Types Of Blogs That Make Money
If you’re interested in making money online, you may have heard about how much one can make by establishing a popular blog that attracts traffic and earns money from various advertising and affiliate programs. While it’s not the easiest thing to get off the ground, growing a blog can be quite lucrative. Some bloggers have even created websites with content that doesn’t require a lot of upkeep, making their blog a form of passive income. However, not all blogs are the same. There are many types of blogs that make money, with each earning different types of revenue covering a wide range of different niches or topics.
Whether you’re looking to start a blog for the first time with the intention of making money or you are looking to start a second blog to grow and increase earnings, the following tips are the best types of blogs that make money.
Monetization Methods
Before we go over the specific types of blogs that you can create and various niches that you can blog about, let’s go over some of the main ways that people earn money while blogging. Understanding the monetization of blogs is essential to starting your blogging career and structuring your blogs around the right monetization methods. Here are some of the most commonly used ways that blogs make money.
Google Adsense
This is by far one of the most popular ways to make money on the internet. You can sign up for an Adsense account from Google and earn money by attracting traffic to your blog. Companies that advertise through Google will pay you by impressions, clicks, and conversions. So, the more traffic that you get to your website, the more that you will make. This is probably the most commonly used way for webmasters to make money on the traffic that they are able to attract to their website. It’s easy to set up, but it does require quite a lot of traffic in order to be able to make significant money, and some people don’t like that it might create a poor user experience for those who visit your website. Still, it is one of the most reliable and effective ways to monetize your blog.
Affiliate Programs
If your blog is about products, or you can tie your content into product reviews and other information that pertains to products, then you can make a lot of money with affiliate programs. Companies like Amazon and other large retailers will offer you a percentage of each sale that is made as a result of a referral by your site. This means that you can create content for your website centered around your niche of choice and insert referral links that direct your readers to sites like Amazon and others that offer affiliate programs. When they click through to that site and make a purchase, you will receive a credit to your affiliate account and make passive income as long as your blog continues to generate clicks and get traffic. This method is also highly dependent on your ability to get large amounts of traffic to your website.
Amazon Associates Earning Breakdown
Selling Products
Aside from Adsense and affiliate programs, you could also sell your own products to the readers of your blog and take advantage of the targeted traffic and engaged audience that you’re able to get. This doesn’t have to mean that you sell physical products and ship them to your customers, though. You could also sell your services such as mentoring, consulting, and online courses where you teach others how to succeed while making money on the internet. The possibilities are endless when you are selling your own products, so you can be creative and earn higher margins as well. Of course, these sales are a bit harder to come by and generally require a lot of trust between you and your readers to make them confident they are going to get value out of what they pay.
Choosing Your Niche
If you are going to be building your own blog with the purpose of making money, then the first thing that you need to do is decide the topic. There are thousands of topics out there, but if you’re going to be writing the content for your blog yourself, then you should choose something that interests you. Too many people get caught up in what is popular and don’t play to their strengths. If you want to build a blog from the ground up, it’s best that you are already knowledgeable and comfortable with your topic, and that’s why you should choose something that you are interested in. This will allow you to create valuable, meaningful content that ranks well and attracts real readers to your blog.
Here are some examples of the most popular types of blogs out there today:
Health & Fitness
Honestly, this might be the most saturated niche on the web, yet one of the most popular with the most options for making money. I have always believed that if you are trying to compete in a competitive industry, you niche down. Meaning, instead of just starting up a fitness blog that offers exercise tips and smart eating choices, you filter to one specific type of workout or diet. If you are too broad, you may get lost in space. In terms of making money, there are so many different angles. Whether it’s workout apparel (which could eventually be branded) or protein powders or juicers, blenders, exercise equipment, the options are endless. Your struggle won’t be finding items to sell, it’ll be how to separate yourself from the pack.
Parenting (Mommy Blogger)
Mommy Bloggers are crushing it in today’s need-to-know baby boom era. If you can offer smart, sensible advice and recommend products that will help people, you can really carve out a place on the web for being a trusted voice, and make money in the process. However, much like the Fitness niche, a lot of what’s out there in terms of “best baby bottles” or “Toddler Advice” has already been created. But just because someone else has already done it, doesn’t mean you can’t do it better. There is an excellent marketing article for people looking to rank high in Google for content that has already been done, it’s called the Skyscraper Technique. I would suggest checking it out if you want to push the competition out of the way.
Product Review (Niche Down)
Despite the high traffic volume for Fitness and Parenting advice, I think a product review website is my top recommendation for anyone starting out. There are hundreds of different products and niches and several different monetization methods that you can center your blog around. Content is king, and when starting these types of sites, you need to just start, which is also the name of a Reddit group centered around building affiliate marketing websites. I highly recommend you check it out.
Tech Blogs
Reviewing tech products of all kinds will no doubt have its fanbase. If you can offer detailed advice, tips, and reviews or recommend different products to purchase, you will no doubt have a popular blog. The only issue with this niche is the commission rate for tech isn’t excellent, it’s borderline terrible. A lot of affiliate marketing bloggers avoid tech due to the low 1% to 2% commission on recommending products. There is also the issue with societies need to be upgrading tech constantly. As soon as you create a detailed review of one game console or smartphone, another new version is right around the corner. If you can keep up with the trends and find a clever way to get your content in front of people fast, you can make this niche thrive.
Tip: Most of the best Tech Affiliate marketers are using YouTube to maximize every review.
Travel Bloggers
I’m writing this during the Covid-19 shutdown. While this might not be the ideal time to have a travel blog, life will get back to normal one day. At that time people are going to want to explore, travel, and see the world. The travel niche has always been one of the more popular types of blogs that make money. Search volume is always strong for people looking for advice on where to go and what to see. If you’re a traveler on the go, don’t forget to take as many beautiful photos as you can.
Finance Site
If you have a background in finance like the stock market or can offer tips on investments, you could find an audience for your site. Target beginners looking to invest or offer tips and advice to people searching for financial advice. While there are many types of blogs that make money, this niche would require a certain level of skill. Make sure whatever you choose falls in line with something you’re good at.
Do It Yourself/Craft
This niche revolves around creating content written or in video format that shows people how to make things at home. Create the content on everything from life hacks to how to cook or restore furniture. Do it yourself blogs can be a perfect way to pump out content and build an audience if you have a special skill and can easily share step by step tricks and tips to your followers. The benefits of such a blog are there are no peak seasons, so you’ll see a steady traffic flow month in and month out. Also, you have a chance to gain real sponsors. Real brands are always looking for new ways to connect with their audience. If you build a strong enough audience, you could have a regular sponsor for years to come. While there are many different types of blogs that make money, this one requires a lot of work. Building a DIY blog requires a lot of content; if you choose to take this niche, be prepared for the long haul.
Creating Content
The most important part of the success of any blog is that you are able to create quality content for your blog. If you’re going to be starting a blog, make sure to research best practices when it comes to writing blog content. Your content serves two main purposes. The first is that your content will attract users to your blog through SEO. You want to create quality content that has all the right keywords so that your article will show up higher in the search results and get traffic flowing through the website. The next objective for your content is to create content that informs and converts your reader. This means that your reader should read it and want to either click your affiliate link or purchase your products.
**Golden Nugget Tip: Reverse Engineer The Process
The best piece of advice I can give anyone looking to build a profitable blog or website is to start at the end and work your way back to the beginning. In other words, how do you plan to make money? Are you planning to sell a product or ebook? Do you want to make money from banner advertising or through affiliate marketing? All of these methods are great forms of making money, but to really maximize your earnings and not waste a ton of time, you should start with the end and work your way back. Keep in mind that banner advertising doesn’t pay very well unless you’re getting thousands of visitors to your website per day. Or that some affiliate commissions pay better than others. Having a plan based on the product you plan to sell is a smarter approach than just spending hours writing random content. After you decide what type of blog you’d like to create, really dive deep into the various ways that the website can make money.
I think every blogger starts out with the intention of wanting to create something unique. Something they can call their own. A blog is a perfect way to express one’s opinion or share tips and advice about a skillset you may have. Blogging can be exciting, knowing people are reading your thoughts and well-crafted articles. However, over time the novelty can wear off. It’s not until a blogger starts to earn money that they really hit that second gear. What started as a fun hobby now becomes a second income. Setting up a content schedule with goals can help. Some helpful Reddit groups create motivational contests like 30K published words a month.
