The number of side hustlers has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The fact that 45% of working Americans have a side job shows that there are plenty of opportunities to get money online

Surveys show that side hustling income varies from less than $100/month to more than $1000/month

No matter the side gig people have, blogging is a helpful tool to promote their services and products. It can also help people solidify their personal brand to increase their online visibility. 

This article will discuss how you can make the most of a blog to earn money. We’ll explain why blogging is a profitable endeavor and how to earn money doing it.

Why Blogging is Promising

There are approximately 409 million people viewing blog pages every month. You can capitalize on this audience by giving valuable information through your own blog. 

The expenses to start a blog are relatively low. You may even use a free plan of a hosted blogging platform. Later on, if you find that you enjoy blogging and need to expand, you can migrate to a self-hosted solution.

The potential of a blog to grow is limitless, depending on the effort and hard work you put into creating posts. You are free to keep blogging as a side hustle or make it a full-time job with the opportunity to make a lot of money

Blogging is flexible – as a self-employed blogger, you can work anywhere and anytime. It’s also feasible to blog while maintaining a full-time job. 

How to Make Money Blogging

Now that you know why blogging is profitable, let’s discuss how to make money doing it.  

1. Be a Pro Blogger in Your Niche

You need traffic to earn money blogging. It’s vital to create valuable content to attract new readers. 

Choose a specific niche that is within your area of expertise. Make sure you are passionate about the topic and that you’re willing to improve. Ask yourself if you’ll enjoy writing about it in the long run.  

Aim to provide helpful tips and tricks and how-to content. Once your blog has grown, people will recognize it and look it up whenever they need information. 

2. Display Advertisements

After you grow your blog and have a decent amount of traffic, the simplest way to make money is to display advertisements. In fact, even well-known publications like HuffPost generate the most of their revenue by featuring advertising banners

Google Adsense is a famous advertising network you can go for. Spare some space on your blog for the ads, check your chosen ad network’s policy, and keep making quality content while generating passive income.

3. Build Your Community and Network

Social media marketing can help you promote your blog and build a community. By engaging people on social media platforms, you can reach new potential audiences. Feature your blog content on each social media platform by matching its style to draw attention. 

In addition, interact with the communities of Quora or Reddit. There, answer questions related to your blog’s topic. Include a link to your site to generate organic traffic. 

Creating strong branding while building your community and network can lead to opportunities to make money. If you are well-known for your expertise, you may be invited to speak at events or workshops. 

When building your community, don’t oversell your blog on social media. Aim for being a friendly expert who is willing to help people with valuable information. 

4. Sponsorships and Partnerships

When your blog’s popularity increases, brands may reach out to you to write sponsored posts on their products. You can create a rate card for sponsored posts or product endorsements

Another way to make money blogging is affiliate marketing. It involves writing helpful posts that include links for people to purchase certain products. You’ll earn a commission on every purchase that your audience makes through your link. 

Meanwhile, by partnering with other bloggers, you can create an event or a product together. This way, you’ll broaden your audience and earn extra income from the sales.

5. Create and Sell Digital or Physical Products

The online learning industry’s profits are projected to increase by $350 million by 2025. This means potential profits from digital products such as e-books, coaching services, and online courses

You can also offer premium blog content for subscribers. Build an email list, then send people a preview of the content to stimulate their curiosity. 

Take a look at Taylor Stanford’s blog and how she offers a paid course.

Another way to earn a profit is to produce merchandise. Create unique products that will be useful to your audience. Alternatively, you can sell simple items like notebooks, hats, or t-shirts. 

6. Write Guest Posts

Guest posts help generate organic traffic to your blog through backlinks. Writing many guest posts can increase the number of backlinks to help your page rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

You can also make money by charging people to write guest posts on it. That said, your blog should be established and popular enough for this to work. 

To find blogs that accept guest post submissions, conduct a Google search or look for them on a guest post marketplace.

Conclusion

Blogging is a promising side hustle and will be relevant as long as the internet exists. Even though earning money by blogging sounds simple, it takes a lot of time and effort.

To monetize your blog, think about it as a business, not just a hobby. It is recommended to come up with a strategy to grow it as producing content without doing anything else may not be enough. 

Spend some time networking, pitching your ideas to others, and reading books on various topics to grow your blog. By working smart, you’ll be able to capitalize on the monetization ideas in this article.