0:00
Hey guys, it’s Sharon from digital nomad quest.

And today we’re gonna talk about five ways to monetize your blog. So if you guys are new to this channel, welcome, I’m all about teaching y’all how to build passive income, become financially free and design your best lives. So if you guys are interested in that, make sure to subscribe and hit that bell button to be notified of my latest videos. So let’s just get right into it. I’m actually going to share one of the modules from my free five day money making blog crash course that I made with my friend Jason from frugal for less. So it’s kind of a teaser, I wanted to show you guys one of these modules. And if you guys liked this one, you’re going to enjoy the entire free course make sure to sign up in the link below and then enjoy these five ways to monetize your blog. Hey guys, it’s Sharon Tseung. Again from digital nomad quest, and we are at day five, we’re gonna be talking about making money with your blog. And I’m sure you guys are all excited for this, right. So, you know, you’ve set up your blog, you started writing your posts, and now let’s talk about how to actually make money off of your passions. And I get it it can be frustrating figuring out how to do this because it actually took me years before I realized I could not only journal about my passions, I could actually make money off of my writing. And the crazy thing is, a lot of bloggers actually do this full time. Right? So it’s actually not that uncommon to see bloggers making five to six figures a month. And as you know, Jason is killing it with his blog. He basically does it full time he can travel the world, and it has helped me fund my travels as well. It can create that lifestyle you want a freedom if you basically put your time and effort into it. So if you are interested in monetizing your blog, let’s get right into it. So monetizing your blog is hard, no doubt, but it’s not impossible. So first, let’s go over what we’re going to cover today. We’re going to talk about make money blogging tips. We’re going to talk about mentality we’re going to talk about you know what you need to expect before you go right into it and this will be a good overview before you dive right into the five popular ways to make money from your blog. So we’re going to be talking all about affiliate marketing, ads, sponsorships, courses and books. So this is going to be a great Crash Course around how to monetize your blog. Let’s go over the make money blogging tips. First of all, make sure you are blogging about your passions and actually having fun with it. So be careful about doing it for money. As you know, it’s going to get frustrating if you do it for money, you’re gonna burn out and people can tell when you’re for real or if you’re actually just doing it for money. I find that I can tell them I can trust certain bloggers I can see their passion around certain topics. I know I can trust them because I know that you know they’re actually doing it because it’s in line with who they are right? So I find that not only will you not burn out you also gain trust with your readers because that passion just comes out. It’s so much easier to write when you actually love doing it and love talking about what you’re talking about. Right and that really comes out to your audience. They’re gonna trust you more as well. So it’s a two fold thing, like, first of all, you want to make sure you don’t burn out and you’re actually having fun with it. So that it’s just an easier process. And secondly, your audience will come to you because that type of passion will basically exude from your writing. Next, you’re going to need to invest time and money into your business. So a lot of people have the issue of you know, they’re not going to spend money until they start making money. But here’s the thing, you know, with businesses, you have startup costs, you can’t start a store without buying the inventory and renting the place, for example, right. So this isn’t a store but this is a good analogy, any type of startup business, you have to put some money and some effort into it. And blogs are the same way. It’s not just oh, I write a little bit and hope that you know, people will start paying me for it. You have to make sure that you treat it as a business, especially if you’re trying to make money off of this. So be careful of falling into the trap that you’re only going to spend money when you start doing Making money because the more you invest into your business, the more you’re going to make out of it. Next, there are many ways of making money through a blog. So we’re going to go over those five popular ways. But the list actually spans to even more of that and you can get really creative with it. Next, you want to know that your earnings usually aren’t going to be consistent. So some months might be great. Others might be slow, and you’ll just never know. But the more you work on your blog, the more you should be able to increase your earnings. So make sure you have the right expectations going into it. It’s not going to be constant stable income, like a full time job or something like that. But blogs have the ability to make massive amounts of money. So you want to make sure that you understand that any entrepreneurial endeavor, the earnings might be ups and downs and stuff like that things are gonna happen. So it’s not always going to be consistent, but you can make a lot of money through it. Now, you need to understand that you need traffic and an audience and community to make money. So to the popular ways to do that is to grow an email list. And we recommend using ConvertKit. MailChimp is a free solution. But ConvertKit has those robust features if you want to really grow your email list. So we have a link where you can sign up and get a free trial of ConvertKit. So if you want to try it out, try it out in our link. But basically, the idea of growing an email list growing your audience to start making money is that you know, you want to gain trust from your audience. And then you want to deliver them value through your blog posts and stuff like that. They want to come back to you because you are a thought leader in your niche. You provide that valuable, trustworthy content where they can get education or some type of value through your content. And then once you grow that following that community, right, they’re going to be invested in you that they want to actually spend money on what you’re advocating, or you know, your products and stuff like that. That’s how How it works, you want to make sure that you’re nurturing this list, you’re not just like asking them to buy, that’s not how it works, you need to make sure that you have trust with them. For example, it’s like dating, right? So when you’re dating, you don’t just straight up ask them, will you marry me, they’re gonna think you’re crazy, you have to kind of gain that trust, you have to actually get to know the person, right? So that’s kind of the same thing with these email lists. You want to grow that email list, have those that community, have them trust you based on you know, the value you’re delivering for them, and then they’re gonna want to come back. And because they advocate what you’re doing, they’re gonna buy from you. And same thing with creating a Facebook group. It’s the same thing of creating a community. So these are great ways to capture your audience to make money. So first, we’re going to go over affiliate marketing. So affiliate marketing is basically the practice of referring people to products you recommend whenever people purchase something, you make a referral commission. So without creating a products, you can actually make a ton of money doing affiliate marketing. So I know a ton of bloggers who just straight up, spend all their time on affiliate marketing and make thousands and thousands of dollars a month, just promoting other people’s products, which is crazy. The great thing about affiliate marketing is it is a win win situation. So the people, you recommend products to get value, the owner makes a sale, and then you make a commission as well. So for example, I have traveled long term before and maybe I recommend a suitcase a carry on suitcase, right? So if I recommend it, I use a referral link. If someone buys from it, they’re going to get value because they’re going to be using the product that I recommend. And then the owner makes a sale the person who created that suitcase makes money, you know, getting that sale, but then I also make commission as well recommending that product to my customer so it’s a win win situation right? Each person gets value You know, it’s a good thing when you’re not just helping other people, you’re also helping yourself because it’s not healthy to always just help other people. And then you don’t practice self cares. So affiliate marketing is a great way to sort of benefit all parties. Now, if you want to do affiliate marketing, right, you want to be that go to person, that resource that people can trust. So you want to create content that is valuable to users, where they will think of you as a thought leader in your niche. So rather than spam with links, like many sleazy affiliate marketers do you want to create trust with your users by providing value for them. And as you find products and tools you recommend you start reviewing them and start talking about why they can help your audience. So some tips with that you want to make sure you’re answering people’s questions and concerns. You want to make sure you show your results. So for example, you might promote a course right and maybe you want to show your results from the course so that you can prove to people that you actually benefited from taking the course. So this is a great Way to build that trust with people because they can see that you’ve gained results as well. So you’re not just recommending something that you’ve never used, you want to make sure it’s something you have used and recommend, right. So also you want to add images when applicable, and you want to write multiple articles around a topic or just create an ultimate guide. So an ultimate review of a product. So let’s share some examples. So here is an example of a review article that Jason has created. So as you can see, it starts off with what it is how to get started. So it answers the questions that people list the pros and cons. It lists his experience with it. So this is the type of article you see that can build that trust with people because they can understand the product and why it’s so good for them. So you don’t even have to do review articles. It could be an article of like should you use this is this safe app or something like that? Or like, here’s a list of Top 10 apps to make money. And then that’s one of the apps basically on the list. So as you can see, these are different ways, right that you can, you know, promote field agent app within your article. Next, let’s talk about ads. So basically blogs can also make money from ads, you can partner with an ad network. And once approved, you can place a code onto your blog for advertisers to place ads there. So popular areas on your blog to put ads include your header, your sidebar and within posts, and companies will advertise to your blog and would pay per impression or clicks which would make you money. So some popular ad networks include Google AdSense, media, Vine, and ad thrive. These latter two media vine and ad thrive have higher requirements on how much traffic you need before you get admitted to the program, but they make more money than with Google AdSense. So another option is also to provide ad space directly to companies Have them pay monthly to your blog, which can be more lucrative than Google AdSense as well. So let’s go into another example here. As you can see, Jason has, you know the header and the footer ad.

He could have also put the sidebar out here. You can also put ads within your article. So as you can see in mind, I do have an ad here, for example, and I do have a, I do have ads here on the sidebar. So as you can see, there are many places you can actually put your ad. Next, let’s talk about sponsorships. So sponsorships are another way to make money and they can come in many different forms. So for example, sponsors can pay you to write a post about them on your blog. Sponsors can pay you to send you the blog post they want on your blog, which links back to them. And sponsors can provide you with sponsored trips. So for example, if you’re a travel blogger, you might be able to get a trip to visit a hotel. By providing a review round your stay on your blog, and sponsors can also pay you to review a product of theirs. So sponsorships can be found through reaching out to companies, or vice versa. And I actually have a travel blog called me want travel. And I basically I’ve gotten a lot of inquiries from sponsors who want to have me review their hotel or their activity or whatever, so that they get that exposure. And then I am allowed to stay at those places for free, right? So it can go both ways of like you can reach out to these people. So for example, you can pitch to companies or hotels or whatever, right? So you could basically say something like, Hey, I would like to review your hotel and in return, I can give you advice. I can give you this lengthy blog post and social media promotion posts and stuff like that, and you’ll also get a backlink to your hotel. And those backlinks are powerful for these companies so that they can basically rank higher on Google search. So this stuff is actually Very important for sponsors, and they’re going to be pitching to you and you can pitch to them as well. Another way to monetize your blog is courses. So the reason why you create a blog is usually to, you know, teach or journal, something that you have specialized knowledge in. And you can provide this more in depth through a course that people may seek. So some people worry that they’re not enough of a master in a specific subject, and that people would instead turn to other experts in their niche to buy courses from but if you ask them to acknowledge that most people, don’t you, you actually may be more in demand than you think. Because of your experiences, perspectives, and relatability. So whether you know it or not, you’re probably well suited to make a course. So don’t worry about, oh, I’m not qualified enough. If you know something more than the average person you are probably qualified to teach if you’re just real with it, where you kind of explain sort of what your experience has been with it. What you’re doing. Fact is our people will relate to you in different ways. So for example, Grant Cardone is not someone, I particularly am interested in buying his courses, I’m more interested in buying courses from someone more like Pat Flynn or something like that, who I feel is more relatable. So as you can see, Grant Cardone is more well known, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna want to buy from him. And it’s the same thing here. So it doesn’t matter who you are, if you have some specialized knowledge, you are more qualified than you may think. So you’re going to want to use your blog and your email opt ins to drive traffic to your course. And then you’re going to want to dive deeper, then your blog posts into those topics. So when you’re creating this content for people, you don’t want to just reveal all your secrets, but you want to make it good enough where they’re gonna want to take your course, right? You want to drive traffic to your course, through this valuable content you’re giving them it’s like building that trust again. So if people trust you in delivering like powerful pieces of content, they’re probably going to be more likely To buy from you just because they know that you already deliver quality from your free content. Your paid content must be way more specialized and deeper than your blog posts and stuff like that. So, when you’re doing this, you want to make sure you’re teaching people step by step. And you can create a course on teachable so try the free version to get started to educate your audience on a specific topic in your niche, right? So teachable is a great tool, right? It lets you outline your courses, putting videos, audio, text, files, images, anything to start illustrating your lessons. Clearly, video is the most popular medium for courses, but I’ve seen online courses that still make a killing when the whole course is actually all text based. So once you have that whole course created, you want to make sure you create a sales page that highlights the benefits of your course to get people to understand why they should even purchase your course. So let’s look into one of my sales pages. So as you can see on my sales page, I deliver I show you The benefit right away, you can see how you can make an extra thousand

dollars a month in passive income through selling digital downloads on Etsy. And then I give a video I talk about my story, I talk about the struggles. And then I show testimonials and I basically showcase the curriculum and what you’re gonna get out of this whole thing and just makes it very compelling to want to buy right. So the more you highlight the benefits of your course, the more they understand why they should take the course. And that’s going to help you get conversions. Lastly, let’s talk about books. So books are kind of this in the same realm of courses, you want to create authority through your book and your course and let’s be real having both a course and a book really gives a strong impression of being an authority figure in your niche. People care about the different platforms that you are on and how much you’ve done with your brand. So by building up your brand with content and then selling your own products, you’re going to be able to drive traffic, make money and actually make a difference in your space. So it’s the same thing with the book and the course you’re going to drive traffic through your valuable content. And then you know, upsell your book and your course. So you’re going to either sell this on your website or sell on KDP. So if you’re going to sell on your website, you can try using gumroad Comm. So if you sell on gumroad, it’s an easy way to host the product that you have and then make more money because you’re not using any type of marketplace. It’s still through your own traffic and you drive it to gumroad and you charge whatever you want. So another tool is the WooCommerce WordPress plugin and that’s going to be able to host your digital downloads, and collect payments. So some advantages of selling your on your own website and kind of hosting it is that you can sell it in your own preferred format, while Kindle and paperback books on KDP might have more specific requirements and charge more in fees. Next with selling on KDP which is basically you can sell on Amazon Kindle. Or paperback, you’ll be able to leverage the Amazon Marketplace and get sales through searches on Amazon. So not only through your own website, your marketing it, you can also leverage Amazon’s marketplace and get sales organically that way. So regardless which method you choose, the idea of selling books is really similar with selling courses. You can provide value for people through different mediums and books are just another way to do that. Now action items for you guys. So I want to make sure you guys create awesome content for your audience. Start building up your blog, start creating stuff that people want to read. You want to drive traffic to your blog, you can use SEO, you can use social media marketing, you can use paid ads even. You can use email marketing, there’s so many ways to drive traffic to your blog, and you want to collect your emails and grow your email list. So again, ConvertKit is the one we recommend in order to grow your email list and not only do that You want you can even segment your email list, there’s so many different things you can do with ConvertKit that MailChimp can’t really. So we really recommend ConvertKit with collecting your emails and growing your email list. And that’s the key to really start monetizing your blog, you drive the traffic, you create the audience and nurture them and then make them warm enough that they will want to buy from you because they trust you a lot. And then just try one of the money making methods on this list. Okay, so we have five popular ways here. You don’t even have to create your own product for some of these methods. You can even start with affiliate marketing, that’s the easiest one to start going for it you can start making blog posts around different products you love the ones the tools you recommend the courses you love, the books you read, and stuff like that, and then provide that value for them. Why would they want to purchase those tools or sign up for whatever. This is where you come in to educate your audience on how those tools can benefit them. So I hope you guys enjoy this five day money making blog Crash Course, we are super excited that you guys finished day five of the entire course. And we know that this is gonna help a lot with your journey. Now if you want to try our paid course we also have a course called blog launch profit that will go way more in depth with everything we talked about so that you can start making your first dollar on your blog will guide you step by step with SEO doing the keyword research, doing all the marketing to drive traffic to your blog and also set it up the exact correct way so that you can start making money. And if you want to check that out, we have a link here. So we will link to blog launch profit and we hope you guys are interested in signing up but regardless, we are happy you guys took the five day free course and we hope this gives you a great overview of how to start your blog and start making money off of your blog. So take care guys, if you guys have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us.

Alright, so I hope you guys enjoyed those five ways to monetize your blog. If you guys like that module I’m sure you’re going to be interested in our five day free crash course link below if you want to sign up for that it’s completely free. But if you want the extensive course on how to do SEO, and things like that to get traffic onto your blog, we go step by step in our course from setup to generating traffic to monetizing a blog. So check out blog launch profit if you want to get set up with the right foundation for blogging as well as learn how to monetize your blog and get traffic on it. We’ll link blog launch profit once it’s ready down below in the description. And again if you guys liked this video, comment below and let me know if you guys are trying to monetize your blog subscribe hit that bell button to be notified of my latest videos and I’ll see you guys in the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai