How To Monetize A Blog Without Ads (7 Methods – 2023)

Every new blogger has a goal of making money through blogging – but for many, it still feels like a pipe dream, and it can be challenging to understand all the different ways of monetizing it.

Often, bloggers just starting will think that the best way to monetize their blog is through Google Ads.

Logically, it makes sense. More traffic = more ads = more revenue. But this is only sometimes the case.

You see, the problem is that online ads are spammy, have meager conversion rates, and can create a terrible reading experience for your readers if implemented incorrectly.

For example, a blogger may start writing about their hobbies, interests, and day-to-day life, and some minuscule organic traffic begins to pour in, at which point they decide it’s time to turn on ads!

Surely, they think, this is it… I’m about to be rich!

However, the traffic can’t drive enough revenue from ads to sustain the blog, and the blogger gets frustrated and needs to know what path to take next.

There is a place for online ads on your website. Some online ad strategies are profitable. It just should be something other than your ONLY source of revenue. Therefore, knowing how to monetize your blog without ads can be stressful, scary, and demoralizing because you need to figure out what to do next!

But have no fear – I’m here to tell you it’s possible to make money on your blog without ads – and the best part is there are endless options to do so.

In this article, we’ll focus on seven strategies for monetizing a blog without ads. Let’s dive in!

How To Monetize A Blog Without Ads: 7 Strategies

Here are a few of the best ways to monetize your blog without ads in 2022.

1. Affiliate Marketing: Promote Products In Your Niche And Earn Commission.
2. Selling Ebooks.
3. Build An Email List.
4. Sponsored Product Reviews.
5. Offer Services & Consulting.
6. Create A Paid Community.
7. Selling Digital Courses & Online Courses

Let’s find a strategy for you so you can monetize your blog starting today. Keep reading below!

1. Affiliate Marketing – Promote Products In Your Niche And Earn Commission

Affiliate Marketing is the most common way that bloggers generate online income.

In a “topical authority site” model, bloggers aim to publish highly search-engine-optimized content on their websites, built around a specific niche. Topical authority means you aim to become an authoritative expert on a particular topic.

For example, a blogger may choose the “pet” niche and write product reviews about “best dog leashes” or informational articles like “how to train your dog to roll over.”

By creating hundreds or even thousands of blog posts within a single niche and building links to those same posts, bloggers will slowly increase their Domain Rating (DR) within Google. The more high-quality & highly-linked material posted, the more the Google algorithm rates the blogger as an authoritative source. The higher the blogger’s domain rating, the easier it is to rank highly within Google Search.

The entire goal of this business model is for bloggers to write transactional “best-of” posts that rank in the top 1 to 3 results on a Google search engine results page (SERP). If you can secure this highly coveted digital real estate, you could drive a lot of sales and make a substantial amount of money.

Using our dog leash example above, you may see a blog entitled “The 9 Best Dog Leashes of 2022,” where the blogger reviews 9 different dog leash products. Within the post, you’ll see a button at the bottom of each product review with a call to action to buy the product. If a customer clicks that link and buys the product, the blogger gets a small commission off of the product’s sale. That is affiliate marketing in a nutshell!

Sometimes, entire businesses are devoted to affiliate marketing on a single page. If the keyword is competitive enough, we’re talking large teams and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars spent to ensure the web page stays ranked at #1 for that specific keyword.

This is why it’s important to do competitive keyword research and pick keywords you can rank for when you’re just starting, so you don’t get crushed by sites with a far higher domain rating than you do.

Many bloggers need to learn how and where to *find* products to promote. Have no fear – there are many affiliate networks you can sign up for to find products that are within your niche so you can start monetizing your blog without running ads!

Here are 5 of my favorite Affiliate Networks:

• ShareASale.
• ClickBank.
• CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction).
• Pepperjam.
• FlexOffers.

Each of these affiliate programs will connect you with great brands & affiliate links you can start placing all over your blog to make money from your blog.

2. Selling Ebooks

According to Ibisworld, the total EBook publishing market in the US in 2022 was USD 3.7 billion.

Since you’re a blogger, you’re probably good at writing, so why not take a chunk out of that enormous market?

If you’re good at writing and you have some knowledge or skills to share with the world, writing an ebook is an avenue that could be highly lucrative.

Maybe you’ve played an instrument for several years. You could write an ebook teaching people how to play an instrument. You may work in Software as a Service sales as I do – you could write and publish an EBook on how to break into software sales.

The point is, there’s probably something you’re good at and passionate about, and if you can find a way to monetize it, like writing an ebook where people recognize YOU as an authoritative source, you could make a lot of money.

Why not take your skills, hobbies, and passions and make money off them?

Here are a few steps you’ll need to go through to make money through an ebook.

• Write the ebook or create the content.
• Review the work yourself, or hire an editor.
• Design the cover using a tool like Canva or hire a graphic designer.
• Self-publish the book on your website using a site like Shopify or a platform like Amazon (Kindle Direct Publishing) and start printing money!

If that sounds too complicated, you can always take a course that walks you through the process of publishing an EBook step-by-step.

One of the courses I recommend for learning how to publish EBooks is Thinkific’s Adventures in Blogging Course. It walks you through the entire process of creating ebooks to selling them online.

If you get good enough at blogging, you can write your ebooks on making money from a blog! The possibilities are endless.

3. Build An Email List

Building a trusted and loyal audience is one of the most important aspects of scaling a blog. The best way to do this is by creating an email list for your blog. It’s also one of the highest-converting ways to make money blogging.

If someone opts into your email list, that means they’re willing to hear from you, and when they receive an email from you directly, they’re way more likely to engage with your content (and hopefully buy whatever product you are selling!).

So how do you build an email list? You can use several tools and tactics, but you typically want to give your readers an incentive opt-in. For example, if you are in the pet niche, you could provide the following:

• Free Handbook – 27 Tricks To Teach Your New Puppy
• The Ultimate Guide To Dog Ownership
• Blog content repackaged in a single PDF
• Pet-Owner Checklist
• One-time discount for something you’re selling on your site

You want to offer something free to get them to opt in so you can begin emailing them!

This works particularly well if you have an e-commerce arm on your blog. You can email your audience with special offers, sales, incentives, educational content, and new product announcements, helping drive more revenue to your blogging enterprise.

There are few places as sacred as a customer’s email inbox, so take advantage of it if you can!

4. Sponsored Product Reviews

Once you’ve got your blog up and running and you have a decent domain rating, you can contact brands within your niche and ask if you can write sponsored product reviews.

Brands will do this as they want social proof from people who have used the product that it is worth using. Your opinion could be valuable if you’re an authoritative source within your niche. This is a great way to make money if you’re reaching out to brands you use within your niche daily.

For example, you could reach out to a brand like Flexi and ask them to pay you $100 – $150 for a review of their latest dog leash. You could also charge more than that if you have the traffic statistics and conversion metrics to back it up.

Within the article, you can also run affiliate marketing plays. This could involve adding affiliate links from various affiliate programs within your sponsored post. It’s always good to look for ways to implement affiliate marketing into your blog posts. It’s one of the easiest and highest ROI ways to monetize your traffic!

A couple of things to note: disclosing that you’re incentivized to write the review is essential. This prevents you from landing in any hot water legal trouble down the road. It’s as simple as writing a quick disclaimer that you’re being paid to write the review.

It’s also important that you don’t partner with any shady brands or misrepresent the product to maintain trust with your readers (and, more importantly, to avoid being a dishonest human being).

Ultimately, sponsored product reviews can be a lucrative way for bloggers to drive more traffic and sales to their sites, so if you have a decent following, reach out to brands within your niche and see if they will partner with you. The best part is writing sponsored product reviews; you can easily blog without ads.

5. Offer Services & Consulting

By becoming an authoritative source within your niche, one natural progression is that people will come to you and ask for your help. This is another excellent opportunity to make money on your blog without ads.

Perhaps they see a product they want to promote but need to gain the technical skills to create a decent blog post about it.

Or maybe they need help writing content for your website and more time to do it themselves.

Maybe you’re an expert dog blogger, and they want to pay you to consult them on how to train their misbehaving German Shepard!

You can put a contact form on your website with a list of consulting services you provide. You can list it just in the “About” section of your blog or paste it on different posts and other areas of your website if you want to promote your consulting services.

The caveat to consulting is that it is not a route to passive income and could require a lot of your time. However, if you’re able to charge a high hourly rate, it could be worth your time.

Here are some examples of some services you can charge for if you’re a blogger:

• Consulting (Sales, Affiliate Marketing, Writing, Strategy, Niche-Specific)
• Graphic Design
• Freelancing (Writing, Link Building, Blog Posts)
• Cold Email/Link Building Outreach
• Copywriting
• Product Reviews & Endorsements
• Product Demos

The possibilities are truly endless here. If you can offer high-end consulting services to a niche audience in your area of expertise, you could make a lot of money by providing these services.

So think about your skills and how you can market yourself as a blogger consultant to others within your niche. It’s not passive income, but it’s one of the quickest ways to make money from a blog while building your blog from the ground up.

6. Create A Paid Community

Creating a paid community for your most engaged members is another great way to make money blogging. Similar to the email list, your readers are opting into YOU and even paying you money to do so.

Using sites like Patreon or Discord, you can create social hubs for your VIP members to engage with you and each other. Typically, this is a small monthly or annual fee, with different tiers/perks to gain access to the community.

It’s also a great way to boost upsells; for instance, this Shopify study shows that 52% of shoppers spend more on blogs with shared values.

In return, they’ll receive perks from you like discounts, the ability to personally interact with you, free merch, etc.

A social community with your most engaged readers can be a fantastic way to make money blogging while creating deep and meaningful connections with the people reading your content.

Building a paid community is worth considering if you’re looking for a more hands-on way to monetize your blog and build relationships with people who are already interested in what you have to say.

7. Selling Digital Courses & Online Courses

Another great way of making money from your blog is to create digital products and sell them online. Once you have established yourself as an expert in your field, you could create digital products that people can purchase online.

Like the EBook example, digital or online courses are another excellent way to make money from your blog without ads.

This could be anything from teaching people how to get the most out of social media, using Photoshop and design programs, or even learning to code.

There are many ways to create a digital course, depending on your blogging niche and the types of products you want to make.

For example, if you’re a fashion blogger, you could create a course on matching patterns and colors to look fabulous for any season.

Or, if you’re a food blogger, you could create a course on how to up your food photography game or cook dinner on a budget.

There are many ways to approach creating digital courses and online courses, but the key is to think of a topic in your niche that you know people would be willing to pay for.

Once you’ve come up with a topic and created a well-structured course, you can sell it on your blog or various online platforms.

There are many ways to do this, so the key is to explore your options and get creative with how you want to monetize your blog.

Wrap Up

So, there you have it. There are a lot of ways to monetize your blog without having to rely on ads. You can earn money from your blog by creating and selling products, investing in affiliate marketing, or developing sponsored content while still providing value to your readers. Experiment with different methods to see what works best for you and your audience.

There are many ways to monetize a blog – it can be through something other than ads. Just know that making money from a blog takes time, dedication, and often a lot of hard work – but it is possible.

If you want to make money from your blog without bombarding your readers with ads, consider one (or all) of the methods above. And if you have any further questions, let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some ways to monetize a blog without ads?

Some ways to monetize a blog without ads include creating and selling digital products, investing in affiliate marketing programs, or developing sponsored content. You could also explore other options like selling sponsored posts, creating and promoting your online courses, or using paid media to promote your blog. Ultimately, it depends on your blogging niche, the types of products you want to create, and what your readers are most interested in.

What are the benefits of monetizing my blog?

There are many benefits to monetizing your blog, including earning money from your content and building relationships with people who are already interested in your niche. Monetizing your blog can also help you build your brand and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Additionally, it opens up new opportunities to collaborate with other brands and influencers, which can help you grow your reach and audience.

What are some of the best ways to monetize my blog?

There is no “best” way to monetize a blog, as it depends on your niche, the types of products you want to create, and what your readers are most interested in. Some standard methods include selling digital products or online courses, investing in affiliate marketing programs, or developing sponsored content.

What are the disadvantages of monetizing my blog?

Some potential downsides to monetizing your blog include the time, energy, and effort it can take to create digital products or manage affiliate marketing programs. Additionally, monetizing your blog can sometimes create conflicts of interest, and it’s essential to be transparent when promoting a product or brand and offering an honest review.

What are some of the challenges of monetizing a blog without ads?

One of the main challenges of monetizing a blog without ads is finding products or services that are relevant to your audience and also align with your values and brand. You may also research pricing, marketing, and distribution strategies for your blog products or services. Additionally, navigating the various legal and ethical considerations when making money from your blog can take work.