You have seen those people on Pinterest claiming that they are making 6-figure months from blogging, haven’t you? Perhaps you’re wondering how they do it and if it’s really real or not.
There are plenty of opportunities to make money with a blog, but making money from a business blog is a tad bit different because we can go outside of the “norm” and create new ways of making money blogging with our businesses. Since I coach female entrepreneurs on how to do this, this is the subject I will be taking.
Now realize that one cannot do all the ways I am mentioning at once, nor can you do all of them. I would suggest starting out with one or two ways to make money first, implement that strategy, and then once you have mastered it, move on to another strategy to make money. Be aware of what fits for your business – perhaps ads are not the best way to make money from your blog (especially if the ads have nothing to do with your industry).
Be open and be creative! Making money should be fun, so make it as fun as possible!
1. Ads
Ads are probably the most popular way to make money online. How you can make money from ads is placing ad space on your blog and having ads display when someone comes to your blog. When a person clicks on the ads and buys the product, you get a commission from it.
The downside to ads is that you need loads of traffic to your site and the other bad part is that your visitors are being taken away from your website and onto another website (in a sense, you’re giving someone else your reader… a reader who could potentially be a great client for you and giving them to someone else).
I am not sure if I’ll do ads, but I know if I do, I’ll make sure it to products and services I love and want to support. I would suggest you do the same.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing means you promote someone else’s product and when a person from your website or blog buys, you’ll get a commission off of it. You see this a lot on Facebook, other people promoting someone else’s product (example: Amy Porterfield promoting Marie Forelo’s B-School course and April Beach promoting Selena Soo’s course).
Affiliate marketing is popular as it can be used in so many different ways like adding value to your audience by offering them a program that you don’t offer, but they need to complete your program. Or it can look like an additional resource to help your audience achieve greatness.
I’m using affiliate marketing to promote an email course because I don’t dive into email marketing that much as my expertise is in blogging. My audience needs to know and understand email marketing to make their blog work, so offering them an email marketing course from another entrepreneur is beneficial for both me and them.
3. Your services
Your blog is the gateway to showcasing your expertise and your knowledge. Why not offer your services to those who are reading your blog to explore the possibility of working with you?
You can create a campaign of blogs around why people should work with you and the call to action is to hop on a one on one call or a group coaching call with you to explore how you can serve and support people in their life.
4. Online Courses
Online courses can create ongoing income if done right. You can have open and close carts if you want to during certain times of the year, or you can have an always open policy where anyone can buy your course at any time.
Online courses are great because people can take it at their own leisure and benefit from your expertise without having to get on group coaching calls or get private coaching, which can be expensive. The best part of it is for you, as the course creator, is that you make the course once and it’s done! You can sell it to 100 people and your knowledge is impacting 100 people lives without you having to hold all those people hands at one time.
My favorite place to host an online course is Thinkific.
5. Printables
Have you created a worksheet for your clients that have really helped them out or overcome a struggle? Why not sell that worksheet on your blog for cheap?
Printables are a lot like online courses in the way that you create it once and then people can download it without you having to be there or create something every single time.
You can put your printable on sides like Gumroad, SendOwl, or even host it through your email campaign. It can be as complex or simple as you like it. You can charge anywhere between a few bucks for your printable or $97 for it!
6. eBooks/Books
If you’re an author, then sell your eBooks or Books on your blog to further support your readers in their journey. You can host your eBook on Amazon’s Kindle or you can host it on one of the above mentioned sites.
It can be as fancy as going all out and creating covers, having a book launch, or creating a PDF of a 30-page workbook and getting people to purchase it through Sendowl.
7. Private communities
Want to create a high-vibe group of people on Facebook that gets special access to you on a weekly or monthly basis? Then charge for people to join a community that is online and full of like-minded people.
At this time, Facebook is about to release paid groups as part of their features so I would suggest that you look into that if you’re considering starting a paid group from a Facebook Group you already created or if people want access to you directly, then they can join your paid community group for a monthly fee every month.
8. Membership Sites
If you have a lot of content, trainings, recordings, workbooks, and worksheets, why not put all of that into a paid membership site where people paid a monthly fee to get access to the content?
You can add new content on a regular basis or add a mastermind element to it.
Memberships are great because you can always add or take away content and you can have different tiers to it so people can pay a more expensive plan to get more access.
From what I know of membership sites, they are a great source of revenue stream because plans can be as little as $5/month to $97(+)/month. But you will always be promoting the membership site as people come and go all the time.
I would suggest you look into this more and see how you want to create your membership site if you feel this is a good fit for your business and blog.
9. Webinars
Although webinars are free trainings, they lead to huge profits. You know that is how Amy Porterfield broke 7 figures, right? She utilized free webinars to build her online course business.
You can host a webinar and talk about it on your blog to reach more people and get more signups. Webinars can be 30-90 minutes long and you’ll only need 10-15 minutes of pitching as people are getting turned off with the pitch if it lasts longer than 15 minutes.
10. Live Events
If you have build up enough traffic and leads through your blog, you can promote any live event you are having. I am hosting a blog retreat in May, so I am going to use my blog to promote my blogging retreat.
A live event can be a one day conference, a retreat, or a book launch that you’re having in your local area. This is a great marketing campaign and can lead to new clients and sales!
Wait, didn’t I say I was hosting a blogging retreat? Yup, I’m hosting The Elite Women Blogger Retreat from May 16-18 in beautiful Estes Park, CO, where we’re going to spend 2 and 1/2 days fellowshipping, masterminding, eating, launching, drinking wine, and hustling to get our blog out into the world!
If you’ve been wanting to start a blog, but don’t have the time, then The Elite Women Blogger Retreat is for you! During the time you’re going to spend in Estes Park, you’re going to write and publish your first blog post, have a Facebook Live about it, AND get the secret tips, tricks, and hacks on how to build an Elite blog for your business that captures new leads that turns them into paying clients!
Check it out below and register your seat today!