What is the best way to monetize a blog in 2024

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What is the best way to monetize a blog in 2024? In truth there is no one perfect way to monetize a blog – each option has its pros and cons. In this article I look at the pros and cons of each of the 5 main blog monetization methods, before sharing which of those 5 I personally consider to be the best way to monetize a blog in 2024 and why.

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A question I am often asked is…

‘What is the best way to monetize a blog?’

The truth is, there is no one perfect answer to this question. Each of the 5 main monetization methods has its pros and cons.

Which one is the best for you will come down to how you define ‘best’.

The most lucrative?

The most passive?

The easiest?

The least risky?

The most fun?

In order to answer the question of ‘What is the best way to monetize a blog?’, you need to weigh up the pros and cons of each method and decide which is the best for you, your own personal situation and your own preferences.

Let’s take a look at those pros and cons…

One of the most popular ways to monetize a blog is via display ads – the kind you get from Mediavine, Raptive, Adsense etc.

Pros

Ease of setup: If you use an ad management company, like Mediavine or Raptive, they will place the ads on your site for you – there is very little you have to do.
Passive income: Once set up, ads can generate revenue with minimal effort. (Though effort is needed to create blog posts and grow traffic.)
High income potential: High traffic blogs can earn substantial income from ads. (Though RPMs are low compared to other monetization methods.)

Cons

Reliance on third parties: You are hugely reliant on Google traffic and ad RPMs. A change to either, can negatively affect your income.
Income instability: Due to a heavy reliance on Google traffic, monetizing solely via ads is hugely risky – one tweak to Google’s algorithm could dramatically reduce your income.
Lack of control over your income: Due to a heavy reliance on third parties, you have very little control over your income – the only two levers you have to pull are ‘more traffic’ or ‘higher RPMs’. Both are not easy to control, and maximizing RPMs is likely to have a negative effect on UX and therefore traffic.
Lack of editorial control: Additionally, you have very little control over WHAT you advertise. As a result, you may find some of your ads go against your beliefs and values.
High traffic requirement: To earn a meaningful income from ads, your blog needs a lot of traffic. Without significant traffic, ad revenue is minimal.
User experience impact: Ads can clutter your site and potentially drive away visitors who find them annoying or intrusive. This negative effect on UX can also have a negative effect on Google traffic.
Not suitable for beginners: Because of the high traffic requirements, monetizing via ads is not suitable for beginners.

READ MORE >>> How to make money with Mediavine ads

Miniature trolley sitting on a laptop keyboard. The trolley contains a red sign saying 'sale'.

Affiliate Marketing

This is where you monetize your blog by placing affiliate links in your blog posts. These affiliate links link to other people’s products. You get a commission from any sales you generate through your affiliate links.

Pros

Passive income: Once you’ve created content with affiliate links, those blog posts can continue to generate income without any additional effort on your part.
No product creation required: You don’t need to invest time and resources into creating your own products. Instead, you can promote other people’s products that are already proven to sell well.
Choice over what you advertise: You can choose which products you want to advertise, meaning you are only promoting products which are in line with your beliefs and values.
High income potential: High traffic blogs can earn substantial income from affiliate marketing. (Though RPMs are low compared to other monetization methods.)
Can start from Day 1: Affiliate marketing is something even beginner bloggers can do. In fact, unlike with ads and sponsored posts, you can get started with affiliate marketing from Day 1. (Though some affiliate programs require a certain level of traffic to join, and you are unlikely to make significant income until you have significant traffic.)

Cons

Initial effort: You will need to put a significant amount of effort in initially – researching suitable affiliate programs, applying to those programs and writing blog posts which promote those affiliate products.
Low RPMs: Despite all that effort, affiliates marketing offers relatively low RPMs.
High traffic requirement: While the correlation between traffic and affiliate income is not as strong as with ads, there is still a fairly strong correlation. Without significant traffic, affiliate revenue is likely to be minimal.
Third-party dependence: Because you are you need such high traffic volumes, you are hugely reliant on Google traffic. Additionally, you are also hugely reliant on the affiliate partners you work with. They can change their terms or slash their commissions at any time – or even drop their entire affiliate program altogether!
Income fluctuations: Your affiliate income is likely to fluctuate quite a lot from day to day and month to month, depending on user behaviour.
Audience trust required: Successful affiliate marketing depends on your audience’s trust in your recommendations. If they don’t trust you, they won’t buy through your links.

Miniature trolley containing dollar bills, next to a laptop.

Digital Products

This is where you create and sell your own digital products. This could be ebooks, online courses, printables, templates, memberships… even your own app or software.

Pros

Very high RPMs: Digital products have the highest RPMs of all the 5 main monetization methods.
Third-party independence: Because digital products have such high RPMs, you are much less dependent on third parties for your traffic. Additionally, because you are in a direct relationship with the customer, so you are not reliant on any third parties for your income.
Complete control: Because you are not reliant on third parties, you have much more control over your income, and you have many more levers you can pull to increase your income. This autonomy allows you to optimize for maximum profit.
Passive income: With digital products, once they are created, you can continue earning from each sale with minimal additional effort on your part. Automated sales funnels can make digital product income even more passive.
Scalability: Once created, digital products can be sold to an unlimited number of customers. Your income isn’t limited by your available time or physical production constraints.
Low traffic requirement: Because digital products have such high RPMs, you do not need to have huge traffic volumes in order to make a very good full-time income.
Can start from Day 1: Selling digital products is something even beginner bloggers can do – in fact, unlike with ads and sponsored posts, you can get started with digital products from Day 1. Additionally, because you do not need high traffic volumes, you can start earning a meaningful income much sooner than with ads, affiliates and sponsored posts.
Can boost SEO: Digital productscan give a significant boost your SEO as they can help you build a high level of E-E-A-T from testimonials, reviews and case studies, as well as opportunities to participate in bundles, summits, podcasts etc. Many of these opportunities will also generate backlinks to your site.
Enhances user experience: While ads (and to a lesser extent affiliates and sponsored posts) have a negative impact on UX, digital products can actually enhance UX – giving a further boost to your SEO efforts and Google rankings.

Cons

Initial effort: The main disadvantage of digital products is that it does require initial upfront time and effort to create the products in the first place. Additionally, if you want to make money passively in the long-run, you’ll also need to put in effort at the start to build evergreen sales funnels. Depending on your niche, your current traffic and the size of your email list, it can take 6 months to a year before you are earning a good income from digital products.
Marketing and promotion: Digital products do not sell themselves. If you want to maximize your digital product revenue, you will need to build a strong email list, launch properly, and put effort into marketing and promotion on an ongoing basis. (Though much of the ongoing promotion can be automated by putting in place a strong automated sales funnel.)
Customer support: Depending on the nature of your digital products, you may need to handle customer inquiries and provide customer support for your products on an ongoing basis.
Ongoing updates: Depending on the nature of your digital products, you may also need to refresh your products from time to time to keep them up-to-date and relevant.

Mini shopping trolley with folded up dollar bills inside.

Services

This could be anything from offering coaching or consulting services, to freelance writing or VA services, or even professional services related to your blog/niche.

Pros

High RPMs: Offering consulting or coaching services can command high fees. Clients are often willing to pay a premium for your expertise and personalized attention.
Low traffic requirement: Because services have relatively high RPMs, you do not need to have huge traffic volumes.
Third-party independence: Because services have relatively high RPMs, you are much less dependent on Google for your traffic. Additionally, because you are in a direct relationship with your clients, you are not reliant on a third party for your income.
Low initial effort: Depending on your level of knowledge and expertise in your niche, services often require very little upfront effort – it can be as simple as creating a single page on your website with a list of the services you offer and the prices.
Can start from Day 1: Offering services is something even beginner bloggers can do – in fact, unlike with ads and sponsored posts, you can get started with services from Day 1. Additionally, because you do not need high traffic volumes, you can start earning a meaningful income much sooner than with ads, affiliates and sponsored posts.

Cons

Not passive: Services are not passive income. This means when you are not working, you do not get paid. This can be a problem if you want to go on vacation or take time off to spend with family, for example.
Not scalable: Because services are not passive, they are not scalable. You are limited by how many hours you can work per week.
Client demands: Some clients can be very demanding or unreasonable – this can make offering services stressful and sometimes mean you end up working at inconvenient times in order to satisfy a demanding-but-lucrative client.
Feast or famine: How much income you make per month is hugely reliant on how many clients you can get per month. Often it is ‘feast or famine’. Some months you may be have more clients than you can handle, while other months you don’t get any.
Late payments: If a client does not pay when they are supposed to, you will need to spend time chasing payments.
Requires expertise: You need to have sufficient expertise for people to be willing to pay well for your services.
Requires a high degree of trust: Because people may be handing over large amounts of money to you, you will need to build a high level of trust with your potential clients. This can be difficult to do when you first start out, though easier later when you have developed a strong reputation and have good testimonials and client success stories to share.
Marketing and promotion: Services do not sell themselves. You will therefore need to put significant ongoing effort into marketing and promoting your services. It can be hard to find the time for this when you are also working on client projects.

So which is the BEST way to monetize a blog?

As I said at the start, this hugely depends on you, your personality, your preferences and your appetite for risk.

For example, some people really thrive on the human-to-human contact you get with services, others love the kudos that comes from working on sponsored posts with well-known brands, while others love the hands off, passive nature of ads and affiliates, and are willing to accept the risks that come from putting all their eggs in Google’s basket.

But for me personally, hands down the best monetization method is digital products.

For me, the pros far outweigh the cons…

I love the amount of control it gives me over how much I earn and the freedom it give me from being reliant on, or beholden to, third parties
I love the opportunities it gives me in terms of participating in summits, bundles and collabs with other bloggers.
I also love that offering digital products allows me to help far more people than I ever could do with coaching or consulting.
And of course I love the fact that it’s mostly passive income, meaning I can take time off whenever I want!

But most of all, I love interacting with my students and seeing them grow their businesses, achieve things they never thought possible and celebrate significant wins. For me, that is biggest ‘pro’ by far!

A ROADMAP TO DIGITAL PRODUCT SUCCESS…

If you love the idea of being able to control how much you earn, finally being free from worrying about third parties and their algorithms, helping your audience achieve their dreams, earning a mostly passive income and being able to take time off whenever you want, you’re going to love the Digital Product Success Academy!

Building a successful digital product business requires a lot of moving parts: market research, email marketing, product creation, pricing strategy, building a product ladder, writing a high converting sales page, nurture sequences, sales sequences, evergreen sales funnels, tripwires, beta launches, flash sales, gathering testimonials, digital product specific SEO and more!

When you join the DPSA, you let me worry about all of the moving parts, and you just focus on following the next step on the roadmap, knowing I’ve got everything planned and happening at exactly the right time…

DPSA is for you, if you want to…

👉 Earn more from the traffic you already have: Digital product RPMs are considerably better than RPMs from ads, affiliates and sponsored posts.

👉 Stop worrying about whether you’ll be wiped out in the next Google algorithm update: Because you don’t need those crazy-high pageviews, selling digital products makes you A LOT less dependent on Google.

👉 Be ahead of the curve: If future Google updates are bad for bloggers, guess what every blogger will be doing to try and get back the income they have lost? Get ahead of the curve by starting NOW!

👉 Have a less precarious business: If you get the majority of your traffic from Google and the majority of your income from ads, you don’t need me to tell you that is a very precarious place to be… Diversifying into digital products reduces risk and increases income – so it’s a win-win!

👉 Have a lot of fun along the way: Join a community of like-minded bloggers and online business owners who are all working towards the same goal!

Want to know what it’s like on the inside?

If you’re wondering what it’s actually like inside the Digital Product Success Academy, you can check out what other DPSAers are saying about the DPSA experience here.

Here’s a sneak peek:

“What I love about DPSA is that it is a hands-on, guided, and methodical approach to creating information products. Each step builds upon the previous one, and each task is small enough so there is no overwhelm.

Information is provided in multiple formats, which reduces confusion and fosters focus. The community is refreshingly helpful and supportive”

Michelle Dear-Moncrief, Makers Corner Crafts

“The DPSA is pretty much the best thing ever if you’re serious about making money and seeing growth with your blog. Eb is the perfect person to provide this kind of membership; her background in both marketing and teaching and then, of course, blogging is so evident and so helpful.

Having the DPSA broken down into challenges is genius. It helps keep motivation high since there is a finish line to get to and celebrate every few weeks. And each challenge is broken down into perfect bite-size pieces that are doable and not overwhelming but new and challenging at the same time.

One of my favorite things is that I know Eb has everything planned out and taken care of. I am a super detail-oriented person who wants to do everything and do it right, so it is SO nice to be able to just do what Eb says each day and trust that if something needs to be done, she will tell me and she’ll tell me how and when to do it.

My other favorite part is the DPSA Facebook Community. Having a place to go to ask questions and get feedback is invaluable — especially because Eb is so active in the group and does her best to respond to everyone’s questions.

Honestly, she really should be charging more. I 100% recommend signing up for the membership. Thank you Eb!”

Allison Clark, Give Birth Give Life

“With the information provided so far I feel much more confident that I can build a successful digital product side to my business. The way Eb delivers the information is easy to understand and follow. There is so much support from Eb and the other members of the DPSA. I am loving it so far!”

Lauren Woodger, The Scatty Mum

“If you’re looking to launch your next digital product, Digital Product Success Academy is for you. It’s not just about the easy-to-follow challenges on marketing strategy, and how to launch your product the right way. It’s also about a community of like-minded people to bounce ideas off and get feedback and help from. And I love that you get direct feedback from Eb as well.”

Mariska Ramondino, My Chef’s Apron

“As a food blogger who’s put off digital product marketing for a long time, I find Eb’s DPSA incredibly useful.

It feels like she’s done all the tedious planning for me—from starting out, to what’s needed, and how to reach my goals.

I also really enjoy the DPSA Facebook community. It’s a fantastic place to ask questions. Eb answers each one personally and provides valuable feedback and ideas. You can really tell she has a background in teaching.”

Zerrin Gunaydin, Give Recipe

If that sounds like something you’d love to be a part of, head here to find out more >>> Digital Product Success Academy

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