1. Sponsored blog posts
When your blog is big enough, the companies will start contacting you to ask you two things:
- if you can write an article promoting their products /services
- if you can publish an already written article that their own team or person has created for you.
PROS: you get easy money
CONS: you can get just little money if your blog isn't big enough. If you choose the second point the integrity of your blog can suffer a lot + you have to be careful with how you place outbound links not to harm your SEO.
2. Products /services reviews
Again, by the time your blog has grown considerably (for example, 50K unique visitors per month), you'll probably be receiving products for free (+ a payment) in exchange for a review.
PROS: you get nice to get stuff for free (at least for a time and getting paid for it)
CONS: Not every product will be relevant to your blog. If you "sell out", it will harm your SEO, your audience, your blog... in one word, everything.
3. Integrate a separate e-commerce shop into your blog
This is probably the best way to monetize your blog. It's harmless, very creative, but a bit limited since you can basically do two things only:
- write an e-book, a guide, a memoir, course, whatever you want, or develop a software you can sell
- create a product (digital or physical)
PROS: When it comes to a digital product (software or book), once you've put it out there, the only thing you have to do is promoting it and collecting the revenues.
CONS: When it comes to a physical product, it's way more complicated (think about shipping, manufacturing, buying whatever you need to produce it, and so on). Also, time consuming.
4. Start using content commerce
You can also integrate your products inside your blog content for a better reading and shopping experience.
PROS: A content commerce solution can be costly.
CONS: It's trendy, has proven to boost sales, and it doesn't hurt your content.
The conclusion is keep writing, be original and be open. Don't give up if you like or love it.
