Learn the secrets of famous bloggers, find out how professional bloggers built their blogging business, and what it takes to make money blogging as a business.
Do bloggers make money? Yes, in fact, blogging is the best business to start with very little money from home and many famous bloggers make millions of dollars blogging in different niches.
The blog revenue model of online business is very lucrative and each expert blogger has their own blogging business model of how to start a blog and make money.
In fact, if you study their blogging business models and the methods that they use to build top blogs, you may find wide variations in how they succeeded in the ever-changing world of digital publishing.
But not all of these professional bloggers built their highly successful blogs, or earned money blogging, in exactly the same way. So how do famous bloggers make money?
This article compares some of the blogging business models of famous bloggers who use blogging as a business, and shows us how to make money blogging.
Contents
How Do Famous Bloggers Make Money Blogging?
In this article, you’ll see how famous bloggers earn money from blogs. So, take a page out of the books (or blogs) of these expert bloggers and learn how to make money blogging.
#1. Julia McCoy
Julia McCoy started one of the first writing agencies to ever launch and grow a seven-figure eCommerce content agency. Now her full-time gig is teaching creative entrepreneurs to become consistently great at website content marketing.
Her Content Hacker Community is the place for growth-minded marketers ready to accelerate their online growth through profitable AI-driven content strategies for their websites, blogs, and marketing.
Julia McCoy’s AIO Blogger is a groundbreaking course designed for marketers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs eager to build their own AI-optimized blog that not only attracts genuine traffic but also translates into revenue.
The Content Transformation System is a comprehensive roadmap and mentorship that reveals the structures, abilities, and online strategy that underpin a flourishing digital firm.
Her step-by-step mentoring program enables creatives to (completely) avoid burnout steadily build their own seven-figure online brand, and get their online content strategy, skills, and systems down for massive revenue.
By using The Content Transformation System, you can learn how to expand your business to whatever size you want it to be in just 90 days.
Click here to watch her free training
#2. Jon Morrow
Jon Morrow is an inspiration because he did not let a severe disability stop him from becoming a famous blogger, and he now helps aspiring bloggers and writers earn online by writing blogs for money.
He is perhaps the only professional blogger who recommends creating a blog for free, so you can test your content and assess how successful it will be before you invest money into your self-hosted WordPress blog.
This makes a lot of sense if you’re very new to blogging and need to hone your writing skills first. Most professional bloggers did this through trial and error, and if you cannot afford to spend money on a blog yet, then this is probably the best route to take.
Jon recommends starting out on a free blogging platform like Medium. And since Medium even has a Partner Program to help you earn a percentage of the revenue they make, it may be the best free blog website to learn how to create a blog for free and make money.
But how much money can you realistically earn blogging on Medium? To get an in-depth look at real examples of Medium Partner Program story earnings, you can check out Casey Botticello’s article here.
Several other websites, like Vocal.media, also compensate their writers, but can you earn millions of dollars by starting a blog on these free blog sites? Probably not!
Jon recommends that you start blogging on free blog platforms only to test your content and see if it is popular with readers, which is the minimum standard you will need to meet if you want to make money blogging on your own website.
Blogging isn’t about publishing as much as you can. It’s about publishing as smart as you can. ~ Jon Morrow
Jon began earning a good income as a freelance writer, and he recommends using it as a stepping stone to improve your writing skills before you start your own blog and become a professional blogger.
Most people do this backward by starting their blog first and then trying to make money blogging. Meanwhile, they end up working really hard without making any money or gaining any traction.
But if you spend some time as a freelance content writer first, you can get PAID to learn – and then, when you’re ready, you’ll be much better equipped to start that blog and find success much, much faster.
Jon also offers several courses to help aspiring bloggers start earning with freelance writing, including a content marketing certification course and a writer’s community.
If you want to learn how to start a blog with no money, you’ll find his advice useful. So, check out his free webinars and resources on freelance writing and blogging, and learn how to write for money as a freelancer.
- The Highly Paid Writer
- Roadmap to Your First Writing Client
- Freedom Machine Blogging Webinar
- Headline Hacks: A Cheat Sheet For Writing Blog Posts That Go Viral
#3. CreateandGo
Started by Alex & Lauren, this used to be one of the most popular blogs where these famous bloggers chronicled their story of success as well as their blogging income.
Now that both of them have moved on, they still offer several recently updated courses on how to earn money through blogging.
My favorite among them is their Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course, which helped me learn how to build traffic to a new blog from Pinterest when I started my travel blogging venture.
You can find their other courses on SEO and how to earn through blogging below:
- Launch Your Blog Biz
- Six-Figure Course Creator
- SEO Blueprint for Bloggers
#4. Jessica Turner
Jessica Turner is an award-winning lifestyle blogger who writes about writing, parenting, frugal living, balancing working motherhood, faith, product reviews, and more.
She worked in corporate marketing for many years and was an award-winning marketing professional with 15 years of content creation experience before becoming a full-time influencer.
She is the author of the WSJ bestseller, The Fringe Hours: Making Time for You, and speaks at events on work-life balance and blogging best practices.
Jessica has sold millions of dollars worth of products and services, generated multiple six figures with affiliate links, and taught bloggers and influencers about affiliate marketing at some of the top blogging conferences.
Her course, Affiliate Marketing for Influencers, is a blueprint for making more money on your blog and social media without a big list, massive social media following, or fancy funnels.
In this affiliate marketing course, you’ll learn:
- How to pick the right affiliate partners for your site or platforms
- Ways to cultivate relationships with affiliate managers, leading to higher commissions and more opportunities
- Tips for increasing sales conversions on your website and social media
- Strategies for using email effectively
- Ways to succeed with Amazon’s affiliate program
- Tricks for using social media to generate commissions every day, even if you don’t have a huge following
- Tactics for creating your own campaigns to make thousands of dollars, no matter the size of your platform
Affiliate Marketing for Influencers is the most in-depth training tool for influencers in affiliate marketing and is available at a discounted rate of $99.
Click here to purchase Affiliate Marketing for Influencers
#5. Adam Enfroy
One of the best blogs to read, if you want to learn how to make money blogging for beginners, is Adam Enfroy’s blog.
Adam started out making money with affiliate marketing and scaled his blog income to a million dollars in under two years using the very principles that startups use to scale their businesses.
He now makes over $300k a month from his blog and teaches aspiring bloggers how to monetize a blog with affiliate marketing, the process of selling other people’s products for a commission.
Watch his video where he shows you why you should avoid get-rich-quick schemes and build a slow-burn business like a personal brand blog you can start with very little money from home and earn passive income from.
#6. Matt Diggity
Matt Diggity is a famous affiliate marketing and SEO expert who runs several businesses, including a highly successful affiliate marketing course and an SEO agency.
On his YouTube channel, he offers in-depth SEO and affiliate marketing tutorials, case studies, and interviews with famous bloggers to understand how they achieved their results.
Watch Matt’s channel to understand the fundamentals of affiliate marketing, SEO, and building backlinks, and his video below to learn how to find a profitable niche for affiliate marketing.
#7. Brian Dean
Brian Dean hates being called an SEO guru (even if he is one). He ran the hugely successful and informative Backlinko SEO blog for years before selling it to SEMrush for an undisclosed sum.
He now runs a company called Exploding Topics which puts out a newsletter that you must subscribe to if you like being informed about trending topics online.
Watch the interview Brian gave to Matt Diggity after selling Backlinko to SEMrush to understand how he built his blog into an asset that was acquired by a publicly listed company.
#8. Neil Patel
Neil Patel is not just a famous blogger, but kind of a superstar in the Indian digital marketing community as he represents the success that every Indian blogger aspires to achieve. On his YouTube channel, he offers free SEO courses and the latest digital marketing updates.
But his primary source of revenue is NPDigital, a hugely successful global award-winning search & performance marketing agency, and he has also created useful SEO tools like Ubersuggest.
Watch his video on how to write content that ranks.
Which Blogging Business Model Should You Use?
Personally, I’ve always believed that buying professional blog hosting and installing WordPress was the only way to start blogging.
I still think that the SEO benefits of WordPress make it the best blogging platform for business – which is why all the famous bloggers above use it for their own blogs and websites.
However, if there’s one thing that these examples of successful blogs have shown us, it’s that there’s no one-size-fits-all route to becoming a successful blogger, and you can even get started with a free Medium company blog or a WordPress free blog.
Whether you want to learn how to start a blog for free and make money, scale your blog like a startup, or use your blog as a platform to sell courses and services, the blogosphere offers multiple blogging platforms, and many proven blogging business models to make money blogging.
I hope this roundup of famous bloggers has answered the question, “Can you make money blogging?” So, follow these famous bloggers above, to learn how they built their blogging business model for passive income and how you can do it too.
7 Things Professional Bloggers Do To Build Successful Blogs
Now that you know how to earn money from blogs, here are 7 things that professional bloggers (like the ones above) do to build successful blogs.
As we’ve seen in the examples above, blogging is not limited to one business model or practice. Every professional blogger has their own preferred business model, practices, methods, and strategies for building a successful blog.
Bloggers have the freedom and flexibility to choose what works best for them depending on their audience’s needs, goals, skills, and experience.
While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for building a successful blog, there are certain things that all professional and famous bloggers credit as being integral to their success.
#1. Professional bloggers choose a proven, profitable niche
Professional bloggers choose a proven and profitable niche because they know you cannot make money selling products and services that no one is willing to pay for.
They study and engage their readers and try to understand their pain points or address readers who are facing the same issues they overcame in their own lives.
To be successful, professional bloggers cultivate a deep understanding of their audience and build an engaged audience and a loyal following from the ground up with personalized content tailored just for them.
#2. Professional bloggers build a brand
Professional bloggers don’t treat their blogs as a hobby. They see their blogs as tools for growing their business and brand. They invest in learning the entrepreneurial skills needed to run a business successfully.
Expert bloggers know that you cannot run a successful business without an investment of time, effort, money, or all three. They understand that you should never build an empire on rented land.
Professional bloggers know that they must own the internet assets they need to create a brand that outlasts the next social media or search engine algorithm update.
They know that it’s important to have a domain, website, and mailing list that belongs only to them and not some internet entity that could go belly up, taking all of their hard work with it.
They treat the process of building successful blogs as a business and invest in it, buying their own domain and professional web hosting so they can use their blogs to sell products and services or build a brand.
#3. Professional bloggers don’t waste time
Professional bloggers know that time is valuable, so they don’t waste it on tasks that don’t move the needle. They know exactly where they need to focus their time and energy: on creating and promoting high-quality content instead of wasting time trying to get more comments, shares, and likes.
They may use social media to promote their blogs, but they don’t waste much time on social media channels that don’t have the potential to convert, or where their content has a short half-life (like Instagram and Twitter).
Instead, they learn how to do SEO, focusing on channels like search and YouTube that are proven to attract targeted customers actively looking for what they’re selling and where their rankings and traffic grow over time.
#4. Professional bloggers focus on what works
Professional bloggers don’t just blog about their favorite topics. They put in the time and effort to research and write blog content writing topics of interest to their readers, so they can build an audience and grow their business.
They know that building successful blogs is not just about sharing their knowledge on a particular subject, but also about captivating readers with useful and interesting content that will make them want more.
Expert bloggers learn how to do SEO and use their skills to boost their search engine rankings and traffic because they know that search traffic converts better than any other type of traffic and that the efficacy of an SEO campaign increases over time.
Professional bloggers also invest time and effort into learning SEO writing skills and optimizing their blog content for search engines so they can get higher search engine rankings and traffic.
#5. Professional bloggers embrace new technology
Professional bloggers are always learning. They have a never-ending thirst for knowledge. They continue to study and learn about blogging so they can stay on top of ever-changing trends in the industry, or keep up with those who are leading it today.
Expert bloggers know that it’s important to continue to grow and learn as bloggers and stay on top of technological trends so they can keep their blogging strategies relevant and up-to-date.
Professional bloggers are always on the lookout for new technologies that will help them deliver high-quality content, like the best AI copywriting tools that can help them scale and grow their blogs.
The best bloggers are always on the cutting edge of technology, embracing new technologies and new ways to share their blogs with readers.
#6. Professional bloggers believe in outsourcing
Professional bloggers know that it’s important to be consistent in their blogging schedule and to guest post on other blogs. They need to produce high-quality, unique, and original content consistently and promote their content effectively.
They know that you can’t grow your blog or scale a business by doing it all yourself. Expert bloggers know that you need a team of people to help with the heavy lifting and keep things running smoothly.
Expert bloggers outsource blogging tasks they can’t do, are not good at, don’t have time for, or would rather not do so they can focus on the things they enjoy doing and are good at.
#7. Professional bloggers build good relationships
There are a lot of things that help professional bloggers grow their businesses, but the most important is to constantly network and collaborate with other expert bloggers and influencers.
Professional bloggers know that it’s common for one blogger to introduce another to a new opportunity and that professional networking and building relationships can take them places that hard work cannot.
They attend blogging conferences and events to network, build relationships with other expert bloggers and entrepreneurs in their niche, and collaborate with them for mutual benefit.
In Keith Ferrazzi’s Complete Guide to Building Your Network course, you’ll learn what a personal network is and how it benefits you professionally and personally.
You’ll also learn how to develop the strong personal relationships needed to achieve your goals, create a strategy for maintaining these relationships, and develop deeper, stronger, more mutually beneficial relationships.
Now that you have a better understanding of how professional bloggers think, you can adopt their blogging strategies and lessons to become better bloggers and build successful blogs.
Blogging Tips & Tools
- Earn Money From Blogs: 10 Blog Ideas That Make Money
- How To Start An Affiliate Marketing Business
- How To Find and Research Your Niche Market
- 10 Affiliate Income Tips To Boost Your Affiliate Marketing Earnings
- Blog To Book: How to Turn Your Blog Into a Book and Why You Should
- 5 Blog Laws & Legal Considerations To Protect Your Blogging Business
- 21 Bloggers SEO Tips: Learn How To Do SEO For Beginners
- Best SEO Content Writing Tools To Write SEO-Friendly Articles
- How To Start Your Own Web Content Writing Business
- How To Learn Travel Writing & Become A Travel Blogger
- How To Become A Food Blogger & Start A Recipe Blog
© 2022 – 2024, Priya Florence Shah. All rights reserved.
Priya Florence Shah is a bestselling author and an award-winning blogger. Check out her book on emotional self-care for women. Priya writes short stories and poetry and chills with her two-legged and four-legged kids in her spare time.
Share this:
Discover more from Business & Branding Tips
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.