Tips for monetising your blog: How I make money blogging

I’ve been blogging here for eight and a half years now and as well as allowing me freedom to work around my kids, I do actually make a decent* living doing it. It’s not all just free stuff, you can actually make money blogging. AND I can do it in my pyjamas to boot.

This isn’t meant as a braggy post – I was recently asked to give a little talk about the monetisation of blogs to a group of freelancers, and as I was writing this down anyway thought I’d share. Hopefully it will be of use to current bloggers, or those considering starting out. I’m very open about all this stuff and happy to help if I can.

*Decent as in the pay is OK for the hours I do. I don’t claim to be decent myself.

Here are eleven ways that you can make money from blogging:

1. Have managed adverts on your blog

The easiest and most low effort way to monetise your blog is to stick managed adverts on it.

When I first started out, I didn’t even realise that it was possible to make money blogging but I was getting nowhere near the amount of traffic needed to make any kind of income on adverts anyway. To start with I didn’t have any, and then a few months in I added Google Adsense which was the only ad option available to me at the time. During good months when I had a post which took off, I would make a whopping £3 in ad revenue. 

However, as I posted more frequently and built up a social following, my blog traffic started to build (slowly). Then in 2019, when I hit 25,000 sessions a month I applied to be a Mediavine partner. This has now been upped to 50k views per month, which is quite a lot for the average blog so I understand, but doable if you know what you’re doing with SEO. 

The adverts you can now see on my site are supplied and wholly managed by Mediavine and I usually make a few hundred dollars a month which is paid directly into my bank account. Not loads, but enough to pay for the site hosting at the very least. Different niches such as travel and recipes can make a lot more money in ad revenue via blogging.

2. Monetise your Facebook page 

Many bloggers these days exist only on social media and don’t have their own websites. This is a dangerous game as you are never fully in control of your content, which could suddenly disappear at any minute. However there are ways to monetise if you don’t have a website, or if your website is too new to make money yet.

As of earlier this year, I have been getting paid by Facebook in the form of an ‘engagement bonus’ for unique content. It isn’t the most well paying; I have around 75,000 followers and I’m lucky if I get around £1000 a month even when something flies. However it’s certainly better than doing it for free which I have been doing for eight years, and building up and engaging with my Facebook audience is not only good fun, it also helps with my other revenue streams. It seems to be a win/win situation as far as I’m concerned.

It’s an invite only scheme but as far as I’m aware there are no particular criteria – I have a friend with around 5000 followers who has been invited onto the scheme, albeit she only made $28 last month. However this month she’s had a viral post which has earned over $400 and is still going, so it’s worth signing up if you’re asked to.

What Facebook look for seems to be a mystery and the analytics don’t provide many clues. Long-form original content (copied from my blog, generally) that gets shared does well (especially if it annoys people), but sometimes things get shared but make no money at all… It’s lucky I’ve been running the page for a long time as I have a lot of content which I re-share to keep the page ticking over.

Twitter also offers monetisation based on reach if you buy a blue tick, but I’ve not been that desperate to line Elon’s pockets yet and I’m not into rage-baiting.

3. Apply for campaigns

Campaigns tend to be from bigger brands and will involve a whole high-profile social campaign over a set period of time too. What they look for in a blogger could be anything; page views, social following, domain authority, niche, engagement. They might approach you directly, but there are also blogger platforms which you can sign up for and apply for suitable campaigns, such as Mumsnet Bloggers.

Campaigns can be hard work; you need to provide multiple drafts and content well ahead of time, and there is a real expectation that you’ll go out of your way to score engagement. It can be an awful feeling when something just doesn’t take off, despite your best efforts but begging my family and friends to leave fake comments or joining in comment pods isn’t really my thing. 

However I enjoy doing them when it is a product that I love, or when it’s really relevant to my audience. I am more than happy to put my dog out to work, she owes me, and she’s cute. Being selective about what I work on has generally worked for me, even if I don’t make as much money as some bloggers who seem to be promoting a new thing every week.

Being candid, I would usually expect to be paid around £400-1000 for a campaign package depending on the brand.

Along the same vein, there are ‘ambassadorships’. I have only taken on a few paid ambassadorships, where a brand pay you for a long-term association with you and your blog. My ambassadorship with the car seat manufacturer AXKID lasted for three months – at the time it was extremely relevant and a brand and subject I was very passionate about. The ambassadorship involved sharing a number of blog and social media posts over that time period. I’ve also got ongoing relationships with a few brands including Yoto (a kids’ audio player).

4. Selling merch via an online shop

This is something I’ve just started playing with recently but I have now got an online shop of sorts. Sites like Redbubble allow you to upload and sell your own designs on all manner of things – t-shirts, bags, mouse mats etc – and you don’t need to gamble on a large print run. It’s not particularly profitable but if you had the time and talent, you could probably make a lot more of it than I do.

Anyone can sell greetings cards through Thortful and I have a profile here. You simply upload your designs and then they can be ordered, printed and shipped out without any more work from you, the only gamble you take is your time designing the cards.

You only make around 30p per card sold, but popular cards may be bumped to the main site or even promoted across social media by the company. If you have followers who like your memes, or you go viral for something and are quick to it, you can make a bit of money through blogging and social media in that way.

5. Writing sponsored posts

Back to the blog website rather than the associated social media channels. ‘Sponsored posts’ covers all manner of things; from companies who just want links back to their site and don’t care what the topic is, to those that want you to write specifically about their site or their product but aren’t after the full campaign package. 

The higher your Domain Authority and organic (Google) traffic, the more that you can charge for this.

Building up your DA takes time and it will usually be a while before your website DA is high enough to charge for sponsored posts. If you have had a blog for several years already, you may already have an established DA.

Prices vary a lot depending on the client, but I usually charge about £150-£300 for a sponsored post. 

6. Taking guest posts/Link insertions

Charging for guest posts is another way you can make money blogging; essentially the client is paying for a do-follow link to boost their SEO, which they will work into a post that they send to you, and you publish on your own blog for a fee. Or they’ll give you a link to pop into existing content.

Before you think ‘Ooooh, easy money!’ be aware that selling links is against Google guidelines, and you could find your page de-listed from search engines should you decide to do it.  It isn’t however illegal so lots of bloggers take the risk; only you can weigh up the benefits and make that choice.

I get so many requests to host guest posts – sometimes twenty a day – and many of them are awful; pretending they’re doing me a favour or with very poor English and offering little to no money. However there are sometimes genuine offers in there so I pick and choose who I respond to. Setting up templates in Gmail means it doesn’t take very long. If I do choose to host a guest post, it doesn’t show on my homepage and it’s clear I’ve not written it.

Realistically, I charge between £60 and £400 for these depending on the topic and I won’t go any lower. Negotiating is where madness lies. The average is about £100.

7. Freelance writing

Although it’s not strictly making money from my blog, I have used my blog as a springboard to write for BabyCentre, Families Online, parent.com, and The Guardian. If I was better at pitching, I would probably have done more of that kind of thing – lots of editors are after content submissions from established bloggers because you bring a whole new audience.

I also ghostwrite non-parenting related content for business related blogs as a freelance writer and I use my blog as a kind of portfolio for that. I usually charge between £50 and £150 depending on the length of content.

8. Doing paid reviews

I used to do more reviews on my blog, but I don’t tend to do so many anymore as they’re time consuming unless they are very decent products (like a shed or a mattress)

Lots of companies don’t have budgets and want to work on a gifted basis only which is OK if you have time and think it will bring in traffic and can become an affiliate and make passive income that way. However if a product is of low value, consumable, or not of much relevance or use to me then I charge around £2-300 for reviews.

Why would you trust a reviewer that has been given something for free, or even been paid? Find out here.

9. Selling review items

I admit that I don’t do this often, however on occasion if I get a duplicate item or something that just doesn’t work for us and I don’t have a friend or relative that might want it, and it’s high enough value to be worth it, I might sell an item on after reviewing it.

This year I’ve sold a desk bike that I no longer had space for, and a watch that I haven’t used since getting a sports watch. I’ve sold a few pieces of clothing that I no longer fit into.

Some items you’re sent to review come with terms that state that the item can be returned but not sold on, so you have to check – and don’t forget selling items that have been gifted are subject to tax.

10. Using affiliate links

This one has huge potential – Although I know all the theory I’m just a bit scatty and my to do list is always more of a wish list… But nevertheless it’s an important one as affiliates are a crucial part of making money blogging.

Affiliate links are used a lot – particularly by fashion and beauty bloggers who regularly make money by recommending products to their followers.

I’m a member of Amazon affiliates, Refersion, Partnerize, AWIN and other affiliate schemes and wherever possible, I embed affiliate links in my review posts and occasionally on social media.

If people find my reviews on Google and click my link to buy the product, then I make a small percentage of that sale. I have some great affiliates – including an air fryer, the Yoto audio players and some luxury sex toys which do very well!

It’s all about making sure you know your SEO, doing keyword research and trying to feature on Google whenever you write useful content. If you have a post that does well then audit it and get some relevant affiliates in there – so for example I have a post on Vinted that gets traffic so I recommended some mailing bags and get quite a few purchases there each week. 

It’s getting harder as Google are not very kind to bloggers, but it’s still doable! I often get a few hundred pounds each month – sometimes less and sometimes much more – paid into my bank account by various affiliate schemes.

11. Have a Ko-Fi or Patroen for readers to donate to directly

If you provide useful information on your website, then allowing people to say thank you by donating a few pounds here and there to your Ko-Fi (which goes straight into your Paypal account), or providing early access to new content and/or exclusive content via a Patreon or Substack can make a bit of extra cash. You can post the links on your website or social media to let people know; there’s no hard sell, but it’s nice that those who want to appreciate you can show it.

You can even set up an Onlyfans, if you’re so inclined. I am not.

In summary, there are lots of ways to make money blogging

I believe strongly that the key to monetising your blog is to be adaptable. To make good money blogging, you need to be open to new revenue streams.

For example, in February, I got a new freelance contact that I thought was ongoing and then after two great months it seemed to dry up entirely. The Google algorithm change meant that companies pretty much stopped looking for new content during March and it wasn’t clear what was going to happen there. However at the same time, Facebook was offering page monetisation so I threw myself into that, despite last year it nosediving completely it’s going pretty well. Now, a few months on, the SEO folk are coming back and the freelance work has picked up a little.

Obviously it’s very feast and famine but during the good months I try to put money away for the bad months – I think all freelancers can relate to this! It’s good to have a mixture of passive income streams as well as going in search of new things. Even with big changes to the Google algorithm, it’s still possible to make money blogging.

If you enjoyed this and you’re feeling generous, you can buy me a cup of tea or a glass of wine – or donate to my houseplant addiction fund – here.

You can also see my Amazon wish list here.