People often come to me as an expert at monetizing blogs. Although my experience making money online is not limited only to blogs, I’ve been able to extract a lot of income from not necessarily a lot of traffic.
For example, my proofreading business was able to generate a salary level income – sometimes as much as $15,000 in one month during peak season – from barely 100 unique visitors a day to the website. My card game site made $500 to $1,000 a month on 500 to 1,000 visitors a day, although this was before Google Analytics, so the “real” traffic numbers are likely less.
So what’s the secret to making money with blogs and getting the best return given less than stellar traffic? Read on and find out…
How Do Blogs Make Money?
Let’s look at how blogs make money. Whenever I’m asked that question I answer with the following three methods –
- Advertising
- Affiliate marketing
- Selling products and services
You can make money with your blog by placing advertisements on it, by selling products as an affiliate where you earn a commission for each sale you refer, or by selling products and services of your own. There are many derivatives of these three methods, but at the top level, this pretty much covers it.
To break that down into more practical ideas, here are some of the ways bloggers currently make a living online.
- You can place Google Adsense advertisements on your blog
- Allow sponsors to pay you money for placing banners on your blog
- Go to a site like Clickbank and find a product you can write about and promote as an affiliate
- Create an ebook, set of audio or video CDs or DVDs, or home study course you sell them from your blog
- Launch a membership site and promote it via your blog
- Conduct a series of live webinars that you charge people money to attend
- Host your own seminar or workshop and sell tickets to it on your blog (and record it to make a DVD product you can sell)
- Add a shopping cart to your blog and source physical goods at wholesale you can sell at retail
- Provide consulting or coaching services and charge by the hour for your time
Other options to earn a return from your blog that doesn’t directly result in money in your pocket, but can eventually, and are definitely a benefit, include…
- Generating a well known brand, creating mass exposure for your name or what you do – and possibly become famous
- Invitations to speak at conferences and seminars
- An opportunity to publish a print book or several
- Consulting to large companies resulting possibly in employment opportunities or large retainer fees
- Free products to sample and review on your blog
- VIP or press access to industry only events and parties
Now you know how blogs make money in terms of concepts and some practical ideas to implement the concepts, next let’s take a look at some case studies of bloggers I’ve personally met or interviewed and how they have made money from their blogs.
Case Studies: These Bloggers Make Money
I’ll be as brief as I can with these explanations as I want to show you how diverse the ways bloggers make money by providing lots of examples. I’ve included some monthly income totals where possible, but the accuracy of the figures is very likely off, so don’t quote these as concrete numbers. Here we go…
Yaro Starak
Income: $20,000 to $50,000 a month
Niche: Blogging, Internet Marketing, Entrepreneurship
Blog: www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
I’ll start with my own example, since I know it best. I first started making good money with sponsors paying me to place banners and text links on my blog, which continues to this day (see my advertise page for details). Next I did affiliate marketing, initially starting with Perry Marshall’s products like his ebook and renaissance club, since I was studying his materials at the time. This led to promoting all kinds of affiliate products and services, from Aweber to 1ShoppingCart, and then the big launches that occur in the Internet Marketing niche.
After two years of blogging I launched my own course, Blog Mastermind, then another Membership Site Mastermind, and another in partnership with Gideon Shalwick, the Become A Blogger Premium video course. Just this year I started doing elite coaching at a minimum of $5,000 a person.
You can hear more of my story from a presentation I did explaining my history via audio or video.
Frances KerrIncome: $4,000 to $8,000 a month
Niche: Alternative Health, Skin Care, Acne Treatment
Blog: www.highonhealth.com
I worked very closely with Fran, helping her to grow her alternative health, acne treatment and skin care blog. She made money first with Google Adsense, though it wasn’t much. Next she started selling banners to sponsors and then reviewing affiliates products like ebooks and DVDs. After about 18 months she wrote her first ebook on acne treatment with food, which resulted in a steady income stream, which has continued to this day. Next she launched her own online store with a shopping cart and started selling physical goods like skin care creams and chocolate. She added a coaching program and membership site, a second ebook and does private consulting for an hourly fee.
You can hear Fran explain her entire story in this podcast interview I did with her.
Alborz FallahIncome: $100,000+ a month
Niche: Cars
Blog: www.caradvice.com.au
Alborz and I used to work a part time job at the local university computer help-desk. This particular job had the luxury of lots of spare time, which I used to write some of the very first articles on my blog. Alborz saw me blogging and jumped on the bandwagon, leading to the creation of Car Advice.
I spoke to Alborz consistently over the years as his blog grew. It took some pestering, but I finally managed to convince him to try Google Adsense on his blog, which immediately resulted in $20 a day and quickly grew to over $100 a day, then $200. Next he started adding banners from car companies who sponsored the blog because they could see how well it was doing in search engines for terms related to their cars. A big change occurred when he took on investors, helping the site reach car manufacturers to test drive cars, which has led to Alborz driving some of the most exotic cars on this planet, including the Bugatti Veyron. With investors, next came staff writers and then corporate sponsorship deals, which is like selling banners on your blog, but instead you are cutting $30,000 campaign deals with a car manufacturer, rather than $100 a month for a small banner.
Car Advice is now much more than just Alborz, but continues to derive the majority of its income from advertising, though merchandising like DVDs and even possibly a television show are likely extensions of what started off as just a humble blog. You can hear more about the early days of Car Advice in an interview I did with Alborz back in 2008.
Income: $15,000+ a month (this needs updating, I’m waiting for confirmation from Mitch)
Niche: Sports (began with College Football)
Blog: www.sportschatplace.com/
Mitch joined my Blog Mastermind coaching program during the very first intake in 2007 and immediately stood out as an action taker, attending virtually every coaching call we held, which he does even today three years since the program first opened (that’s value for money!). Mitch began with his passion for college football, starting CFBPlace (College Football Place) where he quickly established his authority at picking the winners of matches.
Like Alborz, Mitch was hesitant for a very long time to attempt to make money from his site, but recently started monetizing his blog. I don’t know the specifics, but I do know Mitch’s site earns income from affiliate programs, especially in relation to betting on sports (his site now has a team of writers who pick the winners of games). Advertising banners, some of which go to affiliate programs, are his main source of income, however he is going to launch a premium sports picks membership site, which will no doubt ramp up the income significantly.
When Mitch first got started I interviewed him to find out how he was able to rapidly increase his traffic in such a short period of time.
Leigh PeeleIncome: $10,000+ a month (This is data from 2009, so she is no doubt doing different numbers now)
Niche: Fat Loss
Blog: www.leighpeele.com/
Leigh was also one of my very first Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind students, who really took my training and ran with it. Leigh monetizes her blog by selling an ebook via Clickbank called The Fat Loss Trouble Shooter and by offering members only sections on her blog. Access to parts of her blog are for members only, which she charges money to access.
Back in 2008 I interviewed Leigh when she was just starting to implement what she learned from my programs, where she explained how she went from $20 to $4,500 a month from her blog.
Will HamiltonIncome: $15,000 a month
Niche: Tennis
Blog: www.fuzzyyellowballs.com
Will Hamilton is a professional tennis coach who turned his knowledge and passion into a six figure income, combining his blog with an email list and using YouTube as the main source of marketing. He creates videos, uploads them to YouTube, drives the traffic from YouTube back to his blog (he puts the videos on his blog too), some of them opt-in to his newsletter, and he sells his membership site to make money. Last time I talked to him he had over 600 paying members who pay $25/month.
You can hear Will explain exactly how he does what he does in this in-depth interview I did with him in audio and video.
Olivier RolandIncome: 14,000 Euros a month
Niche: How To Start A Business
Blog: www.des-livres-pour-changer-de-vie.fr/
Olivier Roland is a French Blogger who participated in both my Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind training programs. Olivier has enjoyed success cementing himself as a leader in business and blogging, but doing so in the French marketplace, proving that the same principles when applied in other languages can work. Olivier had a very rapid rise to success, launching his first training program only twelve months writing to his blog. Although before this he did spend ten years running his own technology business.
You can hear the full story of how Olivier started his blog and launched a successful training program in under two years in this interview I did with him for my podcast in January 2011.
Pat FlynnIncome: $10,000+ a month
Niche: Architecture and Information Marketing
Blog: www.smartpassiveincome.com
Pat Flynn’s story is very inspirational. He lost his job as an architect during the global financial crisis. His blog was originally used simply as a store house for notes he was taking as he studied for a specific qualification called the LEED exam. Strangely enough, the blog took off because other people were searching for information about the LEED qualification and his notes showed up in search results. Eventually this lead to releasing an ebook, which was just a collection of his blog posts that Pat then sold from his blog. He quickly found himself making six figures a year. He used his success to start another blog about Internet marketing called Smart Passive Income and started making money by promoting affiliate products and later creating and selling iPhone applications.
Pat explained how he was so quickly able to go from newly fired from his job to making $200,000 a year online in this interview I did with him.
Robb SuttonIncome: Full time income (he lives off it, but I don’t know how much)
Niche: Bikes and Blogging
Blog: mountain.bike198.com and www.robbsutton.com
Robb Sutton is seriously into mountain bike riding. He translated his passion into a blog, then a full blown community website of mountain biking die-hards. I don’t know how much Robb makes, but I do know he scores plenty of free stuff – even free mountain bikes worth thousands of dollars – thanks to his blog. He has sponsors who place banners on his blog and I suspect he also uses affiliate marketing as he recommends bikes and bike parts on his blog.
Robb’s specialty is scoring free goods thanks to your blog, which you can learn how to do in this interview with Robb.
David RisleyIncome: Six Figures a year
Niche: Computers and Blogging
Blog: www.davidrisley.com and www.pcmech.com/
David Risley, like many people who teach how to profit from blogs, first learned his craft by starting a blog in a different niche – in this case, computers. David monetizes his computer blog, PCMech, with sponsors, Google Adsense and a premium members area. His DavidRisley.com blog is focused on selling David’s training programs, with a little affiliate marketing thrown in. David has done a great job integrated his blogs as membership sites, adding premium sections available only to paying members.
You can listen to David explain how he started making money with blogs in this interview I did with him.
More Bloggers Who Make Money
This is just a small sample of the people currently using blogs to make significant income online. On top of the list above, there’s a few others I didn’t mention as you probably know them already, for example -
- Katie Freiling, who uses her blog as a branding and community leadership tool and she makes well over six figures a year selling her training products and promoting other products as an affiliate. You can listen to the interview I did with Katie here.
- Jeremy Schoemaker who runs a multi-million dollar online business with 12 staff, has leveraged his Shoemoney blog for selling his products, promoting affiliate products, landing speaking engagements, building his email list and cementing himself as one of the most well known Internet marketers. I interviewed Jeremy to get his full background story.
- There’s also Darren Rowse, John Chow and Brian Clark, who all rose to prominence teaching how to profit from blogging and all are multiple six figure earners, or millionaires.
- Darren also has a hugely successful blog in the photography niche, which he monetizes by selling ebooks, affiliate marketing camera related products and through sponsorship.
- Steve Pavlina has one of the most basic designed personal development blogs, but also one of the most popular, with millions of readers. He makes as much as $100,000 a month promoting affiliate products, using Google Adsense and this year has been running live workshops in Las Vegas, which he fills to capacity at $500 a head using his blog for promotion. You can find an interview I did with Steve here.
- Tim Sykes specializes in penny stalk trading and earns over a million dollars a year from his blog teaching others how to do it. He sells DVDs, CDs, a membership site and all kinds of penny stock trading related materials. I interviewed Tim, which you can listen to here.
What Is The Best Way To Make Money With Your Blog?
As you can see by all these amazing examples, plenty of people are earning a lot of money using blogs, covering all kinds of different niches, and using all kinds of methods to generate the income.
At the end of the day, the answer to the question of what is the best way to make money with your blog is a combination of what you can gain the most leverage from, what level of work is required to make it work, what are your personal preferences, what goals do you have, how clear are you on how things work, what are you afraid of and what situation you are in.
Your blog traffic obviously plays a huge part in your success, but many bloggers earn a lot with comparably little traffic, so don’t think you have to be the next Car Advice delivering millions of visitors a year to make it work. Pick a good niche, find the best points of leverage given your traffic and style, then get to work going after the dream.
In my experience, the majority of bloggers who break the six figures a year mark or better, do so focusing on a combination of money making methods. You need to test different advertising formats, combine that with some affiliate marketing, maybe some pay per lead campaigns, or do product launches and consulting. Build out a product funnel and foster a huge email list to sell it to and keep testing until you find what works and what delivers a level of income you are happy with.
Need A System To Follow? Join Blog Mastermind
Many of the examples above are from people who participated in my Blog Mastermind training program. I won’t pretend that I’m responsible for their success – they put in the hard work – however having training from someone who has walked the path you want to walk is an undeniable advantage.
If you want to follow a step-by-step system for building a profitable blog, my coaching program Blog Mastermind is the way to go.
If you enjoyed this article, please tweet it, you can share it on Facebook or on your preferred social network. And of course, if you haven’t done so already, please join my email newsletter on this page (enter your name and email at that link to join).
Here’s to you building a profitable blog.
Yaro Starak
Professional Blogger
Update! Good News! My adsense earning just went back up. I feel like I’m playing the stock market!
What I’ve been done in the last 4 hours is that I wrote 3-4 short articles, place my affiliate links and adsense ads on some page, twitted on twitter. and vaccum my carpet. I know Yaro is not a big adsense person, but this is exciting news for me to start earning anything. It look like if you are competing against yourself, you just as well get paid for it. However, I know that adsense ads do take the focus away from a special product you might be marketing for yourself or someone else.
I’m starting to add sub-headings to My articles that kind of dress the article up a bit. It really show you care about what’s about to follow and reinforce what you want to say in the article. Almost like another tag.
The tags and categories in this article that Yaro wrote are good examples to follow.
I’m thinking of writing a one-minute book about some things I’ve discovered in the last few weeks that might help somebody else with the copy and paste issues and how to save time!
Talk to you all later. This is turning into a ” comment article forum”.
Thelma
Some great stories – thanks for sharing and inspiring.
I have tried to keep the blogs I am administering (for me and for clients) as non-commercial as I can, at least on the surface.
The posts often have links and there are subtle banners on the sidebars, but I never felt comfortable including ads (like Adsense) that I don’t have control over. Is this misguided thinking?
This is a great post, I never knew there were so many bloggers who are making big money on their blog. This is truly inspiring. Google Adsense is a great way to get started with monetizing your blog and then you can move on to other things.
Yaro I have been receiving your newsletters for some time but I barely read them and have in fact deleter (without reading). OOPS! I just get so much mail. And then I got this one about the Case Studies. I love these true, genuine stories and I am hooked.
Going to listen to one of your vids before heading to bed.
I won’t be easy and it won’t be fun perhaps, but how about interviewing a few who failed? It will either confirm that their actions, methods and habits were opposite to those by the winners, or reveal that there is an intersection, which anyone has to do, fail or succeed, and isolate the few actions and methods that really make the difference, or at worst reveal that it’s all about topic selection or being early.
I can see what the winners have in common. What I don’t see yet is what really distinguishes them from the losers in this game, not by the account of the latter, at least.
An avid follower of yours!
This is very inspirational Yaro. Thanks for posting. I plan to listen to some of these interviews.
Thanks for this great article, I’ve played around with blogging in the past but never tried to monetize them… it’s simply amazing how many blogs there are now! Think I’ll give it a go.
Cheers!
Most inspirational !
I always take a lot of pleasure reading success stories like these ! Hope one day I’ll be one of them, though.
Fighting my way through but I’m wondering sometimes if the French speaking market (where I’m involved in) is big enough to expect great results. Time will tell …
Anyway, thanks for your great posts ! Please keep it up.
All the best,
MaxR
Awesome post, Yaro. This case study really did inspire me.
Like always, thanks for the inspiration Yaro.
Excellent read. It is always good to know how you stack up against the big dogs so to speak. I’m really inspired to do more now. I love reading stories like this because they serve as an inspiration to keep pushing and to keep trying harder.
You can always use live blogging. I have use platforms like ustream or http://www.tvmad.com and it has worked for me better than I’d had ever hoped.
Cheers
Hey Yaro,
I like reading success stories such as these, it keeps me very inspired to continue to take action to reach my personal goals as well. I also enjoyed reading about the variety and diversity of niches that result as great sources of income online.
Hey, what do you know, I just found an article you write about this back in 2005 and commented on it. Had a few questions (about php banner ads, google adsense, paypal donate button, etc.) and then decided to check out your main page and low and behold another post like that one. How fortuitous!
This one has even more great ideas. I guess there have probably been quite a few developments in web advertising and revenue earning in those five years. Things do move fast on the Internet, after all. I particularly like the addition of affiliate advertising. I think that one might work well for my site. I just hope I can figure out how to be successful with it. Thanks again, Yaro.
Oh, and a quick question, how do you get products to review? Are there any sites that hook you up with companies that you’d recommend or do you just need to write a letter of interest and submit them to businesses? Thanks.
The cases you highlighted really put it all into perspective Yaro, and that such a wide variety of ideas can make really good money online. With these cases, they should really give inspiration to those who have been wondering/debating about getting started online. The income is definitely real! Would love to own a site like Alborz has, cars has always have been my passion, and It’s about time I start pursuing my passion!
Till then,
Jean
These kinds of posts are always so inspiring. I was actually pretty surprised to see that I had already been following most of these blogs through my rss reader. Can’t wait until the day that I can make a site about my passions and earn a ton of money while doing it!
Yaro, thanks for this blog. Blogging is something that I had never considered, however, this is very inspirational. This is something I am definitely going to consider.
Congrats to everyone who got our there and did it.
Thanks for this, Jeff. I always learn a lot from your blog. I hope to apply some of your tips soon!
Yaro,
Thanks for the great overview on money making bloggers and their various approaches to making a great living by working their passions.
Alex Mandossian, another top info-marketer, speaks of bamboo as a metaphor for growing an online business when he speaks to audiences. He tells audience members to “be like bamboo” in the sense that it takes the plant a couple of years of slow growth beneath the soil before it ever breaks through the surface. Then once it does it experiences some of the fastest growth rates of all plants.
If one didn’t know better and gave up on the bamboo plant before it ever appeared above the soil, it’s likely you could miss the point entirely that it was about to take off like a rocket.
Bloggers need persistence and a dedication to getting better. If they can keep that kind of strong focus they will have a real shot at success. That kind of focus will get them past the slow growth phase where it appears little or nothing is happening, to the point where things begin to click and they are making money doing what thy love.
Great post Yaro!
Too much information to finish up in one day, I just kept right clicking one link or the other all through reading the post. I must confess, I ended up bookmarking this article. Thanks a million!
Just maybe, I will be the 1st African Blogger to make this list in one year’s time!
Some very inspiring stories for sure. These are the kinds of stories that inspired me to really work hard at IM. Being able to see real people with real success is a huge motivator, and it can be very hard (especially in the beginning) without seeing others succeeding.
It certainly is interesting to see how blogging has transformed from a hobby to a career. Of course, blogging for fun is okay too. Another thing to keep in mind when trying to make money off your blog is over-doing it on the advertising. Frankly, it can be more than a little annoying when you go to a webpage and you are bombarded by pop ups, banners, videos and rollover ads. Even worse, in my opinion, is when a page changes their entire background to an advertisement for something, ex. an upcoming movie, new music, etc.
.: Thank you Yaro, this is a great article with real case studies! Yes, I’m a passive reader and not so into giving out comments, but I like your blog a lot. I’m a bit late in monetizing this blogging world, but definitely catching up and learn it from successful bloggers like you. Thanks again Yaro
:.
Wow, this post got me quite excited about blogging. I do mostly CPA marketing using PPC and SEO – but unfortunately I don’t know a lot about how to become a successful blogger.
Yaro, you are mentioning a few Blogging products, like: Blog Mastermind, Become A Blogger Premium… and I was wondering, which of all those products you would recommend most to get started with.
Thanks a lot.
To me it is about finding the niches! When i started doing that is when I started to find exactly 300 nichess that each make me $1 a day. It took about 6 months to do that!
Yaro, you are mentioning a few Blogging products, like: Blog Mastermind, Become A Blogger Premium… and I was wondering, which of all those products you would recommend most to get started with.
Have a look at my coaching page for details on which product is right for you – http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/coaching/
If you discovered a method to make a lot of money on the internet, where it only required a small amount of work to keep it running, easily replicated, easy to do, would it make more sense to keep it to your self or would you create some course and make your money telling other people how to do it?
Hi Yaro,
I made a really “raw” wordpress blog following steps at becomeablogger.com, but how do I create a section on the right side for sponsors and a section for a newsletter download (exactly like in your blog)?
Right now it’s just the default “Recent posts”, recent comments, archives, etc. Do you know where I can get “templates” instead of just “themes”?
Cheers!
Passion can lead to success ultimately. Look at Fallah, Will and Robb. Who knew their profession can be a money maker..
Good day!! I have been reading lots of information on your site and have found it interesting and informative,I have learned a lot. One thing that is yet to assist me though is traffic, I understand the money making activities and we are very slowly implementing some of these.
Seriously! I have already been searching yahoo all day just for this and i as a final point found it in this article!
Love the comment about your proofreading business and how it only needed 100 people a day to make good money.
It’s hard to seek out knowledgeable individuals on this matter, however you sound like you understand what you’re talking about! Thanks
Some great people indeed. They are an inspiration for all of us that we all can start to make an income online just by doing something that we like.
I only know Pat Flynn from his smartpassiveincome blog, but I bet the others are great people also!
I Will have to visit again when my course load lets up – however I am getting your Feed so i can read your blog offline. Thanks.
I like your blog site, just bookmarked it!
Heya, I just hopped over to your web page using StumbleUpon. Not somthing I might generally read, but I enjoyed your views none the less. Thank you for creating some thing worthy of browsing.
I really enjoyed reading your blog. It was well written and easy to undertand. Contrary to other blogs I have read. I also found it very interesting. Actually after reading, I had to go show the better half and she ejoyed it also!
This is a really good motivational post. I had a good time visiting the blogs listed and seeing how they each profit.
I’m making money online with my blog using Google Adsense & Clickbank. Confirmed. It’s actually easy to make money online.
a very good read very good blog will be looking out for more of these blogs
Yep; i use google adsense to sell advertising on my websites and it’s very easy to gain money!
We just couldnt leave your website before saying that we really enjoyed the quality information you offer to your visitors… Will be back often to check up on new stuff you post!
I think this is among the most vital information for me. And i’m glad reading your article. But should remark on few general things, The site style is wonderful, the articles is really great : D. Good job, cheers
great article very informative will be back again to visit soon
At least 5 or 6 hundred visitors at your weblog now, nice results for single website.
kinda appreciated the article that you have written actually. it just isn’t that simple to discover even remotely good text toactually read (you know READ! and not just browsing through it like a zombie before going somewhere else), so cheers man for not wasting my time on the god forsaken internet. :p
Sometimes is quite hard to makey money from your blog,nowadays it take hard work such as quality contend and a lot of patience…but in the end you’ll make it.
Google Adsense & Affilate Marketing, both are working for me and are going to work for you if you do what you have to: write.
Hi there
what is your niche and what afiliate marketing you are using?