and services
Many bloggers use their blog mostly to promote actual services they provide to people. Some examples would include:
Web design
Graphic design
Copywriting
Brand design
Social media management
Life coaching
Health coaching
Business coaching
I mostly just use my blog to promote my online course, but I do also offer a group coaching program as well as limited spots for one-on-one blog and business coaching, so this is another way I make money as well.
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5. Display ads
Probably one of the most well-known ways to make money blogging, and probably the first thing you thought of when thinking about how blogs make money.
Display ads can be a steady source of income, but usually pay only pennies per click, and therefore require a HUGE amount of people coming to your blog to actually make any money.
They can also make your page look cluttered, hard to read, and load slowly.
I personally don’t feel that display ads are profitable enough anymore to be worth doing, so I don’t use them. But, if you want to check it out, MediaVine is the best, highest paying advertising company to work with.
