Bloggers earn money

By: Megavolt Date: 27.05.2017

Gael Breton - May 25th Many people jump into this industry after reading some over hyped content that tells them they can earn thousands of dollars each month with very little work. Sounds too good to be true, right? Here at Authority Hacker, we are big fans of cold hard facts. We hate fluffy, vague, unproven points. This post is a very long case study which looks at the success of other bloggers. We compare all the stats and try to understand what are the real drivers of success.

It's not a step-by-step guide; rather, it's a collection of case studies. All of the stats we used here were self reported from bloggers who regularly publish income reports. We can't verify the authenticity of all of them, however we expect these to be fairly accurate. When non internet marketing people first hear about bloggers making thousands of dollars monthly, their first reaction usually "huh?

If there is one thing Mark and I learned, it's that revenue does not mean much if you're spending all the money back into the business and are left with very little profit. That's why I was interested in finding out just how profitable building authority sites and online businesses was. As you can see from the graph above, they tend to be VERY profitable compared to most brick and mortar businesses. The 4 categories we will be analysing from this point. These business models are drastically different, I think it's only fair that we split up their profitability to get an idea of what business models are the most lucrative, regardless of the size of these blogger's businesses.

Because the costs are usually not broken down per area in most income reports and because most bloggers run multiple business models on top of each other, we've grouped them depending on their main source of income and looked at their profitability. One last note on this table: One of the most interesting results here is that affiliate marketing is on average more profitable than creating and selling your own product. So why would you bother? One of the reasons they general so much revenue is that selling your own products opens up a lot of new marketing channels that are not opened to affiliate marketers learn more about this in this podcast.

Advertising is both the least profitable and generates the least total profit; however, the massive benefit of using ads to monetize is that they require a super low commitment. Before we venture into correlation, let me remind you that correlation do not equal to causation.

It's not because high earnings bloggers have a lot of Twitter followers that buying Twitter followers will help you earn more money. If you want to learn more about correlation vs causation, check this video out. Alexa rank is supposed to measure the traffic of a website and it seems logical that with more traffic, websites should be more lucrative. Overall, while Alexa does a pretty good job at knowing which sites get traffic, it's not a metric you can rely on when it comes to assessing revenue generated.

While the number of backlinks does seem to have a correlation with earnings, there are some serious outliers--those who make bank without loads of links. One of the biggest factors in the outliers is that they seem take advantage of other platforms such as iTunes John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn , Pinterest Lindsay Ostrom , and others. Consider going beyond Google and backlinks if you want to do well. This one made me raise an eyebrow. I always expected Twitter and social media fans to not be very good at monetising and obviously I was wrong.

This goes towards pointing out that a smaller engaged crowd is much more profitable than a large unengaged audience and traffic really is not the most important thing in an online business. Given that 9 of our 22 bloggers are women, we thought it would be interesting to see how their income compares. Is the world of blogging more or less discriminating than the real world? This one was very interesting. At least in the sample we analysed. That seems hugely unfair and the difference is massive compared to the real world.

In fact, John Lee Dumas earns so much more than the rest of the pack, he skews the data a great deal. Here's what the chart looks like if you omit John Lee Dumas:. As seen in the previous section, spread of income and somehow low sample number shows that there are huge spreads of income across bloggers.

I thought it would be interesting to see how wide that spread is and if the Pareto principle verified in this industry as well. So we took the top 5 bloggers John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, Michelle Gardner, Lindsay Ostrom, and Justin Weinger and compared their income against the rest of the crowd.

It was interesting to see that the Pareto principle verifies itself in the blogging world as well.

How to Make Money Blogging: How This Blog Makes $K per Month

With over episodes, he has interviewed everyone from Tim Ferriss to Michael Port. Along the way, he has inspired thousands to take the entrepreneurship leap and run better businesses. Podcasting remains his biggest source of revenue.

How to Make Money with Your Blog in - Blogging Basics

Because of the strength of the brand name, John's websites get a lot of traffic through direct type-ins. John earns a smaller but still significant portion of his income from affiliate commissions. Nearly all of John's ad earnings are from EOFire podcast sponsorship. The bulk of product earnings come from "Podcasters Paradise". John is a huge proponent of smart outsourcing on his podcasts and blog. John Lee Dumas pretty much started the recent podcasting phenomenon among entrepreneurs.

It's still his biggest source of traffic and revenue. Podcasts are not only fun to create, they also help you connect with leading figures in your field. The sponsorship money isn't bad either! As the founder of SmartPassiveIncome. For the last 7. Pat writes at least once a week about marketing, blogging and building businesses on the SmartPassiveIncome blog. Additionally, Pat runs a handful of web properties such as GreenExamAcademy.

Full though his hands may be, Pat still publicly shares every aspect of his buinsess with his readers through his detailed monthly income reports.

The biggest, of course, comes from his email list. Pat primarily promotes web hosting and email products. Pat sells eBooks on his niche websites, plus a web player for podcasters. Pat sells books, themes, apps and courses. Pat makes the vast majority of his revenue with course sales.

Of course, he does very well with affiliate marketing, too. Pat has been blogging regularly for 6. Thanks to this consistency, the SmartPassiveIncome SPI blog has developed tremendous clout with readers, other bloggers and search engines. This shows in the income as well: Diversify your income sources: Blogs, SPI TV, Ask Pat podcast, software, websites, eBooks - Pat has his fingers in many different pies.

Each of these contributes to his personal brand and brings him increasingly higher traffic and revenues. I can think of the old adage: Pat's face is everywhere on his website. He once even wrote about how a reader recognized him on a flight a 'celebrity' moment few entrepreneurs will ever have. Today, the Pat Flynn personal brand is arguably bigger than all his blogs combined.

Thanks to this brand, Pat could start from scratch and still build an enviable following within months. Michelle runs the popular MakingSenseOfCents blog where she teaches her readers how to save money, get organized and live a better life. She's been blogging for more than five years now, and in that period, she has grown her 'side income' blog into a monster.

Michelle's blog is devoted to finding answers to problems we all understand: This is a trillion dollar industry globally and people buried under debt are desperate for solutions. Michelle updates her blog around times a month, usually with in-depth guides on everything from product reviews to renting out rooms. Along the way, she also teaches her readers how to make money from their 'side hustle'.

She tries to stay away from the linkbait, 'viral traffic' trap and instead, focuses on providing real value to readers. This has helped her earn a substantial amount with only only , visitors.

Michelle's income is well-divided into all three broad categories, but the bulk comes from affiliate revenue.

bloggers earn money

The biggest reason for Michelle's success is her ability to explain complex topics in layman language. Debt reduction, credit cards, insurance - these are subjects few people understand. By simplifying them, Michelle has been able to carve a niche for herself in a competitive vertical.

Instead of creating generic financial advice pieces, Michelle carefully targets a narrow audience - millennials who want to reduce debt, earn a side income, and travel the world.

This makes her blog so much more relatable than your average finance website. Lindsay Ostrom is easily the most recognizable face in food blogging.

The founder of PinchOfYum, Lindsay has been whipping up delicious fare and photographing them for close to 5 years. The most interesting part about Lindsay's journey is that she has managed to build a six figure business in a niche most don't think about - food photography and blogging.

Lindsay has a massive presence on Pinterest and Instagram. Between these two social networks, she has over k followers k for Pinterest, k for Instagram. Naturally, these followers send massive traffic to her posts every day.

As one of the biggest brands in food blogging, she also gets a lot of referral traffic--over ,00 visits from BuzzFeed alone in November. Lindsay most of her money with advertising, though affiliate marketing and digital product sales also make up a big share of her earnings.

Given the size of her audience and brand positioning, she can command a premium on advertising rates. Lindsay also has a bunch of products of her own that teach others how to take better food photographs. She also promotes affiliate products, mostly hosting offers as part of her 'how to make money blogging' course.

Lindsay's biggest expense for november after her salary was studio space. And this makes sense, right? A major part of her business is taking great pictures. Lindsay has been blogging on PinchOfYum for over 6 years. This amounts to hundreds of posts with thousands of pictures. Every new post you create has a compounding effect on your traffic and income potential.

Lindsay's website traffic shot up substantially after she started taking better pictures of her creations. Even her best-selling course is on taking better food pictures.

In our image-dominated social age, it is crucial that you focus on better visuals on your blog. Unlike a lot of other bloggers on this list, Lindsay gets a over half a million visits from Pinterest. This is one social network many bloggers tend to miss, even though it can drive a huge amount of traffic. Want to get 'over' the rat race, debt and financial responsibility? Then Justin Weinger of SoOverThis.

The site started in February as 'So Over Debt', a blogger's journey to getting out of debt. Justin purchased the site in , chronicling his own journey to financial freedom and making a promise to be as transparent and 'non-guru' like as possible. In the last two years, he's made a remarkable habit of sticking to that promise. He doesn't sell any products, nor does he promote any affiliate programs heavily.

The traffic he does get is largely organic or through referrals. For his money making sites, Justin relies on search engines and social media to drive the bulk of his traffic. Justin reports no affiliate earnings. Justin makes all his income through ad sales, primarily display ads. He runs high traffic, high quality niche sites with targeted traffic. Selling advertising on such sites is a legit way to make money online in Don't forget about ads. Bloggers are often so fixated on affiliate marketing and info products that they forget about the oldest legit money making method online: If you have a high-traffic, authoritative website, you can easily make thousands of dollars every month through ad sales.

AdSense is the easiest way to make money from a site. But because it is easy, it is also hardly lucrative. If you go down the advertising path, make sure that you maximize display ad e. Use AdSense only to fill up unsold inventory on the site. ShowMetheYummy is a four-year-old site in the food recipes niche. Jennifer, the owner of the site, started publishing income reports in November Advertising is the biggest revenue stream for Jennifer.

The site also make substantial income from products. Her next-biggest expense was payment processing. Your product can be slightly unrelated to your niche. That she managed to reach this figure in a tough niche with minimum spend on advertising shows what's possible if you just focus on creating high quality content. Abby shared her first income report in February Abby writes posts every week on her blog.

This includes detailed DIY projects as well as listicles and roundups from social media. This kind of content isn't easy to create, but Abby does a smashing job with her write-ups as well as the quality of her pictures. Abby's blog is well loved within the 'mommy bloggers' niche and gets a lot of referral traffic.

Her presence on social media is strong as well: Abby makes good money from a variety of different affiliate programs. Abbey sells several eBooks and courses.

Brand yourself according to your niche. Abby's readers are largely other moms. This reflects in her brand as well. She uses plenty of pastel shades and a friendly, feminine theme, which works perfectly with her audience. Abby writes in-depth posts on DIY topics and follows them up with listicles and roundups from across the internet.

By writing a mix of authoritative and link bait content, she is able to get the best of both worlds: Add pictures wherever possible. Instead of simply writing long posts, Abby uses a lot of pictures to create visual DIY guides. These are easier to follow and bring in additional traffic through social shares. In terms of sheer traffic, Harsh's website, ShoutMeLoud sits at the very top of our list of blogs.

ShoutMeLoud gets over a million of page views every month. Part of the reason is the broad nature of the website; ShoutMeLoud shares tips on everything from blogging to making your phone work faster. Another reason is Harsh's prowess as a blogger which has helped his site thrive even when other similar sites sank under Panda and Penguin.

Harsh has been publicly sharing his site earnings since February Harsh is a prolific blogger. Over the course of 7 years, he has written well over 3, posts, which averages out to around 2 posts per day!

With nearly 3, posts, ShoutMeLoud has covered nearly every keyword imaginable in the make money, blogging, and internet tips niche. Since it is an aged domain with quality content, Google gives it a lot of love as well. Consequently, search makes up a large part of ShoutMeLoud's traffic. Harsh primarily promotes hosting and social media tools. Harsh's ad earnings come from AdSense and Media. Harsh's earnings are well divided between the three broad categories - affiliate, advertising and products.

He makes money through affiliate marketing by promoting SEO and social media software. In addition, he also sells his own eBooks and domains. ShoutMeLoud began as a how-to blog covering tech and internet tips. Over the years, Harsh has written hundreds of articles targeting long-tail how-to keywords. Try out alternative income sources: Besides the usual affiliates, he also sells domain names through the 'ShoutMeDomains' brand.

This contributes a couple of thousand dollars to his bottom line, and gives his readers access to a much needed commodity - domain names. Matthew Woodward is one of the foremost SEO bloggers online. His nearly 4 year old blog deals with various aspects of making money online with blogging. Matthew's primary monetization method is affiliate marketing. However, he also takes on consulting work on the side and has started a project not associated with his internet marketing site that now makes up about half his income.

Although Matthew's blog deals primarily with SEO, he built up MatthewWoodward. That is to say, he focused on creating high quality content and letting the blogosphere do the rest. Matthew makes nearly all of his money with affiliate marketing. As a SEO blogger, his primary choice of products are SEO tools. He also promotes a handful of social media marketing tools.

The biggest expense for Matthew is Facebook ads. Other expenses include hosting and marketing tools. Focus on one topic: Instead of blogging about every topic under the sun, Matthew writes mostly about SEO. This not only gives his blog a hyper-targeted audience, but also helps establish him as a leading authority in the industry.

This has led to speaking and consulting gigs. This means that even if one product fails in the near future, his income won't be affected much. Jon runs the 'Fat Stacks Entrepreneur' blog where he shares his lessons in, well, making 'fat stacks' through niche sites. Jon also runs a smaller affiliate-focused website in a B2B which he uses to test new ideas and ad networks such as Bing ads.

Jon does sell a great course, and it of course earns him some nice money. However, he does not include this income in his income reports. He does, however, report record RPMs after implementing Ezoic an ad testing platform. Jon sells a course but does not include that revenue in income reports. Spend money to make money: At the beginning of his site, Jon was spending an enormous amount of money to earn the profits his site generated. This got him off the ground quickly and allowed him to make money while he waited for his search traffic to grow.

Build a proven system, then scale it up: Gina Horkey is proof that you don't need to be a marketer or seller to make money online. If you can provide a service people want, you can make a decent income, even if you don't have much experience.

Gina embarked on a freelance writing career nearly two years ago. In the process, she has also sold her own product and written for some of the top publishers online. Gina's blog, the HorkeyHandbook has become a mainstay in the freelance writing niche itself a part of the larger writing vertical.

It has a loyal following and highly engaged audience as can be seen in her blog comments. It also gets a lot of link love from other industry blogs, as Ahrefs data shows. Gina's offers her own writing and administrative services to make up the bulk of her earnings.

Most of the rest of her earnings are made up of product sales, specifically, an eBook that promises to teach new writers how to start their freelance writing careers. Give freelancing a shot: Freelancing is seriously underrated as a way to make money in When she first started, Gina was making almost all her income through freelancing. Now, she's added product sales to the mix.

Kristen started Believe In a Budget in January Another thing to note here is that her traffic is spread across lots of different channels: Kristen makes most of her money with affiliate commissions. Kristen makes over thousand dollars with advertising that says she has been trying to reduce ads on her site. Kristen also makes some decent income from her courses.

Use affiliates even if you have a small course. Her site portfolio covers covers a few different seemingly unrelated niches: Rose does very well by touching a few different niches, earning almost 5 figures per month.

This is especially true for her baking sites, which does very well on interest. Advertising makes up the biggest chunk of income for Rose. For Rose, was of the income comes from advertising. Here, again, we see a blogger having a lot of success with AdThrive, and add optimization platform.

Rose still uses AdSense, though, and she also make some money with sponsored posts. Like some of the other blogs on this list, Rose likes to keep her expenses low. However, she does spend money on a virtual assistant, and that makes up the majority of her overhead.

Slap your personal brand on several niches. Rose is in multiple niches, and all of her sides have her personal brand despite then being unrelated. Both her finance and her baking blog leverage her personal brand. Alexa covers financial topics with a focus on earning income from side jobs and freelance gigs. Most of Alexis traffic comes from the search engines, although, many of the bloggers on this list who use their personal brand on their blogs, Alexa leverages Pinterest to capture a social audience.

She also has quite a bit of direct traffic. Alexa also makes money with ad networks and sponsored post. Alexa still earns a significant portion of her income through freelancing. Although she earns a nice wage from affiliate commissions and advertising, she still freelances, which, aside from supplementing her income, I think, wins her blog a lot of credibility. She is a virtual assistant. Practice what you preach.

In my view, everything up Alexis says about earning extra money carries a lot more weight than it might on other blogs because she is actually out there doing it, and her income reports are coldhearted proof.

Most of his sites provide aid some kind of app or service and, as far as I can tell, operate on a freemium model. All the revenue generated through products and memberships sold on the website. He also pays a couple of writers. Make something useful and give it away for free and then charge for it. Freemium has always been one of my favorite business models, and Dave executes it really well. Giving something away for free is a great way to bring in traffic.

New designs can mean more money. When Dave redesigned his readability websites, it quickly became his highest earner. Eventually, he started a YouTube channel dedicated to helping people grow and monetize their YouTube channels. He now has over k subscribers, and YouTube-related income makes up the bulk of his revenue. Dusty makes about a fourth of his revenue by promoting affiliate offers.

How to Make Money Blogging (with Pictures) - wikiHow

Dusty earns this money mostly from a freelance gigs but also from courses. He has a YouTube channel. He has four podcasts. He has a website. He does freelance work. And he makes money with all of them. Dusty seems to be the master of diversification. He diverse is not only his traffic and revenue but also his platforms. Dusty also monetizes basically everything he touches.

His YouTube channel, podcast, and website all generate revenue. Spencer Haws is a name familiar to most internet marketing veteran. He's one of the most successful IMers around with multiple six-figure websites under his belt. With NichePursuits, Spencer is taking a new route - he is building niche websites from scratch and sharing the results with everyone. He also has an Amazon FBA business. His income figures are ONLY reporting earnings NichePursuits.

He owns many other websites, products and companies that he does not report the earnings from. NichePursuits benefits immensely from Spencer's extensive marketing experience. Within a few months of its inception, it has grew into a top-tier property with thousands of monthly readers, tons of incoming links and a growing social media profile.

It ranks highly in search engines, and also gets referral traffic from podcast guests linking back to his site. NichePursuits earns all of its income through affiliate commissions. Spencer spreads his attention across dozens of niche websites and projects. Obviously, he can't do all this on his own. He's made a habit of outsourcing the bulk of content creation work so he can focus on what he does best: Matthew's blog is proof that you don't need to sell eBooks or courses to make money - you can just do what you love and the money will follow.

For three years, Matthew has been sharing his journey making a passive income from creating HTML5 games. He designs these games from scratch then sells the rights to various gaming portals, pocketing the royalties. Matthew's success furthers my view that there are many, many ways to earn a living online. Some create niche websites, some offer writing services, while some do what they love - make games - and live the internet lifestyle.

Matthew's blog is one of the few sites devoted to making and selling HTML5 games online. As such, it has a small but highly engaged readership. This has helped it earn strong referral traffic and an authoritative position in search engines, both of which contribute heavily to its traffic. Tiny niche, big profits: Matthew makes HTML5 video games, then sells them to gaming websites. This is a very small niche compared to 'make money', 'fitness' and 'finance', but it also has much less competition.

This helps Matthew earn big profits with less effort. Matthew is a recognized authority on making and selling HTML5 games. He's been able to achieve this despite a very relaxed posting schedule.

This is another advantage of narrow niches - you don't need tons of content to establish yourself in non-competitive markets. EasyBabyLife is a baby site founded by Paula Dennholdt in Paula grew the site from scratch into an impressive authority parenting site that garners over , visits per month.

She also uses the blog as a personal branding tool and a way for her to blog about her personal life, family, and entrepreneurial journey. She says in her last income report, though, that she is learning a lot more about interest in this trying to get more aggressive on that platform. Paula earns a small chunk of revenue from affiliate commissions. Paula keeps her expenses very low. Her only real expenses are technical expenses associated with keeping her website online and healthy, like web hosting services and website protection services.

Try Mediavine or any other ad network. If you have the traffic, could certainly be worth testing. Get one thing working and then stack other stuff. Nathan's blog is the youngest on this list, but it still boasts some extraordinary posts on blogging, entrepreneurship and local SEO. Nathan is hardly a newbie blogger, however.

He's a seasoned internet marketer with extensive experience running an offline web agency. Thanks to this experience, he's tasted significant success within a few months on his new blog. IncomeBully is Nathan's journey to creating a passive income stream while slowly folding his web agency business.

It's a must-read for anyone who wants to replicate his success and make a passive living online. A big chunk of the traffic here comes from search, and about an equal number comes from direct traffic. Coaching and courses are where Nathan makes most of his money. Nathan's biggest source of earnings is one product - a course on running an offline web agency. He also makes money with affiliate marketing, though its small change compared to his product sales. Sell your own product s: It's amazing what you can do with just a few hundred visitors when you own the entire sales funnel, from lead generation to actual product.

Will is an up and coming blogger in the lucrative travel blog niche. Will also publicly shares his income with his readers. While it's admirable that Will is both travelling the world and making money, the income had been stagnating for a while now, maybe due to the lack of promotion of the site.

Will earns the bulk of his income through sponsored content. Will's has a well-diversified income stream. This includes services freelance writing , sponsored posts, and affiliate income through web hosting offers.

Start earning from day one: Lots of bloggers wait for months to build up traffic before making money from their websites. He's been monetizing his website through freelance gigs and affiliate programs right from day one. This has helped him learn the ropes much faster than most bloggers. While selling your own products can bring much more money and opens a lot of very scalable promotion avenues PPC, JV's, etc , Affiliate marketing still yields a higher returns on investment.

It's also much easier and faster to get going as an affiliate than it is to create and sell your own information or physical products. For that reason, starting with affiliate marketing for monetisation and THEN moving on to selling your own products when your audience is big and engaged enough looks like the best way to scale revenue for online media properties.

It's interesting to note as well that the biggest earners by FAR in the affiliate world focus on recurring revenue commissions. How To Make Money From ClickBank in If you count on making money from advertising, your site really needs a LOT of traffic.

Those who are making bank from ads are in the millions of visits per month. When we studied correlation between metrics and revenue, the closest one to real people Twitter followers had a much higher correlation with revenue than more abstract and SEO metrics such as Alexa rank or linking root domains. This conclusion may be a bit far stretched, but I am sure that if these bloggers shared their email list size, the correlation would have been very high.

The reason for that is that a lot of the more "abstract" metrics we rely on such as Alexa or Backlinks are somewhat outdated in the social media world we live in. Expenses range from assistants helping them with technical tasks and content to tools that improve their productivity. Once you start making money online, you'll have to spend back a large chunk of it if you want to keep making money, it works that way for most offline businesses and blogging is no different.

The excellent Problogger ran a survey a few years ago asking his readers how much they earned and here is a graph representing the answers of people: Now these figures are way lower than most of the income reports we can read about in this post, so one of two things should explain this:. Companies like Buffer , WPCurve and Empire flippers also report their income and all of them have earned a significant amount of exposure doing so.

This means you should invest in things like branding, relationships and overall superior content. Almost all of these bloggers rely on multiple platforms to drive traffic or sales. John Lee Dumas is focusing on itunes, Lindsay Ostrom drives most of her traffic from Pinterest, Daniel makes sales from Amazon and the list goes on.

The point is, most people see SEO as the holy grail of traffic and sales when they get started but looking at these guys, while they do get traffic from Google, it almost always is their secondary source of traffic, not their main focus.

Pick 2 or 3 platforms where your audience hangs out and focus on them while having SEO in the back of your mind, you will do better for yourself. The fact that the median income for girls is higher than men is great news in the battle for sex equality.

If you are a girl and you are looking to get into an industry where you have the same chances as guys, get into blogging! Is there something you would have covered or analysed differently? Let us know in the comment section! Hey I'm Gael, one of the guys behind Authority Hacker. I make a living working from my laptop in various places in the world and I will use this website to teach you how you could do the same.

I have read many how to make money from your blogs and such articles and online posts. Never felt they were complete or were honest.

Your this entire series of posts on blogging A to Z is like a bible for aspiring and seasoned bloggers.

How to Make Money Blogging in What Successful Blogs Teach Us

Keep up the good work and god bless you! Regards for helping out, superb information. This is good…really good. This took a lot of time and effort. Thanks a lot for including me here! I swear I did change my avatar in 11 years: This must have taken you an eternity to write. Thanks for dropping by. Although some are more profitable than others. Well it seems like most people who are killing it are rarely relying on just SEO to make money which explains the low correlation.

Wow, what a great article! You are welcome sir. Congrats on the success: You put a lot of time and research in to this. Where does your site fall among the rest? Thanks for dropping by, glad you like the research.

Hey Gael, great Post. And special thanx for the girl-power encouragement. I am just starting a blog beside my Webdesign-Business. Authorityhacker is one of my favorite model. I saw some people elsewhere had mentioned other blogs that certainly make more money, but I understand what you were doing here.

Thanks so much for the Empire Flippers mention, btw! Thanks for dropping by, good idea with businesses!

How to make money writing a blog - Our story from $0 to 10k per month!

Yeah I know a bunch of people making 6 figures monthly from their blogs but if I wanted to do some proper analysis I had to have the breakdown of expenses, income sources etc which is not the kind of info most people are happy to share.

Thanks for dropping by! I had a questions regarding your authority site in the health niche. When you were starting off, how did you get the pictures for the juice recipe? Did you just find a picture off the net and post it?

Hey George, I suggest you read this post for that: Nice to read about myself in more depth than people usually go into as well. I totally agree about services. Good luck with the clients and thanks for dropping by! I learned a lot! Thanks for including my wife Abby in this report. Okay, they say to write Epic shit. This is epic, man. I love, love, love what you have done here. Thanks for dropping by, happy to see the litters of sweat that post generated were not in vain!

Your blog is excellent at providing both. And that right there is a great blueprint for any blogger who wants to know how to build their blog! I do want to mention that Jon Dykstra actually does have a product. Several of them in fact. Also I have a question. Is the Alexa ranking for worldwide or the US? Hi Gael, What an amazing post. Yep, we found that part to be true as well.

Traffic is not much of a problem anymore bug strong monetisation is still something we are working on. Quick off topic question. How did you do that? Glad you liked the post! Seriously Gael, super honoured to be considered in this company considering how newbie I am. Flabbergasted is I all I gotta say: What an incredible post. Everything about it is just amazing from the design to the content.

Every post should have an Easter egg like that ; On a more serious note, have you fact checked the numbers reported? Finally a private question, would you mind sharing how your blog performs compare to the ones listed.

I had to approach this post twice: Be careful, that you placed Spencer on the last place: And what about Authorityhacker income reports? I replied on our income in the other comments check it out: This is the best post I ever seen! Thanks i have learnt a lot, one day I will be on that list. Respect to you guys! Thanks for appreciating the work! Someone just sent me this article — I am flattered to be featured.

I do have to make some corrections though. I do not do any freelance writing. My husband has done a little bit of freelance programming which is where that section of money came from that month. I work primarily on growing my passive income — a lot of my income comes from Amazon.

Great, Work try keep motivating the young bloggers with these kind of Blog posts. Definitely an amazing job Gael: Mentioned it already during our quick chat via Twitter, but this is just WOW. Started my blog just a few months ago after making good money in the pharma niches, and this is very inspiring, as well as full of good stuff to pick and study. One last time, great stuff, thanks for that and looking forward to more.

Thank you for making this super valuable post available. I really enjoyed this since I have started to work on my blog more effectively recently. I also have an income report section on my site and so far I have published two income reports. So much invaluable information for newbies, like me.

I appreciate the detailed and well thought out mention! Hey Gael, Jon from Fat Stacks Entrepreneur here. Thanks for the mention and incredible article. If you look at each of the people you mentioned in this post, most of them did that in some way.

I actually find this post more depressing than encouraging. Almost every single one of these bloggers talk about making money online. Hey Kristie, actually our case study site healthambition. Actually there are tons of people who are doing well without talking about making money, here are some examples. Emmy Wu — emmywu.

Weight Loss — sarahjenks. I love the 9 lessons in the end. Of all the posts I have read till date about monetizing blogs, this one totally stands out. This post is EPIC! One is an online lifestyle magazine which will primarily focus on health, well-being and personal development, and the other is a travel blog focusing on offbeat experiential travel.

I would be happy if you throw some light on getting started with direct advertising. Hey Anika, glad you liked the post and good luck with the sites! Very inspiring read, and loved the way you have drawn out what we can learn from each blogger. Got lots of stuff to mull over. Thanks for putting the metrics data. Its great to know that lower Alexa rank is not detrimental to earnings. Have to work on my Twitter followers: Glad you liked it Shashank!

And good luck on the Twitter Followers! Thanks so much for sharing this information! There are so many great posts on this blog, I will be reading them all for the rest of the week!

I will appreciate if you can share some actionable tips or at least resources for new bloggers and freelancers so they can use that knowledge to monetize their blogs. Glad you like the post! Thanks for this great post. I could only hope to join this elite group one day. The only site websites I know that actually pay you to write for them are seosf. Hi Gael, this is fantastic post and I love it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this article! Thank you SO much! You are welcome Tammi! That was exactly what we were going for ;. Started making money online about a year ago. I own over a dozen sites for affiliate use. You either write straight to the point content.

Or you write content to actually gain readers. The type of content you should create really depends on the kind of people you want to bring on: Obviously long content worked with you in that case ;.

This is just an AWESOME post Gael! I was thinking about doing a report like that, but I found that you have said it all and in a very good manner. People do not realize the true power of blogging. Especially because it can be monetized in so many different ways. I remember having read this for the first time and having immediately bookmarked it for future reference. Well back now for a refresher and honestly wanted to thank you for the post!

Could honestly have been an entire blog post with the amount of goodies found in these sections of the article alone! I find this site is very beneficial and helpful. How much is it true and how can i proceed further? I am extremely gratitude for response. Well the blog itself is separate from the Business so it depends on what you plan on selling on your blog. You could imagine doing tuition over Skype, or sell courses that teach parents how to teach their kids ect.

Oh my, this is so detailed, I love it! Lots of inspiration to keep going and hustling: Nice report and post How i wish i can reach that income in some of my blogs someday Keep posting Gael: This is one of the best websites out there for quality and detailed content. Keep up the great work and all the best to you!

Thank you for creating this. This has saved me hours of online research to see how these top performing guys are making money online. Also introduceded me someone I have not come across before.

This is a fantastic post. I think anyone who wants to start blogging should come here. I will definitely do a post linking back to this one. Thanks for this ultimate guide. It will help many newbies who are thinking to make their career in Blogging.

Keep posting such informative articles Gael. Will try out the methods you listed here. It is surprising that so many of these top blogs are not that old.

I wonder where Backlinko, Copywriter, Copyhacker and similar giants stand: Thanks for the helpful information. Well this is really inspirational post for a new blogger like me. This post kicks within to do something. Hope I will earn something by the end of this year.

This is a crazy overview into what the folks are doing these days. As you have much more control over monetisation. However, the learning curve is steep. Much obliged to you for making this. This has spared me hours of online examination to perceive how these top performing folks are profiting on the web.

Likewise presented my, somebody, I have not run over some time recently. Great post with awful analysis. I saw some individuals elsewhere had mentioned different blogs that actually create extra money, however, I perceive what you were doing here. Thanks most for the Empire Flippers mention, btw!

I wanted to know what software do you use to make these graphs? Can You please let me know? I am still reading it and trying to understand the models used by some of the bloggers features most of them are new to me. Anyway, what I have learnt from this post is that you have to work harder in order to outdo your competitors.

Yup, hard work is on the menu if you want to make it: Glad you enjoyed the post! Hello Gael, this is a massive dose of encouragement for little beginners like me. Just getting started and I can say I needed this. This is pretty encouraging. Excellent post, i am very happy and inspired because you are giving us a clue that afilliate program is the best source of income.

Wow, great post I have just discovered after your webinar.. It takes too much time to read but it does worth. I was encouraged by the twitter findings especially, too often it can feel pointless. I also appreciated in your post bringing up the fact the usual income reports postings do not figure in their costs. Yep, Business is about profit margins, not revenue. Most novices forget that: Hi Gael, I just came into blogging after reading this post.

I feel so good. Thanks for the article man. Thanks for this great list of bloggers. I am a big fan of Pat and Harsh. They always inspire me a lot. This post is really so motivating and inspirational too.

Thanks gain for this great list. What an amazing post Gael! It must have taken you days to collate all this data from all the top bloggers. So from what I can see subscription based Affiliate Marketing products like Hosting, etc seems to be on the top of the list. As far as selling own products are concerned, I guess the bloggers have spent a lot of time in building their audience first and then launching their information product. Advertising revenues seem to be the simplest way, provided there are high-value content and organic traffic on the blogs.

All in all… a super epic post! First of all thanks for making a collection of this great information and putting all your efforts in it. Gael, great analysis putting this altogether. But have you noticed that hardly any of these are from Asia, despite the fact the traffic is much higher. You know the reason as do I, it has to do with the CPMs earned on these blogs. I am a student on AHP. The one blogger I think you left off the list ;- — You!

I know myself and some of your students would be interested to know where you fit on the list. Hello Gael and thanks for the great article like allways! There is something I ask me each day and wanted to ask you: Thanks a lot for taking your time and putting in so much effort to write this up.

This really made things much easier to think for me. Keep up the great work! Start Here Blog Podcast Tools Products Authority Site System Beginners Free Training.

What We Can Learn From 21 Successful Bloggers Edition. Quick Navigation What we can learn from 21 Blogger's income reports. Our Sample of Bloggers.

Where does the money come from? Where does the profit come from? What metrics correlate the most with higher revenue? Who earns the most? Zooming into each blogger's business.

What the most profitable business models in blogging are. What metrics correlate the most with high blogging revenue. Services Advertising selling Affiliate marketing Own product sales. The amount of Twitter followers for your blog directly correlates with your blog's earnings. So should we get out and protest? Women blogger have a higher median income than men. By all means, that is one really impressive journey!

Find out how much 22 other top bloggers make. Besides revenue, Pat also shares a detailed breakdown of his monthly business expenses. Bluehost Survey Companies various Bookkeeper Business Academy. Food Photography, Cooking Total Monthly Revenue: BlueHost Tasty Food Photography own product. Internet marketing Total Monthly Revenue: Food and recipes Total Monthly Revenue: Tech tips, make money online and blogging Total Monthly Revenues: SEMRush Long Tail Pro SERPed.

Undisclosed Total Monthly Revenue: Undisclosed Jon runs the 'Fat Stacks Entrepreneur' blog where he shares his lessons in, well, making 'fat stacks' through niche sites. Freelance writing Total Monthly Revenue: Budgeting, finance, making money online Total Monthly Revenue: Finance, food and family Total Monthly Revenue: Amazon Associates products Various ShareASale products.

Financial management and freelance Total Monthly Revenue: Her own VA services. Various app-driven sites Total Monthly Revenue: Making money online Total Monthly Revenue: Site data isn't overly important here, since Dusty makes almost all of his money on YouTube. Bluehost His own services on Fiverr. Niche websites, internet marketing Total Monthly Revenue: Making video games Total Monthly Revenue: Make Money With HTML5 own product Mobility Engine own product HTML5 Sponsorships.

Babies and parenting Total Monthly Revenue: My Ultimate Blueprint to Start a Web Agency" own product Ice Cold Email Gold own product. Internet marketing, travel blogging Total Monthly Revenue: Click Here to Leave a Comment Below comments. Matt Hagens - May 19, Great stuff Gael — congrats! Shop-boy - April 7, I have read many how to make money from your blogs and such articles and online posts. Smithg - May 2, Regards for helping out, superb information.

LaMont - May 19, This is good…really good. Gael Breton - May 19, Hey LaMont, Thanks for this, this means a lot: Enstine Muki - May 19, Wow! Paulina Mielczarek - May 19, Thanks Gael! Jake - May 19, Gael you should include numbers for health ambition. We chat a lot via Skype so I just comment to get a backlink and hopefully a bit of traffic: Daniele - May 19, Hi Gael, Thanks a lot for including me here! I hope you enjoyed the analysis nonetheless.

Mike Bradford - May 19, Epic post, Gael. Very inspiring to see so many people making money online, and in so many different ways. Gael Breton - May 19, Hey Mike, Thanks for dropping by. Pedro Pereira - May 19, Hello Gael, Awesome article I must say! Still Im amazed about the link building part.

Basicly it doesnt count anymore? Gael Breton - May 19, Hey Pedro, Well it seems like most people who are killing it are rarely relying on just SEO to make money which explains the low correlation. John Lee Dumas - May 19, Wow, what a great article!

Gael Breton - May 19, You are welcome sir. Matt Wolfe - May 19, Holy wow! Gael Breton - May 19, Hey Matt, Thanks for dropping by, glad you like the research. Gael Breton - May 20, Thanks Rita! Good luck with your site! Justin Cooke - May 20, Great post with awesome analysis. Gael Breton - May 20, Hey Justin, Thanks for dropping by, good idea with businesses! Keep up the great work. George Bailey - May 20, I had a questions regarding your authority site in the health niche.

Gael Breton - May 20, Hey George, I suggest you read this post for that: S Watch out Pat ;. Donnie - May 20, Wow! Gael Breton - May 20, Hey Donnie, Thanks for dropping by, she deserves it!

Yisroel Reiss - May 20, Hey, Gael. In general, us readers love TACTICS and CASE STUDIES. Thank you for taking the time to write this. Gael Breton - May 20, Hey Yisroel, Thanks for dropping by, happy to see the litters of sweat that post generated were not in vain! AH is fast becoming one of my favourite blogs online so thanks for all the hard work on this: Gael Breton - May 20, Thanks Loz, your site rocks too ;.

Cathy - May 20, Also I have a question. But he does not report these earnings: Michael - May 20, Hi Gael, What an amazing post. Gael Breton - May 20, Yep, we found that part to be true as well. Alin Vlad - May 20, Awesome article. One of the best i read in a while. Gael Breton - May 20, Hey Alin, Glad you liked the post! Stuart Walker - May 21, What an incredible post. Gael Breton - May 21, Thank you sir ;.

Dima - May 21, Hello, Gael! Gael Breton - May 22, Hey Dima, Thanks for dropping by! Mario - May 22, This is the best post I ever seen! Gael Breton - May 22, Good luck with your site! Gaurav - May 22, E. Sharon - May 22, Someone just sent me this article — I am flattered to be featured.

Ashik - May 22, Great, Work try keep motivating the young bloggers with these kind of Blog posts. Gael Breton - May 23, Good luck: Kevin - May 23, Definitely an amazing job Gael: Bamdad Sky - May 23, Hi Thank you for making this super valuable post available. Again thank you for making this informative post available. Gael Breton - May 24, Glad you liked it Suresh! Justin Weinger - May 25, Excellent post!

Gael Breton - May 26, Thanks Justin, congrats on your success! Jon - May 28, Hey Gael, Jon from Fat Stacks Entrepreneur here. I love your blog and will be back. You guys are putting out epic content. Gael Breton - May 28, Thanks Jon! Glad you liked it, I love your blog as well! I love how you added things we can learn from each of these people. Gael Breton - June 1, Thanks Keith: Kristie Hill - June 6, I actually find this post more depressing than encouraging.

Gael Breton - June 6, Hey Kristie, actually our case study site healthambition. YASMINE - July 20, Actually there are tons of people who are doing well without talking about making money, here are some examples 1. Luisa - June 8, Great article! Gael Breton - June 8, Glad you enjoyed it Luisa!

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