How To Monetize Your Blog (29 ways)

If you been wondering on how to monetize your blog and how to make profitable, then you have come to the right place !

There are various methods that you can use to monetize your blog. Depending upon your level of blogging and the kind of blog, you could pick the method that matches your style.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

When you think of how to make money blogging, advertising is often the first thing that comes to mind.

Apart from the traditional forms of advertising, you can work on other monetization tricks. Instead of just adding ads, work on adding value for your advertiser.

Yes, it is possible to make money with ads on WordPress, but there are also other ways you can monetize your blog content. 

Here are a few methods that work:

• Ad Networks like AdSense
• Direct Advertisements
• Affiliate marketing
• Native Advertising
• Paid reviews/Sponsored posts
• Sell Digital products (eBooks, Blueprints)
• Launch an Online Course
• Offer Online consulting
• Offer Services based on your skills

Do check the end of this article to get the answers to many important questions asked by bloggers like you.

Once you make some money with your blog, it’s wise to start investing more to keep growing. 

1. MAKE MONEY WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate marketing is the way a lot of bloggers are making millions of dollars every year from their blogs.

what is affiliate marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service to your audience using special tracking links, and then get a referral commission for every time someone buys after clicking your link.

Affiliate programs work based on cost per acquisition or conversion rates, which means that the payout can vary based on the product.

A real-life example of affiliate marketing would be when you help a friend open a bank account at your bank branch. Usually, they give you a gift card or a bonus of some sort.

Similar to that, many products and services online have affiliate programs that you can join. There are affiliate programs available for every industry (niche).

Affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money because you can promote a wide variety of products. Just about every popular store like Walmart, BestBuy, Amazon, and others has an affiliate program.

Here are some of the popular Affiliate marketing marketplaces that you could join:

• ShareASale
• PartnerStack
• ImpactRadius
• Awin
• Amazon Affiliate Program
• Commission Junction

Another great thing about Affiliate marketing is that you can use this technique on any blogging platform such as BlogSpot, Wix, Squarespace, Medium, or even LinkedIn. 

However, I prefer self-hosted WordPress, as it gives better advantages over other blogging platforms.

All you need to do is, share your unique affiliate link of the product you are recommending, and when someone makes a purchase, you will end up earning a huge commission on the sale amount.

To learn more, see our beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing and also check out these affiliate marketing tools and plugins that will help you increase your earnings.

Once you have selected the products to promote, then you can use a WordPress plugin like PrettyLinks to manage your affiliate links.

It allows you to quickly insert links into posts, create branded links, auto-replace keywords into links, and even see how each link is performing on your site.

With so many companies offering referral programs to help spread the word about their digital product or service, the number of different affiliate marketing opportunities is enormous.

Joining an affiliate network such as CJ Affiliate, ClickBank, eBay Partner Network, or ShareASale is one way to begin tapping into this revenue stream and start earning extra income from your hard-earned organic traffic.

Where do I Find Affiliate Programs you may ask ?

Let’s review some of the most popular options.

Amazon Associates

You can apply to Amazon Associates. Not everyone knows this, but if you link from your blog to a particular product on Amazon and a reader from your blog clicks on that link and purchases it, you’ll make a commission from that product.

Share a Sale

The first is ShareASale.com. This is an affiliate network of many companies that have joined and hosted their affiliate programs to get an affiliate link with the platform.

This is an excellent option if you’re just getting started because you can find many different companies in a different blogging niche that’ll complement your efforts if you haven’t found the right products to promote.

One benefit of this platform is that you can apply to multiple programs and then manage it all from one interface after joining.

CJ.com

Next is the Commission Junction. This is another affiliate network where you can manage everything in one place. This is one of the oldest affiliate networks out there.

Use Google

If you like a product or service and want to recommend it to people, but you also want to make money blogging from blog monetization, check with a simple Google search.

Just type in the company name along with “affiliate program,” and most of the time, they’re already going to have an affiliate program for you to join. 

If you started a finance blog, for instance, there are almost no Amazon products that are a good fit for you, but a Google search would show dozens that are.

How do you get started with affiliates? It’s pretty easy.

1. Grow your blog to 250-500 visits/day

Generally, you want to have about 250-500 people visiting your blog daily. It would be best if you had this because you have to have some traffic to get approved for an affiliate program.

Otherwise, they’re going to look at your blog and think, “Well, you don’t have traffic, so we’re not going to approve you.” So then, you won’t even have the chance to sell anything.

2. Make a list of products that you use 

If the traffic is there, I advise you to make a list of products you use or things you’re a big fan of and figure out if you want to sell them on your online store.

I like this approach because you’ll have personal experience, so it’s much easier to create blog content as you’ll already be an expert.

3. Sign up for affiliate programs

You can sign up for all the different affiliate programs. Just let them know a little about you, your website, and how it’s growing, and you’ll usually get accepted to those programs.

It takes about 5-10 minutes to apply to each affiliate program, and the information required is straightforward, and you can add affiliate links to your posts.

4. Create Blog Posts and Content

Keyword research is crucial to a successful blog, so take your time here or hire a keyword research service.

• “Best” Content: This type of content focuses on helping people understand the best options for a specific product. You can do keyword research for each quality of content to see the best options for products you can write about. 
• “Vs.” Content: What you would do here is compare two products together and see which one comes out on top. For instance, I could post Wincher vs. other keyword rank-tracking software.
• “Review” Content: This type of content is created when you want to focus on a singular product and do an in-depth review.

You can review any software that you’re a fan of just make sure they have an affiliate program so you can monetize it.

2. DISPLAY GOOGLE ADSENSE ON WORDPRESS

Bloggers can make money through advertisements. Bloggers can find advertisers who will place ads on their blogs, and in exchange, the blogger will receive compensation for the exposure.

Ads are still one of the top ways to make money online when you have an online platform. It’s easy to monetize your blog with Google AdSense, Ezoic, AdThrive, or other ad companies.

This form of making money blogging is not best  for beginners because you’re most likely not going to have much traffic when you start your blog, and to be successful with display ads, you need a lot of traffic. 

That said, it’s one of the best ways to make truly passive income, so it’s a great way to monetize with the use of ad space, digital products, site visitors, and your online store for recurring income.

You need to have a blog to get approval on these ad networks. They show ads automatically based on the context of your article and also based on user interest. 

Nearly anyone can join Google AdSense and add a Google Ad or two, for example, and you can later grow into more selective networks like Mediavine and AdThrive.

Google Adsense is an easy way to make money from your blog. All you need to do is add a script from Google to your website and display ads.

You will get paid for every time a user clicks on the ad. These are called CPC ads. CPC stands for “cost per click.” 

By displaying CPC ads with Google Adsense, you receive a set fee every time a visitor clicks on an ad. The cost per click is set by the advertiser. 

Most  established  blogs use these methods to monetize as it gives recurring income. Since the ads shown are of high quality, they don’t affect the user experience.

If your blog has less than 300 views/day, then other ad networks are listed here that you can use. However, your goal should be to get AdSense or Setup ad approval as soon as you can.

How to Start Displaying Ads

1. Sign up with a Display Ad Network

The Three Ad networks which are most popular are:

• Google AdSense (Offered by Google)
• Ezoic
• Montag

I recommend that you join Newor Media as it’s the best Google Adsense alternative on the market and I use it across all of my sites as they have the best revenue optimization on the market. 

Are they looking for another Google AdSense alternative? Try Media.net. They also have a large pool of advertisers, and their payouts are good.

2. Put Ads on Your Website

Once you’ve been approved, you need to put ads on your website. This sounds complicated, but it’s super simple.

All you have to do is copy some code that the Ad Media platform gives you, put it onto your website, and they will automatically show the ads on your blog for you with every page view. That’s the beauty of it. It’s a pretty simple process.

3. Promote current content

Next, you need to promote your current content through social media and make sure people know you have this content. Or, if you’re already ranking with SEO, that’s the ideal situation. Consider using some of these SEO tools to help if you’re not.

4. Create new blog content

To make money  with ads you need to create great articles to rank them in search engines. If someone searches for something and you’re at the top of Google, that’s where you want to be as it’ll continuously bring traffic to you without any promotion.

The best thing about these display ads is that they aren’t selling ads from ad networks where you have to go directly and talk to companies to find a way to make ad revenue. 

Instead, you place a piece of code because of these ad platforms, and the ads, such as banner ads and more, will be served automatically without any work.

So you may make some money, which is nice, but overall, you’re not going to make a ton of real money blogging with this your first time. But as your blog grows, this is a great revenue stream.

Another way to earn from advertising is Native ads.

Native advertising has been one of the forefronts of making money from blogging. In Particular, news and job kinds of blogs can make a high income with Native advertising.

There are a few native advertising solutions that are worth your time and effort in implementation.

• Taboola
• Outbrain (High-quality native ads)
• Mgid
• AdSense (AdSense also offers native ads)

There’s no question that AdSense is the best advertisement program for bloggers, but it has some limitations. The biggest limitation is the amount you get paid per click.

If you are using contextual advertisements and are not making enough that way, you should try moving to direct advertisements or affiliate advertisements.

If you manage to grab direct advertisements, replace those AdSense units with direct ads instead.

The best way to get started with direct advertisement is by trying different networks and adding a page on your blog called “Media-kit or Advertise with us” to get new deals.

Normally, we’re not big fans of selling ads on your site as a monetization strategy. You need roughly a million visitors per year for the large ad networks to take you seriously, and affiliate marketing is almost always more profitable and just as passive.

That being said, some niches like recipes, fashion, and news are hard to monetize through many of the other methods mentioned here, and they get LOTS of page views. 

In that case, putting a few banner ads on your site can make sense as a supplementary income source.

USE A WORDPRESS ADVERTISING PLUGIN TO SELL ADS DIRECTLY

Google AdSense is easy to set up, but the amount of money you can earn is limited. Each ad click earning will vary.

Directly selling banner ad space on your website can be more lucrative. Instead of having to rely on an intermediary who takes a cut of the money, you negotiate the price and terms on your own.

Still, directly selling ads takes more work to manage than using Google AdSense. Instead of just adding a bit of code to your website, you’ll have to negotiate the pricing, come up with an agreement and terms, and take care of administrative work like invoicing.

However, using a WordPress ad management plugin can make the process easier. We recommend using AdSanity, it allows you to manage Google AdSense as well as your ads.

To learn more, see our guide on how to sell ads on your WordPress blog.

3. SELL SPONSORED BLOG POSTS

Some bloggers aren’t interested in displaying ads to their audience and wonder how to monetize a blog without ads.

With ad networks, you lose some control over the content displayed on your site. Some readers will get annoyed or offended by ads, and more and more people are using ad blockers which affects your earning potential.

An alternative way to monetize a blog is through sponsorships.

Promoting sponsored blog content is a monetization strategy for bloggers who want to generate income with their blogs.

Sponsored content is a form of marketing that brings brands and bloggers together. It allows advertisers to reach a new audience directly, while it also benefits bloggers who have a platform and readers who value what they say.

A sponsorship works just like it does in sports, TV shows, or other industries. A company pays you to represent their product, talk about it, and promote it to your readers.

To get started, it’s a good idea to put together a one-page media kit that details your traffic stats, social media following, audience demographics, and any other data that will make your site more appealing to advertisers. Then, you can approach companies to negotiate a sponsorship deal.

When publishing sponsored posts, it’s crucial to know about the laws in your area about disclosure.

For example, in the United States, a blogger who publishes a sponsored post must comply with the FTC’s Endorsement Guides. This includes disclosing whenever a post is sponsored. You can do that by adding a sponsored post prefix to your post title in WordPress.

Admittedly, this is something that I’m not a big fan of. However, in my opinion, the risk of being penalized by Google outweighs the benefit of short-term cash.

But the premise is simple.

Once your website has a decent amount of traffic or authority, you will find that people will contact you and are willing to pay you to place content they write on your blog.

While this can be lucrative by itself, with some posts fetching $500+ once you have a reputable site, the risk here is that search engines will see this activity and penalize you.

Technically speaking, Google has created a new tag for sponsored content; this can also include a guest post. However, most people who contact you don’t want that tag applied as it’s believed that it has less SEO value.

That said, if you’re willing to take the risk or have a site that isn’t making money blogging or any other way and you don’t mind risking it, here’s how you can use this strategy.

How to Start Making Money Blogging With Sponsored Blog Posts

1. Build a Website or Blog

The first step to making income from sponsored posts is to start a blog if you don’t already have one. Technically speaking, you could buy a blog/website on Flippa as well, but for a good site, that could be a hefty investment.

2. Grow Traffic and Authority to Your Site

To get individuals and businesses to contact you about placing sponsored posts, you’re going to need to have some traffic or authority on your website.

Generally speaking, creating a lot of good content is important here, but even more important is building backlinks. This is because sites with more backlinks rank higher in SEO tools and are considered more valuable than sites with fewer backlinks. 

So, generally speaking, if you can get your site to a domain rating (an Ahrefs metric) of 40+, you’ll be a target for most businesses.

3. Set up a “Guest Post” Page

One of the most common ways to get a large amount of these inquiries is guest blogging. It is to set up a guest posts page on your site. 

On this guest posts page, you want to clarify that you accept guest posts and include an email for them to reach out to and a form to fill out. Telling folks that you’re willing to take guest posts will significantly increase the number of emails you get. 

While a guest posting can get annoying as many people try to get very cheap placements, many pay a fair market rate.

If you’re wondering why we don’t refer to guest blogging or guest post content as “Sponsored Posts” publicly, it’s because that might get you in trouble with Google which we want to avoid.

4. Respond to Your Emails

Once this is all setup, you’re going to notice an influx of emails coming in from individuals and businesses all over the internet that are looking to get sponsored posts or links placed for their website. 

Of course, it’s in your best interest to respond to these emails, but I have to recommend that you create templates that you can copy and paste every time. This will save you a TON of time, and it’s a good way to filter those serious about the sponsored post opportunity.

What should you include in this email?

• Pricing (It’s best to call the charge for a sponsored post a “publishing fee” as opposed to someone “paying to get guest posts.” Technically speaking, buying backlinks is against Google’s policies)
• Any forbidden link types (Gambling, Casino, CBD, Pornography, etc.)
• A timeframe for the transaction
• Expectations on payment once posted

5. Place the Sponsored Posts

When you and a third party have agreed on your terms and submitted the content, it’s a good idea to review what they’ve written and specifically what pages they’re trying to link to.

Failure to do this could lead you down the path of allowing outbound links on your site that are spammy and could hurt your website’s reputation.

While people will tell you that they just want to get some exposure for the brand, the real goal here for anybody posting on your site is to rank the content they’ve already written on another site.

Sometimes that’s fine, and the content they’ve written is good, but other times this can lead to a bad situation where you’re being asked to link to something you may not otherwise link to.

4. GET PAID TO WRITE REVIEWS

Similar to sponsored posts, you can also make money by writing paid reviews on your site.

This is a slightly different monetization method than a review site with affiliate links, as mentioned above.

Instead, you get to try out products related to your niche for free, and even get paid for writing a review.

The process for doing this can be similar to getting sponsored posts. You’ll want to review products that are relevant to your niche, that your audience would be interested in.

You can approach companies on your own to ask about doing paid reviews. There are also websites like PayPerPost that can help to connect you with businesses that may be interested.

Paid reviews are a great way to boost your monthly income. You can quickly make $10 or more from a small review post.

Here are a few websites to find paid reviews/sponsored content opportunities:

• Famebit (For YouTube channels)
• Izea Pay per post
• Tomoson
• Revcontent

5. EARN MONEY ONLINE BY FLIPPING WEBSITES

If you know how to build a WordPress website, you’re way ahead of most people. Sometimes entrepreneurs like to buy already established websites that they can use for their businesses.

If you can build a WordPress blog and start getting traffic, you can sell it and make money for your efforts.

This requires knowing the type of websites in demand, and how to price and sell them. Websites like Flippa serve as auction sites and brokers for selling websites.

6. SELL YOUR EBOOKS: (INTERMEDIATE)

E-books are an obvious choice for creating digital products. They are relatively simple to write and produce.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, then you can collect some of your old blog posts and turn them into chapters of a book.

If you’re looking for a more low-maintenance way to make money online blogging with WordPress, then selling your digital products may be a good choice.

While you do have to invest the time to create the product up front, after it’s created your work is very minimal.

Once your book is written, you can design a cover using a tool like Canva and create a PDF of your E-books.

If you notice, the business model of top bloggers has to do with selling their products such as an eBook.

All you need to do is pick a topic, compile an eBook on that topic, and put it on sale on your blog or Amazon. Once you are used to this process, you can earn a decent amount of money by selling eBooks online.

Moreover, having your product to sell is the best thing that you can do to generate passive income.

You can compile your articles into a well-structured book and sell it on your blog or on other platforms such as kdp.Amazon.com to earn money. This will also give you the credibility of becoming an author.

One of my most popular books “Affiliate Marketing Book” is also being sold on Amazon and this is adding recurring income.

If you are looking for ways to monetize your blog, making an eBook is a good idea. 

As a blogger, you can write on topics you are knowledgeable about, analyze your own experiences, and share valuable insights with your readers.

If you are not an expert in a given topic, you can do some research and make sure that you become an expert in the field of your choice. Once you have gathered enough information or insights, you can create your eBook and publish it to make extra money.

While it is not difficult to publish an eBook, remember that you should always provide something of value to the reader. Not all books are created equal, so make sure that your book has something in it for the reader and delivers on the promises you make.

You can also write a free eBook to promote your business and sell products. You can use it as a marketing tool, a lead-generation tool, and a sales and conversion funnel for your blogging business.

You can use a freelancing network like Fiverr to get someone to design a book cover. You can also consider selling physical products on your blog using WooCommerce.

Selling digital products on WordPress is easy with a plugin. To get started, you can see our guide on the best WordPress eCommerce plugins compared.

For digital downloads, we recommend Easy Digital Downloads. It’s relatively easy to use and includes all the features you need to create your online store.

How to Start Selling Digital Products

1. Choose a product complementary to your site visitors for blog traffic

Figure out who your demographic is and think about what they need.

Therefore, it would make sense for me to have an eBook on the best practices for digital marketing and affiliate marketing and other blogs, for example.

You have to take some time at this step to understand your audience better and figure out what they want. This can be difficult because you don’t have much of an audience to speak with if you’re starting.

So, how can you do it? Simple.

Use analytics to understand your most popular post(s) on your blog and create an informational product that people who visit those posts would be willing to buy.

Just look at what blog topics and posts are driving traffic to your blog and figure out how to make a product that fits what your website visitors are looking for.

2. Create an outline

Next, you need to create an outline for your book, plans, instructions, PDF, or whatever you’re making. For this, you need to think from a high level.

Create a full outline that covers all aspects of what your product needs to cover. This exercise will be very important for you to think through every aspect of the final product.

3. Write the info product

Next, you have to write the product info. Again, the best way of doing this is to focus on completing one piece at a time.

I’ve found that the best way to create these types of posts/guides is to work on them each day and not force myself to work on them all at once. If I spend too many hours on one piece of content in a given day, I start to lose my creativity, and my writing suffers. So, knowing this, I advise you to create a little bit each day.

4. Choose a place to sell it

Once you’ve created your info-product, you’ll need a way to sell it.

Your website is the number one place to sell your product. Usually, it’s going to be where you’re going to be able to make money blogging. 

Having said that, it’s also crucial to have your website visitors safe and make sure their data is secure. The best way to ensure that your customer’s data is not stolen is by protecting it with SSL encryption, which I have on all of my websites.

Though you may have very little traffic, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sell it there; it just means that you’ll have a smaller audience to market to.

 If you want to do this at a minimal cost with a super beginner-friendly platform, consider using Sellfy, which I’ve written a full review about here.

Amazon Self Publishing

If you decide to create an e-book, you can also try selling it on Amazon. Amazon allows you to post eBooks for sale with a platform called Amazon KDP. You have to pay a fee when you sell each e-book copy, but they have a huge audience and market to expose you to, so it’s worth considering.

Because Amazon has such a big market, they can offer a huge audience to purchase your eBook. That’s good, but it will also be much more competitive to get a sale, which is something to consider.

One way to differentiate yourself is to also create an audiobook of the e-book you create and then sell it on Audible, which can be very profitable with the right market fit.

ClickBank

Another place to sell an info product is ClickBank, a popular platform full of affiliates. What you do here is post your product to their marketplace, and this platform has an army of affiliate marketers who will sell it for you.

This is great because if you have an info product that converts and people are buying it, and you offer affiliates enough money per sale, they’re likely to sell it on your behalf.

So though you’ll make less money per sale, you’ll increase your volume significantly, and it can help you grow your brand and the product as a whole.

You could also launch it in all three places if you’d like; there’s nothing that says that you can’t do that. But ultimately, you need to figure out where you want to launch it and go with it from there.

5. Use Gumroad if you sell on your website

If you sell on your website, here’s a little hint—use Gumroad. This platform is nice because it allows you to choose a price for your product, and then people can put in ONLY a credit card, then checkout and download your product info.

It’s fast, and simple, and reduces friction when getting a sale.

The other neat thing about it is that they have the “pay-what-you-want” model. if you’re not sure how much to charge for your info product, you can tell your customers to pay what they want.

If you’re wondering, this model works.

Every week I make a couple of hundred dollars with the pay-what-you-want model, which works beautifully.

The key to the pay-what-you-want pricing model is to point out what the average contribution is. This gives people a baseline of how much to contribute, and every single time you will money this way, it’s been the exact amount that I said was the average.

6. Market your product

Once everything is all set up, the last step to help you with making money blogging is to market your product. There are many strategies to do this, but I think the easiest way to start is to find the most visited pages of your blog and link from there to offers for the info product itself.

In addition to that, you could use social media, like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook groups, or wherever you’re active. It’s a great place to tell people about your info product and hopefully get some people to buy it.

7. SELL ONLINE COURSES

Making money blogging can also be done by selling online courses. That is a great way to make semi-passive income month after month. All you have to do is research what the market needs and what you are good at making.

The more people purchase your course, the more money you can make

This goes without saying, but if you have a blog on a particular topic where you’re getting readers and visitors to visit and they enjoy your content, they’re going to see you as an expert.

When they do that, it’s possible to sell a course to them. The key is to give helpful information to your audience to the point where they follow you and respect your advice. Once they do that, a segment of your followers will happily buy a course that you create.

Selling an online course is another great way to to monetize your blog.

Courses usually sell for a much higher price point than eBooks’. You can charge a premium for your expertise.

You’ll need to create the lessons for your course and any supporting materials you want to include, such as downloads, slides, checklists, templates, etc.

You will also need to decide whether you want to offer personalized support for your course. Some sites offer two tiers of each course: a basic version without support, and a premium version with email support.

• Can you convert your textbook into a video format?
• Can you add the checklist*downloadable templates?*
• Can you create a 1-2 hour video course?

If your answer is yes, then this method is definitely for you. Thanks to technology, launching an online course is easy for anyone, and if you are taking a unique course, your chances of reaching $ 1 million goals are high.

You can use platforms like:

• LearnDash (WordPress)
• New Kajabi
• Teachable

To create and sell your online course.

Once your course is ready, you can use a learning management system (LMS) plugin to deliver the course to your audience.

We recommend using MemberPress since they have a built-in course builder.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to sell online courses using MemberPress.

How to Start Selling Online Courses

1. Choose a topic relevant to your blog

The first thing you want to do is choose a course topic relevant to your blog. You will also be able to generate income with many of your blog’s audience.

2. Outline your course and think of exercises

Next, you want to outline your course and think of exercises for your students to complete along the way.

3. Film your course

Then you’ll want to film your course. It could just be PowerPoints with you talking over them, but frankly, that’s pretty boring.

Don’t be scared to grab your phone and record yourself talking through different things, or you could use a whiteboard—just try to change it up and not use the same format every time.

4. Decide where to sell the online course

Next, you need to decide where to host and sell your course. I’ve broken it down into three different blogging platforms for you to consider that will help you with income streams and creating valuable content.

The first platform that I recommend is a platform called Thinkific. Thinkific is nice because it’ll give you a full-fledged online learning portal for your account, and it’s completely free to start with.

Thinkific

It’s easy to use from a tech perspective. It takes away the stress of wondering where to put your videos like YouTube videos, how to build modules, where to put your exercises, etc. It takes all of the headaches out of the process.

You can’t beat free, and that’s what Thinkific offers. Of course, they earn money when you sell a course, but the cut they take is very reasonable.

Use your website.

Another way to sell your course is to do so on your website, which is hard because you’ll have a limited number of people when you start. However, it’s nice because you’re able to push them from your blog content directly to purchasing the course right from your website seamlessly.

The other good thing is you’ll usually have a higher price point because there is no middleman to take a fee when it’s on your website.

Udemy

The next alternative to that is Udemy. Udemy is a huge marketplace for courses. It’s a great place because it has a huge amount of students.

There are millions of students there, and they’ll even market your courses for you if they’re good. The problem with Udemy is that the entire student population is trained to buy courses for $10 each.

Because Udemy was built out as a discount platform, most students (including myself) will just wait until the courses go on sale for $10, which is often. That’s the biggest problem as an instructor on the Udemy platform. Your courses will be sold for a fraction of what they’re worth.

I like this platform as a student, but I’m not a fan of it from an instructor’s perspective.

After you’ve chosen where you want to host your course (I recommend that you use Thinkific), then you can set up the course and go through the process of uploading videos, practice materials, exercises, and everything you need to create the course.

Promote your course

Once you’ve created your course, which is the hardest part, you have to promote it. You can use your profitable blog to tell people about the course and link to it.

But it doesn’t just stop there. You can promote your course anywhere your target audience is; it doesn’t matter. The key is to make them aware of the course and give them the ability to access it -a monetization strategy and income stream.

I like to create free content that’s helpful on my blog and then give potential students a way to opt in (usually in the form of a website pop-up) and become subscribers to my email list using ActiveCampaign.

From there, I focus on email marketing and start delivering emails that deliver value, and eventually, I’ll pitch my full course. For me, this works well, so it’s what I recommend to others.

That said, many people will use a webinar platform and drive ads to a webinar they host and try to sell the course there. This can be expensive and has a learning curve, but once you figure out a sales funnel for people to go into and end up as a conversion as a new student, this is a great way to passive income on autopilot.

Keep in mind that once you have an established reputation and your course has positive reviews, you may want to look into contacting influencers in your niche to offer them an affiliate commission if they get people to purchase your course from you.

Most of the people making a lot of money from their blogs are doing it through online courses.

And it’s not only business or wealth-focused topics that are doing well. You can find successful blogs on just about any topic or niche monetizing with online courses. 

Online courses and workshops can bring in one-time payments or, depending on your model, recurring income via subscriptions.

8. HOST A PAID WEBINAR

Webinars are a great way to build your audience, share your experience, and grow your business. But did you know they’re also a smart way to make money online?

Webinars are similar to online courses, but a webinar is live and often includes a question-and-answer section.

WordPress makes it easy to host a paid webinar. Whether you’re using your site to actually host the webinar, or just to advertise your webinar and register participants, it’s crucial for your webinar’s success.

10. OFFER FREELANCE SERVICES

If you’re looking for easy ways to make money blogging, selling freelance services is the fastest way to get started. There’s no upfront investment in creating a product or investing in inventory.

As a blogger, you’re already an expert in your niche. You can start earning an income by offering your skills and expertise as a freelancer.

If you’re a freelance writer, designer, photographer, programmer, or other service provider where your skills can be sold digitally instead of you having to be there in person, you might want to consider this income stream from day one. 

Freelancing is a popular way to make money online because it doesn’t necessarily require any upfront investment of time or money. You can just start offering your services to your current audience.

Launching your own services is pretty easy. All you need to do is create a page on your blog and list the services that you are offering.

Make sure to place the link of that page in your blog navbar and prominent space for maximum visibility.

Make it easier for your audience to contact you and inquire more about your services. As you deal with your first 2-3 clients, you will have ample ideas to improve the sales process of your services. You will be able to automate some of the things like payment and follow-up.

Once you start freelancing, you’ll need a way to invoice and collect payments from your clients.

We recommend using either WP Simple Pay or FreshBooks, but there are also other invoicing plugins for WordPress.

Typically, you’ll make more money freelancing than with anything else, but it’s also the most draining and time-intensive.

Here are a couple of ways that you can do this:

• Freelance writing – This is a way to make money blogging if you love writing. You can find freelance jobs online or through referrals from other writers. You will get paid per article or word.
• Freelance editor – You rewrite website content, sales pages, or even emails as a freelance editor. By rewriting the content, you help your client to attract more readers or customers.
• Website development – You can help people set up their website, help them with tech problems, or do one of the many other things related to website development. Pick the one you’re good at and enjoy.
• Coaching – You can coach other bloggers or writers on how to get to where you are today.

Selling services is a great way to make a living on a blog. You can use your blog as a portfolio for all of your work, and you can also create additional income streams by charging for various services.

It might be the expert advice you provide, an online training you give, or a coaching program you have. The sky’s the limit for this revenue-generating option.

Some people prefer to create their content, while others prefer to promote other experts’ work. The best way to determine what you should do is by figuring out your strengths and what niche you are passionate about.

If you’re interested in freelancing to make some serious money online, then see our list of the top tools for WordPress freelancers, designers, and developers for help getting started.

Becoming a Freelance Writer

Think of your blog as your resume. As a beginning blogger, you’re using a blogging platform to write and post every day, which is great. 

Hopefully, you’re doing a really good job, contributing a lot, and showing your expertise. But this same blog can be used to make money blogging as a freelance writer.

When looking for freelance writing gigs, you want to focus on blogs in the same, or possibly a shoulder, niche.

The same niche is tough because you don’t necessarily want to write for your competitors.

Instead, you could do a shoulder niche.

1. Choose a focus

First, you need to choose a focus. Don’t be one of those writers who says, “I can write on any topic.” Nobody wants that; they want you to be a niche writer with expertise.

For example, pets are a perfect niche because there’s a lot of work out there for that one, and it’s very much in demand.

2. Find jobs

From there, you need to find jobs. There are a few different places to go for this:

Upwork

You could try Upwork, which is a huge marketplace for freelancers. This is where many people, like myself, go to hire writers.

Facebook Groups

Or, you could look at Facebook Groups. There are a lot of them out there, so you can go ahead and join some of them.

Professional network

You could also talk to your professional network to see any opportunities.

Just tell folks you’re connected with that you’re working on becoming a freelance writer, and if you’re a respected expert/writer, they’ll likely take you up on the opportunity if they need the help.

ProBlogger

If you don’t want to reach out to your network, you can also watch for job listings on ProBlogger. In addition, they have their job board, which is a great place to find writers for people like myself who are looking for them.

Work for an agency

You can work for an agency. There are many agencies out there where all they do is help people create content for their blog or website.

You could work for them part-time or full-time. The thing about this is, that you’re not going to make as much money because you’re working for them.

However, it’s still a good way to get your foot in the door.

Craigslist

Lastly, you can apply for writing job positions on Craigslist in the gigs section. This is a highly underrated resource as many small local businesses like finding writers in their area.

3. Build your portfolio of clients

What you need to do from there is build a portfolio of writing clients to make money blogging. Then, start creating examples, creating content for other people, and putting a portfolio together. Then, as you become a more seasoned freelance writer, you can start charging more for your services.

Once you have those writing samples and happy clients, people will be willing to pay you increased rates.

Then you can either ask your old clients for a raise, or you can start to drop the clients and look for new ones. Over time you can make a good amount of money blogging as a freelance writer.

11. START YOUR OWN CONSULTING BUSINESS

Next on how to make money, blogging is consulting—and this is pretty simple if there’s a specific skill you have. For instance, I’m in the online business and internet marketing blogging niche.

The point here is that if you have a profitable blog on a specific marketable topic, you can offer yourself as a consultant for different businesses. 

Landing clients is the hardest part, but if the content on your blog is attracting the right people, it can be done.

Consulting is another way to make money online from your blog and share your expertise.

Instead of offering your services, a consultant offers advice and strategy so that their clients can become more effective.

As with freelancing, there is no startup investment. You can start offering consulting services on your existing blog. All you need is to create a page with a form so users can request more information.

To easily create a professional, mobile-friendly form, we recommend WPForms. You can see this tutorial on how to create a request for a quote form in WordPress to get started.

Start Consulting!

1. Ask your current or most recent employer

Your current or most recent employer is a great way to start. For example, if you want to leave your job and get into blogging full-time and have a certain skill your employer needs, you can put in your two weeks and explain that you’d love to continue as a consultant if they have you.

2. Choose a specialty

When you’re doing consulting, you need to pick a specialty to help you make money blogging from your expertise. This is usually related to what you do professionally, but it doesn’t always have to be.

For example, let’s say you’ve been an accountant for seven years but have a passion for health and nutrition. Your specialty could be online personal training, and after you use a standard website builder or a website builder for trainers to create your site, you can jump into it.

Even though you may not be as credentialed in that as you are in accounting, as long as you’ve studied the subject, you’ll know more than most people.

But frankly, the easiest way to have quick success is to choose something related to the job you have.

Back to the accounting example, you could create a YouTube channel giving accounting tips or do any of these other side hustles to make extra cash.

Wherever you’re employed, there will be skills you have that are sought after, so select a blog topic that you already understand that will engage your site visitors.

3. Put a form on your website for people to contact you

For people to contact you about consulting, you have to have a WordPress plugin contact form (duh).

There is plenty of a wide variety of Contact Form WordPress plugins to help with this, but I’m a fan of Contact Form 7 myself. It’s free, lightweight, and easy to use.

4. Market yourself

Next, to make money blogging, you want to market yourself with social media and your blog. For social media, you can put it on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, or wherever else you have a presence. For your blog, you can put your consulting service offer in the navigation or even have it on your blog’s homepage.

Make it clear that you offer to consult and create content your ideal customer wants to read.

5. Gather leads and choose the best fit

Once you have a blog up and have spent time creating content, you will start getting people contacting you looking for services and enquiring about making money. From here, you need to gather those leads and determine who is the best fit for you as a consultant.

This isn’t easy to determine at the start, so begin by landing your first few clients to see what you like/dislike about them and the whole aspect of working with others.

6. Do your best work

Make sure that whenever you have a new client, you do your best to make them happy. This should go without saying, but it’s really important because word of mouth will grow your consulting opportunities. They’re much more likely to refer you to other people if you do a great job.

Offer a Packaged Service

This is like consulting, but a little bit different.

A packaged service will be something where you advertise on your blog and say, “Hey, I can do this particular thing for you every month on a retainer.”

A few examples would be;

Social media services could handle a company’s Instagram or Pinterest account.

You could also offer writing services such as content production or copywriting.

Or, you could offer a virtual assistant package (or go work at a virtual assistant service) and offer a package like;

XX hours a week/month for X amount of dollars.

How to Start Offering Packaged Service

1. Figure out a fixed cost that works for you

First, you want to figure out a fixed cost for your services that you’re happy with.

For example, if you’re doing Pinterest management, figure out exactly what you’re going to do and then figure out a fixed cost related to your deliverables.

2. Define what the offer is (Set strict guidelines)

Step two to this is defining what the offer is. Make sure you set strict guidelines and tell clients exactly what they will get. If you don’t tell them exactly what you’re offering, they may expect more, which is not a good situation to be in.

3. Create a page on your website navigation

Next is to create a page on your website or blog in the navigation bar to ensure your blog or website visitors are aware of it. You also need to insert calls to action throughout the pieces of content you write to draw attention to the offer.

4. Market your offer in future blog posts and on social media

Market your service in future blog posts and social media—get the word out there. Put it in the content you already have, but also make sure you market it in future content you’re creating.

5. Get clients for monthly retainers

Sign your clients up for a monthly retainer.

Try to get them on the hook for a specific outcome each month for one particular amount of money.

Take on as many clients as you want, but make sure you do high-quality work. If you do that, they’re going to start referring other people over to you, and you can eventually get paid more money from happy clients.

6. Increase price over time

Once people are referring clients to you, and they’re okay with your price increases, you’re in really good shape because you can start selectively about who you work with.

As you get better at what you do and become a more seasoned provider, you might outsource the services and grow a whole business where you employ others and create your mini agency.

12. BECOME A COACH

If “consultant” doesn’t feel like the right title for you, you can consider becoming a coach instead.

A life coach offers advice, guidance, and accountability for setting goals and improving one’s life. There are also other kinds of coaches, such as blog coaches, writing coaches, and more.

Whatever your area of expertise is, you can provide one-on-one help to your audience with coaching sessions.

To save time and make things convenient for your clients, you can set up a booking form so readers can schedule coaching sessions right from your WordPress blog.

See our list of the 5 best WordPress appointment and booking plugins to get started.

How to Start Coaching Others

1. Have some measured success first

First of all, have some level of measured success before you go down this path.

Again, make sure that you have some level of measured success to know what you’re talking about and give good advice to other people.

2. Focus content strategy on people who need help

If you have some success, you want to take your blog and focus your content strategy on people who need help. Then, you need to write blog posts that answer their questions (aside from money blogging FAQ and content).

Focus on stressful issues they may be dealing with.

Try to think like them and figure out what they’re dealing with. Then, tailor your content strategy to solve their problems.

3. Offer personal help and link to your contact page

Hopefully, they will come to your blog from search engines, and you can offer personal help and a link to a contact page where they can then click and fill out their information to send an email over to you to make money blogging with your help from other people.

4. Receive emails and offer services

From there, you receive their emails, and you offer your services to them. You could do a packaged deal, but it depends on what you want to do.

When you consult  you can have one initial call at a reasonable price and understand the person I’m talking to.

After that, you will offer them a session package.

I start with the initial call and typically sell packages of three calls after that. But, to be honest, especially in the online business space, to help people achieve success, I need to speak with them multiple times anyway.

5. Don’t answer everything—point out things they will need in the future

In that first call, make sure you answer their questions and find out other things they need from you in the future. You need to say, “Okay, you have these things figured out, but we also need these five other things.”

To get these five other things, you’ll need to have more calls because, frankly, you couldn’t do it all in one hour anyway; it would just overload them.

6. Book clients, treat them well, and referrals will come

Next, like most bloggers, you need to book clients, treat them well, and follow referrals. Just like anything in business, if you help them, referrals will come to you.

Make it an effort to overachieve and truly help people. If you take that approach, you’ll be able to enjoy the work and make a living.

13. GET PUBLIC SPEAKING GIGS AS AN INFLUENCER

If your blog takes off, and you start being recognized as an authority in your space, you might be surprised by how many invitations you get to speak at conferences. And it’s amazingly profitable. 

You can utilize this recognition to get some public speaking jobs. Many bloggers make a lot of money by speaking at conferences.

If you are good at networking and public speaking, then you will be able to find lots of new opportunities on the way. Speaking at events whether you are paid or not helps you promote your blog and your brand. 

Here are some general tips you need to keep in mind if you want to make money as a paid public speaker.

• Be an expert in your field. If you don’t have enough knowledge/skills at the moment, then start learning right away.
• Be consistent – You need to continuously promote your expertise on the topic through your blogging and social media activities.
• Let people know that you are available. You can announce on social media or privately reach out to event organizers.
• You may not find paid public speaking gigs right away. Many successful speakers start their public speaking careers at smaller, more casual, and free community events and meetups.

14. CREATE RESTRICTED MEMBERS ONLY CONTENT

If you’re not interested in selling ads or sponsored posts, there are plenty of other ways you can earn money online from your blog.

A popular method is by having your audience pay to access certain content or areas of your site. Here are a couple of ways to do that.

Your most loyal readers are huge fans and may be willing to pay to read more of your work. You can create a members-only area for them to share more in-depth blog posts, downloads, videos, audio content, and more.

Membership sites can be a big-time investment since you must continually create premium content for your paying members. But they can be very lucrative because they are recurring revenue (subscriptions).

If the content you create is valuable to your audience, they may be willing to pay or subscribe for access to it. That said, multiple great paywall solutions will help you get started.

A paywall is usually popular on news sites but is getting increasingly more popular with any kind of content site. It’s software that shows a preview of your content but prevents the reader from seeing it fully without first paying and/or subscribing to your platform.

This is like having a membership site, but it’s much simpler for you and your subscribers as it takes a lot less effort for your visitors to pay for the content, which equates to more revenue and higher conversion.

So, if you are writing about niche topics, have a very niche audience like what you’d see in poetry, run a small news publication, have a premium podcast, or any other valuable content on your site, a paywall might be the best monetization method for you:

• You get full control of your income and don’t have to rely on 3 parties, like ad networks.
• You can stick to what you already do well – creating high-quality content.
• You get to know your readers as you can collect subscribers’ emails and get in touch with them for feedback, upselling, etc.

How to Start Creating Membership Community

1. Figure out the incentives

First, you need to figure out the incentives for your membership.

One incentive might be that you offer a group mastermind with a group of people, and you could hold office hours every week. Or, you could give them offers to access special tools. Of, you could provide them with access to exclusive content.

There could even be courses, a podcast, or info products you’ve created within the community. You have to offer them some value and consistently deliver it, so they want to stay part of the membership community.

2. Choose a platform

In terms of the platforms, there are two that I like.

Facebook Groups

First, you can use Facebook Groups. Just create a group and pay every month to maintain their membership there.

It can be a bit of a headache because you have to make sure they are paying their fees, and you have to check all that manually, but it’s a simple solution.

I’m also not in love with this solution because it’s built directly on Facebook. This is fine now, but they may eventually start charging group owners to maintain the platform.

LearnDash

The other platform you can use is called LearnDash. This learning management platform allows you to create an info product or course, and then you can create a community all around that.

It’s really good for WordPress blog websites and is a solid option, but you’ll need to make an info product to draw people in.

3.Choose a paywall platform

You will need a paywall platform on your site that can handle all subscriptions and sales for you. There are multiple good ones available, but I recommend Zlick Paywall for this type of monetization. It’s a very user-friendly and simple-to-use platform that allows you to sell both single items and subscriptions to your content.

Click claims to have the best conversion rates due to large-scale A/B testing of their platform and we can assure you that the process to buy or subscribe with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or any card, is smooth and straightforward.

The platform takes about 10 minutes to set up and you’ll get access to multiple tools like sales analytics, CRM, and newsletters. There are no upfront fees and they only charge 5% from the transactions.

You can easily create a membership site using a WordPress membership plugin. We recommend using MemberPress, it is the most beginner-friendly and robust membership plugin for WordPress.

4.Set up the paywall

Set up your pricing, customize the paywall to match your site’s styles, and choose which content will be monetized. The best paywalls are very user-friendly, and this should be a quick process for you.

Once everything is set up, go live. You can start earning your first income after 10 minutes.

5.Market the platform to your audience

After you’ve done everything up, then you’ll want to market the platform to your audience. Through your blog posts, website, email list, or navigation, let your audience know that you have a community and want them to be a part of it.

Keep doing what you are already doing to bring new traffic to your site: SEO, social media, email, or any other campaigns. Note that the best paywalls are SEO friendly, so they will hide part of the content from visitors but will show it fully to search engines.

6.Sign up for recurring billing

Next, make sure that your audience signs up with recurring billing. This is key because you want to keep getting money month after month from all the different people joining, and you can develop a blogging business.

7..Provide value and encourage engagement

You also need to provide value and promote engagement. If you don’t do that, people aren’t going to stay, and if people don’t last, you’re not going to get paid. So, you need to make sure you always provide value, as many successful bloggers do.

8.Review your sales numbers

Make sure to keep an eye on the sales and see what kind of content gets bought or subscribed to the most. This will help you cater to the interests of your readers and convert more visitors to subscribers.

15. CREATE A PRIVATE FORUM

Another option for creating a paid membership site is to create private forums that users must pay to get access to. 

Forums are a great way for your audience to get one-on-one advice from you. Other members of the community can also interact and help each other out.

While moderating a forum can be a lot of work, a paid forum is a great way to earn recurring revenue from your WordPress site.

To get started, you’ll need to set up a forum on your site. 

16. CREATE A QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS COMMUNITY

Question-and-answer communities like Stack Exchange and Quora are huge. They help you build an online community that is driven, motivated, and highly engaged.

Just like forums, you will have to spend some time building a sizable community. After that, you will be able to monetize user-generated content on your website using advertisements, affiliate ads, and other methods.

17. CREATE A PAID BUSINESS DIRECTORY

Web directories may make you think of the early days of the web before bots started indexing everything automatically, but they’re not completely obsolete. Some famous website directories include Yellow Pages, Yelp, and Angie’s List.

Generic web directories are no longer necessary, but local or niche directories can be extremely useful. For example, you can create a real estate directory for your local community.

Directories might gather reviews of local businesses, share the best podcasts on a given topic, or list the best products in a certain niche.

You can easily create a web directory in WordPress following our tutorial. There are also plenty of directory plugins for WordPress you can choose from, many of which allow you to accept payments with submissions.

Create a Directory Website With WordPress

Another option for making money online with WordPress is to create a directory or listing website. You can then charge visitors to advertise their listings on your site.

How to Start Creating a Paid Directory

1. Find local businesses related to your blog that advertise on Google

The way it works is that you find local businesses that advertise on Google.

As an example, let’s say you have a fitness blog (If you don’t but want to make one, this list of Fitness blog names can help).

Go into Google and search “gyms.” Then, you would look through the results to find different gyms advertising on Google.

2. Gather data about the businesses and create a directory

From there, you gather data on the companies that would be helpful for somebody who’s looking for a gym. Then, put that all together and create a directory on your website with their info.

3. Contact them to confirm their info

After you have built the directory, you contact them and ask if they can verify their information. They’ll let you know if all is good or if you need to change something.

4. Let them know of paid placements

Once they have confirmed the information, then you tell them, “Okay, great. And just so you know, if you want to move to the top of the page and get a paid placement, it’s $XX per month. If you want to get to the top of the page, I can help you out with that.”

If you can get that particular page ranked high on Google, you can make a good amount of money with a page on your blog.

18. CREATE A WORDPRESS JOB BOARD WITH PAID SUBMISSIONS

Another option is to create a paid job board. Companies who want to advertise an open position to your audience can pay you to submit a listing.

It’s easier to create a successful job board if you narrow it down to a specific niche. That way you can become the go-to site for anyone looking for a job in that industry, with minimal competition.

This works great for established blogs in a narrow niche.

19. START AN ECOMMERCE BUSINESS WITH WOOCOMMERCE

Have an idea for your product? Why not start your online store?

WordPress makes it easy to create a shop or even add a shop to your existing blog using the free WooCommerce plugin.

Starting an online store can be a lot of work since you need to create or buy the products and then ship them out yourself.

But selling physical products can be a rewarding experience, and sometimes a physical product is exactly what your audience wants.

To get started, see our tutorial on how to start an online store with WooCommerce.

You can also use Shopify or BigCommerce as a WooCommerce alternative.

20. CREATE A WORDPRESS EVENT CALENDAR WITH PAID SUBMISSIONS

Instead of a job board, you could create an event calendar where you charge people to advertise their events. This also works well if you already have an established audience, because businesses will be willing to pay to reach your audience.

A paid event calendar is a good monetization method for local or industry-specific websites. You might choose to advertise events in your local city, conferences in a certain industry, or even webinars or live-streaming events.

21. CREATE A WOOCOMMERCE DROPSHIPPING STORE

Drop shipping is another way you can create an eCommerce store on your WordPress website without having to handle inventory or ship items yourself.

With drop shipping, you create the store, manage the website and customer service. But a drop shipping service will take your orders and ship them out to your customers. They’re an invisible third party that your customers don’t even know about.

You can use the WooCommerce plugin to create a drop shipping store. There’s also a WooCommerce Drop shipping addon plugin that allows you to automate the process.

Create an Online T-Shirt Store with WordPress

Creating your t-shirt shop is easy with WordPress. Almost everyone wears t-shirts, so opening up a t-shirt shop is a great way to monetize any kind of blog. Designing t-shirts allows you to be creative and offer something unique to your audience.

It’s easy because there are services out there that allow you to upload your designs, and they print/ship them for you. You get a profit share.

You can easily create your t-shirt shop on your WordPress site using the WP-Spread plugin by Spreadshirt.

If you want a faster solution, then you can use a Shopify store that connects with dozens of t-shirt printing companies.

23. CREATE AN AMAZON AFFILIATE WORDPRESS SHOP

One downside of drop shipping is that you have to find a good supplier, which can be a challenge, and sometimes you have to place a large order upfront.

This can make it difficult to get started without investing a lot of money.

If you want an easier way to set up an eCommerce site without having to ship products yourself, then you may want to try an Amazon Affiliate shop.

As with many of the items on this list, this works best if you specialize in a niche. If you offer everything, it’s impossible to compete with a big shop like Amazon. But in a small niche, you can differentiate yourself and stand out.

For complete instructions, see our tutorial on how to create an Amazon affiliate store using WordPress.

Offering Platform as a Service

WordPress comes with some incredibly powerful plugins that are full-fledged platforms in their own right.

You can add such a platform to your blog or e-commerce store and offer it as a paid service. You get a cut from each sale, which allows you to earn passive income from user activity on your website.

Create an Online Marketplace Website

An online marketplace is like an eCommerce store where users cannot just buy but also sell their products. Normally, WooCommerce assumes that you run a single-vendor website.

You will need a plugin like WC Vendors to turn WooCommerce into a multi-vendor-capable platform. After that, vendors will be able to register on your site and start selling.

You can make money by charging a commission on each sale, or you can allow vendors to buy membership packages for their listings.

For more details, see our guide on how to make an online marketplace using WordPress.

24. MAKE AN AUCTIONS WEBSITE

An auction website allows users to bid on products to purchase them. This allows the sellers to maximize their profits and customers to find unique deals.

eBay is probably the best example of an online auction marketplace.

You can run auctions on your WordPress website and even allow third-party vendors to list their products as well. You can make money by charging for the listing or by getting a cut on each sale.

To build an auction marketplace with WordPress, you will need the following add-ons.

• WooCommerce (for shopping cart and payment features).
• An auctions add-on
• A multi-vendor add-on

For step-by-step instructions, see our guide on how to build an eBay-like auctions website using WordPress.

25. CREATE A JOB MARKETPLACE WEBSITE

Unlike a regular job listing website, a job marketplace allows you to make money on each job listing. Fiverr and UpWork are probably the best examples of online job marketplace websites.

You can promote your job marketplace as a micro-job platform for people working in the same niche as your blog. To make your platform more competitive you can select a very specific niche.

This will help you easily find customers and professionals who are unable to use large platforms because of too much irrelevant competition.

You can charge a small fee for job listings or when a job is completed. More successful completion of jobs will bring you more customers and freelancers in the future.

For details, see our step-by-step tutorial on how to make a Fiverr-like Micro-Job website using WordPress.

26. DEVELOP WORDPRESS PLUGINS

Plugins are what make WordPress so flexible and powerful. Plugins work like apps, allowing you to extend and modify any feature of your WordPress website.

Plugins come in all varieties, from very simple code modifications to complex software applications. If you have a basic grasp of how WordPress works and some simple PHP knowledge, you can create your WordPress plugin.

As a plugin developer, there are many ways you can distribute your plugins. Anyone can submit a free plugin to the WordPress.org plugin directory, as long as they follow the WordPress plugin guidelines. This is a great way to gain experience and build a reputation for yourself as a WordPress plugin developer.

Once you’re ready to start selling premium plugins, you could use your existing WordPress blog to sell them. You’ll want to make sure that the plugin you create directly fulfills a need of your audience before offering it for sale. 

You can create a survey to see what problems they need to solve on their WordPress site, and then create a plugin that solves that problem.

You can then sell the plugin on your site using Easy Digital Downloads.

27. SELL WORDPRESS THEMES

If you enjoy web design and development, you could start creating your WordPress themes to sell.

This requires both design and technical skills. You have to know how to create a good-looking design, and also how to code it for WordPress.

Using a WordPress theme framework such as Genesis can give you a head start. Then you’ll need to design and code a beautiful child theme.

28. SELL GRAPHICS ON YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

If you like design more than coding, another option is to design and sell graphics on your WordPress site.

You can create graphics such as stock images or logos and sell them on your site using an eCommerce plugin. You can also join online marketplaces to sell your graphics as well.

29. ACCEPT DONATIONS

Last but not least, one way you can make money from your WordPress blog is simply to ask for it.

You can begin accepting donations in a few different ways. You could add a PayPal donate button or a Stripe donate button to your website. Or for a more professional look and advanced features like email marketing integration, you could use WPForms to create a donation form on your WordPress site.

Donations are last on the list because of their limited effectiveness, since you have to rely on the generosity of your readers. It’s usually more lucrative to offer them something in return.