8 Ways I Make Money Blogging & Online

Making money online is alllll the rage right now. No seriously, the idea of being your own boss, growing a business and making money from the comfort of your own home? I can see why it appeals to a LOT of people. All you have to do is jump on Pinterest for 5 minutes to see blog post after blog post about how to make money blogging and online.

Now I’m not really into those posts titled, “How I Increased My Income by 500% in 2 Months!”, they can be incredibly misleading. And y’all know by now that I’m not one to sugar coat things or beat around the bush. I don’t make a 6 figure income through blogging. Or have Disney trips thrown at me every couple of months (I wish!)

And I like to keep it real. So I know a lot of my readers are people who want to make an income from their blog or perhaps who have just started to make some money from their blog but are looking for extra ways to build it up. Whatever your reason for reading this post, you’re in the right place!

So here are 8 ways I make money blogging and online:

Sponsored posts

Sponsored posts are definitely my main chunk of income from blogging. I’m sure most of you know by now but in case you don’t, a sponsored post is when a brand or client pays you to feature them within a blog post. They may suggest a topic for you to write about or give you creative freedom to come up with your own content.

Of course payments from sponsored posts vary quite a bit, from £50 to £400. And I am totally done with judgmental bloggers who make people feel bad for accepting a sponsored post which pays less than what they would accept. None of that bullshit here, thank you very much. But that being said, it’s good to not under sell or under charge yourself too much.

Related:

• How and Where To Find Blogging Opportunities
• 6 Ways To Make Yourself More Attractive To Brands
• Utilizing Sponsored Content & Working With Brands

Advertising packages for bloggers

You’ll have noticed in my sidebar every month I have a handful of other bloggers logos and these are bloggers which have paid for an advertising slot for that month. I don’t charge much for bloggers who want to advertise with me, so this only brings in an extra £25 a month.

But I’ve always loved having advertisers and promoting other bloggers on my blog and social channels. You can find out more about my advertising package here. A lot of bloggers offer advertising packages of various prices, which include a number of things. If you’ve got a decent following and high engagement, this is definitely something to consider!

eBook sales

You’ll know I have 2 eBooks for sale because I never stop banging on about them and drop their links into my posts wherever I goddamn can (lol, shameless plug). But you sorta have to when you’re competing with so many other talented people in the same market. And yes, competing. There’s nothing wrong (or bad) about having competitors.

Sales from eBooks can vary massively from month to month. Of course the income from this is much higher in the weeks and month following when a book is released. And the sales do tend to thin out over time. But if you have serious knowledge and something to offer, then creating an eBook is a great idea.

I don’t charge very much for my books. If they were a more significant source of income for me, then maybe I would. But for me personally, the hard work is done so I don’t mind offering them for a slightly lower price. Especially as my books in particular are more aimed towards new bloggers.

Related:

• Beginners Guide to Blogging – Jenny in Neverland
• Beginners Guide to Growing an Engaged and Authentic Blog Following – Jenny in Neverland
• Pinterest With Ell eCourse
• Pitch Perfect: A Guide to Pitching Products, Payment and Press Trips – Kirsty Leanne

Advertising packages for brands

Similarly to the bloggers package, I offer advertising for brands within my sidebar. Although this isn’t mentioned within that advertising page because I don’t want brands to get confused, as I charge more for brands than I do for bloggers. For brands, I tend to give them a monthly fee and then a yearly fee, which would always work out cheaper in the long run *business tip* and is handy for when you want to make money blogging and online.

Sponsored guest post places

This is a slightly… not controversial… but I know some bloggers wouldn’t have these on their blogs but occasionally I’ll host a piece of pre-written content from a brand or an agency on my blog. I’d say I get around 2/3 emails from people asking me to do this every day. Most of them want it for free *rolls eyes* or a ridiculously low price, like £7.

Now I’ll put my hands up and say I used to host content for a company for VERY LITTLE in the past. Before I really realised what I was doing. But it’s all a learning curve and I definitely know now that guest post placements from brands are definitely not worth less than a certain amount.

Social media promotion

Very occasionally, I’ll be asked to do social media promotion for a brand. In the past 2 months, I’ve done this twice for the same brand, who have asked for 3 Facebook posts and 4 tweets over the course of a few days which advertise their website and services. This usually involves a bit of negotiation between you and the brand.

Gifted products

Personally, I rarely do paid product reviews. At the start, I didn’t know you COULD have paid product reviews. I thought you were sent the product and that was your payment. Which it IS. But a lot of bloggers also want payment for their product reviews – which is totally fine.

But for me, I tend to just accept the products as payment and within the last 6 months, have been MUCH more selective about the products I review. Partially because I don’t have time to review 7 products a week for no money and secondly, as I’ve refined my niches a bit, not all products will fit my blog anymore.

It’s also worth noting that if you’re registered as self employed when making money blogging and online, you’ll need to declare the cost of the products you’re sent too!

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Online surveys

I do online surveys as a “little extra” each month. Most of the sites I use are super easy and reliable and I’ve had a fair few payouts from them over the years! Obviously online surveys aren’t going to make you hundreds but for the sake of very little time and effort, it’s worth it.

Whoops…

Okay there’s one more I forgot but to save the hassle of changing all my graphics to 9 instead of 8, I’m just going to be lazy and add this one on as an “extra”. But one last way I make income through my blog is WordAds. The advertising system used by WordPress to place ads on your blog if you qualify.

I haven’t earned that much from WordAds, I got a pay out of around £90 last year and you need to make $100 in order to be cashed out. I’m almost at that threshold again so should be expecting another payout soon.

One more thing…

Okay last one I promise. One of the other ways to earn money online is also testing and reviewing products (affiliate marketing). On the website kubasjourneys.com you can read about experiences with P2P lending platforms, which happen to be a great source of passive income not only for publishers but also investors. 

So those are the 8 ways I make money blogging and online. I’m in the process of working on a course, which hopefully I can add to this list when I’m done! Do you have anything to add to this list? Have you thought about any of these?