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You’re probably here because you’re wondering if blogging can make you any real money. How much do bloggers make, anyway? The truth is, there is a lot of gray area here.
If I had a dollar for every time someone looked at me with a “get a real job” expression on their face, I’d be rich on that income alone.
I get it. The term “blogger” makes people think of hobby bloggers and people that write on the internet for fun. You know, something that they do in their spare time. They don’t think of it as a job or that you can make real money blogging.
To strangers, blogging sounds like a hobby. To friends and family, it sounds like unemployment.
This is why people ask: How much do bloggers make – for real, though?
We’re here to provide some clarification on blogging income and blogging salary and what bloggers are really earning. In this article, we’ll answer some common questions we get on this topic, including:
- How much do bloggers make? (on average)
- How much do bloggers make per post?
- Are some blogging niches more profitable than others?
And then we’ll round it off by giving you 5 ways that you can make more money as a blogger.
How much do bloggers make?
Well, blogging income can vary quite greatly.
- Some bloggers make $0 per month.
- Some bloggers make $1,000 or more per month.
- Some bloggers make $10,000 or more per month.
- And some bloggers even make over $100,000 per month.
Here at Create and Go, we’ve been able to reach the $100,000 per month level, which is pretty insane. We’ve started a couple of successful blogs now and I can tell you that earning six figures is possible in many different niches.
We started with a health blog that was earning $20,000/month pretty consistently. We’ve now since sold it, but we were earning that in a very competitive niche.
Blogging income varies by season, projects, and many other factors that impact all kinds of online businesses.
You can also check out Create and Go’s yearly income report that we publish to give our audience some insight into the income that is possible with this kind of online business.
Here are some other examples of successful blogs in other niches that all have earned between $10,000 and $100,000/month:
- Smart Passive Income
- Pinch of Yum
- Making Sense of Cents
- Survival Life
- Learning Herbs
- Little Coffee Place
The opportunities are really endless!
How much do bloggers make on average?
So, I tried to answer the question of how much do bloggers make — but I gave you a huge range, right? Let me try to be more specific here.
- Most make nothing.
- Some make a little.
- Fewer make a lot.
Still too vague, huh? I know, but blogging covers a wide range of online businesses in all kinds of topics. So that’s sort of like asking, “How much do online businesses make?”
But how much you can earn as a blogger really depends on a few factors and ultimately boils down to time and dedication.
Just like with any business, a blog’s success depends on how hard you work and what exactly you’re putting into it (i.e. taking the right steps for growth).
In the blogging world, these 3 factors are super important and the key to growth and success:
- How well you communicate with your audience: Building an email list is at the foundation of most successful bloggers, but it’s not just about turning readers into subscribers. It’s about turning those subscribers into loyal FANS.
- The level of trust you build with your audience: This trust from your fans is what ultimately leads people to spend money on your products.
- Execution: Perhaps the most important part is your ability to continue moving forward and taking action when it is necessary.
The insanely cool part about blogging is you can make great money in almost any niche. Hell, the guy from Learning Herbs teaches you how to use and consume the weeds in your yard and makes over $20k per month.
Circling back to our original question… It’s not that hard to make $5,000 – $10,000/month with your blog if you take the right steps at the right time and you know how to grow your blog (more on this later).
Here is another question that we hear a lot:
How Much Do Bloggers Make Per Post?
We hear this question a lot, so we wanted to address it here. To be honest, this question is a bit of a misnomer because not all blog posts directly bring in revenue. They can have various purposes, including:
- Selling a product
- Signing up for an email list
- Purely instructional
- Building more trust with your audience
Every post that you should write should have a purpose and some of them are not written specifically to make money. They could be written to further your SEO strategy.
There IS such a thing as getting paid for a specific blog post though, and it’s called a sponsored post.
Sponsored posts are posts in which someone pays you to write a specific piece of content and put it on your blog. Common examples are product reviews or recommendations.
How much you get paid per post depends largely on the size of your audience and the level of engagement the audience has with your content.
So, you can have 100,000 visitors to your blog but if you don’t get people commenting on your content or interacting with it much, you probably won’t get paid as much. That said, bloggers can make from $100 to $25,000 per sponsored post. $25,000 is the highest amount of any blogger I have personally known.
For those of you who are Instagram influencers, you can make from $50 to $50,000 per post. Kim Kardashian has even made over $400,000 for a single Instagram post. I know. It hurts my soul to even type that out.
Are Some Blogging Niches More Profitable Than Others?
This is a great question to ask when you’re wondering how much do bloggers make because the truth is, some blog niches have the potential to make a lot more money than others.
Blog niches about finance, investing, business, and money, in general, have a higher-earning potential because the average market price for products in these niches is higher. And this is because people are usually more likely to spend more money when they think they’ll make it back.
This includes:
- Making money
- Spending money
- Saving money
- Investing money
Now, this doesn’t mean all of you should go out and start a finance or money blog. This is where a lot of people make mistakes when choosing a blog niche.
You should never start a business on a topic that you have no knowledge about or experience in.
I can’t tell you how many “personal finance” blogs I have seen where people running the blog have no idea what they are talking about. There are thousands of blogs that don’t produce any real money because the owner isn’t a professional, has no real passion for the niche, or isn’t knowledgeable enough on the topic.
There are a lot of people blogging about blogging and teaching others how to make money before they’ve ever made any money themselves.
Pro Tip: People can tell when you’re talking out of your a$$.
Your readers, believe it or not, are real people, and are going to see right through you. It will show in your writing and your audience won’t be as engaged with your content. It’s much smarter to just start in something you really care about and make it successful along the way. You will also enjoy it SO much more!
5 Ways to Earn More as a Blogger
Earning a decent blogging salary isn’t rocket science. It’s not easy. I won’t lie to you. But it can be done. You just need to focus on taking the right steps in the right order.
1. Create great, high-quality content.
The heart of earning a solid blogging income and one that is consistent is putting great content out there. You don’t have to be the best. But you do need to spend time and make sure you’re putting out quality content.
Your audience will thank you for it and you won’t rank in Google without it. The algorithms are only getting smarter.
Choose a great niche, build an authority site, and then create great content on your chosen topic.
2. Build a Good SEO Strategy.
Be careful chasing social media gains. Google SEO is king for blogger and it’s really the only way to ensure that you have lasting traffic and a sustainable growth strategy.
This is something that we neglected in the beginning. We overly focused on Pinterest traffic, which I will say was highly rewarding for us at the time. But we should have paid more attention to SEO at the time as well.
Make sure you’re using some of these powerful SEO tools in your strategy.
3. Build Relationships With your Audience.
I mentioned it earlier, but it’s worth saying again. The key to scaling your income when it comes to selling products, whether that is your own or affiliate products, is to build better relationships with your audience.
Learn who they are, what they are interested in, and what they need help with.
One of the best ways to do this is to simply communicate with them — on social media, through email marketing, or elsewhere. Pay attention to your people. Build trust with them.
4. Solve Your Audience’s Problems (Provide Solutions).
Once you’ve learned what your audience needs help the most with, you can provide that solution to them — in the form of your own products or affiliate products.
If you aren’t ready to create your own product yet, you can look for high-paying affiliate marketing programs to get started with.
That trust you started building in step 3 will go a long way when you start selling to your audience. Be yourself and be honest. Put your audience first.
5. Learn From Your Mistakes and Continue Taking Action.
The worse thing that you can do is be a waiting duck sitting still in the water. You know, just slowly waddling around and waiting for big waves. You create the big waves by taking action — often.
Failure isn’t a bad thing when you learn fast and change course quickly. This is how we found success quickly (through lots and lots of failure).
You should create a focused strategy but make sure you’re constantly checking the data and analytics and monitoring your progress. If it’s not working, try something else. Make changes.
This is the ONLY way to keep correcting course.
Start, Grow, and Scale Your Blog Today
Let’s wrap up this post on how much do bloggers make with a call to action to get something done today.
I think the focus on content consumption in our society has turned us into a bunch of over-thinkers who take little to no action. We think we know it all without ever actually trying anything.
This is my challenge to you: Think less, and act more.
For some of you, this mean’s starting right now. For others, it means boosting up your SEO traffic. And for others, it means working on your affiliate marketing or monetization strategy.
Here are a few posts to help you get pointed in the right direction:
- How to Start a Blog (Step-by-Step Guide)
- How to Make Money Blogging: Complete Guide
- Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers: 6 Ways to Earn More
- Start Building Your Google SEO Strategy
If you need some additional help, you can also check out our blogging courses on all of these topics.
If you enjoyed this article on the topic of how much do bloggers make, please leave us a comment below or feel free to ask us any questions!