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So, you’re ready to start making money through blogging? Blogging can be a great way to bring in an extra few hundred or even thousands of dollars per month. It all comes down to choosing the types of blogs that make money, writing good content, and understanding your monetization plan. Ready to get started?
Jump straight to the different blog types.
What makes a blog successful?
1. There has to be an audience
This is rule number one. You want to make sure you are picking a blog type that has lots of traffic. Traffic = ad revenue. The larger the traffic potential for your blog, the higher your earning potential.
Let’s say you want to have a personal finance blog or an 80’s punk rock blog. Some of the biggest financial blogging websites get MILLIONS of visitors every month which is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars vs an 80’s punk rock website that’s getting a few thousand hits every month and worth considerably less.
For example, a very popular personal finance website The Balance has 13 million page views per month. Let’s say you build up your blog to get just 1% of that traffic, or 130,000 page views per month. Those 130,000 page views could be worth around $0.03/view or $4,000 per month.
2. You can make money off of it
If you are looking to make money blogging, then you need to pick a blog type that is capable of bringing in money. So, how do you analyze which blog types have the ability to bring in serious cash?
- Money through ads: A lot of blogs bring in money through ads they place on their sites. Depending on which ad company you are using (Google Adsense, Mediavine, AdThrive), you can earn anywhere from $0.01-$0.10/page view. Therefore, the more page views you can pull in the more money you will make. So, you want to target blog types that have a massive audience. Some of these high audience blog types include personal finance, travel, and health/fitness, but most of the major blog types listed below bring in a healthy amount of traffic.
- Affiliate marketing: Another key income sources for bloggers is affiliate marketing, which means you are making some sort of commission through the promotion of other company’s products. One popular affiliate program is Amazon Associates, which allows you to connect product pages from Amazon to your website. If someone makes a purchase of a product you’ve linked, you pocket a certain percentage of that sale. There are tons of affiliate programs out there including FlexOffers, ShareASale, Rakuten Marketing, and many more.
- Creating and selling your own products and services: Many bloggers transition their blogs into full blown businesses. That could include creating consulting services, writing a book on the subject, or creating a brand that other brands want to partner with. How do you make this happen? Start by choosing a blog type that matches your skillsets and envision what products or services you could create out of that blog type.
- For example, wanting to start a personal finance site? Can you create a comprehensive budget system that will help people pay off debt? Can you write a book about how you paid off your own debt? When picking your blog type think big and think far down the road to fully unleash your blog’s potential.
3. You need to be able to speak knowledgeably on the subject
Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to be an expert in the blog type you are choosing, it just means that you need to have the ability to research and speak on the subject. For example, let’s say you want to start a cooking/recipe website but are terrible at cooking. Well, sure you can look up recipes on other websites but in order to post your own pictures, you will probably need to go through the act of cooking all of these. On the other hand, if you are looking at creating a website around frugal living, you may already have some first-hand experience with this, but the internet is full of ways to reduce living costs.
As long as you have the ability to research, you can write knowledgeably on most topics. There is one big exception here and that’s blog types that are related to medical topics- if you don’t have the credentials to be speaking on certain medical topics then your site will most likely be severely pushed down in Google rankings because of it.
Tip: Many bloggers end up hiring writers once they start generating income in order to scale the size of their blog. There are many writers out there who will do research and write blog posts based on the topics you provide.
4. Your blog needs to be able to compete (or at least rank for keywords)
When blog types have the ability to bring in a lot of money, they typically bring in a lot of competition with them. The key is finding smaller blogs in those areas that rank on Google and figuring out which keywords they are ranking for. You don’t want to be competing with sites like Nerdwallet for keywords like “budgeting” but you may be able to compete with smaller sites with longer keywords like “budgeting for single moms”.
There are many keyword research tools out there but we recommend the following:
Lower budget range: Keysearch
Higher budget range: Ahrefs
5. Your blog content needs to be evergreen
You’ll want to pick a blog topic that has evergreen content, meaning that the information doesn’t change regularly. That means you can publish one post on the subject and won’t have to do major updates every time the information changes. This will allow you to always be searching for new keywords and subjects instead of editing older posts. This also makes blogging much more passive, as older posts you’ve done will continue to bring in money long after you’ve published them.
SEO Geared Blogs
What is an SEO friendly site? SEO means search engine optimization, or the ability for your site and posts to rank in search engines like Google. These types of blogs target specific keywords with the goal of being ranked highly by search engines.
These types of blogs can be more passive, in that you don’t need a huge social media presence or continued work reaching out to followers to promote your blog. You simply write targeted, quality content and do this consistently until Google starts to rank your posts. The only downside with these types of strategies is that ranking can take many months to happen, but the payoff once you do start ranking can be very high.
Want to learn more about SEO? Check out the course Stupid Simple SEO.
Social Media Geared Blogs
The other main type of blog is one that does well on social media forums like Pinterest or Instagram. These types of blogs focus more on connection with readers and brand recognition. These types of blogs tend to focus more on content that is trending and content that readers will personally connect with.
Want to learn more about Pinterest Marketing? Check out the course Pinterest with Ell.
6 Types of Blogs That Make Money
1. Personal Finance
Personal finance is a very popular blog niche due to its massive audience. There are also several sub-niches within personal finance that have massive audiences as well- millions of page views per month– including creating new streams of income, saving money, investing, paying off debt, learning how to budget, improving your credit score, and many more.
Personal finance is a massive market, so researching keywords that you can rank for will be critical. But even the smaller sites are pulling in thousands of page views per month due to the overall popularity of the category.
Key ways to earn money through a personal finance blog:
- Running ads on your site
- Affiliate marketing (think budgeting tools, financial independence books, online net worth trackers)
- Personal product/service creation
Best platform:
Personal finance is great for ranking in Google. Millions and millions of people search for personal finance topics each month and there are plenty of sub-topics to focus on like paying off debt, achieving financial independence, or improving your credit score. Personal finance can be a good topic for sites like Pinterest if they are focused on budgeting, frugal living, or similar topics.
2. Travel Blogging
Travel blogging is a large and very popular blog type. Many bloggers dream of traveling the world for free and a travel blog has the potential to make that dream a reality. Travel blogging can be difficult if you can’t actually travel to the locations you want to write about as first-hand accounts and great pictures are key.
There are many sub-niches you can blog about including inter-country travel, national parks, luxury traveling, European adventures, etc.
Key ways to earn money
Key ways to earn money through a travel blog:
- Running ads on your site
- Affiliate marketing (think hiking gear, luggage, travel reward credit cards)
- Free stays at hotels
Best Platform:
The traveling niche is very centered around content and branding. While you can target keywords that travelers are interested in, a lot of successful traveling blogs focus on creating relationships with their followers. For that reason, traveling does best through social media platforms but can certainly still excel through SEO optimization.
3. How-to Blog Sites
How-to blogging sites are very popular right now as people try their hands at blogging as a side hustle. This blog type is very popular and comes with a lot of competition. Some bloggers will have a primary blog niche and then use how-to blogs as their secondary niche. The catch here is that most how-to blogging websites are ran by bloggers that are already successful, and they use their successful metrics to attract visitors. It can be hard to start out teaching people how to blog if you don’t already have proof you can be successful at it.
Key ways to earn money
Key ways to earn money through a how-to blog site:
- Running ads on your site
- Affiliate marketing (think hosting websites, paid plugins, courses)
- Create your own course
Best Platform:
Blogging websites do well on both search engine traffic as well as social media platforms. If you can deliver useful content on targeted keywords, SEO optimization is a good option. Similarly, teaching people how to blog can be a great start to a recognizable brand on sites like Pinterest or Facebook.
4. DIY/Crafts
DIY/Crafts are a huge genre that encompasses many smaller blog topics. However, similar to a cooking blog, if you’re going to blog about DIY or crafts, you’ll probably have to complete projects related to these in order to show case the completed project. But if you’re already creating custom projects, monetizing those skills may be the next logical step. DIY/Craft sites can be a great launching point for creating a personal brand and following.
Key ways to earn money
Key ways to earn money through a DIY/Craft blog:
- Running ads on your site
- Affiliate marketing (think craft supplies, hardware, tools)
- Create your own courses or monthly subscription box
Best Platform:
While DIY/craft blogs can be successful through search engine optimization, it’s also important to focus on your personal brand through social media outreach. When you Google keywords like “fall wreath crafts” and Pinterest is one of the Top 10 results, you know Pinterest should be a tool you are utilizing.
5. Health and Fitness
Health and fitness are blog types with massive audience potential and a lot of competition. The good news is that there are several sub-niches within these categories for you to choose from like different diet types, general wellness, weight lifting etc. The health and fitness genres can also be a great place to jumpstart your own business focused on your blog topic.
Key ways to earn money
Key ways to earn money through a health and fitness blog:
- Running ads on your site
- Affiliate marketing (think workout apparel, workout gear, training classes)
- Create your own personal fitness coaching or workout classes
Best Platform:
It can be very hard to rank through search engines for health and fitness topics since so many of them are related to powerhouse websites. However, social media platforms can be a great place to start growing your blog through interaction with followers.
6. Lifestyle Blogs
Lifestyle blogs can sometimes get a bad rep for being a new blogger go-to niche. However, lifestyle blogs can be a great way to start a personal brand and grow a following. The key here is to have subcategories within your blog that you focus on (think 3 or 4 subcategories). This will help Google understand what your blog is about and help you rank using SEO. You will want to structure your lifestyle blog into sections that make sense, perhaps fashion, makeup, career, mental health, etc. and write your blog posts into the main categories. Lifestyle blogs can run into trouble if all of the blog posts are random and unorganized.
Key ways to earn money through a lifestyle blog:
- Running ads on your site
- Affiliate marketing (think décor sites, seasonal purchases, makeup brands)
Best Platform:
The best platform for lifestyle blogs is through social media platforms, since a lot of lifestyle blogs are geared towards building a brand relationship with clients and followers. It is possible to rank lifestyle blogs through SEO, but it’s important to keep your blog categories organized.
Which blog type is right for you?
There are plenty of types of blogs that make money, so it’s important to research each large genre and sub-genres to understand the type of traffic those blogs receive as well as their money earning potential. Your blog type doesn’t have to be your passion in life, but it should be a genre that you are invested in.
Want to see how much created blogs can sell for or want to look at purchasing one already made? Check out Flippa– a website for buying and selling blogs.