Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
A lot of people get into blogging with the hopes of making a residual income. This is also known as “passive income,” as you really don’t have to do much to bring in the dough. Today, let’s go over if monetizing a blog is realistic in 2021.
And no, blogging is definitely not dead. In reality, this blog has experienced a massive boost in year-after-year traffic.
It mostly centers around how active you are and how much effort you put in to succeed.
What is Monetizing a Blog?
Monetizing a blog is when you add methods to a website with the idea of making money. This is often in the forms of advertisements, affiliate marketing, selling digital products, and a wide variety of other techniques.
The result is creating a blog that allows you to write what you want while generating income. That is as long as you have the traffic.
Many people have managed to create platforms that replace a full-time income. However, it takes a great deal of interest from a target audience to make that kind of money.
In other words, you can’t expect to monetize a blog that gets 10 visitors per day to bring in enough money to retire.
Luckily, there are several realistic ways to monetize. So, finding one that fits your site is relatively easy…ish.
When Should You Start Monetizing the Blog?
There is a bit of a debate about when you should properly monetize a blog. Some experts would rather you get to a certain level of visitors while others say you should do so as soon as possible.
In the end, it all really depends on you and how much effort you put into building your website.
This is because the most important aspect to making money from a blog is the kind of traffic you attract. If you don’t put in the work to create incredible content people want to read, you won’t make much in the way of income.
Affiliate Guidelines
Many affiliates will reject applications from publishers if there isn’t enough content to drive an audience. Part of this plays into Domain Authority, which I’ll go over in a moment.
If a brand gets the feeling that you don’t provide enough or have a strong enough online reputation, the application will be denied.
This doesn’t mean that it’ll stay that way forever, though. For example, I was denied by Grammarly several years ago. But after time, and building up the website, I was able to get them to reverse the decision.
The bottom line is that you can’t rely on affiliate status if few people are visiting your blog.
Using AdSense
Google AdSense is a platform for showing ads on websites and YouTube videos. Just by adding a code Google provides, your blog posts will show ads relevant to the visitor.
AdSense is probably one of the easiest ways for monetizing a blog. I’ve heard of people getting authorized to place ads with only have a handful of posts published.
One of my blogs was getting less than 30 visits per month and was monetized within an hour of requesting authorization.
However, AdSense is not the best way to make money from your website. In reality, it can take literally hundreds of thousands of visitors per month to replace the average full-time income from a traditional job.
For instance, my blogs generate about $0.0008 per visitor on average at the moment.
Having Domain Authority Helps…A Lot!
Domain Authority is essentially how well your website stacks up against others on the Internet. Think of it as your online reputation for the topics or niche you cover.
Domain Authority is a ranking system used to determine the likelihood your content will appear in search results. The higher your score, the better are your chances of content being found by searchers in Google.
Domain Authority is also a method that many affiliate merchants use to determine whether they’ll accept your application or not.
How Do You Improve Domain Authority?
Essentially, anything you do that will improve your search ranking in Google will affect your Domain Authority. This includes things like:
- Optimizing on-page SEO, such as meta tags for titles and images as well as content structure.
- Creating content people want to read in the first place.
- Include internal links to help users find relevant content.
- Make sure you remove or fix broken links.
- Write for voice search from mobile devices.
But if you can make Google happy, you’ll make affiliate merchants happy and increase your chances of monetizing the blog.
How Much Can You Make Per Month?
To be honest, there are simply too many variables that will affect how much money you can make per month from a blog. Everything from niche, topics you write about, the people visiting your site, and methods used will greatly impact your income.
And anyone who claims that you can make a specific dollar amount today is trying to sell you something.
As harsh as that sounds, and probably not what you want to hear, there is a lot of potential to bring in thousands per month. But, it’s going to rely heavily on the amount of effort you put.
Not just about monetizing the blog, but also how much effort you put into developing your site as a whole.
Knowing Your Target Audience
First of all, your target audience is the most crucial element when trying to make money from a blog. The people you’re trying to attract will directly dictate how much money comes rolling in.
As a result, you want to focus content on what those people want to consume. This means digging deep to find the best articles to create while aiming for the highest retention rate.
A focused audience is more likely to support you as a creator, click on ads, or even make direct purchases, depending on how you monetize the site.
It All Comes Down to the Content You Provide
For properly monetizing the blog, it all boils down to traffic. This means you need to focus not on the money you want to make, but what content your target audience wants to consume.
This is true whether you’re blogging or creating YouTube videos. Because without the audience, there is no money to be made.
Originally posted in 2013, I figured I should revamp this article. For one thing, this was back when I first created the website and really didn’t have a full grasp of everything you can do for monetizing a blog.
Secondly, it was north of cringe-worthy…back before I learned a lot about writing posts and AP Style content.
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