Running a successful blog is more than just writing amazing content—it’s about finding ways to make it profitable.
With growing competition in the blogging industry, standing out from the noise has become even more difficult.
Fortunately, there are still some avenues that can help you generate passive income with your blog and make it profitable for years to come.
In this post, we look at 5 ways that you can use to monetize your blogs by creating passive income streams. You’ll also get useful tips and actionable ideas on how to get started right away!
Join Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are a great way to monetize your website and promote products relevant to your niche.
These are programs that allow you to partner with vendors, companies, and individuals who make and sell products.
What happens is that you sign up with their affiliate program whether it’s directly with the company or through a marketplace. One example is through WPForms.
You’ll get a unique link for selling products from these programs. You can add this unique link to your blog content and expose your readers to products, services, and subscriptions.
If you successfully promote these products, your readers will click on your link and buy.
And companies will connect the sale with your specific account. And you’ll be rewarded with a generous commission from the vendor.
It’s a win-win situation for both partners, allowing mutual growth and success over time.
To make sure you make money through affiliate marketing, do the following:
- Build a niche audience
- Write useful content regularly
- Feature products, subscriptions, and services often
- Join affiliate programs for different products and add your unique link to them
- Create honest product reviews and explain the features they offer and how they can benefit readers.
By providing such helpful information on products within your niche, you’ll help your audience and drive plenty of sales while earning a commission in the process.
As your sales add up, you’ll find yourself making a high income passively.
Create a Membership Site with Exclusive Content
Another way to monetize your blog is to make some of your content exclusive. And to provide access to such content for a small payment – typically in a subscription format.
To do this, you need to create a membership portal or site along with your blog.
Setting this up isn’t hard. You need a membership plugin and a form tool that will have features like:
- Registration for the membership content
- Payment gateways
- Forums and community channels to encourage discussions and more
Once you’ve used a membership plugin to set up your site, you can begin structuring the content that users will pay for access.
This type of content needs to be unique and provide a high degree of value to people. An example of a paid membership to access service is from Wine Specatator.
It should be something that people are willing to pay for like industry analysis articles, videos, discounts, or early access to major releases.
Offerings this valuable can help incentivize users to sign up as members and become part of your loyal community. You also need to engage people on your site to keep them interested and engaged. If you manage this, you stand to make a steady income from your blog.
Sell Digital Goods on Your Blog
Selling digital goods on your blog can be an effective way to monetize it and help you grow an audience.
Some ideas are:
- Ebooks
- Online courses (you can build this using a membership plugin too)
- Audio downloads
- Recipes
- Templates, checklists, guides
- Exclusive videos
- Software applications and more
With a few simple steps, you can quickly add digital products to your blog.
If you only want to sell digital products, a simple digital eCommerce plugin will be all you need.
It will help you set up a payment system so people can purchase digital items from your site and then download them to their phones or desktops.
This is a great way to make more money using your blog. And you should do this if you get good traffic and have something of value to share with your audience. The Intentional Mom is an example of a blog that sells digital products.
Start a Podcast and Monetize It
Podcasts are a great way to grow your online presence while showing off your expertise and creativity.
Using podcasts to share your content also works because you’ll reach out to people who can’t read or just prefer to listen to audio material while they work or commute.
It isn’t hard to make a podcast today. You can start one with just your phone or a computer and a microphone.
There are also free podcasting platforms where you can create engaging content, form meaningful connections with new and old audiences alike, and even monetize your program. That is, by:
- Accepting donations
- Getting sponsorships
- Selling merchandise
- Creating premium subscriptions for exclusive content
But what do podcasts have to do with your blog?
A podcast is a great way to repurpose your existing blog content. You can reuse material that you’ve worked so hard on in the past. And you can bring your previous content back to people’s attention by talking about them.
You can also share your podcasts on your blog and increase the content on your site. It’s a great way to engage people with your blog. Some podcasting platforms also have partnerships with advertising networks that you can leverage.
Monetize Your Blog with Ads
The most common way to monetize your blog is to place ads on it.
There are ad networks like Google Adsense, Outbrain, and others.
This is an easy way for beginners to start generating income from their blog.
You just need to submit an application with your website’s details and wait for approval from a network. Once approved, you will be able to embed ads onto your site which can generate commissions and revenue based on clicks and impressions from visitors.
It doesn’t take long or require too much effort either, so why not see what earning potential your blog has by monetizing it?
However, be careful not to overdo placing ads on your site. You should never compromise on your blog’s user experience in favor of making money on your site. If your ads clutter up your content and you aren’t providing much value, you’ll only see a decrease in traffic which will lower your earning potential.
Conclusion
Blogging is a rewarding and lucrative business when done correctly.
If you provide great content and provide your users with value, you stand to make a great deal of passive income.
I’ve shared various options for monetizing your blog, especially for earning money in a passive way.
I suggest focusing on affiliate programs and creating a membership site or online courses. And, of course, sell digital products too.
There are many ways to generate passive income, but remember that balance is important. There’s no one size fits all approach when it comes to monetization – focus on a couple of strategies that fit within your niche and give it time to grow.
And never lose sight of your audience and provide useful information to them. Keep creating top-notch content and then monetize your writing to build an income-generating blog.
