Hold on, did I say monetize the WordPress blog? Why do you even need to do that when you’re using your author website to sell your books?

Isn’t that already considered monetizing your website when you create a product and sell it on your website?

Well, you’re right.

You’re already monetizing your website by creating your own products, be it books, courses and coaching programs.

But we all know the sky is the limit when it comes to what you can do with your website.

If you already have that part of monetization nailed down, then it doesn’t hurt to add more income sources into the mix.

Now, I get your remorse when you think about adding more ways to monetize the WordPress blog and website.

You just don’t have the time to add more things to your plate.

Fret not if that’s your concern.

These monetization methods don’t even require a lot of your time to get started.

You can get started right away if you want to.

Keep in mind while this post is about how you can monetize your WordPress blog, the same principle also applies to monetizing websites on other platforms.

Of course, these methods are much easier to implement if you’re on WordPress.

But you can still run with it even if you’re using a different platform.

The proven methods to monetize WordPress blog

Try searching for ways to monetize the WordPress blogs and websites and you come across tons of ways to do them.

While some of them are indeed the ones that I personally do to this day and highly recommend, others seem to look short-lived to me.

So, which ones you should do, and which ones you should ditch for good? Here are the monetization methods that you can get started right away.

And they’re the ones that I still do to this day too.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing tends to get a bad rep simply because of the way people promote affiliate offers.

They will use whatever deceptive and underhand tactics they can think of to rake up as many commissions as they can and as fast as they possibly can.

So, it’s understandable why so many people will shy away from doing affiliate marketing and why an email marketing platform like Mailerlite has a hard stance on affiliate marketing.

Despite its bad rep, it’s still the best and easiest way to add income to your author business.

All you have to do is to add affiliate links to your website and you’re all set.

Believe me, I wouldn’t be making my first dollar online if it’s not because of affiliate marketing.

The key to making money from affiliate marketing isn’t so much to do with joining a program with the highest commission rate.

It’s promoting products and services that will benefit your audience. That’s how you make money from affiliate marketing.

Serving the audience shouldn’t be that hard for you since you already do that with your products and services.

Find products and services that you think your audience will love and let them know about them.

Just be sure to disclose that you have affiliate links in your post not only because the FTC demands it.

Your audience will be more likely to buy from you through affiliate links when you’re being transparent about those links.

Display ads

Here we are in 2023 and beyond, we’re still talking about Google AdSense or anything equivalent.

Just like affiliate marketing, Google AdSense also receives a bad rep because people litter their websites with nothing but ads to gain more clicks.

But despite its bad rep, it’s still one of the easiest ways for you to monetize the WordPress blog.

The only thing you need to do is to place a code in your header and the ad will begin to display on your website after two hours.

And it’s so much easier to get it up and running when you’re using WordPress.

The thing with Google AdSense is that it can feel like it takes forever for you to meet the payment threshold since the pay-per-click is rather pitiful.

So, you’re more likely to get a better result if you have sizeable traffic coming to your website.

I admit that I have yet to receive my first paycheck from Google despite being on AdSense for more than 10 years.

But the reason why I’m having a hard time reaching the payment threshold is simply because the places where I use AdSense are no longer available.

Even if they’re still around today, the content that I used to create for the said website got unpublished since it didn’t meet the editorial standard.

Thus, my AdSense clicks came to a grinding halt.

It was only when I began displaying ads on my fiction author website that I started to make money from Google AdSense again.

You can join other ad programs in the hope of getting a better payout.

But I still find that Google AdSense is a much better option since you’re more likely to get paid for clicks as opposed to any other ads program out there.

Sponsored posts

While the bulk of my income derived from affiliate marketing when I got started, I also make money from sponsored posts.

Just like the name implied, all you need to do is to write a post on your blog promoting the advertiser and you’ll get paid once you submit the post before the deadline.

The price per post will vary since it was set by the advertiser. But you can expect to get around $20 to $50 per post.

It’s up to you whether you want to write a short or long post to promote the advertiser. However, the blog post has to be at least 200 words.

Getting paid to write a sponsored post isn’t that hard to do thanks to a website like Sponsored Reviews.

But you can no longer add your website to their list since the website was already defunct years ago.

Of course, there are also other players in town when it comes to sponsored post opportunities.

But the thing about those websites is that they only cater to specific niches and advertisers would prefer you to create content on specific platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

Tough luck if you’re not on any of those platforms.

If you’re in the lifestyle niche, then you can consider adding sponsored posts to your income stream.

Otherwise, you will have to offer and manage the sponsored post opportunities yourself.

While it’s been a long time since I had the opportunity to write a sponsored post, I do have a plan to get back into offering a sponsored post on my website.

I don’t have the exact timeline or even a plan on how I’m going to do it.

But as always, I’ll let you know how I’ll be going about it in my future posts.

You won’t strike riches with these monetization methods overnight

Except for offering sponsored posts, the rest of the monetization methods aren’t that hard to implement even if you’re pressing for time.

But still, don’t get your hope way too high up.

Like everything else, it’s still going to take some time for you to see the result.

So, get started now and do it little by little and you’ll start to see the result soon enough.

Well, provided that you’re consistent with your efforts, of course.