How to monetize a blog in 2024: 12 Top strategies

Updated Jan 15 2024

Not only is a blog a great way to express yourself creatively, but it can provide a substantial income if you have a strategic approach to the content you create.

If you're wondering how you can monetize your blog, this post highlights various ways you can leverage your online presence to your advantage to make money blogging.

From affiliate programs to online courses and selling ad space, we cover the most lucrative paths many bloggers take to build a profitable business.

• A blog monetization strategy is critical to making money online

• Physical and digital products are cost-effective and require minimal effort once they're created

• To generate revenue, consistency and time are essential to successfully monetize a blog

Whether you're a new blogger or a seasoned professional, this list contains profitable monetization strategies that can make all the difference in the success of your blog. If you're looking for an additional passive income stream or want to be a full-time blogger, you'll find the most effective strategies and methods to do so.

Through affiliate marketing, bloggers promote products from other businesses they use and enjoy. When someone purchases through a blogger's affiliate link, the blogger will make a commission on the sale.

Many successful bloggers utilize affiliate programs early in their careers to pay the bills and build their audience. Affiliate marketing works with a solid brand, trust, and credibility with your audience - they're buying something based on your opinion, so authenticity is key.

Best practices for affiliate marketing

• Be authentic; don't promote a product you don't truly stand behind because your audience will be disappointed, and you won't seem like a credible, trustworthy source

• Participate in an affiliate program in your blog's niche so you can cater directly to your current audience and provide relevant, valuable content

• Always disclose affiliate products and campaigns to build trust with your audience

Once you've established a loyal following, creating subscription-based content is an effective way to profit more from your blog.

Essentially, you can lock your blog content so only paying customers can access the exclusive content. The subscription-based model creates a feeling of exclusivity and a behind-the-scenes, "members only" vibe that some readers prefer.

The primary benefit of subscription-based content is that you are monetizing your blog content through recurring subscriptions. Instead of churning out tons of content, you can be more selective with what you create because your audience is much more dialed in.

With paid subscriptions, you don't have to stress as much about platform algorithms, advertising, and competitors, because you gain a consistent monthly income from your loyal followers.

Subscription-based content examples:

• MemberPress - a WordPress blog plugin that supports bloggers in building a membership site, selling online courses, offering digital products, and more

• Patreon - an online platform for creators from various avenues to offer paid subscriptions to gain access to their unique content

• Mighty Networks - a paid subscription platform to host online courses, a community membership site, or exclusive offers to your audience

Many successful bloggers sell digital products to supplement their income and increase their blog traffic.

The benefit of selling digital products is that you only have to create the product once, and it can sell an infinite number of times with minimal effort required. Digital products can bring in passive income while saving you time and energy that you can re-invest in your own blog.

Profitable digital products to monetize your blog:

• eBooks in your blog niche or any other expertise you have

• Online courses that are relevant to your audience

• Printables and templates you've created that help solve problems

• Podcast episodes, audio recordings, tutorials

Sponsored posts are a popular way to monetize your blog, particularly if you have an engaged audience, credibility online, and a successful blog with a professional look and feel. Sponsored posts are usually paid for by a company that wants you to review their products and write a blog post promoting them.

Sponsored posts can help build your reputation in your blog niche and establish trust and credibility with your audience. When you work with a company consistently, your profits will increase from sponsored content.

How to offer sponsored posts

• Work with companies you respect and would only recommend to your friends and family

• Always notify readers when a post is sponsored (this is required by the FTC)

• Contact brands you genuinely like to see if they're interested in partnering for a sponsored post

Offer coaching and consulting services in the niche or industry that you're an expert in. You can provide your target audience with best practices, tips and tricks, and behind-the-scenes information they can't get for free online. Coaching leverages the knowledge you already have, making it easy to generate revenue without having to gain new skills.

For example, if you run a travel blog, you could coach readers on planning a dream vacation or offer them exclusive content and tips on the places you've been. If you have a fitness blog, you can offer one-on-one virtual coaching, including workouts, meal plans, and more.

If you have a particular service or skill set that many people seek, hosting an event like an online course, webinar, online summit, or podcast is a great way to make money blogging.

How you charge for the events is entirely up to you; some bloggers offer free attendance to promote their products or services and gain beneficial exposure from the audience, while others charge a fee so attendees can gain access to their content and provide resources and freebies at the event.

If you need more resources or time to host an event, participating can be just as profitable for your own blog. You'll connect with others in your blogging niche, have tons of networking opportunities, and gain relevant knowledge and skills in digital marketing.

Freelance blogging means offering your services to companies and brands that need writers. You can use your blog to showcase your skills; finding writers that create quality content is surprisingly difficult for businesses in today's landscape.

Depending on your background, you'll find many opportunities for blog monetization through skills you already have. Freelancers can create and sell online courses for businesses, develop a company's content strategy, or manage their social media channels.

Best practices for freelance blogging

• Choose a profitable blogging niche

• Promote your services on LinkedIn

• Have a contact form on your website so companies can quickly contact you

• Pitch your services to companies in your niche

• Perform keyword research on Google to find companies that need your services

Many blog owners openly accept donations as a revenue stream for their online business. Creating content is undoubtedly a full-time job, and quite a few readers feel compelled to support their favorite bloggers through monetary donations.

Accepting donations is an easy way to monetize your blog, particularly for those who have already established themselves with their audience and have loyal, dedicated followers.

You can set up a Paypal donations account, use sites like Patreon, or install WordPress plugins to accept donations on your blog.

Online ads may get a bad rap, but there's no doubt that they work!

You'll need to work with an ad network like Google AdSense to sell advertising space on your blog. Google automatically places relevant ads on your blog, which earn money as your visitors click on them. Google AdSense requires minimal effort on the blogging side, and the ads featured on your site will be relevant and appealing to your audience, making it easier to generate revenue through this monetization method.

Aside from Google Adsense, you can also sell ad space to businesses directly so their ads will be featured on your blog as a banner ad. You're in control of the price you charge for ad space, how long the ads are featured, and the terms and agreements. It's more work than using Google AdSense, but you'll see a much higher profit using this monetization strategy.

Tips on selling ad space to monetize a blog

• Create an "Advertising" page on your blog so interested companies can contact you directly

• Reach out to relevant companies whose products or services you use to sell them ad space

• The more traffic you have, the better your display ads will perform

Like a sponsored post, bloggers receive products from a company, use them, and then create a blog post or other content sharing their opinions and experience using the product.

Reviews fit into the world of influencer marketing because the blogger writing the review typically has a significant following (which is why the business wants to work with them!) who is interested in these types of products.

We already know that consumers rely on reviews as they shop. With an engaged audience, product reviews can be an extremely valuable addition to your blog monetization strategy.

Tips for writing product reviews

• Reach out to companies you'd like to work with on various social media channels to pitch your angle

• Give your honest review in order to maintain trust and credibility with your followers

• Choose products that are relevant to your audience to increase your commissions and justify your social influence for each company you partner with

Creating valuable content isn't just about writing anymore; podcasts are exploding in popularity throughout every industry. Influencers, celebrities, doctors, marketers, and many others host podcasts as a revenue stream, and it's a genius way to connect with your audience through a different medium while simultaneously making money online.

Many bloggers are popular enough to sell advertising space on their podcasts. If you aren't at this level yet, don't sweat it. To monetize your blog through a podcast, you can create gated episodes (like exclusive content) that followers can access for a small fee.

Best practices for starting a podcast

• Use a popular blog post as inspiration for future episodes

• Host interviews with like-minded individuals in the digital marketing space

• Invest in quality equipment, including a microphone, headphones, audio software, and a hosting platform

While some bloggers prefer to sell online courses, others find physical products to be just as profitable (if not more so!). Selling physical products means you'll need to create an ecommerce store through one of the online platforms, like Etsy or Shopify.

Because most bloggers have a significant social media following, they can easily advertise and promote physical products on their social media channels and drive sales to their shops. Leverage your existing audience for feedback and opinions on what products they'd purchase from your shop.

Tips for selling physical products

• Sell products that align with your passion and skills

• Source white-label products from a reliable supplier

• Poll your audience to discover what products they'd buy from you

Using print on demand services

Utilizing a print on demand service is a cost-effective way to sell a variety of high-quality, custom products and merchandise directly to your audience. The significant benefit is that you don't have to order or store any inventory or ship the orders yourself. Once a purchase is made, the print on demand supplier fulfills and ships the order on your behalf.

You can use a couple of methods to connect Wix to Shopify. One is to use the Wix Store app to add a Shopify buy button that lets you sell your Shopify products on Wix. Another is to add a Shopify embed code to your Wix site so you can sell Shopify products on Wix. A third method is to take a Wix domain you purchased from a domain registrar other than Wix and use your Shopify store's domain settings to transfer your Wix domain to Shopify. You can also use this feature to reverse this process and transfer a Shopify-managed domain to Wix. In this case, you will be able to start selling your Shopify products on Wix, but you will need to create a new website on Wix to display your products there.