How to make money from blogging

Something most bloggers want to know; how can you earn money from blogging. Something I would like to point out though, if you plan to blog just to earn money and ‘get rich quick' it won’t work, unless you have thousands and thousands of followers. Blogging isn’t like that, it takes hard work, time and dedication. I have been blogging for around a year and a half now and feel I am now well equipped with the knowledge of what does and doesn’t work so here is the low down. Adsense This is possibly the one most people know about. Google adsense is a free service which allows you to place advertisements on your blog. When clicked, these advertisements should earn you some revenue. I have never really got on with Adsense for two reasons, the adverts don’t fit in with my blog style/design (too distracting) and also you only earn a few pennies each month, if that. Literally. For this reason I don’t use it anymore. I think Adsense works better for ‘bigger bloggers’ as they’re monthly page view count is a lot higher.  There is also a minimum threshold you have to reach before you can withdraw money, for Adsense it is a whopping £60. For a new blogger this would be really hard to reach. Affiliate links For this I utilise Skimlinks. Once you join an affiliate program you are able to earn a few pennies through purchases people make by clicking your links. After signing up there is a piece of code you add to your blog and this automatically changes all the links on your blog into affiliate links. So say you have written a product review on a candle, and placed a link to the candle below the post, if people make a purchase by clicking that link you will earn a small percentage of the sale. Did that make sense? I hope so. Skimlinks also have a handy tool called a link generator, this enables you to share affiliate links on social media such as Twitter. All you do it pop in the link on the skimlinks site and it converts it into a short affiliate link. Again there is normally a minimum threshold before you are able to withdraw money, it is £7 for Skimlinks which is more manageable. Sponsored posts Love them or hate them sponsored posts are a nice little earner. I personally am extremely picky with who I work with for sponsored content, hence why they are quite rare on my blog. I have come across some blogs who have the same amount of followers as me and they write sponsored content at least 4 times a month. It is totally up to you but I think it’s important to be picky and to remember your blog theme, your readership is more important than easy money. In regards to fees, this again is down to you. Some people charge £10 for every 500 blog followers they have, or you can just charge per hour so calculate how long it takes to write up a  blog post. Guest posts Occasionally I receive emails from various companies asking me to guest post on their blog. Again, this is totally up to you but for me it depends on the company. If it is a well known company I will gladly guest post as it will increase exposure for my blog. But if it is a brand or company I haven’t heard of I charge a small fee due to the time it takes to write posts. Sidebar advertisements I sometimes use E-tail PR for this. Once registered on the site, check the campaigns and add the coding to your sidebar for the advert to show up. Some of the brands pay you when someone clicks the advert but some will only pay you if the reader makes a purchase.  Another way to earn money through blogging is selling ad spaces on your blog, these can be sold to brands or bloggers. I don’t have any experience of this but many bloggers do it. Bloggers and brands who purchase an ad space from you will see their logo on the sidebar of your blog for a month. This should drive some traffic to their site. The charge for this again is based on how many followers you have, your monthly views and also how long the advertisement will be up for. Ebook This is getting popular again, if you are good at writing why not write an ebook and sell it on Amazon? You could write about anything you have an interest in. ~ A few more tips, check out #prrequest or #bloggerswanted on Twitter (please don’t spam with things such as, “The washing machine has just broke, who wants to send me one for review.” It’s annoying) Using the hashtags are a good way of finding out about brands who are wishing to collaborate with bloggers, this can be for sponsored content or product review.  Also check out sites such as Etail Pr and Bloggers Required for brands who want to work with bloggers and follow PR agencies on Twitter and join their mailing list if they have one. They usually contact you when an opportunity arises that would fit with your blog. So that’s that, I won’t be leaving my job any time soon and although it might seem like it blogging isn’t a way to ‘get rich quick’. I hope you enjoyed this post? Let me know what you think x *image source: pinterest ♡