Top Tips to Monetize Your WordPress Blog

It’s exciting to launch your first blog – until you discover that running a blog takes hard work and can be very expensive. After all, the costs quickly begin to pile up, from hosting charges to blog writing expenses. The hardest part is trying to monetize your blog. The best bloggers do it effortlessly, raking in millions yearly. But getting the first few dollars can feel like squeezing water from a rock.

To this end, we’ve rounded up a few ideas you can use to make more money from your blog. All the top bloggers use these methods, and so should you.

1. Tap into ad revenue

Display ads are one of the best ways to monetize your blog. You partner with ad agencies to display ads on your blog and get paid when visitors click the ad (pay-per-click) or view it (pay-per-impression).

Google AdSense is a great place to start. Bloggers take home 68% of earned revenue and have limitless opportunities. Alternatively, you can partner with smaller advertisers.

2. Consider affiliate marketing

Business Insider says affiliate marketing accounts for 15% of digital marketing revenue. That alone tells you the massive potential. And you can easily make money from it.

So, how does it work? It’s simple. You sign up with an affiliate marketer to promote third-party products on your blog, with links visitors can follow to view and purchase the products. Then you split the revenue. Special tracking codes allow the marketer to trace sales to different blogs.

3. Sell merchandise

If you’re excited by affiliate programs, you’ll love selling merchandise even more. It’s the same process, except you sell your products and keep 100% of the revenue.

Or better, why not set up a store with a global eCommerce brand? WooCommerce is the perfect example. Download the WooCommerce plugin, set up a store, and market the products on your blog. Check out this Blue Host post to discover other fantastic eCommerce plugins are for WordPress.

4. Sell exclusive content

Every digital consumer knows about e-books and product reviews. Many bloggers offer them freely to entice visitors to sign up for marketing and email lists. But did you know that you can sell them for passive revenue?

One of the best examples is an experienced chef blogger selling special recipes. Similarly, health and fitness experts can sell workout guides with fantastic results.

5. Sponsored blogs and reviews

Major brands are constantly hunting for thriving blogs for sponsored blogs and reviews. The brand will contact you (or you can contact them) for partnerships. Then they pay you to write unique blog posts or product reviews with links to specific products or offers.

Unfortunately, sponsorship deals favor established bloggers and review platforms. So, you may have to wait a few years to land these opportunities. However, you can speed up the process by writing guest posts for other established blogs. This allows you to get more traffic to your blog through backlinks within the guest blog.

6. Adopt a membership plan

Membership plans are gated programs that grant access to paying customers only. Most bloggers charge members monthly or yearly, but you can adopt other payment plans. For instance, quarterly payment plans are also quite common.

Paid programs are highly profitable. For instance, a workout or meal plan membership charging $30/year can collect $30,000 yearly from 1,000 paying customers. Paying subscribers may receive exclusive content and live videos. You can also offer one-on-one private sessions to users.

Summary

There are many ways to monetize your blog, from displaying advertising programs to affiliate marketing, sponsored blogs, and paid membership plans. Some are more difficult to implement, and a few may not be practical for your blog niche. However, there’s always another way to monetize your blog if you’re serious about it.