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Set up webinars
One of the most popular and profitable ways to make money from a blog is to organize an event using webinar software.
Can webinars be profitable? Lewis Howes started a successful webinar business and won 6,300 euros in one hour.
I recommend using Demio as your webinar hosting provider. Demio is affordable and has a ton of features.
Why are webinars profitable?
Webinars are engaging, interactive, personalized, and designed to be incredibly informative about a specific topic.
The more value you offer, the more interested your audience is, increasing their propensity to buy at a higher price.
When it comes to hosting a webinar, you have three options to explore, depending on your specific business model.
To get started you can consult the List of the best webinar tools and software.
Paid webinars
Advantages and disadvantages of paid webinars
You can charge your attendees an upfront cost for a webinar.
Benefits
Reduces the number of non-serious participants and creates immediate profitability.
Disadvantages
Reduce the number of viewers and the chances of converting those who are hesitant to buy your service/product.
Free webinars
Advantages and disadvantages of free webinars
Free webinars increase the participation rate of your audience to present your services/products at the end of your webinar.
Regardless of the number of participants in your webinar, you can make a profit if you position the prices of your services/products accordingly.
Benefits
Increase the number of viewers to increase the potential for converting participants into paying customers.
Disadvantages
Increase the number of viewers which will increase the dropout rate when an offer is presented.
You also have the third option, which is to use perpetual webinars. I would highly recommend this approach.
Evergreen Webinars
What is an “evergreen” webinar?
An evergreen webinar is a pre-recorded webinar video that can be viewed on different days and times.
Evergreen webinars are convenient for attendees and automated for organizers.
Most people feel like a webinar should be live, but that's not the case. Here's an example of an “evergreen” webinar from Neil Patel.
I recommend setting up an evergreen webinar with a free attendance option.
Evergreen's free webinars convert incredibly well thanks to the ability to capture all visitors at any time.
By capturing emails to join a webinar, you can then convert webinar attendees through an automated email provider.
Becoming an affiliate marketer
The affiliate marketing is the first choice for most bloggers who earn passive income.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing involves earning a commission from businesses by promoting links, banners, and other forms of promotional methods on your blog/website.
Affiliate marketing isn't just for bloggers. Powerful business empires have been built through affiliate marketing.
Amazon significantly accelerated the growth of its business in the early years by offering an affiliate program as early as 1996.
Affiliate marketing is estimated to represent 10% of global e-commerce
3 pillars to start affiliate marketing
- Finding a niche/a subject
- An affiliated product/service to promote
- An audience
I recommend doing keyword research as the first step in choosing your niche.
The keywords you choose should target a specific niche.
As a general rule, the higher the search volume, the stronger the competition and the greater the profit potential.
How to participate in an affiliate program
Sign up for an affiliate network
You can navigate to the footer of several business sites, where you'll see the affiliate program mentioned.
In most cases, the site should state”Becoming an affiliate“or”affiliate”. If you don't see the affiliate program mentioned, it may be labeled as follows.
- Referral program
- Partnerships
- Refer a friend
- Partnership program
Sometimes, when you click on an affiliate program, the link leads to an affiliate network representing the company.
What happens after I sign up for an affiliate program?
Promotional banners of various sizes typically come with a single standardized tracking link to attribute sales to your marketing efforts.
How will I receive payments from affiliate networks?
Businesses will pay you every two weeks to thirty days via bank transfer or Paypal. Some affiliate networks may also send you payments by check.
Create an affiliate partnership
Creating a direct affiliate partnership will depend on the level of traffic you have in most cases.
Affiliate partnerships are best suited for well-established sites/blogs that have already made sales for organizations.
The easiest way to set up a direct affiliate partnership is to use UTM settings.
You can use the Google UTM builder to set up your links. Another option is to use a company that specializes in monitoring affiliates.
Affiliate tracking platforms offer much greater granularity than UTM tracking when running affiliate marketing campaigns.
I recommend using Volum.com as a follow-up partner to obtain more accurate reporting measurements.
What is a real sponsored link?
rel="sponsored“indicates links that are advertisements (commonly known as paid links) as sponsored.
Here is a great guide to way to add the rel= sponsored link in WordPress.
What is a declaration of affiliation?
An affiliate declaration informs visitors that you are being paid by a company or person you are sponsoring.
Affiliation declarations are treated as disclaimers.
Create an e-commerce store
For create an e-commerce business or add the function to your blog, you can add a link to your e-commerce store in your navigation bar.
Or, you can also add a blog to your e-commerce store in this same navigation bar.
Shopify is considered to be one of the best options for creating an e-commerce store in order to sell your products with ease.
If you are interested in this and want more details, learn to create an e-commerce store with Shopify.
In terms of physical items you can sell, the possibilities are endless.
One of Shopify's most powerful features is the POD.
What does POD mean?
Print on Demand (POD) consists of selling products that are manufactured once they are ordered.
Through the use of Printful that integrates with Shopify, you can create a business that can create products as soon as they are ordered from your store.
Printful offers fulfillment services, brand personalization, and excellent shipping rates, both nationally and internationally, so you can focus on marketing and selling your products.
Most people think of selling products that have already been created in e-commerce (as in the Dropshipping for example), but that is not always the case.
3 ways to sell products online without inventory
1) Selling e-books
Revenues from the sale of ebooks are expected to show a annual growth rate of 3.7%, giving an expected market volume of 19 million euros by 2025.
Ebooks won't slow down, and they're immediately accessible with a single click. You won't have to worry about shipping either.
Whatever subject you discuss on your site, you can offer your audience advice by offering a downloadable and paid ebook about your niche.
2) Selling online courses
As with ebooks, you can sell online courses in exchange for payment.
The difference between ebooks and online courses is in the format in which you present the information.
Paid courses generally take into account the offer of video instructions, audio files, and assignments. I recommend using Thinkific.com or Teachable which are 2 simple, secure and feature-rich platforms.
This monetization method is one of the most profitable. The profit potential is huge if you are in the right niche.
As with webinar production, you can create a video or several at once and sell unlimited information to your audience even while you sleep.
Think of it that way. Business schools, engineering schools or some universities are expensive, right? Why did you hang out with them? Chances are you want to get educated in a specific field.
Offering online courses with your specific expertise falls under the same concept. People will always need information, and that information will always come at a high cost.
3) Selling reports
Statistics and trends are always in demand.
If you happen to blog about a subject for which your audience wants structured and compiled data, putting them up for sale can be very lucrative.
Some companies like Business Insider offer reports that cost several thousand euros.
The prices are shocking, right? Guess what? Les Businesses buy these types of reports all the time.
They are purchased to save time to be used on items and their other marketing materials.
I recommend that you consider this monetization method if you blog about commercial projects.
If you want to aggregate data and format it to give a very professional look, I recommend using fiverr.com.
Create a service
The services will still be needed as long as those with specific skills will be able to sell them to those who don't already have them (or don't have the time to take care of them)
It's a simple fact of life.
When it comes to monetizing a blog, you can offer your skills to those who don't have them, for a fee.
6 services to consider monetizing on your blog
1) Selling design services
Start a web design business
If you know how to create a website, it's a great option to monetize your blog.
You don't need to know how to code to offer this service, many publishers today allow you to create websites without development skills:
These tools offer drag-and-drop interfaces and predefined templates that allow you to create a website in just a few minutes and without skills.
Business owners are willing to pay to save time. After all, they often don't have the time to create their own website.
Create logos
Every business needs a logo.
Consider monetizing your blog by offering logo designs for a fixed price.
Let's say you want to develop your logo design service, in which case you can entrust the design work to a designer on 99designs.com Or on Fiverr. then resell this service to one of your customers. (This is called “DropServicing”)
Start a design business
E-commerce is constantly growing.
You can offer your design skills by integrating a contact form on your site.
Learn about a service called Teespring to create products to sell online without having to hold inventory.
Start a graphic design business
Designing infographics used to be very difficult, but today, thanks to the use of online design platforms, anyone can create them.
Again, I recommend that you use Canva for that (or Crello), simply drag and drop your design and use templates that you can easily customize.
2) Becoming a lead generation company
If you don't have the skills, you can still benefit from generating leads from your blog by driving traffic to web design firms, local businesses, or any other business.
Every business needs a customer base, no matter what topic you choose to cover in your blog.
I recommend setting up contact forms to capture lead information that will be sent to businesses for a fee.
Note: You can promote lead generation offers through affiliate networks, or you can establish a private lead generation contract that will require negotiation with the company you plan to generate leads for.
You will need to ensure that a follow-up is in place to attribute leads to your marketing efforts.
At a minimum, I recommend that you use UTM to track sales.
Once you've set up your UTMs, I recommend using the report personalized UTM from Google Analytics next to track sales.
3) Create public conferences
You can make a lot of money by offering talks to your audience.
In the United States alone, it is estimated that the conference sector is valued at 1.9 billion euros.
Note: You will need to build a large enough audience to offer public conferences in order to make a decent profit from this monetization method.
4) Start a consulting business
By offering your expertise, you can generate steady income on a monthly basis.
How to calculate hourly rates for consulting services
To calculate your hourly consultant fees, decide on the amount of your annual salary.
Take the annual sum and divide it by the number of weeks worked each, then again by 40 (the number of hours in an average work week).
Example:
- I am targeting a turnover of €100,000 per year.
- I am thinking of taking 4 weeks of vacation in total over the year
- 100,000/ (52 - 4) = 2,083€ per week
- 2083€ per week/40 (hours) = 52€ per hour ~ 417€ /day
READ MORE: How much should I charge as a consultant? A breakdown of consulting costs
5) Start a training course
Training your audience for a fixed remuneration.
You can offer live video sessions or pre-recorded videos where you show how to perform specific actions.
You can also give your audience the opportunity to complete assignments that you will grade at the end of the training. Training programs can be organized weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
Anyone can set up training courses using online course platforms. You have the option of charging a fixed amount or recurring fees for your training sessions.
The list is endless of what you can contribute to organizations or individuals, no matter what blog theme you are focusing on. You don't have to exclusively target businesses.
As long as people want to learn (until the end of time), you can teach the knowledge you have to those who are interested and what you have to offer.
6) Become self-employed
The best way to immediately generate revenue from your blog is to offer your expertise. The Freelancing can be a great way to make money.
41% of the American workforce freelances, 10 million more than five years ago
To start working as a freelancer, you will need to create a dedicated page to present your past work and your references that validate your expertise in your respective field (your blog, LinkedIn or a Malt page for example)
Start advertising
When it comes to monetizing a blog, it's the first choice for many bloggers. It is estimated that 470 billion dollars are spent on banner ads worldwide per year.
Given the amount spent on ads, it can be said that it is a safe option to consider in your monetization strategy.
Here are a few options to consider when it comes to advertising to monetize your blog.
1) Google AdSense advertising network
What is Google Adsense?
Google AdSense is an advertising network that allows you to place banners from other companies directly on your site.
Google pays publishers on a CPM or CPC basis for placing AdSense on your site.
What is a CPC?
CPC stands for click per conversion. That means there's a fixed cost for each click.
What is CPM?
CPM stands for (Cost Per Thousand). The M comes from the Roman numeral, which means 1,000. For every 1,000 views, you earn a fixed rate.
AdSense is the first choice for bloggers to make money: the process to start showing ads is very easy.
All you need to do is place a small amount of code on your website to produce the ads on your site. All you need to do is copy and paste this code onto your website.
By choosing to sign up for Google AdSense, you will only make a significant profit when you accumulate a high number of page views.
To calculate your potential earnings, you can use a Google Adsense calculator.
Moreover, it is possible to make excellent income from alternative advertising networks called Ezoic or mediavine.com.
2) Sponsored promotions
As a blogger, you have the opportunity to promote products directly in your articles.
As a blogger, you have the opportunity to partner with brands that target the same audience as you.
Paid promotions are very profitable and can be set up by contacting businesses directly or by placing a page on your site saying that you are ready to work with brands.
How much can you earn from sponsored posts?
The amount of money you can earn from sponsored posts varies depending on your domain authority. Your domain authority is a measure of the popularity of your site.
If you have a high DA (1 to 100 scale), you are more than likely to have more traffic than if you have a lower DA.
Here is a salary range for sponsored posts based on DA.
Please note that this does not include social media tracking which would increase the cost per post.
3) Start a Podcast
One of the most exciting opportunities that bloggers can take advantage of in 2022 to earn an income is podcasting.
Starting a podcast is a natural extension of your blog.
The same topics you cover in your blog posts can be recorded in audio format to be turned into a podcast episode. Conversely, the podcasts can be transcribed to be turned into blog posts.
The growth of podcasting is exploding. Take a look at the number of listeners by breakdown of the number in the world today.
Given the numbers, it would be wise to take advantage of the growth of this huge trend.
To get you started quickly without technical obstacles, many podcast hosts exist today.
What is podcast hosting?
Podcast hosting stores and distributes your podcast.
The main benefit of podcast hosting is submitting your podcast to major “retail outlets” like Apple, Spotify, and other podcast directories.
How much money can I make with a podcast?
The amount of your income depends on the size of your audience.
The larger your audience, the more opportunities you have to monetize your podcast.
4) Advertising in newsletters
Newsletter monetization is one of the most common monetization methods for bloggers.
If you're not currently taking advantage of the opportunity to make money from your email list, I recommend that you get started as soon as possible.
Email lists are secretly responsible for generating huge profits for some of the most prolific bloggers today.
Take a look at the following chart that shows the most effective marketing channels.
As the chart shows, the return on investment from email marketing is greater than that of most marketing channels.
Email automation software is a powerful tool when it comes to generating profits from newsletters.
READ MORE: The Best Marketing Automation Tools
Several services and products can be promoted through email lists, here are a few examples:
7 ways to monetize your email list.
1) Offer exclusive discounts
By offering an exclusive offer to your email list, you can increase your open rates.
If possible, apply the rarity principle to your offer by mentioning that your product or service is only available for a limited time.
2) Use email ads
Placing ads directly in your email can be used to increase sales.
Through the use of software such as Constant Contact or Systeme.io, you can easily create email ads that look like the image above.
Avoid placing lots of ads in your emails. If too many ads are displayed, you risk diluting the communication and the value you offer but also being detected by anti-spam robots that will block your emails.
Email ads are not just for e-commerce.
Get creative with email ads by offering your newsletter discounted rates for the specific product/service you provide.
3) Suggest virtual summits
The purpose of an email address list is to build trust by offering value first and foremost.
By offering a virtual event through a webinar, you can further strengthen the connection with your audience.
Additionally, you have the option of offering the virtual event at an initial cost.
4) Use triggers
Bread crumbs are low-cost products or services offered to subscribers after they initially sign up for your newsletter.
I recommend making your product or service desirable enough yet inexpensive enough to take full advantage of this tactic.
5) Use discounts
When presenting your products or services, if subscribers don't buy right away, offer cheaper items, or try to lower the price of your original product or service to make a profit.
6) Use upselling
If subscribers purchased your product or service at the original price, consider introducing more expensive items that they might like to have.
7) Use cross-selling
If subscribers are actively buying your product or service, present products or services that are closely related or complementary.
Consider partnering with other businesses that are not direct competitors to form “joint ventures to present to your subscribers.”
Create a directory
25,000 euros a month is good, right? Stick with me, and I'll show you how you can potentially earn that amount through this monetization method.
However, let me touch on the fundamental elements of directory listings. To monetize your blog using a directory listing, you need to list various businesses in your niche and charge monthly, quarterly, or annual fees.
Businesses that pay to be listed in directories are looking to take advantage of niche traffic that ranks in search results for relevant keywords.
To take advantage of this monetization strategy, you'll need to focus on referencing a niche that offers specific services.
Examples of directories
- Lawn Care Services - Gardening Niche
- Nurseries - Bloggers' niche for moms
- Local Marketing Agencies - Niche Marketing
Let's take a closer look at a blog to see how monetization happens, and more importantly, how you can replicate the business model.
Follow the numbers in the image with the notes below.
- Advertising space has been added at the top of the site and in the main body of the site, alongside the paid list in the business directory, in order to generate additional revenue.
- A space allowing the site to rent dedicated advertising space to its Internet users
- The widget takes you to the page of a local business offering a specific service that you selected, allowing the advertiser to gain potential leads.
What I last listed is critical: you need to get users to go to the registration pages in your directory to justify a monthly fee to businesses.
How much money can you make with listings in a directory?
The amount you can earn depends on the niche you are addressing. Directory registration fees can range from 50 to 500 euros and more.
Take the following example:
If you place 10 directory listings on a page targeting a specific niche, with each company paying you €20 in all departments of France (101 departments), you can earn €25,000 per month.
Don't you believe me? Look at the numbers.
20€ (monthly fees) x 10 (ads per page) = $200 for a page that you rent to local businesses.
Now, let's multiply that number by 50 since you can eventually have one page for each department over time. $200 x 101 = $20,200 per month.
Remember that this does not even include advertising placements that you may place on the site.
You don't need to be on the first page of Google for this business model to work. For a modest price of €20 per month for each business, all you need to do is generate additional traffic to generate paid subscriptions.
Some businesses are willing to pay a monthly fee just to get additional exposure for branding purposes.
How do I create a directory on my blog?
To create a directory listing on WordPress, download professional directory plugins.
To find out more: Here is an article from Kinsta
How do I attract traffic to directory pages?
Like I said, you'll need to focus on SEO. Focus on producing niche content by creating multiple blog posts.
Use SEMrush to find keywords that you can include in your blog posts.
READ MORE: How do you write a blog post that converts prospects?
The key is to channel traffic from your blog to pages in your directory: Be sure to link your blog content to the niche in your directory.
Over time, businesses will start contacting you to be featured on your site.
In cases where no company approaches you, take a proactive approach by sending emails to businesses. Feel free to use this email template for your awareness-raising activities:
Good morning
I am the founder of {your site name], specialized in improving the visibility of {your target niche}.
The site is currently generating {list of traffic metrics} Would you like your site to appear in our directory ?
Wait for a yes first, then send a friendly message thanking them for their interest with a link to your directory pricing page on your site.
You can use paypal or Stripe as a monthly payment portal that you can set up for all your customers.
How to manage ad units in the directory
To manage ad units, consider using a WordPress plugin called Adsanity.
This plugin is one of the best ways to manage your advertising units on Wordpress. It is very user-friendly, so you should have no problems using it.
Setting up recurring revenues
The holy grail of income generation is earning passive recurring income.
I've already touched on a few passive ways to generate income, but I would like to focus on two key business areas.
1. Private communities
Private communities have huge profit potential.
Forming a private community essentially gives you the power to form a group of promoters of your brand. These are the people who will naturally promote your products/services if you offer value.
Private communities can be forums, Facebook groups, Pinterest groups, and more. Whichever platform you choose to form your community on, you decide.
I specifically recommend Facebook because of the more advanced features you can take advantage of. The similar audience feature offered by Facebook is extremely powerful.
What is an audience similar to that of Facebook?
Similar audiences analyze your existing followers to find what they have in common. Facebook then uses an advanced algorithm to find qualified users that you wouldn't have been able to reach before.
Let's say you've created a private Facebook group of 2,000 people. You can then use similar audience targeting to significantly multiply this targeted group of 2,000 people and multiply by 10 the number of people with very similar profiles likely to join your group.
Sounds good, right? To be able enable lookalike audiences, you need to implement the Facebook Pixel on your blog.
2. coaching
I talked in depth about offering your knowledge to generate income. Coaching is no different. Coaching comes at a high price, depending on what topic you choose to focus on.
Do you know Tony Robbins?
If not, he is one of the most well known life coaches in the world, you can watch lots of Youtube playlists concerning him.
Take a look at the price he charges for pre-registering a group coaching program.
Admittedly, this is a well-known public figure, but that doesn't mean you can't charge fees similar to Tony Robbins.
First, you need to identify your main strengths, once you understand that you can certainly sell them at scale.
FAQs
Can you make money blogging?
Yes, not only can you make money, but you can potentially make a lot of money blogging.
The key is to focus on a specific niche, write and update your posts consistently, implement a monetization plan, and finally, actively promote your blog consistently.
How do beginner blogs make money?
Newbies can make money by starting by increasing the number of their items.
Once you have written a few blog posts, you will then need to promote your blog live.
The best way for beginners to make money immediately, once they have gained some fame thanks to their blog, is to offer freelance services for a fixed fee.
How do I start a free blog and make money?
You can create a free blog with Wix. Please note that there will be some limits to monetizing your blog with the free option.
I recommend using the paid version of Wix to get started very quickly.
How much money can you make with a blog?
The possibilities are endless. It all depends on what you want to focus your efforts on.
The most popular method is to place ads on your site, but you'll need to create traffic for this route to be profitable for your blog.
What is the best blogging platform to make money?
Any blog platform can be monetized. WordPress is the most popular option for starting a blog, but Wix is also a great option for starting a blog. Read my guides on Wix, Webflow or WordPress to decide what the best alternative is to get started.
How do I make my blog profitable?
It will take time to make your blog profitable. You will need to focus on generating traffic and, above all, on providing value to your audience in order to increase the engagement rate on your site.
Once you have accumulated traffic, monetization opportunities will be easily available to monetize your blog.
