After more than 10 years of blogging, and finally learning to monetize my blog, I wanted to share what I’ve learned to help you in your own blogging journey. Whether you are just starting out or are trying to increase your blog’s revenue, I hope my insights can help you avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made and save you lots of time.

Marnie-kunz — Photo by Marques Jackson Photography of blogger Marnie Kunz.

My Blogging Start

When I started my blog, Runstreet, in 2010, I wanted to write for my own site instead of everyone else’s. After freelance writing for websites ranging from mental health blogs to travel sections on HuffPost (back then it was the Huffington Post;) and the AJC, I was ready to write for my own online publication. But to someone with so many interests and a short attention span, what blogging niche should I choose?

I actually started with a makeup blog. That lasted about two weeks before I ran out of things to say and realized I couldn’t afford to keep buying new makeup to write about.

My makeup blog officially ended when I was banned from Google Ads because my mom and I clicked on my blog ads too excessively. (Note: Google is more advanced now and doesn’t count clicks from your own IP address so even if endless clicking paid off — which it didn’t — you wouldn’t generate revenue).

My Runstreet blog in 2011. Thanks, Wayback Machine.

So it was back to the drawing board. I decided to start a running blog and named it Runstreet. After running most of my life, I found that I had a lot to say about running. I even went the extra mile and got my RRCA running coach certification to give my training articles more authority.

My goal with the site was to create a more diverse, visually appealing running resource for people. I wanted to share a more realistic and relatable place for runners as opposed to the skinny, elite, usually white, and usually male runners that were featured in running magazines at the time.

As a female running coach and athlete, I did not see a lot of myself reflected in the running publications of the time, and also didn’t see a lot of urban running scenes. Most of the running magazines featured skinny pro runners soaring through the mountains or flying through beautiful trails like gazelles. With Runstreet I could create my own running community and portray a more inclusive look at running while offering training tips, workouts, and more.

Choosing Your Blog Host

There are several options for hosting your blog and at the end of the day, I recommend choosing the one that you can afford and that feels easy to use. I started out with my blog as a free WordPress site and later bought a domain and upgraded to a paid WordPress plan. I later switched to Squarespace and have found it much easier to design and maintain on my own.

I love Squarespace for designing beautiful, easy-to-use sites that you can update yourself. Unlike the complexities of WordPress, you don’t need to pay people to maintain or update your Squarespace design or features as they are very easy to use, with drag and drop features. I also use Squarespace for my newsletters and have found it to be streamlined and love that you can easily include GIFs.

Find Your Niche

One of my biggest blogging tips is to find your ideal niche. When you are starting your blog, you will want to find a good niche. Your ideal blogging niche will be something you can always write about and one that has demand and money-making opportunities.

First, take some time to write out all the topics you are interested in. Once you have the ideas, pick the top 5 and write down at least 10 blog posts you could write on each topic. If you have trouble coming up with 10 blog post ideas, cross that topic off your list.

Next, check out Google Trends and enter your topics to see how the search demand for those topics has been over time. You will want to go with a topic that stays steady and in demand or that is increasing in demand over time.

Also, do some research on the top blogs in your prospective niche. See if you can find out how much money they make and how they make money. Many of the top bloggers post their income stats and even break down where their revenue comes from. Some common ways of making money from blogs include ads, affiliate links, selling courses, selling products (digital or physical), and sponsored content.

Some high-paying blog niches right now are food and recipe blogs, personal finance, travel, and lifestyle blogs. You can read more about some of the highest-paying and in-demand blog niches here.

Experiment with Ads

Another one of my blogging tips is to find a good ad network for your blog. Ads are the most reliable way I’ve found to monetize my Runstreet blog. The great thing about putting ads on your site is you can then focus on what you do best — creating great content. And the more high-quality blog posts you create, the more you will get traffic and ad revenue from your site. If you are just starting out, ads will not do a lot but over time as you write more, you will start to see traffic and revenue increase.

You can start out with a basic ad network like Google Ads. Once you build your site traffic more, you will qualify for higher-paying ad networks such as SHE Media Partner Network (which I currently use for Runstreet ads). Once you hit 50,000 monthly page views, you will qualify for Mediavine, and with 100,000 monthly page views, you will qualify for AdThrive. These networks pay exponentially more than Google ads so the traffic requirements are a great goal to strive for so you can qualify to get paid more.

Affiliate Options

Affiliate ads are another way that bloggers make money. Depending on your niche and blog traffic, affiliate ads may pay very well. In my case, I was at about 20,000 monthly page views with my blog and did not find most affiliate ads to be worth the time and effort for the low payoff. But other niches, such as personal finance blogs, often find great success with affiliate ads. And with more traffic, at least 50,000 monthly page views, and promotion focused on the affiliate ads, there would be more payoff.

If you are starting out with affiliate ads, it is easy to get excited and sign up for a bunch of affiliate programs, but try to restrain yourself. I learned the hard way that signing up for too many affiliate programs makes it very time-consuming to log in and track all your ads and metrics, and too many affiliate links are a turn-off to readers.

If you want to learn an organized system for doing affiliate ads, I recommend the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course by Michelle Schroeder Gardner. This course breaks down all the confusion about affiliate marketing and helps you create a streamlined, measurable system for putting affiliate ads on your blog. Michelle gives lots of firsthand experience and has a proven track record of making thousands each month off of affiliate income on her blog about personal finance.

Also, if you use affiliate ads, keep in mind you can place them in more places than just your blog. You can promote affiliate links in your newsletter and on your social channels as well. Just make sure that anywhere you have affiliate links, you also have a disclaimer. In the case of Amazon Associates, you need to have a specific Amazon disclaimer.

Newsletter List

Building a newsletter list is one of the major things I wish I’d done when I was starting my blog. I’ve had thousands of readers from around the world over the years, and if I’d captured more of their emails, I would have a huge email list by now. Eventually, I did start my newsletter list and it has been great for promoting new blogs and other things I sell on my site.

A newsletter is one of the best ways to reach your audience directly. If you don’t already have a clear method for opting into your email list, put one up on your site right now. Some options include pop-up forms, embedded newsletter sign-up forms in your blog posts, and a dedicated newsletter sign-up form on your home page. Also, share your newsletter links on your social media channels to encourage new sign-ups.

Selling Products and Services

Selling your own products is one of the best blogging tips. You will find that you can make a lot more from selling your own products that from being an affiliate for other people’s things. Some ideas to consider selling include ebooks and other digital products, and printed items like t-shirts and accessories.

Your blog also gives you a great platform for selling services. I have sold my training and run coaching services on my Runstreet blog. Many bloggers sell freelance writing services through their blogs and wellness and food bloggers also offer consultation services. Consider what products or services would complement your blog well and offer them on your site.

Selling Classes

Online classes have exploded in the pandemic years as everyone has migrated to doing business and learning online. My best advice for doing a class is to do some market research to determine if there is demand for your class and figure out your target market. You can use free survey sites such as SurveyMonkey to ask questions and learn more about your audience to help plan your course.

You can also do a pre-registration for your class to gauge interest before creating the whole class.

Hosting Events

Events are an often overlooked way that bloggers can make money. I have hosted Runstreet Art Run events since 2014 and events turned into a big portion of my business revenue. As with courses, there are so many options for events. You can do in-person events, online events, webinars, or hybrid events with in-person and virtual options. After covid hit New York City, I pivoted to do some virtual running events and fitness challenges. Now that events are happening again, I have kept some of the virtual elements and now host hybrid events, usually offering an in-person running and walking option as well as a virtual run/walk.

If you are doing ticketed events, I recommend Eventbrite for an easy-to-use platform with many options and a built-in audience. You can embed tickets on your website, making the checkout process seamless.

Blog Promotion

One of the blogging tips I wish I’d known starting out is that you need to dedicate a good amount of time to promoting your blog. The “If you build it, they will come” strategy is not the case for blogs. So you can’t just post articles and expect people to stumble across them.

Starting out you can experiment with social media channels and promotional tools and then focus on the ones that work best. I tried to keep up with all the social media channels and wound up burned out. Later I found that a few networks gave me the most traffic so I focused on those. Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook have yielded the most blog traffic for my site so I make sure to promote blog posts on those channels. Instagram, on the other hand, has my largest social following, and my Instagram has attracted quite a few sponsors over the years, so I also maintain Instagram regularly.

Pinterest was unfamiliar to me for blogging, so I took the Pinterest Strategies class by blogger Carly from Mommy on Purpose. I had no idea how to use Pinterest before and now am getting thousands of blog hits thanks to applying the Pinterest techniques in the course. I highly recommend this course for bloggers as Pinterest tends to be the top social network for bloggers to get traffic.

It can be overwhelming to manage social media but there are low-cost and free tools to help. I recommend Later for a free Instagram scheduler and Canva Pro for scheduling social media across different platforms. These tools will save you lots of time and sanity by allowing you to schedule and promote blog posts without having to manually log in to different networks and post each blog after writing it.

Blog Design

Blogs are very visual and your readers will multiply more quickly if you use original graphics. The top graphic design software I use for designing blog graphics, workouts, Pins, social media graphics, and newsletters is Canva.

Canva has a free version as well as Canva Pro, which has all kinds of useful tools from logo designs to background removal, stunning stock photos, templates for recipes, workouts, newsletter headers, social media templates and so much more. I use Canva for all my graphic design and it is easy to share and collaborate with team members using the platform as well. As I mentioned, Canva also has a social media scheduler, which makes posting your designs even easier.

I hope these blogging tips help you monetize and grow your blog. Let me know which strategies have helped your blog the most in the comments.

Resources: Squarespace, Google Trends, Eventbrite, Canva Pro, Pinterest Strategies

This post includes affiliate links. This means that if I’ve used a product or service and liked it, and that product or service has an affiliate program, I sign up for it. Then, when I mention that product or service in a blog or email, I link to it using an affiliate link and get commission from any sales made from the link, at no extra cost to you. I only do this for companies and services we’ve tested and recommend.

Marnie Kunz is a writer and marketing professional based in Brooklyn, New York. She has a background in small business, journalism, and digital marketing, and is the founder of Runstreet and the Book of Dog.

My Top Blogging Tips from Over 10 Years of Blogging