101 Best Ways to Make Money With Your Blog Genuinely

When blogging started, it was more of a way for people to journal their thoughts, but nowadays, everybody wants to make money online by blogging and strike it rich like Darren from ProBlogger or Leo from ZenHabits.

So if you’re interested in making money online through blogging, this article is going to be of great interest to you because I am going to lay out fifty ways you can make money online with your blog.

In this article, I have outlined various methods of making money online, from PPC to Affiliate Marketing, Product Creation & more.

As a side note, a lot of these items listed (over 70% of them) I’ve personally used in my own blogs in order to make money online through blogging and I can guarantee that each of these methods of online money making can work for your blog too when implemented correctly.

PPC Advertisements

Pay Per Click advertisements are one of the biggest forms of advertising on blogs because of their ease of use. Below you’ll see a few companies who offer PPC options.

The general idea, for those who don’t know, when it comes to pay per click advertisements is that you’ll place ads on your website and each time someone clicks the specific ad, you’ll get paid X amount of cents/dollars.

• Google Adsense – Perhaps the most popular ways for bloggers to start making money with their blog is Google Adsense. With its ease of use and the countless WordPress plugins for you to drop ads right into your website, it’s a top choice amongst beginner bloggers and veterans alike.


• Chitika – Another great network and one that’s used by some of the bigger bloggers out there, Chitika is definitely a powerhouse in the CPC ad business.


• Clicksor – One of the great things about Clicksor is that they make payouts every 15 days instead of 30+ like Adsense and others in the industry. That, mixed with it’s up to 85% commission for clicks, you’re bound to make money with them.


• Bidvertiser – As one of the lesser known PPC networks, Bidvertiser has been around a long time and has always been a pretty good earner for me.

CRM Advertising Networks

If you have a blog that receives a good amount of traffic but you’re noticing that a lot of that traffic isn’t clicking the ads, this might be the route to go. CRM advertising pays you per 1,000 impressions. So, if you get paid $1.00 per 1,000 impressions and you have 100,000 page views monthly, you’ll make $100 from the one advertisement.

• Index Exchange – One of the bigger players in the CRM Advertising industry, Index Exchange allows you to easily set up ads and get paid as much as possible for your page views.


• Tribal Fusion – The next largest (if not the largest) CRM company, Tribal Fusion does an awesome job with its advertisers and publishers alike. It’s also one of the most widely used CRM networks in blogging and magazine niches.


• Adpepper – A great company that does more than just CRM advertising, Adpepper also offers CPC and CPA campaigns, which allow you to make the max amount of money possible from your blog.


• Gorilla Nation – Once your blog reaches a certain level of traffic, Gorilla Nation might be the best step in your CRM advertising opportunities. They require you to have at least 100,000 unique visitors per month and have a huge network that allows you to get paid the most possible per 1,000 visitors.


• Conversant Media – With top advertisers and a team behind you to make sure you’re making the most money possible from your blog traffic, Conversant Media has positioned itself as a truly large CRM Advertising Network that’s worth checking out and testing with.

CPA Advertising Networks

The CPA advertising method works when you have someone click an ad on your blog and they either buy something from the website or complete some type of action (ie: CPA = Cost Per Action). This could be signing up for an email form, completing a survey, etc.

• Clickbooth – Positioning itself as the exclusive CPA network, Clickbooth is a definite leader in CPA advertising. I’ve used Clickbooth in the past and have had nothing but positive results.


• MaxBounty – Right when you open their site, MaxBounty wants to make sure you know that they have the highest paying CPA campaigns around, and rightfully so. They’re definitely one of the top players in the CPA advertising industry.


• XY7 – By turning clicks into cash, XY7 has positioned itself as a large network that you should definitely be testing with on your blog.


• Neverblue Ads – eHarmoney, Vistaprint, Groupon, MindSpark & Bidz. These are just some of the various partners that Neverblue Ads has that you’ll be able to promote on your blog.


• ShareASale – In 2005, 06, 07 & 08, ShareASale was given the best affiliate network award at ABestWeb, which should instantly tell you that when you’re promoting CPA offers from ShareASale, you’re getting top-notch quality ads as well as industry-leading help in growing your blogging revenue.


• CPABounty – With net15/weekly payments, CPABounty is a great way for you to make money with your blog if you’re looking to keep checks coming in on a regular basis.

Direct Advertisements for Blogs

If you’re looking to allow advertising on your blogs and don’t want to run the hassle of looking through networks for companies to choose from and place the ads on your blog yourself, then direct ad sales will probably be your best solution.

Below are various ways to do that – some manual, some automated, somewhere 100% of the sales go to you and somewhere less than 100% goes to you.

• Buy Sell Ads – One of the biggest direct ad marketplaces is BuySellAds. They’ve got over 2,000 advertisers ready to place ads on your website and are a staple in the blogging/design industries. I’ve used them previously on Guerrilla Freelancing and loved every minute of it.


• OIO Publisher – I remember when OIO Publisher stormed on the blogging scene and started making its rounds with people like John Chow, Ian Fernando, Jon Waraas and others. It’s a great ad platform for your blog, allows you to keep 100% of the profits and is even available as a WordPress plugin.


• AdRotate WordPress plugin – With the ability to set up different ad groups, track clicks, set expiration dates and keeping 100% of the profits, AdRotate might be a great choice for those wanting to set up ads without paying anything in the plugin purchase (like OIO Publisher) or giving up a percentage (like BuySellAds).


• WP125 – Another WordPress plugin, WP125 is a great way to sell ad space on your site in those nifty little 125×125 ad blocks that people like John Chow and Shoemoney made so popular a few years ago (now we see them everywhere).


• Direct Sales – This is a way you can sell ads, but is 100% dependent on you accepting payments, adding advertisements & removing them when they need to be removed. You get 100% of the profits but it is a bit more work. Set up an “advertise here” page with your information and the sizes you offer, and start selling ad space now.

Text Link Ads

Although Google has bitch slapped people for selling text link ads without being nofollow, the sale of text links (in my opinion) will never die because of its sheer simplicity. You can sell direct links to someone's website with their anchor text or you can even sell text links for specific words throughout your blog.

• Text Link Brokers – Another marketplace for selling text links on your blog is the Text Link Brokers website. They offer SEO services to their clients and in exchange, you get paid to have links to their client's websites on your blog.


• LinkWorth – Serving up over 190,000+ text link ads across its network currently, if you’re not able to make money online through blogging with the text link sales from LinkWorth, you might just be in the wrong business.

Affiliate Marketing

Here’s something I personally want to try more of. Below are affiliate companies and bloggers/companies who offer an affiliate program.

Affiliate Programs will pay you a certain percentage of a sale that is made when someone clicks an ad/link on your website and buys something from the landing page of the other website.

• ClickBank – I like to call ClickBank the CraigsList of Affiliate Marketing because it doesn’t get any bigger than this. With products in a huge variety of niches, you’re going to find something to sell that will make you money on your blog.


• Commission Junction – Commission Junction is a website that has a ton of products you’re able to promote and you’ll definitely be able to make money online through blogging. With clients like Sony, Home Depot, Woot!, Trip Advisor and many more, there’s definitely names that will virtually sell themselves on your blog.


• Empyre Media – An emerging player in the Affiliate Marketing industry, Empyre Media has set itself up with some great advertisers and if you’re looking for extremely high payouts ($35 per sale, for example), then you’ve got to give them a try.


• HostGator – As a leader in the hosting industry, you’re going to have a hard time not selling your visitors on their services when you mention that for their $9.95 per month plan, they can get it for 1 penny for the first month if they use the coupon code “TheHackerSolutions”.


• MailChimp – A lot of people will recommend Aweber for newsletter management, but I personally like to refer MailChimp, not only because I use it at Guerrilla Freelancing, but because it allows people to have a free account for up to 2,000 subscribers .. ie: it basically sells itself.


• Namecheap – If you’re marketing yourself and your blog to other bloggers who might want to venture into building their own websites, the first thing they’re going to need (after hosting) is a domain name and I believe Namecheap is the best and does a great job of retaining customers (I’ve been a customer for 6+ years)


• Amazon – A complete giant in online sales, Amazon is a perfect way to set up some ads on your website and earn money from people who are buying products that they’d normally buy anyways. It’s a definite winner for making money online.

Sponsored Reviews

If you’ve got a blog where you talk a lot about different products (ie: a gaming blog, fashion blog, etc) then this might be a great way for you to not only talk about specific items of interest to your readers but also make some money while doing it.

• Sponsored Reviews – Their main focus is to let bloggers earn cash and allow advertisers to gain the buzz they’re after. A win/win situation and one you should definitely consider, especially if the websites you’re reviewing fit well with your niche.


• PayPerPost – It does exactly what the name says it does; you get paid per post. You are able to review products that you decide on and are in complete control of the tone and style of your writing.


• Blogsvertise – With the word blog right in the title, you can pretty much guess that this is a company geared towards getting your products/services to review and making you money with your blog. A great network with a lot of websites to promote, you’re going to make money with them for sure.

Private Forums

I’ve seen an influx of blogs lately make more money online by setting up private forums as an extension of their blog. It’s a pretty simple process actually, especially when you’ve got a large enough user base to do it.

• vBulletin – As an industry leader, vBulletin is an awesome way to build a private forum on top of your blog that allows your regular blog readers pay a monthly fee and interact with each other, ask you questions, etc. vBulletin is a paid script, so you might be interested in some of the others below if you aren’t able to put up the cash up front for it.


• bbPress – Forum software that interlaces itself perfectly with WordPress? This might just be the perfect solution for bloggers out there who use WordPress.


• Vanilla – An open source forum software that has made its way around the design community and is a breeze to set up & use. What more could you ask for?


• PhpBB – Another open source forum software that has been around just about as long, if not longer, than vBulletin and is used by thousands upon thousands of websites.


• YABB – Yet Another Bulletin Board, the YABB software is 100% free and open source and could be a great addition to your website in order to set up private forums and earn some extra money while blogging.

Sell Your Own Products

Selling your own products on your blog is a great way to make money online and an awesome way to utilize your blog traffic for your own monetary rewards instead of allowing others to advertise.

I’d recommend using eJunkie as a way to automate the download process of any digital goods. It costs $5 per month and will streamline your process so you don’t even have to be around (or awake) when people buy your stuff.

• eBooks/Guides – Over at Guerrilla Freelancing, I sell ebooks and do fairly well with it. Enough so, I was able to remove all advertising from the site and am strictly making money from the site now by selling my own guides. If you’re a writer, this could be a perfect solution for you.


• WordPress Themes – If you’re a WordPress coder, why not build up some premium themes and try your hand at selling them to your blog readers instead of funneling your traffic to a place like WooThemes or StudioPress. This way, you keep all revenue to yourself and keep your visitors on your site.


• Design Resources – A great way for bloggers who run design related blogs to make some extra cash is to sell premium design resources like Photoshop brush sets, icons, website layouts, fonts, etc.


• Phone & Web Apps – For those of you out there who are good programmers (I see you reading this), you could take some time and develop apps for the phone like Pat over at Smart Passive Income does or you could also build web apps for invoicing, project management, etc.


• Premium Tutorials – No matter what niche you’re in (design, development, music, etc) there’s always room to build out nice, in-depth tutorials on how to do certain things that your readers will find interesting and sell them at a premium price.

Sell Your Own Services

Just like selling your own products, when you use your blog to make money by selling your services, you’re going to be able to keep 100% of the money and also benefit your business at the same time. It’s definitely something I utilize a lot (as seen below in the notes) and I recommend you at least try it out.

• Web Design – If you’d like an example of someone who blogs but also creates custom blog designs, you’ve got to look no further than this exact article. I am a full-time freelance WordPress designer and I am building this blog in order to gain attention and sales for my blog design services. You could also do this with a completely separate blog from your main portfolio site, either way, works.


• Blog Writing – Using myself as an example again, I write blog content for my own blogs, yet utilize my ability to write compelling, share-worthy content to sell my own services of blog writing for other blogs.


• Consulting – How many times do you think I can use myself as an example in this section on how to make money online through blogging? I also offer consulting services on the Guerrilla Freelancing blog for freelancers who are looking to build their business and profits.


• Marketing – This could be in the form of offline guerrilla marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing or content marketing. No matter what way you choose, if you’re good at it, you can use your blog to showcase your knowledge of the subject and make money from your blog by marketing for other people.


• Mentoring – Brian Clark from Copyblogger is a great example of how you can turn your blogging into a mentoring program. With his Teaching Sells mentoring program, he’s able to make $97 per month and he currently has over 1,000 members (you do the math).

In case you were wondering

This post teaches you how to make money with your blogging and each individual topic could be covered in much more depth than it has here.

If you’d like to see me cover specific ways to make money with your blog in a bit more depth than this, just drop a comment or get in touch and let me know.