How Do Bloggers Make Money Blogging?

I went to the bank yesterday and suddenly came by an old friend of mine. He asked what I was doing these days. I already knew that he was working with one of the top MNC companies, and my answer was “I’m a professional blogger and make money blogging”. The answer raised his eyebrows and brought a question to his face.

He asked almost immediately, “What? You mean, you earn by blogging and is that your profession? How come that’s possible?”

I just gave him a brief idea about my profession along with remembering some good old stuff from those school days, in about 3 to 4 minutes and then we parted because neither of us had the time to spend hours there.

Returning home, I thought about writing this post that’s going to answer the questions of many upcoming bloggers or non-bloggers have in mind.

If you’re already into blogging, you may already know of these methods. It’s nothing new. But this is an attempt to make the upcoming bloggers or the non-bloggers aware that you can make money blogging.

Whether it is to earn few extra bucks a week, or earning to make it through college, or earning a full-time income – there are thousands of bloggers who does make money blogging.

Before I continue to tell you more about the ways, let me set your expectations right. Blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme and blogging cannot make you rich. Of course, there are many who make six-figures a year by blogging but the percentage is very less. Besides being a blogger, some of them have flourished as an entrepreneur.

They have attained that income through years of dedicated hard work. I’m not here to hype this up or make promises but to tell the truth – it is indeed possible to make money blogging but it takes time to succeed. You need to work hard and smart.

So, set your expectations right before you delve into the blogging world.

Secondly, the ways I’ll mention below are general and may vary depending from niche to niche. Every blog is unique, so depending on the blog, some ways may work better than others may – the key is to experiment with the income streams and find what’s best for you.

List of Ways to Make Money Blogging

I’ve listed 8 ways below but there are many more. I’ll update the list as I find more legit ways to make money blogging.

AdSense is one of the most common ways used by bloggers to make money blogging. All you have to do is sign up or a Google Adsense account and submit your blog to them for approval. You blog must have unique content fit to their guidelines.

AdSense serves both text-based and image-based ads, so you’ve the option of choosing either one depending on your audience.

For example, Amit Agarwal’s and Amit Bhawani’s estimated monthly earnings in 2013 has been $40,000 and $20,000 respectively. Encouraging enough!

Another legit advertising program is Infolinks. They serve in-search ads, in-frame ads, in-text ads and in-tag ads. The best thing about Infolinks is that they don’t require additional spaces, as relevant ads are served through texts. By far, in-text advertising works best with Google AdSense.

The revenue share is 70%, which is by far the highest in the industry till now. Other advertising providers share only 40% to 50% of their revenue. I’d say Infolinks to be the best start-up for newbie bloggers.

Besides advertising, affiliate programs are also a great way to make money blogging. This way, you don’t have to own/create a product of your own yet make money from the products created by others.

The main source of income on PMB till date has been through affiliate marketing. They don’t make big amounts but small amounts still add up to the earnings.

Some of the recommended products on PastMasterBlogger include hosting such as Hostgator and Bluehost, themes such as Genesis and Theme Junkie.

What I love most about this is that they sell on its own and readers send emails just to thank me for the recommendation.

I’ve not tried this out yet but many biggies like Darren Rowse have already tried this method of income and have been highly successful. He even says that he made $72,000 from one of his ebooks.

You can write several ebooks that perfectly solves the problems your readers are facing and sell them for a price.

This is another advertising program where you can make money blogging but it is a little different from the one mentioned above. In private ads, advertisers contact blog owners directly to place an ad on their blog. You can charge them directly and the earnings are much higher.

However, before you can get direct ads or contact advertisers, make sure that your blog is in a stable condition with high traffic, low Alexa rank and high PR. Advertisers won’t even look at your blog if you don’t have statistics to show them and prove them that your blog is worth the price you’re charging them.

Amazon affiliate program is another great source of income for bloggers. Amazon has many products to sell. You can choose a product relevant to your niche that you find is worthy recommending to your readers and promote it.

The percentage of commissions earned adds up to the income of bloggers and you can make money blogging this way.

If you don’t like promoting products of others or advertising on your blog, you can offer a consulting service on the niche you specialize in. For example, if your expertise is in converting your traffic, you can offer your services as a Conversion Consultant.

There’ll be many to hire your services; however, you need to educate your readers through your blog about the importance of conversion.

The consulting fees are generally on the higher end if you can prove yourself as an expert and provide real value to those who hire you.

Many bloggers are asked to speak in events and conferences. However, again you’ve to establish yourself as an expert and deliver speeches that are worth listening to.

Many times, you have to start up without fees as a guest speaker. Once people realize your importance, you’ll be paid for speaking at conferences. I spoke to a blogger last week who charges over $300 an hour and he’s become a leader in this field through his blog.

Given so many opportunities that you can make money blogging, do you think blogging is a scam or it is not possible to make money blogging?