How to Monetize a Wordpress Blog! [BLOGGING 101]

Blogging used to be something people just did for fun. I can vividly remember when I was young starting one on the Blogger platform just to tell people what I was up to! More recently, people have worked out that running a blog can actually earn you money. Many people now use blog income as their main source, using it to live a digital nomad life! In this article I want to tell you the simplest and best ways to monetize a new Wordpress blog (or maybe one you haven’t had time to monetize yet!).

Before we start, if you are still in the process of setting up your first blog, I have an article that will walk you through this process step-by-step. You can access this article below:

How to set up your first blog.

Method 1: Ezoic Ads

When you visit other people’s websites, I bet you have seen all kinds of ads right! These ads are known as display ads, and are often associated with Google Adsense. The problem is that Google Adsense won’t earn you a lot of money! Thankfully, it is simple these days to get almost any blog onto a premium ads network where you can earn more money.

I personally use Ezoic ads on all of my blogs right now and earn a good income from this alone. The great thing about Ezoic is they don’t require a lot of blog traffic. Officially, they ask for something like 10000 page views a month. However, they often run events where they accept traffic that is much lower.

Here is an example of a site that only gets about 2000 visits a month and is currently earning around $30-40 a month from Ezoic ads. This is more than enough to pay for my hosting costs, making blogging a totally free venture. This is the awesome side of Ezoic ads.

If you want to join Ezoic ads, you can go over to their website and apply HERE.

Method 2: Amazon

The concept of this is pretty simple. Whilst writing blogs, you can recommend complimentary products from Amazon (or even review them). You will put affiliate links in your article and when someone clicks on them and buys the product, you will get a small commission. This works well alongside the above Ezoic ads method, and when both are combined you can get a solid combined income in no time. Some people say that ads will reduce your Amazon affiliate earnings, but I have personally never found this the case. And Amazon is so easy as they have products that relate to literally EVERY niche of blog. And they convert people very well when they are over there on Amazon!

Simply go HERE to sign up for your Amazon affiliate account and get started. I would recommend that you combine this with a tool called Geniuslink. Firstly, they have a Wordpress plugin that will turn any raw Amazon link into your affiliate link. Also, they allow you to send visitors to the correct Amazon store based upon their location (you will need to sign up for each separate Amazon Associates program, though). This makes the process of monetizing a blog with Amazon so much easier and faster. Although this is a paid tool, it is incredibly cheap at the start when you have only a few clicks a month.

You can check out Geniuslink for yourself by clicking HERE.

Here is an example of a small site I currently have on the Amazon affiliate program. This is a mostly informational blog that links out to relevant products within articles. It only gets around 6-8000 visitors a month and is already earning a decent amount. As I said above, when you add this to the Ezoic earnings, it can be an excellent start for even a low traffic blog such as this one.

Method 3: Build an Email List

If you own a blog, one of the best ways to monetize over the long term is by creating an email list. This is done by creating an opt-in form on your blog asking your visitors to sign up to your newsletter. You could give them a free guide or eBook in return. You can then automatically send out a series of emails to these newsletter subscribers. Some of these emails are informational (you could offer simple guides or point your readers over to key articles on your site). Other emails will be recommending products that you are an affiliate for. As long as you don’t come across too pushy or salesy, you can make a lot of money with this as your email list grows.

I would recommend an email autoresponder platform called GetResponse, one of the industry leaders and a complete suite of all the tools you will need to build and sell to an email list. Better still, they have a free forever plan you can use to try out the service. Click HERE to go over to GetResponse and sign up for an account.

Method 4: Create a Digital Product

If you have a blog in a niche, then you are probably quite the expert (even if you don’t think so). You can impart some of this knowledge to your readers by selling them an eBook. And it doesn’t have to be anything too epic and it certainly doesn’t need to be hundreds of pages long! A simple 30-40 page guide on an important topic in your niche could easily sell for $10-15. Promote any eBook you produce throughout your blog; make a sales page and link out to it from any relevant articles. Simple. This can become a serious portion of your overall monetization strategy!!

These days it is easy to make your own eBook. You could pull together a series of articles from your website (or elsewhere on the net). Make it into one coherent book on the subject and design it in an online design tool like Canva. Seriously, you will be amazed how easy it will be to knock up a pro looking eBook over there. You can try out Canva Pro for 30 days by clicking HERE.