Wondering how much bloggers make? With more and more people working from home, the idea of making money blogging has become very popular. The reality is; you can earn lots of money blogging. Keep reading for more details.
It’s possible to think bloggers are not making money from their blogs if you don’t know much about blogging. Most people see bloggers as people that create content for fun; they see blogging as a hobby that is done in one’s spare time. They do not believe blogging can be a job or that you can make money blogging.
After blogging for a while and even reaping the fruits of blogging, a family member asked me when I wanted to get a real job. The question was annoying but I smiled at him because I knew he had no idea of how profitable blogging is.
<< Read: Why You Should Start A Blog – Top 10 Reasons >>
He does not know that there are lots of benefits that are associated with being a professional blogger. Benefits like:
- Creating your schedule and working whenever you feel like working.
- Working from anywhere you want (you can travel the world and still keep working).
- Having control over your income (you can scale your income from what it is to what you want it to be).
- Opportunity to learn lots of new skills, such as how to operate and manage your business.
- The opportunity to become a better writer (and a better thinker).
And above all, blogging is fun.
In this article, we will answer the question; ‘how much do bloggers make’ and will also consider ways through which you can also make money blogging.
Tips For Making Money Blogging
1. The amount earned from blogging depends on traffic
The more traffic your blog receives, the more money you will make. You can make between $0.01 and $0.10 per page view in some blogging niches across display and affiliate adverts. This means that if you receive 1,000 page views in a month, you will make between $10 and $100 per month. However, if you can receive 100,000 page views in a month, you can earn between $1,000 and $10,000 from your blog in a month.
You must keep churning out valuable content so that your readers can trust and keep following you. As time goes on, your valuable content will rank in search engines like Google. The content can end up becoming traffic-generating machines that will make your blog continue growing.
<< Read: 7 Smart Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic In 30 Days >>
2. Grow your email list (make it as huge as possible)
Your email list is one of your most valuable assets as a blogger. The email list belongs to you and nothing can snatch it from you. Search engines, like Google, can undergo algorithm updates and thus de-rank your posts without prior notice. However, your email list will help you to always get in touch with your audience.
Those that subscribe to your email list are the ones that will keep coming back to read your content. These are the people you have built enough trust and relationship with, so they will be willing to buy your products or click on your affiliate links when you recommend products to them. Successful bloggers often make between $0.5 and $2 per subscriber in a month. For instance, if you have 1,500 email subscribers, you can make between $750 and $3,000 every month. That’s not bad at all.
3. Publish content in a lucrative niche that you are passionate about
The most lucrative blogging niche is personal finance. There are lots of financial institutions that want to sell their products and build their brands online. These institutions have all the money. Also, lots of venture capital money are being pumped into Fintech startups that are looking to grow their brands.
However, you shouldn’t ignore other niches. You can also blog about food since we all need to eat. The market is very big. Just focus on being the best food blogger and have amazing pictures and varieties for your readers.
How To Make Money Blogging
You can make money blogging by monetizing your blog. You can do this in the following ways:
1. Text link ads and banner ads (CPC Adverts)
The most common CPC advert network that you can sign up for is Google Adsense. Whenever someone clicks on an advert, you will be paid pennies in some cases, while you can earn a dollar or two in some cases as well. The actual amount that you will earn will depend on how lucrative the keyword is.
For instance, ‘life insurance’ is more valuable than ‘hot dogs’ because if a life insurance company gets a customer, they can make thousands of dollars from the customer over the years. With hot dogs, on the other hand, you might spend just $10 to $50.
2. CPA (Cost Per Action) affiliate links
When your blog starts getting about 30,000 page views every month, you can focus on making money through affiliate links.
Affiliate products are products that align with your content. Whenever you refer someone to join an affiliate platform, you will earn a referral fee (also known as an affiliate fee).
The secret to making it big in affiliate marketing is to find high-quality products that suit your best content. For instance, if you love real estate, early retirement, binds, and stocks, you can find affiliates in the real estate, wealth management, and investing niches.
3. Sponsored posts
Once you have built a big blogging brand, companies will want to have access to your community through a sponsored post. Writing and publishing a sponsored post on a popular and reputable blog is an effective way to get high-quality links back to the companies’ websites. Links are considered the currency of the internet.
However, you need to be careful when using this method because Google does not like blogs that publish lots of sponsored posts. Search engines want you to post original content; they don’t want your site to be a hub for advertisements. When you publish a sponsored post, ensure you disclose it in the post.
You can earn between $50 and $5,000 for a sponsored post. Some companies can also ask you to update a post you’ve already published with new information to make it better. You can have more bargaining power if you can rank for some specific keywords about their brands.
4. Direct advertisements
Some companies can contact you to put a banner display ad on your blog to promote their product or service. Let us assume you have achieved 1,000,000 page views per month. The company can offer you a $20 RPM. This means you can make $20,000 from just a single above-the-fold banner ad.
5. Social media influencer
Some big brands can host Twitter chats with a specific hashtag. Such brands can pay you between $100 and $3,000 for an hour just to have you answer some questions or for you to participate in the chat with the hashtag. The actual amount paid will be determined by the number of followers you have on Twitter.
Brands will also pay you if you host Facebook chat sessions or Facebook live. Instagram is also another social media platform where companies pay influencers.
6. Create your course or products
Although your course or products require lots of upfront work, however, the money made from them is 100% yours. This means that for each product you sell, you will make a 100% profit margin after deducting the transaction fee (which is 2.8% if you are using PayPal).
How Much Do Bloggers Make?
Now that we have considered how you can make money blogging, let’s go back to the big question; ‘how much do bloggers make?’
Well, bloggers make a lot. The actual amount varies.
- Some make nothing every month.
- Some bloggers earn at least $1,000 per month.
- Some bloggers earn $10,000 and above every month.
- We also have bloggers that have managed to earn over $100,000 every month.
According to a survey of 1500 Problogger readers that were trying to make money blogging, 10 percent of them made nothing while 53 percent of the aspiring bloggers earned between $0.01 and $99 per month. However, 37 percent of the readers made over $100 per month.
The best part of the survey is that 13 percent of the people surveyed made at least 5 figures per year, and 4 percent of those surveyed transformed their blogs into businesses making 6 figures.
So, while everyone can’t make something, you can make money from blogging if you are committed to it.
Another survey of 1000 bloggers carried out by blogging.org asked the amount of money the bloggers were making. Here are the results obtained from the survey:
- 81% did not make $100 from blogging.
- 9% made enough money to sustain their lifestyle by blogging 4 to 6 hours every day.
- 8% made enough money to sustain their family, and
- 2% earned at least $150,000 blogging 1 to 2 hours per day.
Note that not all of these bloggers are trying to make money blogging. So, the profile is slightly different from the survey carried out by Problogger. The blogging.org survey also includes those that blog as a hobby.
Examples of Successful Bloggers in Other Niches Apart From Internet Marketing
Some people believe that for you to make money from blogging, you need to blog about how to make money online.
The reason why you come across different income reports of bloggers in this niche is because of your interest in blogging. When you visit successful blogs that blog about this topic, you are most likely to see a few income reports.
Those that are not blogging about internet marketing are also making good money from blogging. Bloggers in the ‘blogging about blogging’ niche publish their income reports because they want to use them to inspire their readers and be considered credible experts, which will go a long way in helping their businesses.
If you are a smoothie blogger, you don’t need to publish your income reports because your readers will be more interested in the smoothie you write about than how much you make. The fact that such bloggers don’t publish their income reports does not mean they don’t make money from blogging.
Listed below are some examples of successful bloggers from different niches:
- Digital Photography School: This blog is in the photography niche and it is a multimillion-dollar online blog according to Copyblogger.
- Survival Life: This blog is in the survival niche and makes $1,000,000 per month.
- Making Sense of Cents: This is in the frugal living niche and makes between $100,000 per month.
- Easy Baby Life: It is in the parenting niche and makes between $4000 and $7000 every month.
- Zen Habits: This blog is in the minimalism niche and has 2 million readers.
- Nerd Fitness: Just as the name implies, it is in the fitness niche and makes over $100,000 per month.
- Pinch Of Yum: It is in the food niche and makes over $60,000 per month.
FAQs
1. How do bloggers get paid?
Bloggers can get paid via ad networks in two main ways which are per impression and per click. Bloggers are paid per impression when someone views an ad. The advertiser will pay the blog owner and the amount paid will depend on the number of people that viewed the ads. For pay per click, the blogger will be paid when someone clicks on the ad.
2. How much can you make from a blog?
A survey carried out on 1500 ProBlogger readers that were trying to make money blogging revealed that 9% made between $1,000 and $10,000 in a month while 4% made over $10,000 every month. However, most of them made less than $3.50 daily. Most of the blogs in question were less than two years old.
3. How do beginner bloggers make money?
Follow these seven steps to make money blogging:
- Build a self-hosted blog.
- Publish great content.
- Build organic traffic to your blog.
- Build a loyal community around your blog.
- Sell ads to make money.
- Sell your courses, products, or services.
- Make money by recommending other people’s products and services (affiliate marketing).
Conclusion
I hope this post has revealed how much bloggers make. Just note that every journey starts with an action. You need to start if you want to get something done.
You can build a blog by signing up with a hosting company. Blogging is cheap and easy to start with no limit to how you can scale it. Stop wasting your time on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Quora. Instead, use these platforms to get rich.
I recommend you start your blog today. Read my step-by-step guide on how to start your blog.