Sponsored Blogging: What It Is & How to Start Making Money
If you’re here, you probably want to start a blog and monetize it. Or you already have one, might be making some money from it (or even a full-time income), but want to add an additional income stream with blog sponsorships.
You’ve come to the right place. I’ve been blogging since 2013, full-time probably since 2017-2018, and sponsored blogging has always been my main income stream.
That may come as a surprise to some of you as you often hear how someone is earning all their income from ads on their blog, affiliate marketing or digital products, or all of this.
But you don’t often hear about blog sponsorships, especially as someone’s main revenue stream.
That’s why I talk about it openly. I love sharing my journey, showing others what’s possible, but also talking about the ups and downs.
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I’ve worked with more sponsored clients, big and small brands and agencies than I can count. My blogs are added to 20-30 sponsored networks and I discover new ones all the time. I get discovered by clients a lot and they approach me via email, and this has been happening every single month for so many years now.
If you want to learn everything about sponsored blogging as a business model, you can directly dive into my course The Blog Sponsorship Course.
I also share a lot about it inside our membership Fearless Bloggers if that’s more your thing.
As a member, you also get direct access to my monthly blog income reports and can see exactly how much I earned each month in my business, what content I posted, which of these posts were sponsored, as well as any other things I worked on, plan to do, blogging expenses, etc. I disclose it all, and members are loving it.
If you aren’t ready to invest yet, you can grab the freebie below to get started with blog sponsorships.
Now, let’s dive in.
What is Sponsored Blogging?
This is another way for bloggers to monetize their site (aside from displaying ads, doing affiliate marketing, offering services, selling digital products, and anything else).
Just like influencers on social media get paid by brands to promote their content in some way, so can you as a blogger.
The brand/client gets access to your audience and a link to their site appears on your blog. That’s usually a dofollow link, which means they get SEO benefits.
They probably do that with many other bloggers too, and having many links from reputable and relevant sites boosts their rankings in the search results.
That’s what they gain. They might also get a mention in your newsletter, a link from the homepage (I don’t do that, though), a dedicated article on your site, or just a link in an existing article.
There are many versions of this and that’s why over time, you can create your own packages, price them strategically, and add them to your media kit (as a PDF document you can send to brands via email to present your site, any conditions you work with, your packages, etc).
How to Get Started
The very first step is to have a blog. Have it for at least 6 months before you try adding it to a sponsored network (these are platforms that connect publishers and advertisers) or pitching someone.
During that time:
- make your site professional;
- make sure it functions well and loads fast;
- have clearly defined blog categories;
- have 10-20 blog posts in each;
- connect your site to Google Analytics and track everything;
- create new content regularly;
- have a Pinterest account and start bringing traffic from Pinterest to your blog;
- start an email list;
- maybe build your presence on other social accounts too.
These are the basics. Have them in place before you expect any income from sponsored blogging. Not that it’s not possible before that, but it’s best to have the foundation built before any sponsor checks out your site.
If you haven’t started a blog why and are wondering how, my free course covers it.
Keep Growing Your Blog No Matter What
Even if you see no traffic and no income for 12 months, keep working on your blog. This is a long-term project and you can reap the benefits for the rest of your life.
Of course it’s possible that you picked a niche that doesn’t fit you, or realize you can’t create more new content on the same topics. But give it at least 1 year before you call it quits.
Your main tasks as a blogger have to do with keyword research, creating new content, optimizing it, updating old posts, bringing traffic from Pinterest, trying alternative traffic sources, monetizing, and a million little things in-between.
If you choose to be a blogger, be prepared for all this.
Also read: How to Write a Sponsored Blog Post: 10 Tips for Bloggers
Finding Sponsored Opportunities
When you’re ready to give sponsored blogging a try, you can start looking for paid opportunities.
There are different ways to do that such as:
- Joining influencer networks;
- Pitching brands directly;
- Leveraging social media.
Over time, you can form relationships with some clients and have regular orders as well as get approached via email by new clients.
Have a page for advertisers on your site to make it known that you’re open to such collaborations. And have your media kit ready for whenever someone asks for it.
Also read: How I Made $500 from One Sponsored Post on a Blog That Gets 4K Monthly Page Views
Making Money with Sponsored Blogging
Adding this as a new income stream and turning it into recurring revenue will take time.
You need the right mindset, to form connections, to turn your site into an authoritative platform, add it to sponsored networks, keep creating new content consistently and increase the domain authority of your site.
But start learning all you can about this business model as soon as possible.
Feel free to check out all that The Blog Sponsorship Boss covers. This will probably answer all your questions about sponsored blogging.
You can also learn from experience and figure it out yourself.
It’s been my observation that almost no bloggers disclose their paid partnerships, so often we don’t even know someone is earning from that. There’s a lot of privacy in this industry and that’s why many bloggers stay away from blog sponsorships.
But I don’t think there’s anything to be intimidated by. You’ll learn the ins and outs of it over time. You may make a few mistakes, but you’ll know better after that.
Set strong boundaries before you talk to any potential clients and brands, and know your minimum rates and the conditions you work with.
Prepare for a lot of negotiating and lowering your rates sometimes. But other times, you may not even get to your media kit. You can just agree on a higher rate inside an email and go for it.
I believe sponsored blogging is a beautiful way to earn from your platform. I hope this quick introduction was enough to get you pumped up about monetizing your blog with sponsored posts.
