HOW TO MONETIZE YOUR BLOG!

I can not even tell you, how many people (friends but also in the "online world") ask me, if I make money writing a blog and most importantly HOW I can make money writing a blog! I am blogging now since almost 3 years and am in the lucky position that I monetized my blog wisely. I will share today a couple of tips with you, how you can monetize your blog too. However, if you are a new blogger, you will have to be patient as the money will be strongly connected with how many visitors you receive on your blog. 

Here are my favorite ways how to make money on my blog!

Adsense

The probably easiest way to make money is with Adsense banners. You are allowed to have a maximum of 3 ad banners and are able to customize the look and size of the banners. However, you don´t have much saying on what kind of ads they put on your blog. I find it often highly uncomfortable if a brand has ads on my blog that is not cruelty free! You get money for the clicks you receive on these banners. The more clicks, the more money! Simple as that!

Join a Network

If you join a network, they often offer you also banners to place on your blog. Examples are: Federated Media, Social Moms, Momversation, Product Review Place, MomSpark, Clever Girls Collective, Blogher, Mom Blogger Club, Collective Bias, Mom Central, Blog Frog, ..

I was for one year a member of the Blogher Publishing Network. I liked that visitors of my blog did not had to click the banners to receive my money (read more about bloghers network here). However, I decided to quit my contract with Blogher because 3 Adsense banners plus 2 Blogher Banners looked quite spammy to me. I was also hoping to get a couple sponsorships through Blogher which never happened. I am considering at the moment trying out another network.

Use Affiliate links

Using Affiliate links is another easy way to make money. Whenever somebody clicks on your Affiliate link and buys something, you will get a commission for the sale. (Don´t worry, if you click on Affiliate links it will not cost you as a buyer anything). The commission can be anything between 5-25% of the total sale. My personal favorites are of course Ulta, Sephora and also BH Cosmetics. I have had a bad experience with the Elf Affiliate program that you can read here.

You should become affiliated with all your favorite stores or brands. It does not make much sense to be an Affiliate of something that you don´t care for. I love all the brands that I am affiliated with! Use your affiliate links whenever you blog about your favorite products!

Write sponsored posts!

Don´t let this get confused by getting a free product for review. A free product is NOT a sponsored post! Many bloggers do get this confused. A sponsored post means the reviewer actually got paid for the review. It does however not mean that the review is bought- honesty is of course still a major! Make sure you have a disclaimer (here is mine). 

Rates completely are up to you, but if you don´t have many visitors on your blog, you will not be lucky to get any sponsorships. Unfortunately so many bloggers are happy with just a free product and therefore brands are used to get their review for literally nothing. If you feel you do an excellent job and have the visitor numbers to proof that, you should absolutely charge a brand for your blog review!

A rule of thumb is 15.000 visitors/month you should AT LEAST charge $50. 30.000 visitors/month $100. If you have 120.000 visitors you should at least charge $400. But these numbers can differ hugely- depending on your niche- or even how much you like the product. Of course if the product itself has a very high value, you might consider charging less. Up to you at the end and these rates should only give you a little inspiration. Don´t underestimate the work you put into your blog!

Sell ad space in your sidebar

This of course is also highly connected with the number of visitors you receive on your blog and also with how much the brand is able to pay to you. If you get a long relationship through this you might consider less $. Personally I charge about half of what I charge for a blog review- but therefore the banner gets 4 weeks of attention on my blog (so if you have 30.000 visitors/month and charge usually $100 for a review, you could charge $50 for a banner for 4 weeks. Well, at the end YOU create the price. This is just a little guide in case you have no clue what to charge).

Progrids

Personally I used this service only one month as I did not got much out of it. If you already use Adsense and another Network, this might be looking like too much spam on your site. It does not help to have too much ads going on on your blog. Quality over Quantity! If for whatever reason you did not get approved for Adsense or another network though, this might be the solution for you. Update: this service was recently discontinued.

I hope this was helpful for some of you!

You might also like: How to get free products for review as a blogger!

Contains Affiliate links. Read my full disclosure.