Blogging is very much still alive. It’s processes change over time, but blogging still drives brand awareness, traffic, and leads. 

I’ve shared how I make money as a blogger through ads (publishing), affiliate links, courses and webinars, speaking/coaching, sponsors, and services. Now, let’s look at other current bloggers that share their income reports. So how do bloggers make money? 

Many Ways:

1. Ad Publishing
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Sponsorships
4. Coaching
5. Course Sales
6. Services
7. Digital Products

As one of the top tools for building websites, it is easy to set up a WordPress website in 30 minutes or less. Take a look at the steps below! If at any time you feel overwhelmed, contact my brothers. They are WordPress Developers and can help you with your website. 702-917-0755.

If you are confident that you can follow the process to build a WordPress website yourself, you can learn how to build a WordPress website here.

A blog is channel where someone posts content on a regular basis. A vlog is video, and a blog is generally a website, or social channel. 

A blog can be news related, with frequent posts, or informational. 

There isn’t one way to write a blog post. However, there are a variety of blog formats, and framework. 

Generally, a blog consists of a Title, intro paragraph, table of content, multiple subtopics, images, video, and a summary. 

Starting a blog may be exciting and gratifying, but it can also be time-consuming and frustrating if you don’t start it with the proper sort of blog. 

I’m talking about one that you can monetize. Both are essential, in my opinion.

Some bloggers operate their own personal blogs. Some are meant to be kept as a diary. Others are intended for public viewing only, while others are simply for friends and relatives. All of them have a place in the internet world, but not all of them make money!

Here is your road map through the most common types of blogs:

Lifestyle Blogs

These come in a variety of flavors, some have solid themes, and others are less so. They are meant to be precisely what they sound like: very personal blogs about a person’s lifestyle – cooking, fashion, parenting tips, cars, anything that involves the blog owner’s day-to-day life is fair game.

Income often comes from display ads on pages or blog posts that have been sponsored by advertisers who want to reach your readers with their products. These types of blogs usually attract a wide range of advertisers. 

Sponsored posts may also appear within the content or at the end of a post as an “advertorial.”

Finance Blogs

Money blogs are similar to lifestyle ones but have a theme that centers around, you guessed it, money. They often cover topics about saving or earning more of it. These may include “best credit cards” tips and ideas for creating passive income.

Advertising on finance blogs is mostly through banners placed around the main content page. Usually, the ads are related to the topic being discussed in that post. Income can vary greatly depending on click-through rates.

Technology Blogs

These blogs provide information about new gadgets or “must-have” products within a specific category like electronics or software. The authors might be experts in this area and write posts based on firsthand experience using various products available today.

Tech bloggers often make extra income from affiliate links, display ads, and sponsored posts. Many companies want to get the word out about their new products – this is a great way to do it!

Niche Website Blogs

These blogs cover a particular topic in great detail. They are meant for an already established audience looking for useful, informative content on the subject matter.

Income from these sites is usually generated through display ads and sometimes affiliate links if the website is about a particular product or service related to the blog post’s theme. These blogs can also be monetized through sponsorships, ad networks, video syndication, and paid posts.

Entertainment Blogs

This type of blog covers topics that are often found in tabloids or entertainment news magazines like celebrity gossip, red carpet photos, and movie trailers.

 Topics may include reality TV stars or pop culture phenomenons like “Fifty Shades of Grey.” If you’ve been engrossed in the tabloids at your local supermarket checkout line, you know what this type of blog is about!

Often, there isn’t much income coming from entertainment blogs – unless the blogger has an advertising deal with a company like Ezoic or Google Adsense.

The website may operate on revenue generated by display ads and banner networks. In addition, some bloggers are able to monetize their audience through sponsored posts or pay-per-click advertising.

Pet Blogs

If you’ve ever wanted to write about your furry friend, then this is your chance! Pet blogs are similar to lifestyle or entertainment types of sites, but they often cover topics around the readers’ pets.

This type of blog covers anything from training tips to “celebrity” pet news and product reviews. Because pet owners are more likely than any other demographic group to be internet users, these blogs can do well on the web.

These sites usually come in banner ads and sometimes pay-per-click ads if the website receives enough traffic. In addition, some bloggers may also monetize through affiliate links or sponsored posts.

The small pet niche is a popular, income-producing type of blog. The writers cover topics like “what does a rabbit eat” and “where did my turtle go.”

Choose a topic that you know you can blog about daily if necessary. Blogging burnout is a genuine phenomenon!

Don’t worry about coding. You can have someone design your blog for you to fit your personal style, or you could even try blogging on an already-existing blog platform like WordPress, Squarespace, or Weebly.

My brothers Jeff and Paul Helvin at Ballen Brands design WordPress blogs.

You should take it up as a hobby to learn HTML and CSS, but if you really want to start your blog quickly, skip the coding. It’s not worth the time until you know that blogging is really something you want to do for yourself.

Plus, it can be intimidating to try to learn without any context or understanding of why doing so will benefit you.

You can use a free WordPress platform for your blog, but if you want to use your blog for commercial purposes – whether it is through ads or by selling products – then you will need to pay for the WordPress platform. The free version of WordPress is open-source software that encourages users to create personal blogs and websites that are not for profit.

You’ll pay for a host for your WordPress website. A host is an internet server that holds your website files and allows people to access them on the World Wide Web. A host charges a monthly fee based on how much storage space you need for your website.

There are many hosts you can choose from, including big ones like WPEngine or GoDaddy, which also provide top-notch tech support should something go wrong with your blog. Smaller shared hosting plans like the ones at Bluehost tend to be cheaper than large ones because they offer less storage space and bandwidth (how much data you can transfer in a month). They usually run between $6 and $20 per month.

Be careful about using shared hosting plans. You may suffer from speed times that are too slow.

You can also install premium themes which usually require a license order to be downloaded; these typically cost between $35 and $100. Themes are used to design your blog’s look and feel.

There are thousands of free themes, and some offer paid upgrade options. It’s probably best to start with free themes and work your way into paid themes as you discover more about WordPress web design.

There are also WordPress plugins that work with one-time payments or subscriptions.

A WordPress Plugin is software that you can add to your blog to add functionality.

For example, I use a plugin called Link Whisper, which is an internal linking tool that provides recommendations for linking within my blog. It’s a one-time payment each year. While not essential, the plugin aids me in performing daily SEO tasks on my blog.

You can create a successful blog without Facebook, yes. There are many ways to generate traffic to a blog.

When you think of the success stories of startup companies and bloggers, many of them didn’t use social media as a starting point for their websites. In fact, when I started my first blog, there was no social media! (Can you imagine?)

My aim was to be on the first page of Google. It was an exciting period for me as I dominated search with a blog.

I was writing for a few hours daily. I didn’t have much competition! It’s tougher now with so many bloggers.

Facebook is not the only way to promote your blog post socially. LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube, Instagram, etc. are some other options you can try.

Youtube is an excellent channel to start a blog. With its large audience and new content every day, you can keep your blog up to date with videos on a regular basis. If you are comfortable with video or willing to get uncomfortable on camera, this is a great way to start a busy blog.

In addition, Youtube blogs can be monetized. Once you reach 4000 hours of watch time (people watching Youtube because they found your video first), and 1000 subscribers, you can apply to the Youtube Partner Program. This program allows you to monetize your blog with ads and gives you a cut of any sale that happens through an ad click.

You can also monetize your Youtube channel with affiliate income, sponsorships, product or service sales, merchandise, donations, and crowdfunding (crowdfunding is when you ask your viewers to support you with donations or sales of items).

There are downsides to using Youtube for your blog, as well.

First, it is very competitive. Thousands of people try to make money on Youtube every day, so it can be difficult to get noticed.

Second, even when you do make enough money, the payment structure has a lot of rules that have made changing earnings almost impossible.

Thirdly, YouTube does not give bloggers control over their own pages–it all belongs to Google. So if anything happens that makes them unhappy, they’ll just remove everything about you from their site without warning or explanation because “they can.”

But if these drawbacks don’t concern you, you can make a video blog on Youtube.