You’ve probably heard blogging is a way you could make money anywhere, but you might not be sure how to get started.

Making money blogging takes a plan, just like starting a business. If you can develop an interesting blog niche, monetize your site to make profits and strategize to continuously build an audience, you can make money blogging in 2021 from anywhere. Keep reading to learn how.

Is a Blog a Business?

In many senses, yes. A blog is a business where you sell both your creative content and advertising space for other businesses. When thinking about how to make money blogging in 2021, approach it like you would starting a business.

First, you must estimate how long you can afford to blog without profiting. Like any new business, there’s a startup period in the red that must be expected with blogging. For many, it only takes about six months to start seeing a profit from blogging. Some need up to a year.

Average Start-Up Costs

When making a plan to monetize your blog, don’t forget to also factor in startup costs. This includes hosting, domain registration and opportunity costs of putting in currently unpaid work. You do need to pay for hosting to be able to monetize your blog, as free blogs may not offer integrated ads.

If you are tech-savvy, it will cost less, but if you need to hire experts to build your site or create content, your costs will increase. Estimate around $60 in start-up for a completely DIY blog, between paying for a domain name and web hosting. If you decide to have professionals handle any part of your blog, though, expect costs to rise quickly.

How To Monetize a Blog: 5 Key Methods

Once you get your blog set up, adding elements to monetize it is essential to make money blogging.

Think of your blog profits as coming from two distinct revenue streams: content you create and content other people create.

You get paid for content that you create when you sell downloadable, teach courses or offer memberships to more exclusive content. You get paid for other people’s content when you host ads or post affiliate links.

1. Downloadables

One of the best ways for bloggers to make money is to offer downloadable content. This can be a variety of items, but each should have an affordable price tag so that their audience is willing to pay for these extras outside of the blog.

Examples include an organizational blog providing a printable cleaning schedule, or a home decor blog offering printable labels for decoupage canisters. These are items that your audience would not typically have access to and are exclusive to your creative line.

You could start out by offering free downloadables. This is not a “something for nothing” strategy, because you can build a contact list with it. Simply restrict the download to be available only after the user enters their contact information.

List-building is valuable to digital content creators. Once you have a way to get in front of people’s eyes, you have a variety of marketing avenues you can explore.

2. Courses

If your blog is in a niche that lends itself to educational content, you are primed for creating a paid course for your readers. Many bloggers turn readers into students when they offer paid courses.

Bloggers can use sites like Skillshare, Udemy and Kajabi to make and post courses. Online courses vary in profits, but there are courses that have brought in millions. You should establish your blog and social media following before investing heavily into a course. Otherwise, you will be offering your content without enough potential students to make you a profit.

3. Premium Content

You can also produce premium content that your readers subscribe to. This could be content that gets an earlier release for subscribers or special video content.

By integrating a membership subscription, you open a new channel of income for your established readers. Adding membership service software to your blog elevates this premium content for paying subscribers.

4. Hosting Ads

One of the best ways for bloggers to make money is to host ads on their monetized blogs. These may appear on sidebars, banners, or between paragraphs of their articles.

Many bloggers start by hosting pay-per-click ads. You can use Google AdSense to incorporate relevant ads into your blog.

This means AdSense will pay you for every time a reader watches or clicks on your ad. One click can pay you anywhere between $0.50 and $5, so it will take a certain level of traffic to start making a lot of money like this.

5. Sponsorships and Affiliate Links

Finally, getting sponsorships and affiliate links for your blog content is an excellent way to get paid.

For a sponsorship, a brand will pay you to promote their product on your blog. The way you promote it could vary, although the brand will likely ask you to endorse it so your readers will be interested in the product.

Affiliate marketing is very similar. Brands send you affiliate links to place in your blogs that direct readers to their products. For instance, in a gardening blog, a seed company may send you affiliate links for your next article about planting. Each time a reader clicks on that link and makes a purchase, the seed company will pay you.

How To Attract Readers: 3 Marketing Ideas

As noted, you need to have a lot of viewers per month to make a profit on basic PPC clicks. Here’s how to make sure your audience is wide enough to earn:

1. Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the applied strategy of making your blog “findable” by search engines and potential readers looking for content like yours.

Most blog platforms have some built-in SEO tools, but you can also work with SEO professionals to integrate ranking keywords throughout your blog and show up higher in search results.

2. Social Media

Interacting with readers on social media is both fun and strategic, driving more traffic to your blog. Especially when you start out, it’s important to spread your blog on social media to catch a wide net of readers.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing allows you direct access to your readers’ inboxes. Collect emails when you offer content like downloadables and get consent to contact your readers. Use this contact information later to send out newsletters, promotions, coupons and more.

Essential Tips for Making Money Blogging

The most essential tip for how to start a blog and make money is to treat it like a business. Make a plan, make a marketing strategy and secure several potential income channels.

When you combine excellent content with high-volume traffic that attracts advertisers, you can grow a profitable blog over time and make money anywhere. Blog on something you are already passionate about to create a profitable, engaging blog.