How To Monetize Your Blog From Day One

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If you’ve started a blog, or are thinking of setting up a website, you may be thinking about monetization strategies. 

The great thing about blogging is that you don’t need to have a large audience to start making money. In fact, there are many ways to monetize your blog from day one, and you don’t need to rely on ads to do so. 

In this post, you’ll learn some ways you can monetize your blog from day one as a new blogger, including:

• The pros and cons of different monetization methods
• A better way to monetize your blog from day one
• Top tips for monetizing your blog as a beginner

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How Do Bloggers Make Money?

Typically, bloggers make money through various avenue streams. These include:

• Affiliate marketing
• Display ads
• Sponsored content
• Digital products
• Physical products

I know what you may be thinking…

How am I supposed to make money through ads or sponsored content when you’re a new blogger that has little traffic?

While you will need an audience to monetize your blog as a new blogger, you CAN start making money from day one.

Let’s look at some of these methods and the level of difficulty. 

Monetize Your Blog From Day One

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you recommend products using a unique link. When someone makes a purchase through your link, you’ll receive a percentage of their spend back. 

One of the easiest affiliate marketing programs to use is Amazon Associates as you don’t need any blog traffic to sign up. All you need is a website with some content. 

Difficulty in getting started: low

The pros: 

• You can sign up as a beginner 
• Many people shop with Amazon 
• You earn commission on all products purchased within 24 hours of someone clicking through your link

The cons:

• Low commission rates
• You can’t promote products via email 
• High competition in many niches

Overall, Amazon Associates has a low barrier to entry so it’s worth signing up and using AS PART OF your monetization strategy. However, I don’t recommend going all in. 

A better way is to start earning commissions via alternative affiliate programs. 

Other Affiliate Programs

This all depends on your niche and the topics that you plan to cover on your blog. I suggest thinking about the products within your niche and then Google for affiliate programs to see if you can join one with a high commission rate. 

To give you a starting point, here are some affiliate programs you can join with relatively high commission rates:

Hello Fresh – 40% per sale

Graze Box – $2 per sale

Zaful – up to 30%

Fabletics – $2-20 per sale

TripAdvisor – 50% per sale

Coursera – 45% per sale

Evanto – 30% per sale

Display Ads

Most display ad networks like Mediavine and Adthrive require thousands of pageviews to join. An alternative for those with lower traffic is Google Adsense. 

Google Adsense

Google Adsense enables you to publish ads on your website, for which you’ll earn a small amount per impression or click-through. 

For a new blogger, you’re not going to make a lot of money via display ads. You can probably expect a few cents here and there. However, seeing that money mounting up can be excellent for boosting your motivation.

To be accepted into Google Adsense, you generally need to have a website that’s at least a few months old and has high-quality content on one subject. 

It’s definitely not as easy as it used to be to get accepted. I’ve had sites both declined and accepted – one of the main reasons for getting rejected is what Google considers to be ‘thin content’ – in other words, not having enough content on one topic. 

Before you apply to Adsense, I suggest having at least 20-30 posts on one niche topic. That may sound like quite a lot but ultimately are getting stricter about the websites they accept. 

Difficulty in getting started: medium

The pros: 

• You don’t need as many page views to be accepted 
• Little effort

The cons:

• Need to have some thorough content to be accepted
• Will only make pennies at the start
• Some niches e.g adult are not permitted

A Better Way to Monetize Your Blog From Day One

A much better way to monetize your blog from day one is to create digital products to sell. 

The types of digital products you can sell include:

• Printables
• Templates
• eBooks
• Courses
• Memberships
• Virtual summits
• Digital tools, fonts, graphics
• Photographs 
• Planners
• Paid workshops
• PDF’s
• Audio content
• Apps
• Services

There are so many advantages to creating your own products. 

Here are some reasons why you should get started even if you’re new at blogging:

• Minimal startup costs
• Start earning money with a small audience
• Pre-sell products before creating them
• Test ideas without putting in loads of effort
• You keep all of the profits
• Easy to upsell
• Can be automated

To sell a digital product, you’ll either need to use a WordPress plugin like Woocommerce, build a Shopify site, or sell on a marketplace like Etsy. 

As a new blogger, try selling a digital product with a low price point, to begin with. This can be a great way to test out your ideas, as well as figure out price points, and more. 

Tips for monetizing your blog

Here are some things to consider if you want to monetize your blog from day one.

• Concentrate on growing your blog traffic through keyword research
• Start building an email list
• Improve your blogging skills with pro tools
• Consider offering services, such as freelance writing, graphic design, and virtual assistant work 
• Network with other bloggers – join blogger Facebook groups to find guest post opportunities
• Repurpose your content for social media to extend your audience

FAQ’s

I hope these ideas are helpful if you want to monetize your blog from day one. For further posts on monetization, check out the blog.