Do you want to make money online? What is the income you are looking for? We are not talking here about making few hundreds of dollars, we are talking about making a living from your blog. Having the freedom of living your life the way you want, and not to depend on a day job.
If you haven’t started your own blog yet, read this post on How To Start A Blog In 8 Easy Steps
Don’t get me wrong. A day job is what every starter should look for when they don’t have the experience or the money to start on their own. But that’s it. Once you gain the experience or the money or both, you should always aim to have your own business.
But what if after 5 or 10 years of your day job and still you can’t start your own business. Or maybe you don’t have an idea for a business which you can start on your own? Then definitely you must try to make money online.
Making money online is one of the most explored content online, there is a lot of buzzes around making money online. A lot of scams and fake hopes promising you to become rich quick, a lot of discouraging article from people who failed to make money online and some authenticated articles sharing the real deal about making money online.
Making money online is not a myth, to give you an idea of how real making money online is, have a look at below online advertising and affiliate marketing market expectation.
- According to Forbes, mobile ad spending in the US is expected to grow to over 70B$ (1).
- According to Forbes, the total digital ad spending in the US is expected to reach 107.3B$ (2).
This is just the online ads market in USA only and not including other ways of income such as affiliate marketing, the money paid by advertisers will go to publishing media companies like Google Adsense which share with publishers like you a share of their earnings from ads displayed at your blog.
Making Money Online: The Real Deal
Since you are reading this article then chances you already make money online and wants to learn more, or you are just starting your journey. In both cases, if you want to learn anything you must learn from the best and below is a list of the top blogs in making money online niche, you might be aware of some of them as you should if you are really into making money online.
These blogs are not necessarily listed in the order of top earnings. Some of these blogs don’t publish their earnings publicly and it’s hard to estimate their total income. Also, Some of them are not really focused on “making money” online but they provide the necessary foundation such as blogging tips.
Take a look at the list in Infographic shape….
1. Problogger – Owner: Darren Rowse
Although Darren Rowse built Problogger in the blogging tips niche. It’s considered one of the top blogs that teach you how to make money online because the fundamental step in making money online is to build a successful blog and be able to treat it as a business.
The blog walks you through the steps you need to follow to build your blog and reach a six-figure income with more than 8,000 posts about blogging tips and in-depth tutorials. Darren has even authored a book named “Secrets for blogging your way to a six-figure income”. Which was only the start of many other Ebooks that he published. The Third Edition of this Ebook is being updated with all the latest changes and trends in blogging, social media and making money online niches. You can find it on Amazon.
Initially, Problogger was making money from affiliate programs & selling advertising banners but since 2009 Darren was more into publishing and selling e-books rather than relying on Ads & Affiliate marketing.
Although Darren doesn’t publish exact income information or income sources. The main expected monetization method from the blog is selling self-authored ebooks, Affiliate marketing and having a Freelance Job board. For example, the current cost for posting a job on ProBlogger job board for 1 month is $70 which explains the huge income Problogger could be making.
2. SmartPassiveIncome – Owner: Pat Flynn
Pat Flynn shares his experience on how he makes money online, he will help you understand how to make a passive income online, which means a steady income that increases month after month. His blog tips is a real example of what might work for your blog and what might not work.
Pat is one of the few bloggers who publicly shares his monthly income report starting from Oct 2008. His last published monthly income report was $167,553.31, his last 12 months income report was $2,171,652.55 (3). His top earning sources is from Affiliate marketing and selling courses.
Pat first published earnings report was in Nov 2008 with a total of $9,728.89. Check out all his earning reports from Nov 2008 to Dec 2017 to understand how he was able to build a passive income and increase his income a month after month.
3. IncomeDiary – Owner: Michael Dunlop
You will find a lot of tips on how to make money online On IncomeDiary. Also, you will find a lot of inspiring stories about other successful entrepreneurs and how they became such a success.
4. Makingsenseofcents – Owner: Michelle Schroeder-Gardner
Michelle started her blog back in 2011 with no idea that she will earn a huge income and become a full-time travel blogger. Michelle is expert in affiliate marketing and she is offering a course called Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing where she teaches you everything you need to know.
Michelle is one of the very few bloggers who publish their earnings, She made over $240K in one month as per the last published income report for March 2018. She made over $1.5M in 2017.
5. Johnchow – Owner: John Chow
According to his own blog, John was able to become successful by building a steady income for his blog going from zero income to $40,000 per month in two years. His blog is listed as number 1 on the list of the Top 50 Canadian Internet Marketing Blogs (4). John also won the 2012 affiliate marketing award.
6. ShoeMoney – Owner: Jeremy Schoemaker
ShoeMoney became so popular when Jeremy published a photo of himself carrying a check from Google with a value of $132,994.97 of one month of Google Adsense clicks earnings. On his blog, Jeremy continues to share his secrets on how he is making money online.
7. Entrepreneurs-journey – Owner: Yaro Starak
Yaro Starak shares his journey and experience on his blog on how he was able to make money online. He also shares how he is able to transform his websites into businesses and how he later sells them. If you want to sell or buy a website then this is the place where you need to look. Yaro offers on his blog free courses and shares success stories of other bloggers who became a success and made money online.
The blog now is hiring, so if you have what it takes and interested in working with Yaro then go ahead and apply at his website.
8. ZacJohnson – Owner: ZacJohnson
If you are into affiliate marketing, or if you want to make money using affiliate marketing programs, then this is the best blog for you. With over $10 million generated through affiliate programs; Zac knows exactly what he is talking about. And can help you make money too.
You can also Advertise on ZacJohnson website, the price is not publicly published on the website, but you can contact him on his blog if you are interested.
9. Retireat21 – Owner: Michael Dunlop
Do you want to Retire early? Do you want to quit your day job? then this blog would help you find out how you can become a success online and leave your day job.
10. Shoutmeloud – Owner: Harsh Agrawal
Harsh shares his success story on how he was able to transform his blog into a money-making machine. You will find a lot of tips on ShoutMeLoud on how you can make money online.
The website also sells a self-published ebook “ShoutMeLoud Affiliate Marketing eBook” among other ebooks useful for bloggers. You can advertise on ShoutMeLoad with many options as below:
- $2800 per month for 468×60 Header banner
- $3500 per month for 468×60 after post banner
- $3000 per month for 300×250 Sidebar banner
Final Tips
Something you might have noticed about those top earnings blogs that they don’t monetize their blogs with Google AdSense. AdSense is a great source of income for beginners and intermediate bloggers. But it doesn’t pay very well for top bloggers, therefore they better monetize their blogs with affiliate marketing.
Those bloggers choose not to use Google AdSense because they treat their blog as a business. You might be wondering what is that suppose to mean? They can make money with Google AdSense. Yes, they can but treating your blog as a business will make you ask questions that you have never thought of asking.
If you are making money with Google AdSense, it means that you are losing readers. Also, it might mean that your readers didn’t find what they are looking for on your blog. What if the same reader remained on your blog and then clicked on an affiliate link, will your commision be higher than Google Adsense earnings? What products or affiliate links you can include in your blog that will make you more money than a click on Google ad?
You can use Google AdSense when you are just starting to help pay for your cost and make additional income, but once your blog grows you need to find the best monetization method for your blog as Google AdSense will not pay you very well for your efforts.
If you really want to make a living online, it’s worth spending some time following these blogs and reading posts published there, they have already done it! Understand how and what they did to make money online and learn from their experience.
But you will not be able to make money online if you don’t have traffic to your blog.
Note: Figures correct at time of publishing may now be out of date…but they should give you a good idea of what’s possible!
Sources:
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- (1) Forbes – Mobile Advertising
- (2) Forbes – US TV and Ad spending
- (3) SmartPassiveIncome – Income reports
- (4) Johnshow – Top 50 Canadian Internet Marketing Blogs