How to Make Money Blogging

how to make money blogging as a lifestyle blogger

If I could monetize how many times I get asked “How can I make money blogging?” I’d be raking it in! It is probably the No.1 question clients and readers ask me and the reason a lot of people start a blog in the first place.

There are a lot of ways you can make money blogging, so I’m going to give you an overview of the four major ways. Hopefully this gives you a good idea of how to get started making money blogging!

All of the below ways to make money blogging can apply whether you are a blogger or a business owner. I have had a number of clients who blog for their business without realizing they can use these efforts to make some money from their blog!

How to Make Money Blogging

First thing’s first: Is your blog setup the right way? Make sure you have your own self-hosted blog so that you can monetize it! If not, check out this step-by-step tutorial on how to start a blog.  

Grow Your Audience

It’s not enough to throw up a blog, a few pieces of content and expect the money to start trickling in. You’ll need to build your traffic, your audience and their trust in you.

That last portion really is key, especially when it comes to affiliate marketing. If your audience doesn’t trust you, they won’t click on and buy your recommendations. So build your blog, your audience and gain some trust!

How do you do this? By creating valuable content. Creating and sharing content that’s great will make people see and trust you as an expert. So that by the time you pop on saying you can’t without that YSL lipstick or swear by a certain email service provider, they’ll know you really mean it.

Affiliate Marketing

Probably the most well-known way to make money blogging is through affiliate marketing. Affiliate programs will pay you a commission if someone purchases a product through your link. It doesn’t cost the customer anything additional and you get a commission for promoting something you use and love anyway!

There are a million affiliate programs out there to promote products and services. Amazon Affiliates is one of the most popular, and one of the easiest to join. And since most people shop on Amazon it’s easy to get started making money through them! Here are some affiliate programs you could explore:

  • Amazon Affiliates
  • Your email provider: Mine is Convertkit! I love them immensely and so it’s natural for me to recommend them
  • Shareasale: This directory has brands like Wayfair, Etsy and Rent the Runway
  • CJ: Another affiliate directory where you can find brands like TJ Maxx, Dermstore and Olay
  • ShopStyle Collective: Great for fashion and beauty bloggers, this network gives you access to a ton of affiliate programs without having to apply for each individual one. They PPP (pay-per-click) rather than per sale
  • RewardStyle An invite-only network for top-tier  fashion and beauty bloggers. Need a referral to RewardStyle? Email me!

Sponsored Posts

Creating sponsored content on your blog is one of the most lucrative ways to make money blogging. A sponsored post is simply when a brand pays you to incorporate their product into your blog post in an authentic way. Here are a few recent partnerships I’ve had:

You can book sponsored posts a number of ways: Pitch brands directly, wait for brands to approach you or join influencer networks/agencies where sponsored opportunities may come up. If you’re just getting your feet wet with blogging, influencer networks are the easiest place to start. They won’t pay as much as pitching the brand directly but you’ll be able to gain some experience in working with brands. A few influencer networks to check out include:

Banner Ads

Banner ads used to be a huge blogging moneymaker, but although they don’t make as much as they used to they’re still another way to monetize a lifestyle blog. You can sell ad space directly to an advertiser or join an ad blog network. Some banner ad networks you may want to check out include:

When you join affiliate programs you’ll also have access to banner ads you can put on your site. Just be careful to not overload your site with ads as this can really turn off readers. Keep user experience in mind! And always stay authentic to your brand by only promoting what you truly use and love.

Your Own Products & Services

One of the other most lucrative ways to make money blogging is to sell your own products or services. Whether it’s an e-book, e-course or fun printable, this can be a great way to establish a passive income stream. Brainstorm some ideas of any blog posts or expertise you may have that you could turn into a product or service. If you’re great at styling clothes, you could offer your services as a stylist. If you’re already a stylist, put together an e-book for clients that help them discover their personal style! These are just a few ideas to get the wheels in your head turning.

The best way to make a solid, consistent income blogging is using a combination of all of these tactics. Think of your income potential like a “money pie” and alot time and energy for sponsored posts, banner ads, your own services and affiliate marketing, too! It’s never a good idea to put all of your eggs in one basket and some of the most successful bloggers use all these money making tactics.

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When Can I Monetize My Blog?

A lot of people suggest first building a following before monetizing, but there’s no reason why you can’t start monetizing your blog right away! If your goal is in fact to make money blogging, that’s something you can pursue immediately. The only caveat to that is to be careful to not go overboard with banner ads, they can be unsightly and a turn-off to readers so it may be worth waiting until your traffic is higher.

Another thing to consider is you can never really predict when you’ll get a spike in traffic. Let’s say you have a Pin that goes viral one day and you didn’t put any affiliate links in place yet. You will have missed out on all of that potential traffic and can’t go back in time to insure those links.

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how to make money blogging as a fashion blogger, beauty blogger, lifestyle blogger and business owner


Are you currently monetizing your blog? What are your favorite ways to do so? 

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2 Comments

  1. Thank you for mentioning us in a great monetization post, Marlene!
    Mediavine is known for helping online publishers monetize their existing content through digital advertising that doesn’t slow down sites or destroy audience experience. But ads are just the beginning. Our mission is to create sustainable businesses for digital content creators. We are committed to providing education to publishers on a wide variety of topics from social media to SEO and helping them diversify their income streams with our influencer marketing department and other resources (like your post!)
    Our threshold to work with a site is 25k sessions (we no longer count pageviews) in the last 30 days and we’re here to answer any questions at [email protected].
    Thanks again!
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  2. Hi,
    This is great! I subscribed to the list. Thank you for this info.
    Have a great day

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