HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG

When my husband Danny and I decided we were going to take the plunge and payoff our student loans as quickly as possible, we knew we were going to need a big shovel. We started looking for ways that we could earn money on the side. Since we have a son, it was really important to me to find a side hustle that we could do from home. Also important given our $650k of student loan debt, we needed a side hustle that had unlimited earning potential. And equally as important, we felt SO lost and overwhelmed when we came out of school with so much debt, we wanted to help other people come out of school (or otherwise deeply in debt) to feel empowered and to provide them with tools to conquer their debt. Thus, the birth of Deeply in Debt! Running this blog is by far my favorite side hustle. Often when friends and family find out that our blog makes money, they’re perplexed as to how. This is exactly how our blog makes money and more importantly, how YOU can make money from a blog.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG

These are things that I personally do on this blog, and at the bottom of this post I’ve listed a few ideas that I haven’t tried yet, but that you might be interested in.

USE ADS TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG

One of the most obvious and common ways to make money from a blog is to use ads on your blog. Perhaps you are wondering how to run those ads on your blog? It’s actually really easy. There are many different advertising companies who will be willing to pay for ads on your blog. Each company has its own terms, for example, some companies will require that you have a certain number of page views to your blog before they will work with you. Google Adsense is a decent place to start since they don’t have a lot of requirements, but they definitely don’t pay as much as other companies. You can start running Google Adsense’s ads on your blog just as soon as your blog is up and running. You’ll likely want to switch to another company (Mediavine, AdThrive, MyFinance etc) once you have more page views and once your blog is a little more established.

In addition to using a general advertising company, you can sell private ad space on your blog. This is direct advertising, so you would be working directly with the company for the ad space on your blog. It works kind of like real estate– you are selling space on your website. Usually companies pay for ad space on your side bar, header, footer, or pop up space on your blog. The beauty of having your own blog is that there aren’t a lot of rules. You could work up a monthly, yearly, quarterly, or whatever other kind of agreement you can conjure up for how long their ads will run on your site. They could pay you for how many clicks the ad receives or simply for the space they’re taking up. The sky is the limit.

JOIN AFFILIATE PROGRAMS AND NETWORKS TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG

Affiliate programs enable you to make money from a blog through an individual link to the company’s product or service. When someone makes a purchase through your link, you earn a commission. It’s best to become an affiliate for products or services that you’ve used and genuinely enjoy, at least that’s our policy here at Deeply in Debt. One really nice thing about joining affiliate programs is that they can kind of become passive income sources for you. You can create a blog post with your affiliate link and basically forget about it while it continues to earn income over the years, with just a tiny bit of upkeep on your post.

SELL YOUR OWN PRODUCTS OR SERVICES TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG. 

Another great way to earn money from your blog is to sell your own products. Obviously, the kinds of products you will sell will depend on the kind of blog you have. For example, if you had a sewing blog where you showcase clothing you have designed or sewn, you could sell that clothing or even a template of how to sew the clothing. Or perhaps a fitness blog where you could sell personal training sessions or work outs. We are currently working on some helpful debt payoff products, and have a few others on our products page here.

GET SPONSORSHIPS TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG 

A sponsorship is when a company pays you to represent their product or service and promote it to your readers. Think of professional athletes who are “sponsored” by big companies like Nike. Nike sponsors them by paying them cash and offering them sweet swag in exchange for the athlete to basically endorse their products and brand. Blog sponsorships work in a very similar way. Companies sponsor you to write a post on  your site and or their site or may pay you to promote their product or service on social media. Just like affiliate marketing, you should only take sponsorships from companies/products that you feel good about promoting.This can be an ongoing relationship or literally just one sponsored post.

OTHER THINGS YOU CAN DO TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG (that I don’t do on this blog) 

Accept donations. Some websites (think Wikipedia!) are able to run solely on the donations of their readers.

Host an event. Another way you could make money is by hosting an event related to the subject of your blog. This could range from an online event like a webinar or a huge, in person conference.

Offer services. Another way to make money from a blog is to offer services you can render. Perhaps you have a blog about graphic design? An obvious thing you could do is offer your graphic design services to your readers. Maybe your a financial adviser and you run a personal finance blog, you could offer personal financial advisement services. You get the idea.

If you are thinking about starting a blog to earn some side income, be sure to check out this post on how to get started. It’ll walk you through the steps for how to get set up, and takes less than 10 minutes– you could start earning money from a blog today.

There are tons of easy ways to make money from a blog, but the thing that I personally enjoy the most about blogging is that it connects me to readers who are similarly situated- trying their hardest to navigate mountains of debt and achieve other financial goals which can feel totally overwhelming when you’re on your own.

Have you thought about making money from a blog? Do you already have a blog? If so, feel free to drop your link in the comments and tell us what it’s all about!

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