How Much Money Can a Blogger Make and How Can They Monetize Their Site

When blogging first started, it was aimed towards a persons’ hobby and interest. Making money blogging was not the goal. While the blogging scene has developed over the last decade, blogging now can be a perfect side hustle. You can earn side income that can boost your alternative income. Some even become a fulltime blogger as their career.

The thing I like about blogging is because I can work on it in my own time, you can do it from anywhere in the world, and you can build it into your hobby. I just started blogging as a side hustle aside from working in my dad’s company. I’m not sure how much I can make from blogging since I’m still new in this career field. However, I’m glad that Google Adsense has already approved my blog so that I can monetize my finance blog that you are currently reading right now.

I’m currently making very little from Google Adsense since my finance blog is still new and has very little content. Because of that reason, I’m not completely sure the real earning potential from a successful blog. Due to my curiosity, I decided to do some research on how much money a successful blogger can make. In this article, I would like to share to you readers about the research I did on the potential earning of a successful blogger. Moreover, I would also explain how a blog generates its revenue and how you can monetize your blog.

How Much Money Do Bloggers Make?

Salaries for bloggers vary widely. Report from Glassdoor shows Blogger makes from $19,000 to $79,000 a year. Other sources say 14% of Blogger who earn a salary make, on average, $24,000 a year or $33,000 a year for corporate bloggers. Furthermore, freelance bloggers can make anything from $10 per post to $100 or more for an article.

Blogger, who runs their blog, shows that 17% of 1,000 surveyed bloggers who use Blogging.com in 2012 can live off their income or support their family with their blogs. The majority of bloggers, which consist of 81%, never make even $100 from blogging. However, a successful one consists of a few percentages of 2%, making more than $150,000 a year.  

Another survey of 1,500 ProBlogger readers who said they are trying to make money by blogging, found that 9% make between $1,000 and $10,000 a month and 4% make over $10,000 a month. However, the vast majority who did not make it in the blogging world make less than $3.50 a day. Those blogs that do not generate much income tend to be blogs that are less than two years old.

I really think how much you make blogging depends on several factors. This includes how often you post content, the quality of content you provide, how impressive your topic is, and how effective you are at building an audience and generating traffic to your blog.

I’m considered new to the blogging world, and I know that I need to dedicate my time and effort in order for my finance blog to be successful. By seeing those who succeeded in blogging as their primary career makes me feel not to be discouraged even when I’m only making nickels and dimes at the moment. Instead, it motivates me actually to work harder so that I’m able to succeed. I know to be a successful blogger, I have to create tons of content in my finance blog, and I need to be discipline to writing at least one article a day to make it happen.

How Does Your Blog Make Its Revenue?
How much money you can make depends on how much traffic you are getting and how large your email list is to your blog. I know people who make $25,000 in the first year of his blogging career. In 2nd year, he made about $150,000, and in his 3rd year, he made over $400,000. That is pretty impressive! Anyways let me get to the point of how your blog makes money.

More Traffic = More Revenue 

The more traffic to your blog means the more revenue you are going to receive. It’s not unrealistic to make between $0.01 to $0.25 per page view in many blogging niches and affiliate ads. So if you are getting 1,000 page views a month, you can make between $10 to $25 a month, which can be used to cover the cost of running the blog.

The exciting part is when you get 100,000 page views a month. You can make in the range of $1,000 to $25,000 per month from your blog. That is a considerable sum of money. I will be ecstatic if I can reach that kind of accomplishment. In some rare cases, some blogs make $0.20 per page view. Those blogs are in a very profitable niche, like insurance. However, somewhere in the $0.02 to $0.05 per page view is more realistic. So the more people your blog reaches, the more money you can obviously make.

You’ll need to be disciplined with yourself in writing quality content into your blog. If you are consistent, your traffic and revenue will continue to grow to the point where you can make a living just by blogging. The more time you put into it, the bigger your traffic will grow, as well as your email list. Your blog audience becomes valuable, and that will make you more money.

I know it will take time and hard work for it to happen, but it will pay off later on. One of the greatest things about it as your Google traffic grows over time, and your audience grows, you can make more and more money each year. This is the reason why SEO (search engine optimization) is crucial. It’s like the compound interest of blog growth. Once your blog becomes viral, it can be a good source of alternative income coming to you passively.

Email Lists is Crucial
The most valuable asset you have as a blogger is your email list. This is your audience who follows your blog. They are the ones who will come back and keep reading your content. Furthermore, you can build enough trust with them so that they will buy something from you. It could be a product you create or have. Also, it can be a click on affiliate links for the product you recommend.

It’s true you can make money running display and affiliate ads on your blog. However, your most significant money-making opportunity will be with your email list. The million-dollar bloggers out there are able to make $1 up to $5 in revenue per email subscriber each month! Imagine if you have 10,000 subscribers in your email list. Multiply $5 to the number of subscribers, and you will have $50,000 in revenue off that list per month! It is really incredible.

Your Blog Niche Matters

How much money you can make blogging depends largely on the niche of your blog. If you blog about a flower, you could probably only make money if you sell flowers directly through your blog, and then you likely won’t make much money. However, if your blog is about money, it’s going to be easier for you to make money because you get more substantial affiliate commissions, more significant advertiser fees or CPMs (cost per thousand impressions), and sell products for money.

So you must pick a niche that you are really interested in writing about. This way, you will tend to stick with it. I personally have combine niches to my blog. In the beginning, my plan for my blog was to be about dividend stock investment. However, I now combine the niche of my blog with niches related to wealth-building, side businesses, saving tips, stock analysis, and personal finance. I find these niches to be related to each other since it has something to do with money. 

 Here are some of the most profitable blog niches:

 1. Money/Insurance: $0.02 - $0.25 per page view, $0.50 - $6 per email subscriber per month.

 2. Product Reviews: $0.01 - $0.15 per page view, $0.25 - $5 per email subscriber per month.

 3. Travel: $0.01 - $0.10 per page view, $0.50 - $4 per email subscriber per month.

 4. Fashion: $0.01 - $0.10 per page view, $0.10 - $4 per email subscriber per month.

 5. Decorating: $0.01 - $0.05 per page view, $0.10 - $4 per email subscriber per month. 

 These are some of the least profitable niches:

 1. Music: $0.01 – $0.03 per page view, $0.10 – $1 per email subscriber per month 

 2. General News/Politics: $0.01 – $0.02 per page view, $0.10 – $2 per email subscriber per month

 3. Cooking/Gardening: $0.01 – $0.03 per page view, $0.10 – $3 per email subscriber per month

 4. Home Improvement: $0.01 – $0.03 per page view, $0.10 – $3 per email subscriber per month

 5. Toys/Games: $0.01 – $0.03 per page view, $0.10 – $3 per email subscriber per month

How to Make Money Blogging?

You need to think about your blog like a platform rather than just seeing it as a blog. There is a vast difference between a successful and an amateur blogger. A professional blogger sees their blog as a platform. This means they use it to test and then scale money making ideas. They use it to connect with people so that they can utilize their blogs to make money in a bunch of different ways.

The more ways you can make money with your blog, the more income you will make. Be creative! The experience you get monetizing your blog and connecting with other bloggers, the more ways you will find ways to make money with your content and your own brand. In the long run, you can grow your blog into a profitable business that fits with your lifestyle.

Below I have place 15 different ways you can make money from blogging. None of these ideas are specific to finance-related blog, and you can use them for almost any niche.

1. Google Adsense - Potential Blog Revenue: $0.1 - $0.5 per page view

Google Adsense lets you run ads from the Google Display network on your website. If you are new to blogging, Google AdSense is the easiest way to monetize your blog. However, you won’t make that much of them. Even if you are getting a thousand visitors a month, you probably make less than $100. I was recently accepted by Google AdSense to have their ads placed on my blog. I have made very little money from it. If you like to learn more about Google Adsense, you can click on the link I provided.

2. Advertising/Publisher Networks - Potential Monthly Blog Revenue: $10,000+

If you’ve reached at least 25,000 page views per month, you can ditch Google AdSense and start working directly with an advertising network (publisher network). They will directly manage the display ads on your blog to make sure you are making the most money off your ads. These networks take around 20%-40% of the display ad revenue from your blog.

Even with this commission, you can make a lot more money working directly with an advertiser/publishing networking rather than working with Google. Some bloggers made the jackpot, making $20,000 plus a month on display ads alone. There are often ad/publisher networks that specialize in your niche, so just Google search for your niche ad networks, and you will find a few that you can connect with. Some of them are very selective with whom they want to work, so you might want to find a few others.

My blog hasn’t reached this level at this moment since my blog is still pretty new. However, I do offer an advertisement ad if anyone is interested in working together with me. If you want more information regarding this, you can click here to learn more about our program.  

3. Affiliate Ads - Potential Blog Revenue: $5 to $300 per click

Affiliate marketing is legit, and you can make a lot of money by placing affiliate ads on your blog. In almost any niche, you can make money by recommending products or services and getting paid every time someone signs up through your link. These affiliate ads are win/win situation both for the bloggers and the advertisers. That is because the advertiser gets confirmed sign up, and you as the Blogger will likely get paid more money for a confirmed sign up than a click. You might only get $1-3 per click, with affiliate commissions; you can make $5 to $300 when someone signs up through your link. However, this also depends on the product you are promoting. 

So how do you make this kind of money?. I suggest to only recommending products or services that you believe in and/or use. You don’t want to lose your readers by recommending a lousy or spammy product just because you will get paid; they click and sign up. It’s not worth it.

Focus on finding affiliate relationships for products or services that you really believe in and/or use. This way, you have confidence in recommending your readers to the products or services. However, not all companies have affiliate programs. Just contact the makers of your favorite products and/or services to see if they have an affiliate program. If they do, they might require you to show the amount of traffic to your blog. If the traffic to your blog is not enough for their minimum requirement, take note to contact them again later when your blog is more established.

Amazon Affiliate Ads

One of the most popular affiliates is Amazon, and you can get paid whenever you link to a product listing on Amazon and have the reader buy the product. While the payouts (what you get paid for sale) aren’t as much on Amazon as going directly to a product or service, they have a simple use of the affiliate platform. You can pretty much promote any of the billions of products that Amazon has for sale. Furthermore, the more expensive the product you are promoting, the higher the commission you will get if someone buys it through your link. 

This is why bloggers who promote electronic gadgets such as television sets, computers, laptops, cameras, and many other expensive products absolutely crush it through affiliate ads. For example, every time a person buys a TV through their link, they are pocketing up to $100 per transaction. Moreover, you can earn up to 10% with some transactions, and these numbers add up quickly.

I just currently applied to the Amazon affiliate ads program to promote books and other merchandise that I plan to recommend on my blog. I have not sold anything yet at the moment since I just recently applied for the program. If you are interested in Amazon affiliate ads, you can click on this link to learn more about it. There is a high chance of me promoting bargain goods on my website that I believe is great in the future. This way, people can know all the great things that are for sale at a low cost. However, this is just a future plan. I am still thinking of how I can apply it in this website.

4. Sponsored Content - Potential Blog Revenue: $50 - $1000 per post

The bigger your blogs get, the more people will want to offer to pay to put their content on your blog. You are going to get many requests once your blog is popular and viral. I have done some research on how much you can earn for placing potential clients’ content in your blog. They usually will offer $50 to $1,000 to publish one of their posts on your blog. I currently don’t have anyone requesting to put their content in my blog yet. I guess when my blog gets more popular and viral; people would then offer me to put their content in my finance blog.

You are probably thinking that is much money that can be earned just by publishing a post that someone else has written, but you need to be careful. Google doesn’t like this practice, and if they think you are publishing too much-paid content on your blog. There is a high chance that you blog can get blacklist. This is terrible since it will take you forever to recover from.

You also want to be cautious about how often you post sponsored content on your blog. This is because most of those posts are often really lousy or have lousy links included in them. If you are linking from a crappy blog post to a crappy link, Google is going to notice as well as your audience. So be careful about accepting sponsored content posts. I would suggest having it written by yourself that way, you are sure that you are placing high-quality content for your blog.

I personally have not gotten any request for any sponsored content in my blog since it’s still pretty new. In fact, I wrote content about my brother’s business called Panopedia at a free of charge. However, if you readers are interested in posting content in my blog for a fee, feel free to contact me.

5. Direct Display Ad Buys - Potential Monthly Blog Revenue: $150 - $1000 per display

Some brands or companies will contact you to put a banner display ad on your blog to promote their products or services. You can also contact the companies that are related to your target readership and blog niche. Sell the fact that a display ad will be on every page of your blog and get the maximum amount of visibility.

I have seen Blogger, who gets around $150 to $1000 a month per display, depending on the niche of their blog. You can sell a 728 x 90 banner ad for the most money since it’s the most apparent size when you put it in your blog header. However, do not put too many ads in your blog since it’s going to look unprofessional. It is best if you sell limited to one display ad at a time.

I have not got any offer regarding ad placement in my blog at the current moment. My blog is still new and is not that popular as for now. However, if you are interested in having an ad placement in my blog for a fee, feel free to contact me. However, I did post a banner on the website that shows Regency products, and it has a link to the official website. The product ads belong to my dad’s business that manufactures electric fans. I did not charge my dad for an advertisement fee since the company is a family business. When my blog is more established, I can offer people who are interested in placing ads on my website. This can lead me to generate some good income.

6. Social Media Promotion - Potential Blog Revenue: $300 - $2000 per promotion

Social Media Promotion is a business that a blogger can use to generate income. However, you need to have a brand that is popular in social media. I have seen people getting paid $300 to $2000 for a simple social media promotion of other people’s content. If you are an influencer or expert in your niche, you can likely make money by promoting products or services on social media. The higher your follower, the more money you can get paid.

Paid promotions in social media is a growing industry that can be profitable. For example, I have seen a blogger with massive Instagram followings make at least $5,000 per month promoting products in their niche (usually fashion and travel). They indeed have a blog, but they make more money on their social media following as they grow their blogging business.

FinzWatch Media website has its own Instagram account. You can check it out at https://www.instagram.com/finzwatch/. As for now, the account does not have that many followers. However, I am working on increasing the number of followers by posting great content. This way, I can create an excellent branding tool for the FinzWatch website. Please follow our Instagram account if you have not done so. It has excellent and interesting content that can give value to the audience. I have been creating and posting valuable content on the Instagram page. Moreover, I used Adobe Photoshop to create those postings and continue to keep posting every time I have a new article.

7. Paid Social Media Content Promotion - Potential Blog Revenue: $10,000+

This is a new trend that most profitable bloggers make their money. Depending on their writing niche and the affiliates you are working with, you can utilize Facebook or Google ads to your monetized content. This is an advantageous and popular blog monetization strategy many bloggers are using.

Basically, the way it works is you buy Facebook traffic to you blog for 3 cents to $2 dollars per click, but then a certain percentage of that traffic then signs up or purchases something through one of your affiliate links. It could be a course that you make or merchandise that you have up for sale.

After that, you manage how much you spend on the ad clicks to generate affiliate revenue. This, of course, requires some Facebook and/or Google ad testing, but over time when you find the winning solution (example for every $1 you spend on ads, you make $5 in affiliate revenue), you can scale your blog quickly.

I have seen bloggers who spend over $10,000 or more on ad traffic to their website, but they make over $20,000 in profit on that ad expense. Moreover, some are more professional, making $100,000 in a month by buying and monetizing paid traffic.

I haven’t tried this method of monetizing my finance blog. However, this is definitely something I might be looking forward to growing FinzWatch Media Web. My plan is to work together with my partner, Christopher Lee, who has an online course website called Re-Think Wealth Online Academy. He is also a contributor to FinzWatch and has ownership of the business.

My plan is to create more value for the FinzWatch website before trying this method of making money. Nevertheless, my goal is to offer our own products, such as online courses or products that we sell in our online shop. Using the FinzWatch website can help find potential clients that might be interested in purchasing and trying out our service or products.

8. Courses or Product Revenue - Potential Blog Revenue: It Varies

Building a course or have a product for sale is a great way to make money for your blog. It’s never been easier to sell your expertise, make money teaching others, and sell merchandise on your website. You can use third-party platforms such as Teachable to host your course online. I have seen successful Blogger making big banks by selling courses in their blog. However, if you are planning to develop a course in your blog, please make sure you check what others are doing out there in the market. You should check who you will be competing with because I have also seen many bloggers who launch a course that they spent a lot of time building that fail.

I haven’t tried selling courses on my blog since my business model is different. My goal is to have information and content to be free of charge. Furthermore, after I accomplished my goal of writing 1,000 articles in my blog, I would want to expand my blogging business by making video content on YouTube. Making an online course is a future project plan that I might pursuit for my blog venture.

I plan to work together with Christopher Lee, the owner of the Re-Think Wealth blog. Moreover, he is a contributor and a member of the FinzWatch team; however, he also works independently by creating content in his own finance blog. Moreover, he offers his online courses on value investing to visitors interested in applying to his mentorship.

I am planning to work together with him to create online courses in his teachable account. Working together can be beneficial for both of us since we share the cost of overhead expenses for a teachable platform. I am looking forward to offering visitors to my online courses that can benefit potential clients in a niche such as investing, real estate, online e-commerce, and many more.

9. Selling Your Own Book - Potential Blog Revenue: It Varies

If you become an expert in your niche and good at writing about your topic that builds a vast audience, then you might be the right candidate for a book deal. Book agents and publishers are always looking for talented writers with expertise. I know this might sound insane to think about writing a book now, but this could be a real possibility as you grow your blog.

I had not planned to write a book at the moment; however, my mom did mention that I can someday write a book once I have written many article contents. As for now, I think writing a book is just a dream that one day I can work on. My focus at the moment is to write quality content for readers to read in my blog. However, if I was going to write a book, I am interested in writing a book that can educate readers to become a great investor and excellent in managing their finance. I can then sell my books in my online store for anyone interested in purchasing it.

10. Freelance Writing Opportunities - Potential Blog Revenue: $40 - $100 per post

Last but not least, as a blogger, you are working as if you are a writer. So the more you blog, the better writer you are going to become. From this valuable skill you are getting from writing, you can sell your expertise through freelance writing opportunities. There are so many companies and publications that are looking for niche experts to write for them and will pay you to write. Many new bloggers use freelance writing opportunities to supplement their blogging income while getting their blogs off the ground and building an audience.

Another benefit of making money by freelance writing is that you can get more exposure as an expert in your niche and build your portfolio. For example, besides writing finance content articles in my blog as a side hustle, I also use my expertise to write stock investment-related content in Seeking Alpha. I use my freelance opportunity to write for Seeking Alpha because the platform is designed for people who are interested in understanding about companies in the stock market.

Since my finance blog is related to stock investment, writing article contents for Seeking Alpha can help me get more exposure to my blog niche. I am expected to be paid around $40 to $100 per article I post in Seeking Alpha. Furthermore, my plan is to post a link to an article I posted in Seeking Alpha from my blog post. This can be synergy to earn more income from both Google Adsense and Seeking Alpha. This way, I have two sources of income that pay me for my writing and stock investment expertise.

Bottom Line

After you finished reading this article that I have written, I hope you understand how a blogger can make money. There are many ways you can monetize your blog to make a decent living. Some of the successful Blogger make a considerable amount of money just by blogging.

Always remember that creating a blog is like building a platform. There are many other additional ways to make money of your blogs, such as selling products, creating video content on YouTube, selling access to a member area, and many other ways.

Most importantly is that you will need to be creative with your blogging venture. The more creative you are at monetizing your blog, the more money you will make. With dedication, hard work, and creativity, you can create a successful and profitable blogging venture. I hope my article can give you readers a vision of how they can monetize their blogs. To create a successful, profitable blog, you will need to be dedicated and hardworking. There are no short cuts to success, so be discipline with creating content on your blog and grow your audience.