This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy for more information.
Just like you, one of the first questions that came to mind when I first started my blog was “how do bloggers get paid?”
I mean who’s paying these bloggers to post and publish their articles?
How are they making money with a blog?
How is this all possible?
Today, I’m going to make it clear and answer your burning questions!
Don’t forget to bookmark this page or save it here on Pinterest so you don’t miss out on this information!
How To Make Money Blogging
Before I answer your questions, I’m going to take a step back and recap the various methods you can use to make money with your blog. They are the methods I personally use to consistently earn over $20,000 per month blogging from home!
There are many ways that bloggers can earn an income online, but I am going to go through these four most commonly used methods:
1. Display Advertising
These are just simply the ads you see when you enter a website’s post or page and here is an example of how that would look on your blog:
How much money you earn with these display ads will depend on the traffic you bring back to your blog. This was one of the first methods I used to make money with my blog, and I applied for Google Adsense when I was a beginner.
I remember earning my first $100 check from Google by using Adsense, which was deposited straight into my bank account. It was an exciting moment because I knew that earning that first income was the first milestone of my blogging journey!
But before you blindly apply for Google Adsense, I highly recommend you to set up your blog properly, and have your pages along with a collection of content ready!
I know many people who make the mistake of applying to Google Adsense immediately because they get too excited, but end up getting rejected because their blog isn’t presentable, user-friendly, or set up properly.
This is something I teach beginners like you in my affordable ebook, The Treasure Map To Blogging Success in 30 Days to help you set up and launch your blog properly right from start! It will also save you months of research and ensure you avoid costly mistakes that beginners commonly make (including myself when I was a total beginner).
The Treasure Map To Blogging Success in Just 30 Days
This is honestly the guide I wish I had when I was a beginner because I remember being totally lost when I was trying to figure out what to do and where to go!
Once you understand how to drive a substantial amount of traffic to your site, you can always consider other options like:
- Monumetric – requires 10,000 monthly pageviews
- Mediavine – requires 50,000 monthly sessions (equivalent to approximately 55,000 to 60,000 monthly pageviews)
- AdThrive – requires over 100,000 monthly pageviews
This is an example of one of my display advertising earnings on Finsavvy Panda, my other blog, with Mediavine:
I personally use Mediavine on my two other blogs because their team is amazing! I plan on staying with them despite having over 100,000 monthly pageviews on each of my other two sites. I highly recommend them once you reach your goal of 60,000 monthly pageviews!
When you have over 50,000 monthly page views, you can expect to earn between $1,000 to $2,000 per month by just having ads on your blog. The earnings could even fall below or rise above this range given the same number of pageviews.
There are a lot of factors that impact your ad earnings and due to its more complex terminology, it is beyond the scope of discussion in this post for beginners. I can always write a separate post about display advertising and how it works if you are interested. Just e-mail me at ling@finsavvypanda.com and let me know.
2. Affiliate Marketing
I earn a majority of my income with affiliate marketing and it’s one of my favorite ways to make money with my blog!
Here is a screenshot of one of my affiliate earnings:
You can think of affiliate marketing as a referral or recommendation of any product and/or services you use.
When you refer that product to your readers, and they actually use what they call your “affiliate link” or “referral link” to purchase the product, you will earn a commission.
Let’s suppose you started a beauty blog and you talk about skincare and makeup products. If you write a review or mention a skincare product that you love to use, and your reader clicks on that link to make a purchase, you could earn anywhere between 2% to 10%. Depending on the affiliate program, if the customer decides to purchase other products using your affiliate link, you’ll still get a kickback on those too.
There are many affiliate programs that you can join, and the commission can range between 1% all the way up to 75%. It varies on the program and type of affiliate.
You can check out here how I made over $15,000 in a single month just by using affiliate marketing alone.
Learn more about affiliate marketing for beginners and how it works here.
PRO TIP: I never recommend total beginners who just started their blogs to jump right into affiliate marketing. Instead, I highly recommend learning how to set up your blog properly and writing valuable content for your readers. Next, learn how to drive traffic back to your blog, so you can start earning with display advertising. These are the first baby steps I recommend taking before diving deep into learning affiliate marketing strategies. You should master one thing before moving onto the next level.
3. Offering Your Products and Services
This is a fantastic way to make money with your blog or website!
Instead of selling other people’s products through affiliate marketing, you can create your own products or services and offer them directly to your readers and followers.
Here are a few examples of products you can create and offer on your blog
- E-books
- Printables (e.g. wall art for home decor or printable binders such as budgeting, organization, meal planners, etc.)
- Online courses
Aside from creating products, you can also offer your services. These services can be 1-on-1 coaching in the area of your expertise. You can hold these coaching sessions in person or through videos if you live far away from the client.
For example, I know many personal finance bloggers who offer coaching to help their readers with their finances. Many people are living paycheck to paycheck and aren’t good with budgeting, so if you are an expert in this field, you can use your blog to gain clients!
4. Sponsored Posts
I personally haven’t done any sponsored posts before because I am focusing my efforts on display advertising, affiliate marketing, and product creation.
There are companies who will pay you a flat fee for writing a review about their product on your blog. If you have an Instagram account, those same companies may also offer to pay you just to mention their product on the platform to your followers. This is called sponsored posts and I know many bloggers who earn several thousands of dollars each month just by writing sponsored posts.
This is a great opportunity for you especially if you are a good and fast writer! That’s definitely not me – haha!
Just remember to only mention products that you true heartedly believe in because if you are doing it just for the commissions, your readers will see that you aren’t being genuine. You don’t want to lose your readers’ trust.
You can land a sponsored post opportunity when you directly reach out to the company and pitch them your ideas.
How Do Bloggers Get Paid?
Now that you have an idea of how bloggers make money with a blog, you are wondering how do bloggers get paid? In what form of payments and how does that work?
The answer depends on the companies and partners you work with.
You can get paid by:
- Direct deposit
- PayPal
- International wire transfers
- Mailed check
Direct Deposit:
With direct deposit, you would provide the company/partner/affiliate/sponsor you choose to work with your banking information.
All the companies, partners, and affiliates that I work with are safe and secured, so there is no concern. It’s like providing your banking information to your company’s HR department because that’s how they can pay you. 😊
PayPal:
If you’re not familiar with what PayPal is, it is basically an electronic eCommerce company that allows you to make and receive payments online.
You can make purchases online with PayPal, and at the same time, you can receive payments from companies as a blogger when you sign up for an account.
According to Investopedia’s definition of PayPal, “This allows customers to establish an account on its platform, which is connected to a user’s credit card or checking account. Once identification and proof of funds are confirmed, users can begin sending or receiving payments to and from other PayPal accounts online or through the company’s app.”
I personally use PayPal to receive payments because it makes transacting very convenient. I also use it to receive payments from my readers who purchase my online digital products such as this ebook here that guides beginners on how to start and launch their blogs correctly.
I recommend opening one after you start your blog. Signing up for a PayPal account is free!
Opening a PayPal account in the U.S.
If you reside in the U.S., it would be no problem finding out how to open a PayPal account there since it’s widely used.
Opening a PayPal outside of the U.S. (i.e. in a different country)
However, if you are trying to open a PayPal account in a different country, I recommend searching “how can I open a PayPal account in…” and fill in your country for specific instructions. For example, “how can I open a PayPal account in Canada” or “how can I open a PayPal account in the UK.”
International bank wire:
Unlike electronic payments like PayPal, these banks can cost a hefty fee. The fee depends on the bank, whether the wire is outgoing or incoming or domestic or international, and the amount that needs to be transferred. I personally haven’t used or come across this type of payment method, but it can and does exist.
Mailed check:
Depending on how you want to receive your payments, some companies give you the option to receive your check in the mail.
Start your blog and make money:
I hope this post helps you understand how bloggers get paid and how they make money with their blogs.
You may also be interested in reading about how long does it take for a new blogger to make money blogging?
Whenever you’re ready to start blogging, you can refer to my step-by-step tutorial here to start your blog! You can start your blog for as low as $2.95 a month when you use this tutorial guide!
Through this tutorial, you’ll get 60% off along with a free domain name! I highly recommend you check it out!
Once you start your blog using my tutorial, send me an email at ling@finsavvypanda.com to let me know! I’d love to hear from you and provide you with my best blogging tips! I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Happy blogging and making money, my friend!
Hi Ling!
I have learned a lot from you! My question is regarding getting more traffic and monetizing my blog. 🙂
I’m currently using the Yoast plugin to optimize my posts for SEO and have been posting once a week. My blog has been up for a little over a month now, but is generating very little to no organic traffic that I can tell. Do you have any tips or advice for what I could be doing differently?
Also, I would really love to be making at least enough to cover the cost of my blog! I’m not crazy about placing ads, but am thinking that might be my only valid option right now, since I don’t have a solid reader base yet? I’m nervous about trying affiliate marketing since so few people are currently reading my blog, I don’t want them to feel “sold to” rather than getting the content they came for.
I could go on, but I’ll stop there for now.
Thank you again for what you’re doing! You’ve been an amazing help already!
Hey Lieren!
It’s good to hear that you have the Yoast plugin installed but that alone will not help you optimize your posts for SEO. If you’re new to SEO, I recommend going through this really helpful article from Moz. It will give you tips on how to use SEO as a beginner:
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
Also, because your blog is SO new (it’s only a month), you won’t be seeing any traffic yet. Getting traffic and building an audience takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. I recommend you continue to write good content while learning the basic SEO tips before you jump into learning how to monetize your blog posts. By focusing on one thing at a time, you will avoid overwhelm. 🙂
I hope this helps!
Hi Ling,
I have read your article completely. Just in 2 days, I have started my new blog. It will be online in few hours. I will also request you to help me to generate high traffic on my blog.
Today, I received your Day 1 email. I will definitely follow your instructions to grow my blog. May your live long….. About 200 years haha
Hi Muhammed
That’s nice to see you started your blog. You’ll need to build a strong blog foundation and set it up properly with content before you learn how to get traffic.
I have this ebook that will teach you how to build a solid foundation for success before learning how to get traffic:
https://www.finsavvypanda.com/blogging-success-ebook/
I see so many bloggers make mistakes and fail because they neglect the first steps and jump right into trying to get traffic (and trying to monetize their blogs) without building great content and building a framework first. This is a very common mistake and I try to help beginners avoid this.
Hello! I would like to ask you something.. I am currently working on a culinary blog and I chose the option of writing it in English, precisely to include a wider number of visitors and gain more traffic. I was thinking of starting working with Google Adsense and later with Mediavine for ad promotion in order to monetize my blog. I have also considered the idea of affiliate marketing but I want to start with baby steps. Now, my question is the following, in order to enroll in the Adsense program, do I need to choose Germany as country of residence even if I write it in English? ..if I monetize my blog, do I need to pay taxes as well? I really hope you can give some directions because I feel stuck right now. Thanks a lot!
Thank you for your response! Have a good day!
I think you should choose your country of residence even though you’re going to be writing it in English. Also, if you’re not getting any traffic yet at the moment, I don’t recommend applying because you won’t earn money without traffic and not worth it. I see many new bloggers apply when they have barely any traffic so I just wanted to point that out. If you’re wondering, I think it will be a good time to apply when you’re getting between 3-6k monthly traffic. Or you can wait to get over 50k sessions and apply for Mediavine but I know many people like to apply for google AdSense first and use it as a motivation – that was me too when I first started.
And yes, you have to pay taxes. With any type of income you earn regardless if it’s blog or not, you’ll allays have to pay taxes. I recommend you consulting with a professional in where you reside for this advice since I don’t specialize in this area.
I hope this helps.
Let me know you progress with your culinary blog! 😊
Hi Ling!
I recently discovered your blog (2 days or so, haha), and I absolutely love it. You are so honest on your speech and I (as a reader) really feel that you are giving me help.
I’m working on my blog, I haven’t done all the Bluehost stuff yet because I’m working on the name and the concept (and saving, haha). But I have a burning question that I’ve not found a solution to though I’ve read and search a lot… mm, nobody seems to be talking about it yet.
I live in Latin America, Venezuela, to be more precise, and as we have a situationship with our economy, we are very restricted regarding Bank accounts and receiving money from other countries. I have a PP account but it’s not verified as you may guess, and you said that all these companies can pay you through PP as long as it’s verified… And there’s the problem.
I know it may not be your expertise and it’s totally fine! But I just wanted to ask if you know any other way of getting paid, maaybe you’ve heard someone talking about it before. Although all you mentioned above was amazing and so well explained.
Thank you and hugs!
Hi Brithney
That’s great to hear you started your blog!! Woo Hoo! 🙂
To be honest, I don’t know the answer to that because I don’t reside there. I do hear many people saying outside of North America that signing for a business PP instead of personal is easier. I know it’s free here in North America regardless if it’s personal or business. You may want to look into opening a business PP and see what happens.
Let me know how it goes with that!!
I hope this helps! 🙂
Hi Ling… I am in Zambia Africa, is it possible to start a blog here in Zambia and how can I be sure that Affiliate companies will be attending to me on time.
Hey Mukuma
Yes it’s possible to start a blog from where you live – I’ve actually seen my readers and many other people do this!
How you get paid will be an arrangement between you and the affiliate program. You will just have to let the affiliate manager know.
I hope this helps and I look forward to you starting your blog – you can use this tutorial and the links in there will give you 60% off. 🙂
https://www.blogsavvypanda.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog-on-bluehost/
Thank you for your great blog post. I have successfully set up my blog through your guidance. My problem is how to grow it and how to increase my Adsense revenue. Thank you.
Hi Oppong
I’m really happy to hear that you’ve started and set up your blog successfully!
I highly recommend learning how to get traffic prior to applying for display ads on your site.
I personally use Pinterest and Google to get traffic. I recommend using this category here to learn more about Pinterest for beginners:
https://www.blogsavvypanda.com/category/pinterest/
No traffic means no potential to monetize, so it’s important to learn how to get traffic first.
Thanks Ling about your information but I need more time to know how to make my own blog and benefit on it.
Take your time to start and build your blog. If you need a tutorial to get started, you can always visit this page where you can get 60% off web hosting using my special link:
https://www.blogsavvypanda.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog-on-bluehost/
Feel free to send me an email when you’ve started your blog using my tutorial page and let me know how it goes! I’m always happy to help! 🙂
Hi Ling! I am new to your page and I have no plan of blogging but after reading some of your posts, I think I want to change my mind. However, I live in New Zealand, how do all these become possible? I mean, I know I can do paypal but can I still sign up with Bluehost even if I am overseas?
Hi April!
I always recommend my readers to give blogging a try to see how you like it! I never imagined myself opening a blog before starting one but here I am! LOL.
And yes, you can start a blog with Bluehost in New Zealand. There are bloggers who start blogs with Bluehost from many different countries outside the U.S. such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, etc. That also includes countries in Europe, Asia, South Africa, and more!
You can use this step by step tutorial to start your Blog with Bluehost:
https://www.blogsavvypanda.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog-on-bluehost/
I have the instructions laid out for registration and payment. Currently, Bluehost allows a list of several countries to pay with their home currency, but if that’s not available, you can still pay for a hosting plan in USD using PayPal or credit card and it should convert your currency into USD while making the payment.
I’m really excited to see you start your blog, so let me know if you have any other questions. I’m happy to help! 🙂
This page was helpful at explaining how bloggers will get paid. Thanks for writing this. I actually have a vacation rental website and would like to write some blog articles and would like to ask you a question. Is that considered a blog that I could monetize? Can I know your thoughts? My website is http://www.lavivienda.com.mx
Hi Shannon
Yes, you can absolutely monetize your blog about vacation rentals. Once the pandemic gets better and people start travelling more, you can consider becoming an affiliate with places like AirBNB. Another way you can monetize is writing blog posts about interior design for vacation rentals and recommend furniture or decor by becoming an affiliate with companies like Wayfair.
I hope that helps! 🙂
Hi!
Earlier this evening, I came across some YouTube videos talking about the use of ClickBank to make some money. If it wouldn’t be any trouble, may you please tell me your thoughts on using ClickBank vs creating a blog?
Hi Brandy,
Just like any other affiliate program or network, you’ll see success when you are recommending the right product to the right audience. I personally haven’t tried Clickbank because the products aren’t the right fit for my audience. I am seeing success with other affiliates I’m with, but again, that all depends on what you blog about and who your target audience is.
I personally recommend using affiliate marketing with a blog because it gives you the opportunity to write reviews and speak about products. I have never used affiliate marketing without a blog. It can also work if you have a YouTube channel and you promote products through your YouTube. I hope this helps!
Hi,
Earlier this evening, I came across some YouTube videos talking about the use of ClickBank to make some money. If it wouldn’t be any trouble, may you please tell me your thought on using ClickBank vs creating a blog?
Hi…
Just a question about Affiliate Marketing. How do you find those companies to partner up with in order to do the affiliate marketing? Is there a website with a library of companies and what they offer, etc?
Thank you,
Metaxia
Hi Metaxia
If you’re a beginner and you just started your blog with no traffic yet, I don’t recommend reading too much into affiliate marketing yet. Affiliates will most likely not approve you and in most cases, if you haven’t made a single sale within the first few months, they will kick you out and you would have to reapply again. However, once you’ve set up your blog with a good amount of content and you understand how to drive traffic back to your site, then you can learn more about affiliate marketing with this article here. I hope this helps!
Hey Ling! This post was really helpful in answering my questions on how I’d get paid as a blogger. Just some quick questions from me. I have recently started my own blog and got my website up and running. I have 7 posts on my website so I applied for Google Adsense on Jan. 15th. It still says they are reviewing my site every time I log into Adsense. Does it normally take that long for them to review a website?
I also was looking into media.net and somehow signed up for it and got approved 🤦♀️ how do you feel about media.net? Can I have both google adsense and media.net? Which would you recommend?
Hey Katy,
That’s awesome to hear that you got approved for Media.net! Congratulations!
I know bloggers who are using Media.net and so far they are okay with it. Keep in mind that Google AdSense and Media.net don’t pay a lot compared to some of the other premium ones like AdThrive or Mediavine. However, they are a great start and experience for beginners to learn how making money with ads work.
When I was a beginner, I used Google AdSense and it was exciting to see that first $100! I’ve haven’t used Media.net before, but I have seen bloggers reporting that they use both at the same time. It’s something you’ll have to speak with your partner about.
And I don’t remember exactly how long AdSense came back to me because it’s been a few years, but I’d like to say up to 14 days? Perhaps they changed it, which I’m not sure. The good thing is you’re with Media.net so I recommend focusing on creating more content and learning how to drive traffic back to your blog so that you can increase your potential traffic earnings. Once you’re able to get at least 10,000 monthly pageviews, you can switch to Monumetic where the earning potential for every 1,000 views is higher. If you can get over monthly 50,000 sessions (about 60,000 pageviews), I recommend applying for Mediavine right away. They have awesome service over there!
I hope this helps!
Hey Ling!
I’m Miguel, I’m recently starting my blogging journey with affiliate marketing and I stumbled upon your blog and I really love everything you write and the information you provide. It has really helped me get a better understanding of how to begin blogging as opposed to everyone else just saying “open a blog! make post get money $$$”
I was reading one of your blog posts BLOG INCOME REPORT: HOW I MADE $4,509.50 BLOGGING IN SEPTEMBER
You had mentioned, “If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you’ll know that I was super depressed about my low traffic.”
I had a little laugh because I remember how it was like when I had my dropshipping store (coming out from the business model and freshly starting affiliate marketing)
I was wondering if you could refer me to that article about your low traffic period and possibly more personal posts if you have any as I would like to know more about your blogging tips and advice!
Also, I hope you don’t mind, I have a question to ask?
Since I’m begging my website and everything, I’ve been focusing more on creating drafts of the blog posts and make a month’s worth of it (around 12 blog posts) before I can continue working on the appearance of the site. My question is if you have any beginners (like…. beginning to write your very own blog post beginners) advice in making them? When people say they start making money a few months in blogging, is it really because the first few months is basically creating the blog and the articles before they can start monetizing?
I wanted to ask based on your advice, you are killing it! Congratulations 🙂
Let me know!
Thank you
Kind Regards,
Miguel Concepcion
Hey Miguel! I’m glad you enjoy the content I put on my blog!
I think the blog income reports where I talked about my low blog traffic was my first one over here. That was a few years ago when I posted my first income report. You can actually check them all out over here in this blogging category posted on my first blog.
It’s quite rare to see people earn money immediately in a few months of blogging because for one, your blog usually needs to be 4-5 months old before you can apply for ad networks and that’s why I always recommend beginners to start their blog ASAP and just let their website age at least 4-5 months even though they just have one blog post published. At least for that period when your website is registered, you can be using that time to set up your site and create content and get it ready. Aside from min. traffic requirements for some ad networks, your website needs to be at least 4-5 months old. Unless the person has experience in blogging, it would be rare to see a total beginner earn money right off the bat with their blog. For example, it took me at least 6-7 months before I started seeing some results with my first blog – it really depends on the individual and many different factors. And when I started my second blog, it was much easier to set up and get content ready for monetizing because I already went through the experience the first time around. Overall, it does take time to set up your blog, write your blog posts, and learn how to drive traffic back to your website for beginners. I hope this advice helps!
Ling, I love this post! Keep up the amazing work!
Blessings,
Hannah
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed this post about how bloggers get paid and make money! 🙂
Hello,
My name is Tina Penner. I have had a blog on Blogspot for many years, but haven’t been faithful at all with posting. I want to change that now and earn money with it. I have heard that isn’t easy on Blogger. I love my blog name though….bits of scrap.blogspot.com. Is there any way I can change that over into Bluehost and delete the one with Blogger? I am so not tech savvy! 🙃
Thank you!
Tina
Hi Tina!
Since you said you’re not tech-savvy, you are actually better off just starting your blog with Bluehost; it’s pretty much like you’re starting a fresh and new account from scratch.
And then what I would do is just copy and paste your articles from Blogspot into your new blog one by one. This is the easiest solution.
One important question is… Are you currently getting a substantial amount of traffic to your Blogger website on a consistent basis?
Because if you are getting a lot of traffic, and you don’t want to lose the traffic, there is actually a set of instructions to follow that will allow you to transfer your blog content onto WordPress powered by Bluehost. I just want you to know that if you go this route, it can be a little confusing because you’d have to re-direct your old links to the new links using a plugin. I am just iffy with plugins because they could cause conflict and it’s best to create the new URL links using your new self-hosted blog by simply copying and pasting the stuff you already wrote. Much cleaner this way without the plugin option.
Once done, you can deactivate your Blogpost account.
Let me know your current situation so that I can better assist you!
I also have this tutorial that guides you on how to start your blog with Bluehost whenever you’re ready:
https://www.blogsavvypanda.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog-on-bluehost/
I am very excited for you and look forward to seeing you start your blog! 🙂
Ling
Hey Ling
Can I get a short answer to my questions?
Q1- How to check if some websites are a fraud?
Q2 – How to upload content on the blog
Q3- How do I convince my parents to let me start a blog and to earn money
Please answer 🙏
Hi Ling,
Thank you for the great content.
In one of the worksheets in the blog booster binder, you have a checklist for a blog post and one of the points ask if the blog contains any affiliate links.
So my question is, should I be looking into affiliate marketing before I post my first blog? Or does that not apply to the first post?
Hi Eliana
I’m glad you enjoy my content!
As for affiliate marketing, I don’t recommend a total beginner who just started their blog to start using affiliate immediately because first of all, you need to apply to programs and companies before you can implement that in your blog. Secondly, you’ll need some sort of traffic before you can earn with affiliate marketing. But of course it doesn’t hurt to learn about it once you’ve set up your blog and have some content.
You can add affiliate strategies to your blog posts later on whenever you feel ready. Just don’t blindly apply for programs because when your blog is too new with no traffic you’ll most likely get rejected. Wait until you get some traffic.
I hope this helps! 😊