How to Make Money Blogging Without Selling Any Product

Blogging did not just become a way of life for some just because they enjoy it. Most of them, over time, learned how to make money blogging. So if they were able to do it, what makes you think you can’t? You are so much capable than you think you are.

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Basically you can monetize your blog by either doing these two: by selling products and by not selling products. If there is a product that you can sell, good for you. But in order to sell it through online, you need to learn the necessary tools for an e-Commerce page, how to do inventory and how to ship your products. On the other hand, if you prefer to not have a physical product to sell but still want to make money blogging, you can still do so.

In the next lines to follow, I will show you some free blogging tips on how you could earn by blogging without hard selling any products. Through this, you can generate a source of passive income over time while doing other things you love.

Feeling excited already? Here it is.

1. Place Some Ads

Placing ads in your blog page is one of the basic ways to monetize it. In fact, the Internet is full of ads, some are screaming while others are silently manipulating you to buy something. In order to make money blogging through the use of ads, you need to understand first the difference of Cost Per Click vs Cost Per Impression. These are the two ways you can monetize your blog by placing ads in it.

Cost Per Click (CPC) simply means that every time someone clicks the link that you placed in your blog, you get paid for it. Clicks are lead generating in nature so you get better pay for it. You have a say on what ads will be placed in your site because poor quality ads would bring fewer clicks and you would not want that.

With Cost Per Impression (CPI), the blog owner earns every time an ad is displayed on the site. There is a rate agreed by the advertiser and the site owner for every thousand views that an ad is shown. The advertiser has sole responsibility in optimizing the ads so you get lower pay compared to CPC.

How To Place Ads Effectively?

To make things easier, you can use some tools to help you place those ads more effectively.

• AdSense — This tool by Google is the leading tool in the market to help you make money blogging through ads. Using your content, it matches them to display ads and texts given by advertisers who would like to use your space for their online promotion.
• To use AdSense, just sign up with them and select the areas in your page where you want the ads to be positioned. These spaces will be auctioned to the advertisers and the highest bidder will automatically have his ads running in your site. AdSense will bill them and collect the payments for you.
• Sponsored Reviews — There are companies that are in search for specific bloggers to write reviews for their products or services. You can reach out to them directly or through websites that outsource bloggers to write.
• Media.net — This is powered by Yahoo and Bing and is a great alternative for AdSense. It features an account manager that helps you maximize your potential for earnings. Like AdSense, it functions by using contextual advertisements.

Advantages

• Free — You can easily sign up for those tools with zero investment using them. What’s to lose?
• Quick and Easy — You do not have to bother yourself with creating ads and setting up is designed to be easy for all users.
• Customizable — No need to worry if the ads will not look like a part of your page because you can adjust the colors and fonts to suit your blog’s theme.

Disadvantages

• No Full Control — When it comes to contextual advertisements, you as a site owner do not have a direct control towards the specific ads that will be shown in your site. A few of your users might not like these ads.
• Slows Your Blog — One biggest downside of running ads in your blog is that it slows down your page. Ads will load first prior your content and impatient visitors might move away from your page.
• Competing For Attention — Ads compete for your users’ attention and once they click through them, they will have to leave your site.

Go For It If You:

• Want a low-maintenance and other source of income
• Are skilled to write quality content with good keywords
• Could afford to give up some space and a little speed as well
• Have already a good number of regular visitors
• Have a niche that can cater different products and services for sponsorship opportunities

2. Via Subscribers, Donations or Paywalls

The next way you can make money blogging without having to sell any products is through having paid subscribers, collecting donations or via paywalls. This could be challenging to begin with because in order for people to pay you for something you have written online or will still be publishing in the future, your content must be of high quality and value giving to your audience. Also, you need to learn how to properly set up your blog for premium and donation collection.

You could use these tools and plugins to enable your blog to have subscribers and donors.

• s2Member — If you want to monetize your page by having paid subscriptions, this free tool will be valuable for you. It has lots of features that you can use to set up your blog. You have the option to customize your offers into specific posts or portions of your content. It has great documentation that could assist you while starting on with it.
• Patreon — This is a platform popularly used by artists or creators to get paid for what they offer. Your fans or patrons will pledge an amount per month or for every new content that you will post. There are fees that you have to pay as well as a creator. Think of it as a crowdfunding platform for your craft.
• Leaky Paywall — This plugin is perfectly designed for bloggers and online magazine editors to help them be recognized in Google search for their content. As a blogger, you may set up to a certain number of articles that users can access for free before asking for a subscription. Leaky Paywall has been popularized by The New York Times.

Advantages

• Value Your Content — By limiting what you share publicly to your users, you emphasize your authority in your niche. That what you are sharing is of important value to them that needs a fair subscription.
• Total Control Over Your Content — Since you need not to rely on ads or sponsors to make money blogging, you have the freedom to write for what you and your readers would love.
• Move Fans Into Action — For some time you might already have loyal readers who would undoubtingly pay the premium if you just ask them to.

Disadvantages

• Lowers Conversion — Some of your readers might not have the extra cash to subscribe regularly so be prepared to lose some.
• High Maintenance Fees — Since you are asking for a premium, your site must be running smoothly 24/7 to ensure high quality audience experience. This will entail higher maintenance costs.

Go Fo It If You:

• Are considered an expert in your niche already
• Have high-quality and valuable content to offer
• More advanced and creative than your competitors

3. Sell Your Services

Selling services can be the most challenging but rewarding way to make money blogging. If you have skills in any of these tasks then might as well sell your services.

• Website Building — This is probably one of the lucrative ways to earn money by selling your skills. If you are capable to build and set up WordPress sites, this would be easy money for you.
• Copywriting — It is the backbone of online content marketing. Sell your pitch and pitch what you will sell.
• Design — If you are the creative type, then it is time to make money out of those designs that you do in Photoshop or Illustrator, even Canva!
• Coaching — As an established expert for a particular topic or niche, you can offer your personal knowledge and skills to some who are struggling for their breakthroughs.

Advantages

• You Sell You — You only have to market yourself and your skills. Nothing to lose, yet so much to gain.
• Offer Incentives — Using your existing email list of subscribers, you can offer special rates or incentives when they refer you to their friends and colleagues.
• Higher Returns — You can charge accordingly to the services that you will offer so you will not lose much money on third parties except for payment platforms that you have to outsource.

Disadvantages

• Time — You will lose some of your time to cater to your market and their demands.
• Expectations — Most of the above services will have different results per customer. Meeting expectations can come as a challenge so you have to deliver exceeding results.

Go For It If You:

• Can spare time to help others.
• Have special skills and knowledge that are worth paying for a special fee.
• Are confident to meet and go beyond expectations for your services.

There you have it folks! I hope you can make use one or two ways to monetize your personal blog without having to sell any products. Be creative and be passionate with what you do and the cashflow will follow your way. You could earn by blogging if you want to and if you put the work needed to. So, just press on.

If this content helps, I would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to leave a message or comment.

Originally published at easyblogthemes.com on April 14, 2018.