Make Money with Blog

Again and again, the question comes up in comments and emails, whether you can really make money with blogs.

Looking at my monthly blog earnings reports , you might think it's probably not worth it.

There are only a few blogs that really earn a significant amount. Most of the blogs in these lists earn more than pocket money.

In this article, I want to address the question of whether blogs are suitable for earning money and what requirements you have to meet. I also show ways to earn money with blogs.

Is it possible to make money from blogs?

Of course it is possible to earn money with blogs. There are enough examples of this, also in Germany. It should also be clear that only a fraction of blogs publish their own earnings. Especially the better earning blogs are very reluctant.

However, I am very open about my earnings as this blog was and still is intended to show the possibilities and ways to make money. So I also announce my monthly direct income with this blog and that has always been more than 1,000 euros in the last few months.

The main advantage of blogs is that blogs and the bloggers behind them build up a certain amount of trust over time. If normal affiliate websites are just websites with links, a blog also shows the blogger behind it.

If you do it cleverly and are honest and trustworthy, then you also have income opportunities that normal websites do not have. In addition, a well-structured blog is also a long-term investment.

In the end, everything about a blog boils down to connecting with readers and what name the blog can earn over time.

And then blogging is also worthwhile from a financial point of view if you want to earn money with the blog. 

The right choice

Before you even start, you have to make the most important decision.

You have to choose a topic, a niche. I recently wrote an article on Blogprojekt.de that deals with choosing a niche . There are many criteria that can/must be taken into account.

The ability to “make money from a theme” is one of those criteria. And if you want to earn money with your blog, you have to pay attention to this criterion when you start a blog.

But a blog doesn't make money overnight, and it's certainly not a get-rich-quick solution. Bloggers have to be relatively persistent and stay tuned for months or even years. It is of course just as important that you enjoy the blog topic and that you know your way around.

Blogs in particular thrive on the personal level and the experiences that you share with the readers. If you manage to give your blog its very own character, then you don't have to be afraid of the competition.

Coming back to the question of whether you can make money from blogs. My answer is:

"Everyone wants to do it, but not everyone will''

Most people probably have the prerequisites to build a successful blog and earn money with it.

The perseverance, the discipline, the know-how and also the little bit of luck that you need, but only a few have over a longer period of time.

Does that sound like hard work? Yes, it's hard work, but it's also a hell of a lot of fun.

Ways to make money with blogs

In the following I would like to present 9 direct and indirect income opportunities for blogs and also mention who the income sources are suitable for and what requirements are necessary.

• Pay per click

Google AdSense is certainly the best known here. As a German (or rather Swiss) alternative, Contaxe offers itself.

Contextual pay per click ads are very easy to implement. In addition, they optimize themselves based on the surrounding text.

Nevertheless, these ads should be optimized by testing different positions and optical variants.

This source of income is particularly suitable for beginners who already have some traffic.

• Paid posts Paid

articles are very popular with bloggers. So you write a blog post about a specific topic or, for example, about a specific website and you get paid for it.

The Swiss from Trigami are the largest German-language providers of paid posts. Other providers include Hallimash, Blogpay and ReviewMe.

Of course, you can also sell articles that you have paid for directly, but you should be very careful overall, because you can lose a lot of trust with your readers with all too obvious jubilee.

Paid articles are also suitable for small blogs with not that much traffic, but a clear target group. The three-part series of articles “ Earn more money through paid posts ” explains how to get as many writing assignments as possible and how to fulfill them.

• Selling links

Google doesn't like link selling very much. After all, the Google ranking is largely based on the backlinks of a website. And of course you only want to include honestly placed links.

So everyone has to decide for themselves whether they want to sell links or not. PageRank reductions or even the loss of positions in the Google ranking can be the result.

Text links sold are a very simple and lucrative source of income and providers such as Teliad and Linklift take care of the mediation to advertisers, anonymously if desired.

The sale of links is usually only worthwhile from a PageRank of 3 or more.

Affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing

can work very well if you provide a very specific target group with information in your own blog and have already gained a certain amount of trust .

Affiliate marketing works particularly well with recommendations and can quickly overshadow the pay-per-click revenue. However, it is also an art to find and install the right affiliate program.

Affiliate marketing is best for bloggers who have gained a certain level of trust and whose recommendations are valued by others. The affiliate program must also fit thematically very well.

The best thing to do is browse through well-known affiliate networks such as Zanox, Affilinet, Belboon, SuperClix or AdCell for suitable programs and test them out.

An interesting provider is Bee5.de. There you have access to over 3,000 partner programs without registering separately.

Here, too, it is true that you can very quickly destroy the trust of your readers with bad recommendations.

• Advertising banners Advertising

banners usually work after the CPM calculation. So you get an amount X for every 1,000 impressions. This amount is a matter of negotiation and mostly depends on supply and demand.

The self-sold advertising space, i.e. without intermediaries, is my most lucrative source of income. Once you have established a certain reach and a name in a niche, it can be very lucrative to sell advertising directly.

Alternatively, you can also register with advertising banner networks, which then mediate advertising customers. There is, for example , AdShopping.de , AdScale.de or AdJug.de .

From a certain number of page views, usually 100,000+ per month, there are also advertising networks that only mediate such larger blogs and websites. But then you usually get very good offers.

In a three-part series of articles, I have described in detail how best to sell advertising on your own blog . Among other things, it deals with the questions "When is it worth offering advertising space?", "How do I set the prices?", "How do I get advertising customers?" etc.

In addition to the classic advertising banners, there are also layers and similar annoying forms of advertising that I don't care about.

In addition, it is now also possible to sell advertising in your own videos or podcasts.

• Selling your own products

If you have made a name for yourself and are ideally regarded as an expert in a certain subject area, you can also think about selling your own products. These can be eBooks, DVDs, software or paid seminars.

However, developing your own product can be very time-consuming (outsourcing is a keyword here), but then the income is 100% yours.

• Services / Consulting

Not every blog is suitable for direct income. However, many bloggers generate very good indirect income because their blog gives them access to consulting contracts, for example, or they offer other services.

Due to the very personal nature of a blog and the opportunity to present yourself as an expert on a specific topic, it is not uncommon for bloggers to successfully market their services.

• Paid content

Membership sites are still the exception in Germany. In other countries, on the other hand, there are many examples of paid content that are well received.

Here, too, a blog can be very helpful, because trust is part of paid content. Nobody wants to buy a pig in a poke, so a good name can work wonders here.

Once you have won customers for such a service, paid content, with its regular fees, is one of the top sources of income.

• Sell ​​blog

Last but not least, there is of course also the possibility to set up a blog in order to then sell it. Or you buy an existing blog in order to improve it and then sell it for a profit.

This is of course a topic in itself. Just about the question “ What is my blog worth? ” could be discussed for hours. But there are specialists who specialize in this buying and selling of blogs and websites.

• Tips and tricks for monetization

As you can see, there are a number of ways to earn money with a blog.

However, this usually does not happen by itself. You should inform yourself about the experiences of others, but also gain experience yourself. Since the unique circumstances of a blog are also very important, you should do a lot of testing to find the optimal solution for yourself.

Most blogs do well by focusing on 2-3 revenue streams and optimizing them.

It is important to know what you have to consider for the individual sources of income, what requirements they need and what the advantages and disadvantages are.

On my “ Earn Money ” page , I present the advantages and disadvantages of various sources of income that I use and have extensively tested here on the blog.

And in many articles of my blog you will find tips and tricks that I have put together from my own experiences.

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