How to Monetize a Blog Easily in 2023 (9 Tried & Tested Methods)

Started a blog but no idea how to make any money from it?

Here are the 9 best ways to monetize a blog easily in 2023:

1. Offer your services as a coach or consultant
2. Offer your services as a freelance writer
3. Create referral partnerships
4. Do affiliate marketing
5. Sell digital products
6. Run display ads
7. Create a membership site
8. Sell physical products
9. Flip your blog

Many people start blogs and publish hundreds of articles – but never make a cent from all their hard work. They waste all that time for no reward, then end up burning out and giving up altogether.

Don’t let that be you. Making money from your blog in 2023 is well within your grasp.

Let’s go over the 9 methods in detail and discover exactly how to monetize a blog.

I’ve been blogging for 10 years and have experimented with many of these methods myself.

Affiliate disclaimer: I sometimes link to products and services to help cover the costs of running this blog. There’s no extra cost to you – and I only recommend products that I’ve both used personally and think are awesome. Thanks for your support! ❤️

How to Monetize a Blog in 2023 (9 Tried & Tested Methods)

#1. Offer your services as a coach or consultant

Selling your own services is probably the easiest way to make money from your blog in its early days.

If you already have a certain level of expertise in your field, selling coaching or consulting services is a natural next step.

And the good news is, it’s really easy to get started.

Simply set up a landing page on your blog that includes basic information about what you do, the benefits for your client, plus some method for interested clients to book a consultation session with you.

I like using Calendly for scheduling, integrated with Stripe so clients can book and pay in one simple process. Once they’ve booked, the new appointment shows up on your calendar, and you can deliver the session via Zoom video call.

After the session, ask them to give you a testimonial. You can then include several testimonials on your landing page, to encourage more clients to book your services.

#2. Offer your services as a freelance writer

One of my favorite things about blogging is all the new opportunities it opens up – such as job opportunities you might never have thought of.

Another great way to monetize your blog in the early days is by offering your services as a freelance writer.

You’ve already got proof of your writing skills, in the form of your blog posts. So you could use your blog as your portfolio to pitch your writing services to potential clients.

A good place to start is with small businesses in your area of expertise.

For example, if your previous career was as a real estate agent, you could pitch estate agencies to offer them freelance writing services for their websites. In this way, you can combine your existing expertise with your newly developed skills in writing online.

LinkedIn is an excellent place to find potential clients and pitch your services. Try searching for people with Marketing Manager or Content Manager job titles in your niche.

Then write them a short friendly message asking if they need help with freelance writing. Don’t be afraid to follow up a couple of times if you don’t hear back immediately. If they respond positively, invite them to book a quick Zoom call to discuss how you can help.

Read my guide on how to post on LinkedIn to build your personal brand and get leads.

#3. Referral partnerships

Referral partnerships involve an agreement between you and another business. You send them new leads in exchange for commission payments. Having a blog is a great way to attract new leads, which you can then funnel to other businesses.

The first step in establishing referral partnerships involves identifying businesses in your niche, or related niches, who can benefit from being mentioned on your blog. These shouldn’t be direct competitors, but instead businesses that offer services that complement your own.

For example, if you’re blogging about strength training tips, you could establish referral partnerships with local gyms. Each time you send a new client their way, they pay you a percentage of the membership fee.

Your readers take a logical next step to put your advice into practice, other businesses deliver the service – and you get paid for it. That’s the beauty of referral partnerships.

And the best part is, you don’t need a lot of traffic to reach out to businesses and suggest a partnership.

#4. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a similar concept to referral partnerships, but typically delivered in a more formalized way. The starting point is usually affiliate marketing platforms, such as Impact, Commission Junction, or Awin.

Here you can find a whole host of products and services in different categories, all of them offering commission payments if you send them new clients.

Unlike referral partnerships, affiliate marketing programs often need a certain amount of traffic before they accept your site onto the program.

You can monetize with affiliate marketing through several different kinds of blog posts. Most affiliate blog posts target commercial intent keywords – including product comparisons (e.g. “mailchimp vs convertkit” single product reviews (e.g. “mailchimp review”), or multiple product roundups (e.g. best laptops for digital nomads”).

You can also monetize informational blog posts by providing your affiliate link as a potential solution to the user’s problem. For example, someone comes to your page with the keyword “how to learn French online”.

Although the intent is primarily informational, there’s also commercial intent potential here. After providing them with a set of steps to help the reader find out how to learn French online, you could also invite them to check out some French learning resources, using your affiliate links.

#5. Selling digital products

With the online learning industry is predicted to reach around $325 billion by 2025, there’s never been a better time to create and sell your own digital product.

Common types of products include e-books or video courses.

Many people think you have to be an expert before you can create your own digital product. That’s not necessarily the case.

You simply need to know more about the topic than your audience, and present the information in a clear and actionable way for them.

Most importantly, you need to identify a pressing pain point among your audience. Your digital product will help them solve this. Think of it as helping them to make a transformation that will take away their pain point.

When creating digital products, it’s important to have an existing audience. And it doesn’t need to be huge. Even an audience of 50 people can be extremely valuable – if they’re engaged with your content.

You can use your audience for market research, to identify those pain points, and find out what sort of messaging resonates with them the most.

This is essential intelligence to help you create the right digital product.

But perhaps you’re not ready to create your own digital product yet. Another great way to monetize is by becoming an affiliate for someone else’s digital product.

For example, Justin Welsh created an excellent course about building your brand on LinkedIn. He runs his own affiliate program to encourage other bloggers (like me) to promote his course and get paid. I completed his course a few months ago and I’ve been posting daily on LinkedIn ever since.

#6. Running display ads

Some bloggers think display ads don’t pay well and are a waste of time.

I had the same opinion for ages. But now, I’m making enough from advertising to cover all my expenses every month, including my rent. So I can confidently say that including ads on your blog is an excellent monetization strategy.

Where many bloggers go wrong is with using only Google AdSense. In the early stages, without much traffic, you’ll hardly make any money at all from AdSense.

My advice is to skip Google AdSense altogether and go straight to Ezoic.

Ezoic is an ad provider which enables different advertisers to bid against one another for space on your website. This includes Google AdSense, but isn’t limited to it. As a result, you’ll typically make more money from Ezoic ads compared to pure Google AdSense.

Check out my Ezoic review for an overview of my first two months with the platform.

Once your blog reaches a healthy amount of traffic, you can look at other ad providers with more stringent eligibility requirements.

Mediavine and Adthrive are popular choices for larger blogs. Mediavine needs a minimum of 50,000 visits per month, while for Adthrive it’s 100,000 visits minimum.

Once you’ve got display ads up and running, all you need to do is keep writing more content and growing your traffic over time.

#7. Creating a membership site

A membership site is a special area of your website where subscribers pay a monthly or yearly fee to access premium content and training. Membership sites can be a great way to generate recurring income every month.

It’s part of human nature to join groups. People not only want access to VIP products and services, they also enjoy being around others who share their interests and goals. So with the right promotional strategy, you can attract a lot of like-minded people to join your community.

With a bit of imagination, you can create a membership site for almost any topic. Most importantly, you need to find a motivated audience that also have money to spend on pursuing their goal.

For example, your membership site could provide ongoing training for people who want to improve a particular skill. This could be anything from cooking Mexican food to learning to sail a yacht.

Membership sites typically charge modest fees for each user, such as $25 per month, but this soon adds up in terms of revenue when you reach a large volume of members.

The main downside is the amount of work involved, which can feel like high pressure. To build a successful membership site, you have to be prepared to engage on a regular basis with the group.

You’ll have to provide them with plenty of valuable content to make their membership worthwhile. Otherwise you risk people cancelling their subscriptions and leaving the group.

#8. Selling physical products

It might not be the most obvious choice, but selling physical products from your blog can be a great way to monetize. Some bloggers have even gone on to launch proper e-commerce businesses after starting out this way.

Just as with digital products, the key to success with physical products is to find an engaged audience and offer them a product to solve one of their most pressing problems.

For example, let’s say you start a blog about saving the environment and living a more sustainable lifestyle. One of your content topics could be how to create healthier drinking water. You could then monetize this by selling a range of toxin-free reusable water bottles from your blog.

#9. Flipping your blog

Flipping a blog is similar to flipping a property. You find a blog, build up its traffic so it’s earning a decent revenue, then sell it on to the highest bidder.

Sounds interesting, right? So how much money can you actually make from flipping a blog?

Well, you can typically sell a blog for 24× to 30x its average monthly profit. That’s a general rule of thumb – blog valuations may vary across different industries.

You can either flip your own blog, or purchase abandoned blogs specifically for flipping. With any blog flipping project, your primary goal is to make as much monthly revenue as possible.

You can use a wide range of monetization methods to achieve that, including ads, affiliates, referral partnerships, and digital products.

If you’re keen to learn more about blog flipping, check out one of these specialist blog marketplaces:

• Flippa
• Empire Flippers
• The Website Flip

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been wondering how to monetize a blog, I hope this article has given you some actionable ideas.

We’ve looked at 9 popular techniques for monetizing a blog, from selling coaching and consulting services in the early days, all the way through to flipping a blog – once it builds some significant revenue.

Blogging is a great way to boost your income, as it has tremendous moneymaking potential combined with modest startup and running costs.

Ready to get started with your own blog?

Check out my free guide on how to start a blog in just 7 easy steps – and get on the path to a bigger income!