how to earn money from blogging

The evolution of blogging over the past few years has been remarkable. Up until recently, anyone could open a blog on a free service like Blogspot or WordPress and share their opinions and experiences with the world.

This wasn’t so much about generating money as it was about finding one’s voice.

Blogging used to be a hobby, but nowadays it’s a legitimate career and an absolute necessity for some companies.

I’m an Indian blogger who’s been at it for the better part of seven years (5 of which have been as a full-time blogger).

In 2013, I created my first blog as a means of disseminating my technical expertise. I didn’t know anything about monetizing a blog and didn’t particularly care.

To be honest, it took me about a year and a half of blogging before I figured out how to monetize my efforts.

Advertisements should be displayed

Earning money with display ads is simple and requires little upkeep. Google’s Adsense program is a prime illustration of this type of network.

Making money from a blog is as easy as pasting some code into the site’s backend if you have an approved Adsense account. The more people who see or click your adverts, the more money you will make.

However, in order to make any substantial money, you will need a large volume of visitors. Furthermore, the source of your traffic will have a significant bearing on your revenue.

Blogs that attract readers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle East are more likely to be financially successful than those that attract readers only from India.

This method of monetization is best for blogs that primarily serve to disseminate information and offer little in the way of direct product sales opportunities.

If someone visits your site looking for “Motivational Quotes for Students,” for instance, they are probably just going to read the quotation, then leave.

Making use of display advertisements can result in financial gain.

Adsense now supports linking Indian bank accounts. You would receive direct deposits of your earnings (if they total more than $100 [INR 6500]) each and every month

Advice: If you’re trying to sell something, don’t put adverts on the page (an affiliate product or your own product). The reason for this is that these advertisements are just another way for visitors to leave your site. Instead of making a few pennies from an ad click, you’d rather have the consumer visit a website dedicated to your product or an affiliate product.

Post Your Services for Sale

Establishing your expertise through blogging is a powerful strategy.

If you have informative information on your blog and can attract readers interested in that content (through paid ads, social media, or organic search), people will view you as an authority on the subject.

Many bloggers include contact information for them on their “Hire Me” or “Work with Me” sites.

you can monetize your blog by providing a service to your readers.

In a few fields, including writing, graphic design, photography, etc., I have personally witnessed its efficacy.

The payment can be received in a variety of methods in India. You can either have the money wired to your bank account or accept payments using a third-party gateway (like Instamojo or PayU Money). It is important to remember that payment processors deduct a modest fee from your total transaction amount.

It’s a good idea to link to your profiles on freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Freelancer from your blog, as well. The additional benefit of this is a stronger online presence in general.

Commission-Based Product Sales

You can make money by recommending people to affiliate products if you have a popular blog (or a large following on social media or a large list of email subscribers).

As an affiliate, you can get started in one of two ways:

• Communicate with other businesses in your field that have an affiliate program and join it. You can now earn a commission for recommending their items. An already-established customer base is typically required to successfully market such items (sending email to your list works great in this case). Your affiliate links can also be included in articles where they make sense.
• Participate in affiliate networks like Amazon’s, Commission Junction’s, Shre a Sale’s, etc. You can locate affiliate networks to join based on your specific market. As soon as you have your affiliate link, you can start promoting these products to your audience and earning a percentage on sales.

The advantage of becoming an associate is that you don’t have to deal with customer service. You can earn commissions on sales made through your affiliate links simply by sending targeted traffic to the products.

Make sure you’re only endorsing things you have faith in and those you know your readers will appreciate. Don’t let a greater affiliate commission persuade you to promote a low-quality or otherwise useless product.

Never have I ever suggested something I haven’t tried or utilized myself. We gain two key advantages from this:

• Being a current customer gives me complete confidence that what I’m recommending will meet the needs of my target market.
• I’m able to better convey the nuances of the product thanks to this tool. Increased conversion rates are the result.

Create a video demonstrating the product’s use if you can. By doing so, you’ll put your listeners at ease and head off a number of potential queries they might have. It also demonstrates that you have invested in learning about the products, which is a trust builder. This is an excellent method for using computer programs.

Here’s a quick look at the money I made after recommending a helpful piece of software to my email list. I received almost INR 48,000 in affiliate commissions in less than a week after sending this email, and that’s not counting the money I made in the first few hours.

How to Monetize Your Blog Using Email Affiliate Programs

I made a movie promoting the aforementioned product to demonstrate its usefulness by addressing a specific problem and its ease of use.

Products for Sale

Consider making your own information goods if you already have a following (through email or social media). The product could be a book or a training program.

Since a product only needs to be made once, this is one of the most lucrative business models. Successfully selling a course boils down to targeting the appropriate individuals with the right message at the right time, provided that you have the necessary infrastructure in place (through which you collect payments and distribute the course materials or ebook).

When trying to market and sell one’s information products, I’ve found that an email list is really helpful. However, if you’re just getting started, you can try sponsored social media marketing or connect with niche influencers to have them become your affiliates rather than an email list (who can then sell your info products to their email list).

Take a look at one of my websites where I offer a free preview of the video online course I sell. It’s turned into a reliable stream of revenue for which I expend minimal effort.

Profit from the sale of your creations.

Expert advice:
while this is a fantastic method of monetization, you should ensure that all premium material is of the highest possible quality. Each year, I update my course materials and solicit reader input.

Make an Udemy Course

Having your own knowledge goods is awesome, but you need a dedicated following of people who believe in what you have to say and are prepared to pay for it.

Additionally, trust is not something that can be created overnight.

Before asking readers to part with their money, you need to give them a lot in return.

In the meantime, you can try out several options for hosting your course by using services like Udemy or Coursera.

These sites have an established user base to which they can promote your course. In the while you’re working on developing your audience and video course, this might be a lucrative way to earn money.

If you want to boost sales of your Udemy course while you’re still growing your audience, promote it on your blog and throw in a freebie. If you’re selling a photography course for beginners on Udemy, for instance, you could give out a free e-book on “How to Choose the Right Camera” to anyone who sends you proof that they purchased your course.

Advertising Merchandise / Content

If your blog becomes popular enough, others may offer you money in exchange for reviews or guest posts.

Here’s one I got not too long ago:

Email solicitation of sponsored blog posts, for blog monetization purposes

The individual or company paying you for the sponsored postings or article likely wants to increase traffic to their own or their client’s website. The increased visibility in search engine results is a direct result of these hyperlinks.

Although I don’t employ this strategy on my blogs, I’ve seen that many other famous sites do (especially in the tech niche). Pinch of Yum is one example of a popular blog that uses advertising (a food blog).

Here are a few suggestions if you’re thinking about employing this method to make money off your blog:

To discourage click-throughs, no-follow the links in sponsored articles. If you set a link to “no-follow,” it will not help your search engine results. Despite its no-follow policy, Pinch of Yum attracts several sponsored posts because of the exposure its readers provide to advertisers.

You should only allow these links to work for a short time. You could, for instance, demand payment in exchange for a link that would only remain active for a specified period (say, one month or three months) before being deleted unless renewed. You can create a respectable passive income with only a couple of these transactions.

Make sure you have a PayPal account (which is mostly the preferred way for people to send money). The money you receive using PayPal in India will be deposited into your bank account the following business day (the one that you have connected with your PayPal account).

Improve Your Profits by Selling More to Your Current Clientele

It’s far simpler to make a sale to a customer who has purchased from you before and has confidence in your products or services.

You can make another info product (like an E-book or video course) that your current clients will enjoy if you already have one.

Personal coaching is another valuable add-on service you may provide. Depending on the situation, this could involve either individual or group guidance.

Upselling is most successful, in my opinion, immediately following a purchase. After a buyer has made a purchase, they should be presented with a related upsell. Because they have already established some level of trust in you (by having completed a purchase only moments ago), you will likely experience a higher conversion rate with this audience.

Ask your current clientele for feedback if you are unsure of what to make next. There’s a better chance of getting a straightforward answer. You should pay them for their time if you have to. It can be in the form of a steep price cut on your next purchase or an Amazon gift card.

Targeting Consumers Again With New Offerings

A small percentage of your blog’s visitors will purchase the information product or affiliate service you’ve advertised.

Also, everyone who visits your blog will eventually click away.

Getting people’s email addresses is one technique to guarantee future communication with them. Yet again, though, not everyone will hand it over to you.

Facebook retargeting with personalized advertisements is another option.

A Facebook ad can be used to retarget users who have visited your sales page for a video course but have not yet made a purchase.

If you add the Facebook pixel and then create a custom audience consisting of all the people who visited the sales page, you may accomplish just that.

Facebook advertising allows you to retarget past website visitors. Customers who have already visited your page and become familiar with it are more inclined to buy from you.

When advertising an affiliate product with a high commission rate, retargeting might be especially effective.

Expert advice:
retargeting in Facebook ads may need some fine-tuning before it’s fully optimized. The best-performing advertising can be identified through A/B testing. It’s going to take effort and maybe even money to do this. Furthermore, you should only use retargeting when your sales are higher than your Facebook advertising costs.

Work Put Into Perfecting Your Email Marketing System

Get on gathering email addresses immediately if you haven’t already.

How to Increase Your Email Subscribers has some related tips.

To make money off of your dedicated readership, your most valuable asset is the email list you’ve built up over the years.

However, it’s not enough to merely amass email addresses. This is just the beginning of the process of collecting information about prospective clients and customers.

Let’s say a customer signs up for your email list and you promptly provide the promised eBook or PDF.

After that, what?

From time to time, you can update them on your latest blog article or special offer by sending them an email. However, that is not the most efficient approach.

And that’s where email funnels come in – Email Marketing

The goal of an Email marketing funnel is to help you send more targeted messages to your list of email subscribers.

If you’re writing a blog about guitar instruction, you can divide your readership into two groups: complete beginners and those with some experience.

As a result, you’ll be able to tailor your email communications to their specific interests. Once you have nurtured them by sending them useful emails, you may experiment with various ways to make money off of them.

If someone is just starting with guitar, for instance, you may suggest some basic information products or guitar-related things (an eBook or a course). In addition, you can provide more advanced courses (or even advertise the courses of others) for those who have already mastered the basics.

An easy-to-follow example of a high-converting email funnel follows. Every marketing channel and target demographic is unique, therefore testing and tweaking are essential.

Income can be increased through the use of a well-designed funnel. The feature lets you ensure that all subscribers to your email list go through the same process.

Use this easy email funnel example to increase your blog’s revenue.

In the preceding section, I illustrated a very basic email funnel, but the general idea is the same. Divide people into subgroups with similar interests and charge them more for being a part of that group.

Bear in mind that not everyone on your email list will end up buying from you. More accurately, the vast majority of them wouldn’t. However, you must always make an effort to satisfy every one of them.

Organize Meetings (Online & Offline)

If you have a large blog audience and are respected as an expert in your field, you can use your blog to promote paid workshops you’re offering.

Because of his established reputation as a leader in the blogging community and his extensive network of fellow bloggers, he can easily reach the ideal attendees for events like these.

In India, I have also begun employing this strategy. I co-host a blogging retreat in the Himalayas where we teach rigorous 3-day sessions on the fundamentals and nuances of blogging.

Get the Ball Rolling on a Membership-Based Newsletter or Online Community

Though I haven’t given it a go myself, I’ve seen several bloggers find success with this strategy (especially in the personal finance niche).

You can establish a paid email newsletter or a forum 

One-time payments, annual payments, or monthly payments are all viable options.

Now, there are two main ways to make significant cash with sponsored newsletters:

• Get paid on a monthly or annual basis. After you have this setup, you can start providing your list with special material. You can’t just recycle old content from your website or YouTube channel. The quality needs to be bumped up a few levels. Maintain a regular cadence with this newsletter’s distribution. It’s preferable to schedule it for a specific time and then keep to that time.
• Implementing a joining charge is one way to screen out freeloaders. There’s no shame in accepting free services, but if you’re after dedicated, action-oriented followers, it’s smart to start with a cost. You can promote affiliate products or your own creations if you have built up a dedicated fan base.

Multiple Sources of Financial Support

The preceding paragraphs discussed a few options for monetizing your blog. Alternatively, there might be some additional approaches.

If you run a blog, you might want to find the best ways to make money off of it. The most effective approach is to combine several methods into a single blog post and to play around with the results.

For instance, affiliate products might be included in articles alongside display adverts. Some of your content may be more suited for affiliate products, and this can help you make a little additional cash.

In a similar vein, you may add sponsored material to your blog alongside other forms of monetization if you can find people or businesses willing to pay you for it.

Increasing my affiliate links is one way I’ve been attempting to strengthen my money stream. After implementing affiliate links into one of my blogs, monthly earnings increased by 20%. (without any impact on my Google Adsense income).

Typical Blogging Questions

Blogging is a lucrative profession, but it requires significant time and investment to see any real success.

Consequently, it’s not surprising that many new bloggers have concerns about blogging’s long-term viability as a profession.

In this post, I’ll try to address some of the most frequent inquiries I get from readers about monetizing a blog.

Q1 – Is it Possible to Generate an Income from a Free Blog?

ANS – There is a lot of skepticism surrounding the act of creating a blog. There is an initial financial outlay required (for a domain name and hosting, at the very least) before you can launch.

And many people are drawn to zero-entry models.

Q2 – This begs the question, then: Is it possible to monetize a free blog?

ANS – The appropriate response is “Yes.”

Nevertheless, you should get your domain and start a self-hosted blog. Many forms of blog monetization are unavailable to those who maintain their sites on free blogging platforms but are available to those who host their sites.

Another consideration is that a free website will not be worth much if you ever decide to sell your business.

A self-hosted blog is highly recommended because you will have full ownership of your site and its contents.

Free blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger are risky since you never know when the regulations will change and how it will affect your blog. More freedom in terms of design and functionality comes with a self-hosted blog.

The bottom message is that a free blog is not the way to go if you intend to monetize your content.

Q3 – The question is, how much money can a beginner blogger make in India?

ANS – Even though the honest response would be “it depends,” allow me to be somewhat more precise.

From what I’ve seen, it only takes about a year for a new blogger to earn enough from their site to quit their day job (INR 30K-50K per month).

Time requirements could vary depending on the specific field. The success of your blog also hinges on your willingness to put in the effort that is required (8-10 hours a week at least).

Do not count on making any money for the first six to eight months. In the next couple of months, assuming everything go as planned, you should start seeing some cash inflow.

Case studies where I built a site from the ground up and made $1,000 monthly in under a year are available on my site. This is the place to read about the case study.

Q4 – What is the Average Income of an Indian Blogger?

While I can’t reveal how much money the most prominent Indian bloggers make each month, I can say that many of them earn four or five figures.

Let these large sums not persuade you. While it may have taken these bloggers a long time to get where they are now, there is no reason you can’t join them there.

Harsh Agarwal of Shoutmeloud, Amit Agarwal of Labnol, Anand Khanse of Thewindowsclub, and Pardeep Goyal of CashOverflow, etc. are just some examples of successful bloggers.

And these are only a few of the most prominent Indian bloggers I’m aware of. There are probably hundreds or thousands more,

I hope this article has helped answer some of the more frequently asked issues about earning money from blogging in India