Although there are bloggers who are absolutely crushing it on the web, other bloggers wonder if it is even possible to make any money in the first place. When it comes to making money with their blogs, most bloggers are confused and try a variety of methods to boost their income.
Some of these bloggers fall prey to the advice of taking surveys and clicking on paid links to bring in revenue. Activities similar to those eat up a giant chunk of your time every day but don’t show much for it. Even if you make $500 every month by taking surveys (that would be a great income for a person who takes surveys), that only adds up to $6,000 every year which is not enough to support a family or amplify your message.
The solution is to implement fewer, but more powerful tactics that bring in a steady stream of income. The days of taking surveys are over. The days of making thousands of dollars in your sleep are now here. In order to make a good amount of money with your blog, utilize these five methods.
#1: Offer Consultation Sessions
Offering consultation sessions is a great way to bring in more revenue and make connections at the same time. My recommendation is to start with a low price, and as you get more clients, increase your price point. Compared to the other methods, consultation sessions bring in a quick, sizable amount of money, but they do take up time and force you to constantly change your schedule so you can talk with your clients.
The goal of every consultant should be to eventually charge thousands of dollars for a few hours. That way, getting one client every month means making thousands of dollars every month, and having fewer clients will open up more time you can use to implement the other four methods for making money with a blog.
#2: Create Your Own Training Courses
You have knowledge that many people want. Some people have become millionaires by offering advice as practical as dog training advice. Training courses have been sold for hundreds of dollars, and the really good training courses have been sold for over $1,000 (not to say that any training course under $1,000 is sub par or not phenomenal). A basic training course with a few videos can be completed in about a week. Some training courses that didn’t even take two hours to create are now generating thousands of dollars in revenue every month. Imagine what you could do if you created multiple training courses, and they all made multiple sales every day.
#3: Create Your Own Membership Sites
Out of all of the methods, creating your own membership sites represents the most stable way to earn an income. While sales of products can spike and decline, once someone is a member, that person always pays a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual fee for being a member. If someone gets access to your membership site for $9.99/month, and that person sticks around, then you can always count on making $9.99/month from that one member.
Then, imagine if you had 100 members like that. Now you are making $999/month which is about $12,000 every year. That’s not bad for an inexpensive membership site with only 100 members. What if the membership site had 500 members? What if you had 10 membership sites with 100 members each? What if members each paid $19.99/month instead of $9.99/month? The possibilities are endless.
The best part is that the income you generate from a membership site acts as the foundation for future months. If you get 20 members in July, and you only get 10 members in August, then you are still making more money from your membership site in August than you made in July (in August, you have a total of 30 members while in July, you had a total of 20 members). The foundation simply continues to get stronger as your membership sites accumulate more members.
#4: Promote Affiliate Links
Depending on the products you promote, the commission rates, and traffic, an affiliate can make anywhere from a few dollars every month to thousands of dollars every day. Some affiliate even get a recurring commission when they get someone to buy membership to a membership site with an affiliate link. Amazon, ClickBank, Commission Junction, and LinkShare are four websites that offer a variety of products with affiliate links.
The only problem with affiliate sites is that typically, with great power comes great irresponsibility. You should only promote the products that you have tried for yourself and believe in. Do not grab the affiliate link for a product just because that product has a high price or promises a higher commission. Only promote the products that you can truthfully say are incredible.
When you use affiliate links, it is also important to avoid turning this method into your #1 source of income. Although some affiliate marketers make strong incomes from their links, these marketers depend on other brands and entrepreneurs to continue producing products. In addition, affiliate marketers have no control over the commission rates. If Amazon decided to cut the commission rate from 4% to 2%, then too bad for the affiliate marketers. Affiliate marketing is a great way to make more revenue, but you need to create your own products and market them as well.
#5: Write Your Own Books
Writing your own books and promoting them on your blog serves two benefits. The first benefit is that writing and promoting your own books has the potential to bring in more revenue. The second benefit is that writing books allows you to become a better writer. Part of the process in getting more sales is how much a potential customer appreciates the value they get from your free content. Many customers see a paid product as an enhancement of free value. Therefore, the better your free value is, the more highly your customers will think of your products.
Writing books and making money from them is more than just writing a book, putting it on the Kindle, and hoping for the best. Ultimately, there are two main strategies you can take to writing books. The first strategy is self-publishing short books in bulk and hoping that they all bring in a few sales every day. The second strategy is to publish one major book every 1-2 years, promote it like crazy, and turn it into a bestseller.
My recommendation for new authors is to start with the first strategy. When authors are new, their audiences are not as large which means the chances of becoming a bestselling author are very slim. New authors would have a better chance of writing books in bulk and getting a few sales every day from those books. If you needed to get 16 book sales every day to make $1,000 every month, think of how much easier it would be if you wrote 16 books compared to if you only wrote two books. When you write 16 books, each book only needs to get one sale every day while if you only wrote two books, those two books have to each bring in eight daily sales. It is easier to achieve the same income goals if you have published multiple books, but if you choose this strategy, you must also ensure that your books still contain valuable content.
In Conclusion
There are many ways to make money with a blog. However, it does not take long for a blogger to realize that not all income opportunities are created equal. Some revenue generating activities eat up valuable time and don’t bring in a decent income.
Surveys take up a giant chunk of time but rarely bring in a good amount of income. Even if you somehow manage to make $1,000 every month from surveys (now everyone who takes surveys wants to know your secret, and you’re probably taking surveys for half of the day), taking survey after survey on topics you are not fond of is a bad way to make money on the web.
Instead, you could be making a six figure income, seven figure income, and beyond. Although most bloggers do not bring in much revenue, there is also a large group of bloggers that make six figure incomes just from their blogs.
You may not be making any money with your blog. You may be seeing progress at this stage of the game. You may even be making thousands of dollars every month. Regardless of where you are at this stage of the game, your blog can generate more revenue, and it can become your primary source of a full-time income.
What are your thoughts about making money with a blog? Which method did you like the most? Do you have any other methods you would like to share that bloggers can use to increase their revenue? Please share your thoughts and advice below.
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