There are two types of site owners– one who maintains a site to earn money and others who just want to share their random musing, ideas, and experiences. It doesn’t matter which category you are in. Learn how to make money with your WordPress site and monetize your blog in this guide & tutorial.
Maintaining a blog requires some money…you need to renew web hosting and domain name annually and, for sure, your time. So, we have made a list of the best practices to monetize your WordPress site and earn while doing what you love.
So, whether you plan to make a living from a blog or want to earn enough money for blogging expenses. I am here to help you with these top 5 free ways to monetize a WordPress blog.
How To Monetize Your WordPress Site?
Advertisement
Since the days of yore, the advertisement sector has always been a big earner. According to a report by emarketer.com, advertisers worldwide spend more than $250 billion per year on digital ads.
That’s a massive chunk of change, don’t you agree? You can rack up the dollars in no time if you have good traffic. But how do you start? Learn how to make money with your WordPress site and monetize your blog in this guide & tutorial to earn and make profit from your content.
Add Types
For starters, there are two advertisement options available to you. You can choose ad networks such as Google AdSense for WordPress. This is just one of many – Bing has its ad network, as does Facebook, Yahoo, and Amazon. Search “ad networks” on Google for an extensive list to see what’s available.
Alternatively, you can host your advertisements. You choose the ads, fees, how and where to display each and, among other things. To sell self-managed ads, using the reputable ad management plugins available for WordPress is typically easiest. Or to go through a third-party service such as BuySellAds to manage available ad spots.
The Difference
That said, the main difference between ad networks and self-managed ads is the higher level of control you enjoy with the latter. In other words, ad networks usually show your readers adverts most relevant to their recent browsing history.
If the user was looking at jewelry before coming to your site. They’d most likely see an ad related to jewelry, even if your site is all about automobiles. You have zero control regarding the adverts the ad network shows on your website to monetize WordPress.
Things are a bit different from self-managed ads. You sell adverts that are in tune with your target audience. So, instead of showing jewelry ads, you show ads for vehicle spare parts, engine oil and so on.
Each advertising option has different pricing models. Most ad networks usually offer the CPC (cost per click) model. Which means you’re paid for all the clicks you generate. You can make between $0.02 and $15 bucks per click depending on the niche.
With a high traffic volume, you can make quite a killing with ad networks, keeping in mind they offer other ad models. Self-managed ads usually attract higher ad rates since you sell ad space to interested businesses at a flat monthly fee.
Affiliates
Affiliate marketing is much like advertising; you earn for sending the merchant an exciting prospect. Instead of getting paid for clicks and impressions, you receive a commission for your hard work.
While affiliate marketing sounds like mumbo-jumbo to the perfect beginner, it is easy to comprehend. According to Neil Patel, affiliate marketing is “…the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”
Sounds quite essential, this affiliate marketing business. Plus, you can recommend any product under the sun. In essence, you’re just a promoter, which means you can engage in any promotion strategy that comes to mind… just keep it legal.
In other words, affiliate marketing is a versatile animal in terms of payment models and your level of involvement. What does that even mean?
Affiliate Programmes to monetize WordPress site
Now that you know you can make money via clicks, leads, and sales, let’s look at three more types of affiliate marketing in terms of involvement. As Pat Flynn explains, we have three levels of affiliate marketing involvement, namely:
Unattached – In this type of affiliate marketing, you have no presence or authority in the niche. You create affiliate links to products via social media or any other platform. But since we are monetizing your WordPress site, you can use this type of affiliate marketing to complement your earnings.
Related – Here, you have some presence online and are promoting products related to your niche, but the affiliate links are for products that you don’t actually use. For example, if you have a blog that covers WordPress, you could promote themes, hosting, and plugins without trying out each product first.
Involved – You only promote products that you use and believe in. You swear by the products and recommend them as part of the “dream” or the process you’re outlining on your blog.
Regarding affiliate WordPress monetization strategies, you can use coupons, deals, product reviews, text links, banner links, product aggregation, email newsletters, and offline methods, among others.
Payout Types
We are privy to three main payment models, but feel free to chip in if you know of any other models.
- PPC (Pay Per Click) Affiliate Marketing – The company pays you a commission for all the clicks you generate, whether the prospects purchase or browse and leave.
- PPL (Pay Per Lead) Affiliate Marketing – In this scenario, you earn a commission whenever the prospect you refer completes any desired action, e.g., subscribe, sign up for a free trial, create an account, etc. Examples of websites offering this kind of affiliate marketing include ShareASale and Cj Affiliate.
- PPS (Pay Per Sale) Affiliate Marketing – The traditional form of affiliate marketing, you only earn a commission if the prospect you refer makes a purchase. This is the most popular model of affiliate marketing and usually results in better returns than PPC and PPL affiliate marketing – holding other factors constant. Examples include Amazon Associates, Envato Marketplace, and most independent online theme/plugin stores.
Paid Posts – Write sponsored blog posts
Think of the Race Car as Your Sponsored Post, Don’t Overdo It. You can make a quick buck from sponsored posts or reviews as a blogger. If you have earned authority and are prevalent in your niche, businesses will start approaching you to write favorable reviews about their products.
As a beginner, it will prove fruitful to approach the companies with good proposals. Ensure you review products and services relevant to your target audience. Reviewing products just for the money will tarnish the authority you worked so hard to earn.
Additionally, don’t make your site all about sponsored posts when the businesses start calling. Keep publishing the content that earned you traffic and authority. An occasional sponsored post works great, but overdoing it is not a long-term strategy.
According to BobWP, “…others may want to sponsor a post that just mentions their product in the context of some news in their industry—or simply pay for a banner ad or mention at the end of the post.”
As such, there are many opportunities to explore with sponsored posts especially if you can secure monthly/yearly arrangements with the companies. Just don’t be biased in your reviews, as this damages your integrity.
Selling Products or Services
One of the most popular WordPress monetization strategies is selling stuff online. In fact, if no one sold anything, we would have no advertisers, membership sites, and affiliate programs to cash on.
If running advertisements, promoting somebody else’s products, or hosting a membership site isn’t your cup of tea, you can try to build an online store with WordPress to promote a service or product to your audience and monetize it.
There is no shortage of products to sell, plus you can always sell specialized skills via a hiring page. For instance, you could offer design or blogging services like yours truly. You could consult and sell any service your readers need. If you don’t have a ready product, consider reselling a product or service via your WordPress site.
If you’d like to go full-blown e-commerce, you can set up an online store easily using a plugin such as WooCommerce. An online store helps you sell digital and physical goods, meaning you can use e-commerce to boost your stone-and-mortar store. Better still, you can use affiliate marketing to boost your sales.
If you build an e-commerce website, make it unique and target a niche. There is strict competition out there in just about any market, so focus on what you’re best at or most interested in.
Monetize WordPress with Memberships
Let’s say you have built an engaged audience thanks to the great content you’ve been offering for free. You can add paid memberships to a section of your site where you offer courses and any other form of premium content.
Many website owners capitalize on paid membership to create a recurring source of passive income. And all you have to do is create high-quality content and hide it behind a paywall. With a vast collection of WordPress membership plugins, you can start immediately.
If you have a product, you can release it under a membership program, in the sense that the user needs an active (and preferably recurring) membership to use the product.
Instead of selling the product, you can sell memberships rather. We have seen WordPress entrepreneurs convert their already existing readers into paying members with little effort. Learn how to make money with your WordPress site and monetize your blog in this guide & tutorial to earn and make profit from your content.
Convey merchandise: Guide to monetize WordPress blog
Merch is a beneficial method for devoted readers to support your endeavor and promote your brand. Similarly, you can also charge for content that you provide on your site. You can also sell physical products through your website.
Many free and paid WordPress plugins that add e-commerce functionality to a website are available, these plugins can either convert a non-blogged website into one with a blog or add a store component to a website already with a blog.
Bonus WordPress monetize Strategies
There are many other ways of monetizing your WordPress site, but since covering all of them would need an eBook (perhaps you could create one and sell it?), here are a couple of honorable mentions:
Donations – You can make money via your WordPress site by asking your readers to donate. This strategy works like magic, so most non-profits and NGOs thrive on donations. Just ask your readers.
Dropship – When starting your online store, you don’t necessarily need your goods to promote. Drop shipping for WordPress allows you to make money on products you don’t own or have in inventory. You place the product on your site and collect the payment from the buyer.
Then, you buy at a cheaper rate from the supplier, who ships the product directly to the buyer.
Create a job board – If you’re a content producer catering to bloggers, you can create a job board. Do you cater to WordPress designers and developers?
You can create a job board for them. Work with nonprofits that need to be connected with businesses for donations. You can design a commission for that too.
Here are some popular WordPress-related job boards for inspiration to get your ideas flowing. Learn how to make money with your WordPress site and monetize your blog in this guide & tutorial to earn and make a profit from your content.
Conclusion Monetize WordPress Site Tutorial
These WordPress monetization strategies will help you to make money on your WordPress site in no time. However, keep in mind everything worth having in life takes hard work. As we all know, success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.
So continue to build your website and brand by creating quality content, focusing on SEO, and optimizing your site for your readers.
Today, we just offered you the 1% inspiration you need. Are you up for the challenge? Do you have what it takes to provide that 99% of sweat?
Do you know of other WordPress monetize strategies we didn’t mention? If so, let us know in the comment section below, so we can add it to this post and credit you by saying your name. Cheers and good luck making the moolah this year! Learn how to make money with your WordPress site and monetize your blog in this guide & tutorial.
