How much money can you make?
Unlimited.
How it works.
Monetize your blog by selling your own physical or informational product.
The concept is as straightforward as they come. Your readers are coming to your site because they’re interested in either you or the topics you’re writing about, which makes it the perfect opportunity to sell them something you’ve created.
It can be a physical product, like a journal, t-shirt or pen, or it can be a digital product, such as an e-book, diet plan, or finance guide. You could even bundle several products together - the possibilities are endless.
The only caveats if you want to be successful are:
- The product must be relevant to your blog’s niche.
- It must be high quality. While you may be able to make a bit of money from selling a product of mediocre quality, it’ll only earn disapproval from your readers, which will hurt your profitability in the long run.
Our opinion.
Two thumbs up. This strategy gives you control over how much money you make because you can determine your margins and set your target profit. It also puts the ball in your court when it comes to product quality and marketing strategy.
Plus, you get to attach your name to a product you’ve spent the time to develop and execute.
It’s more work than using affiliate links, but it allows you to build a brand and create something that could have a lasting legacy.
Who’s doing it successfully?
Mike Geary, creator of the informational fitness product “The Truth About Six Pack Abs,” rakes in between $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 a year. Check out the link to his insightful interview with Tim Ferriss in the references. (2)
While the amount he’s making is an anomaly, achieving success by selling your own product isn’t. Michelle Schroeder-Gardner from MakingSenseofCents.com is currently making five figures a month from her online affiliate marketing mastery course.
. Build a Blog and Sell Ad Space.
How much money can you make?
Unlimited. A successful blog will make five figures per month.
How it works.
You’ve seen ads everywhere. Whether it’s a sponsored blog post (you can tell because it says “brought to you by [insert brand name]”), banner ad or pop-up image, ads are the lifeblood of internet business.
You can get in on this by signing up on ad networks like Google AdSense and placing banner and sidebar ads on your site, or reaching out to companies to see if they’re interested in a sponsored post.
Most banner and sidebar ads are CPC, which means you get paid every time someone clicks on the ad. When you’re first starting out, making $0.25 per click is not bad. Generally, click-through rates are around .5-1%.
Sponsored posts, on the other hand, are usually paid per post. If you have 50,000 unique visits per month, for example, you could charge between three to four figures per post.
Our opinion.
We have mixed feelings about this method.
For the most part, we like sponsored posts. They’re somewhat of a badge of honor and an acknowledgment that your blog is popular enough to attract attention from established brands. Plus, the money’s usually not bad.
Banner and sidebar ads are a little more complicated. If you get a massive amount of traffic, this can be a nice passive income stream. But for most blogs, we think the revenue you’re looking at is just not worth displaying an ugly ad on your site.
Unless you’re a big media company, ads can make your site look tacky, and if you’re generating substantial traffic, you might as well use it to promote affiliate products or sell your own. You’ll make more money and keep your site clean. To paraphrase Neil Patel, “Why drive paying customers away from your site with ads? Instead, sell them something on your site and keep more of the profit.” In general, we agree with this sentiment.
Who’s doing it successfully?
4. Use Your Blog to Build an Email List and Sell Sponsored Emails to Businesses.
How much money can you make?
As much as six figures per sponsored email.
How it works.
Building an email list is the ultimate way to monetize your blog.
If you’ve ever visited a blog, chances are you’ve been hit with a pop-up asking you to join their email list or offering you a free product in exchange for your email address. Both are very effective ways of collecting emails.
We like the latter method the best. Most people love free things, so what better way to capture their email than by giving them your latest e-book or fitness product for free?
Once you’ve collected their email, you can use it to sell them your products.
Email is the highest converting sales funnel on the internet, which means you’ll likely make most of your sales by emailing your followers.
But did you know that you can also sell sponsored emails to businesses and that you can charge a lot?
Inc. Magazine estimates an email newsletter with ~100,000 subscribers can pull somewhere between $60,000-$80,000 per month assuming you sell just 35% of your ad inventory! (4) If you have a sizable list, reach out to companies relevant to your market (look for employee titles like Acquisition Marketer or Brand Partnerships on LinkedIn) to get started.
Our opinion.
There’s simply no better way to make money. If you’re building a blog, there’s no question you should also be using it to build an email list.
As for email sponsorships, we recommend you take advantage of the opportunity if you have a big list, but set a reasonable limit to the number of sponsorships you offer. Sell too many sponsored emails and your audience will start unsubscribing because no one wants their inbox flooded with ads.
Who’s doing it successfully?
In 2008, Dany Levy sold her 1 million subscriber email employee titles like Acquisition Marketer or Brand Partnerships on LinkedIn) to get started.
Our opinion.
There’s simply no better way to make money. If you’re building a blog, there’s no question you should also be using it to build an email list.
As for email sponsorships, we recommend you take advantage of the opportunity if you have a big list, but set a reasonable limit to the number of sponsorships you offer. Sell too many sponsored emails and your audience will start unsubscribing because no one wants their inbox flooded with ads.
Who’s doing it successfully?
In 2008, Dany Levy sold her 1 million subscriber email newsletter, Daily Candy, for a whopping $125 million to Comcast. It was generating $25 million in ad revenue per year at the time of the sale.
Build an Instagram Account.
The following sections show you how to make money with Instagram, one of the hottest and fastest growing social media platforms. It’s also one of our favorites due to how simple it is to grow and monetize.
If you want to know how to build an Instagram account quickly, check out our in-depth guide on how we grew an Instagram account from 0 to 68,000 real followers in less than eight weeks. We show you how it’s possible to leverage other people’s content, so you never have to take original pictures or create videos (unless that’s something you already do, which is even better).
Use Instagram to Sell Your Own Product.
How much money can you make?
Unlimited.
How it works.
In a nutshell, use Instagram to build a large number of followers - at least 10,000 - in a particular niche (nature, travel, pets, etc.), then launch your own product and sell to your followers.
Apparel brands, informational products and consulting services work especially well, but as long as it’s relevant to your niche’s interests, you’ll be able to use Instagram as an effective sales channel
You can promote the product in a variety of ways. The most efficient strategy is to make a regular post on Instagram featuring the product and including a link to it in your profile’s bio. Make sure your photo or video is high quality so you can attract the highest engagement possible.
You can also feature the product in your Instagram Stories or even start an Instagram Live stream. The latter option has significant potential - any time you start a live stream, your followers get a push notification within the app, allowing you to get their attention easily. Use it to show off the product and some of its amazing features, then direct them to the link where they can buy it.
Our opinion.
One of the biggest challenges for new businesses is reaching potential customers. Building an Instagram account is an excellent way to solve this problem, so we like this a lot.
In fact, this method is so effective we think every new business should at least try building a following on Instagram before launching (provided they’re in a niche that works well on social media).
Who’s doing it successfully?
Portland Gear is an apparel brand that started by growing a large following on the account @portland, which posts stunning pictures of the Pacific Northwest city. Once they acquired 60,000 followers, they started promoting their apparel and designs to their audience.
In March 2016, they opened a brick-and-mortar store due to their Instagram success – not too shabby for what began as an Instagram venture. (7)
6. Build an Instagram Account and Sell Shout-Outs.
How much money can you make?
Six figures a year (or six figures per post if you’re a celebrity).
How it works.
Here’s the quick version: Acquire at least 10,000 followers on Instagram, then sell ad space and sponsored posts to companies that want to reach your followers.
There are two ways companies can find you. You can either include your email in your profile’s bio or list your account on shout-out networks like shoutcart.com and famebit.com to make it easier for interested companies to find you.
If you have over 100,000 followers, you can charge around a hundred dollars per post. If you have over 1,000,000 followers, you can charge several hundred dollars for a 24-hour post.
Build several accounts, and you can make a full-time income from selling shout-outs.
Our opinion.
It’s not a bad way to make money at all, especially when it takes just seconds to post a shout-out. It’s also the easiest way to make money on Instagram as the shout-out market is currently booming.
Who’s doing it successfully?
Celebrities like Kendall Jenner charge six figures per post. But for regular folks like us, @puppystagrams is an achievable success story. They make just shy of $100 per shout-out, bringing in roughly $500 in daily revenue.
How much money can you make?
Six figures a year.
How it works.
Build an Instagram account in a consumer-friendly niche (fashion, funny videos, luxury, etc.). Once you’ve acquired at least 10,000 followers, promote affiliate products the same way you’d promote your own product.
The only difference is that the link you direct them to will be an affiliate link, which means you make a commission every time someone buys a product from your
link. Commissions typically range from 4-75% of the sales price.
Our opinion.
Affiliate products are great because you don’t need to go through the hassle of creating your own product. With Instagram, you’re promoting them the same way you would your own product, but without all the hassle of managing inventory, manufacturing, etc.
Who’s doing it successfully?
Frank Hatchett of OnlineDimes.com presents an interesting case study where he mentions someone who’s made six figures using this strategy here.
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