How To Make Money With A Blog: 8 Ways To Earn $100 Per Day

Most people who start a blog have one question: how does this thing actually make money? The honest answer is that a blog does not make money in just one way. There are multiple revenue streams you can stack on top of each other, and the strongest bloggers run several at once. In this video, Alston walks through eight specific monetization methods using a real case study: loveandlemons.com, a food blog that ranks for over 936,000 keywords and drives more than 10 million page views every single month.

This is not a generic overview. Alston goes screen by screen through the actual blog, points at real examples of each revenue stream already in use, and explains exactly how each one works for a brand new blogger. Whether you just published your first post or you have been building traffic for a year, these eight methods apply to you right now.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear breakdown of all 8 blog monetization methods, illustrated with real examples from a 10-million-pageview site
Why audience congruence is the single rule that separates affiliate marketing success from failure
Which ad networks pay significantly more than Google AdSense and when to make the switch
How membership sites and Patreon create recurring monthly income from an existing audience
The print-on-demand setup that lets you sell merchandise without holding inventory or handling shipping
Why digital products are the most passive option on this list and how to sell them around the clock
A decision framework for picking the right monetization method for where your blog is today
Not sure which of these fits your situation? finder.platformproof.com will point you to the right starting point in about two minutes.

The Case Study: loveandlemons.com

Before breaking down the eight methods, it helps to look at a real blog that is already running them. Alston chose loveandlemons.com because the numbers are public and verifiable. According to Ahrefs, this food blog ranks for over 936,000 keywords and pulls in more than 10 million page views per month. Those numbers make every method on this list very profitable for that site.

But here is what matters most: every blog starts at post number one. loveandlemons.com did not launch with 10 million readers. They built it over time. The reason Alston uses this site as the case study is to show that these strategies are not theoretical. They are already working on a real, high-traffic blog. And the same approaches can be put to work on a much smaller blog, including one that launched last week.

Way 1: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the most popular and most discussed way to make money with a blog, and it earns that reputation. The core concept is simple: you recommend or sell other people’s products and services. You join a brand’s affiliate program, receive unique tracking URLs called affiliate links, and earn a commission whenever someone clicks your link and makes a purchase. You never create the product, handle customer service, or manage shipping. Your job is to connect the right reader with the right product at the right moment.

For loveandlemons.com, the affiliate opportunities are obvious. The site is a food and cooking blog, which means anything in the kitchen is a natural fit: stand mixers, knives, pots, pans, blenders, cutting boards. Alston shows a live example during the video where the blog is already linking to a knife using an affiliate link. Every time a reader clicks that link and buys the knife, the blog earns a commission. The content is already doing the job of recommending the product. The affiliate link just ensures the blog gets credit for the sale.

The rule that separates successful affiliate bloggers from unsuccessful ones is audience congruence. You can only recommend products that match what your readers came to your site looking for. A cooking blog that tries to recommend microphones for YouTubers would generate almost zero clicks, because the audience did not arrive at that site for tech advice. They came for cooking content. Your affiliate products have to fit your niche exactly, and the closer the fit, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Finding affiliate programs in your niche is straightforward. Type your niche plus “affiliate programs” into Google. For example, searching “cookware affiliate programs” returns a long list of options, including 360 Cookware and Pots and Pans.com. Amazon Associates is the largest affiliate program available and accepts most bloggers, but it is not the only option. Many niche-specific programs pay higher commission rates than Amazon does, so searching beyond Amazon is worth the extra time. Whatever your blog topic is, there are almost certainly multiple affiliate programs already operating in that space.

Way 2: Display Advertising

The second method is display advertising. A third-party ad network places ads throughout your blog posts and pays you based on clicks or impressions. Most new bloggers start with Google AdSense because AdSense accepts almost everyone. The requirement is basic: your content needs to be safe for work and comply with Google’s content policies. Once approved, ads start appearing automatically within your posts without any additional setup from you.

Alston walks through a recipe post on loveandlemons.com during the video to show how display ads behave. As you scroll through the article, ads appear automatically between paragraphs and in the sidebar. The blog earns money from those placements without doing anything extra for each individual page view. For a blog with 10 million monthly page views, that automatic passive income adds up to a significant monthly revenue stream.

The more important piece of advice Alston shares is about what to do once your traffic grows past a certain point. Google AdSense pays relatively low rates compared to premium ad networks, but it has no traffic minimum, which makes it accessible from day one. Once your blog starts getting significant, consistent traffic, there are better networks that pay considerably more per thousand visitors. The ones Alston names in the video include AdThrive, Mediavine, Zoic, and Boola. These networks have traffic minimums before they accept new publishers, but once you qualify, your earnings per visitor increases substantially.

The practical strategy most experienced bloggers use: start with Google AdSense to monetize from the beginning, then apply to a premium network once you hit their traffic threshold. Mediavine requires approximately 50,000 monthly sessions. AdThrive requires around 100,000 monthly page views. The migration from AdSense to a premium network alone can multiply your ad income without changing a single thing about your content or your publishing schedule.

Way 3: Membership Sites and Private Communities

The third method creates recurring monthly income instead of one-time sales. The idea is to take your existing audience, who all share a common interest in your topic, and give them a paid membership for premium content or community access. You can run this through Patreon, through a private Facebook group with a paid entry requirement, or by building a membership area directly inside WordPress using a plugin. All three approaches let you collect monthly payments from members who want more than what you offer for free.

For a food blog like loveandlemons.com, the membership angle is concrete. A paid community could offer an exclusive recipe of the week, in-depth cooking tutorials, step-by-step technique breakdowns, or early access to seasonal content that the free blog publishes later. Readers who already enjoy the free content have a built-in reason to consider paying for more. The barrier to conversion is lower because the audience already knows and trusts the quality of your work.

The income model is the key advantage here. When someone joins in January, they pay in January. And February. And March. And every month after that until they decide to leave. That recurring revenue creates a predictable monthly base that does not reset to zero each month the way a one-time sale does. Alston notes that this method is semi-passive rather than fully passive. You have to keep creating content or value for the group on an ongoing basis, which takes real time. But a membership with even a few hundred paying members provides a stable income foundation that makes the rest of your monetization efforts easier to build on top of.

Way 4: Getting Paid for Guest Posts

This is a monetization method that many bloggers ignore because it does not fit the traditional idea of selling a product or running ads. Here is how it works: other bloggers in your niche contact you and offer to pay you to publish a post on your site. The reason they pay is that they want a backlink pointing from your established blog to theirs. A backlink from a relevant, authoritative site helps their site rank higher in search results. You get paid for the placement, they get a valuable link. When done correctly, it is a genuine benefit for both parties.

Alston mentions in the video that he regularly receives these emails for his own site. Other publishers reach out, offer payment, and propose writing content that fits his blog’s topics. Whether you accept a given offer is entirely your call, but the opportunity is real and arrives more frequently as your blog builds authority in its niche.

The one non-negotiable condition is content quality. A poorly written guest post hurts your reputation with your readers and can hurt your search rankings if search engines see low-quality content associated with your site. The guest blogger has to produce something genuinely useful to your audience. That means you review and approve the content before publishing, and you turn down anything that does not meet the standard your regular readers expect. When you hold that standard, the added benefit Alston points out is real: the guest blogger often shares the post with their own audience, sending you free traffic you did not have to earn yourself.

Way 5: Print-on-Demand Merchandise

The fifth method lets you sell branded merchandise without holding a single unit of inventory, doing any printing, or managing shipping logistics. Print-on-demand platforms like TeeSpring, now rebranded as Spring, handle all of the fulfillment side. You design the product, which can be as simple as your blog’s logo, a phrase your audience associates with you, or a graphic that fits your brand aesthetic. You set up the shop on the platform. When someone orders, Spring prints the item, ships it directly to the customer, and handles any returns. Your revenue goes directly to you with no warehouse, no printer, and no customer service calls about shipping delays.

You connect the store to your blog by linking to it from your navigation menu or by mentioning it within relevant posts. Alston points to the shop section on loveandlemons.com during the video as an example of a food blog that has already expanded into its own branded products.

There is one honest drawback worth knowing before you set this up: platforms like Spring require a minimum number of orders before they begin fulfilling and shipping products. If your blog has a very small audience, you may not hit that minimum quickly, which means products sit unlaunched until enough orders come in. Once your blog has a consistent readership that feels connected to your brand and personality, merchandise sales can happen steadily. For help with design, Alston suggests working with a designer on Fiverr to create your logo or graphics concept, which keeps your upfront cost low and your time investment minimal.

Wondering which of these eight income streams is the right starting point for your blog?

Answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Way 6: Digital Products

Digital products are Alston’s personal favorite method on the entire list, and his reason is direct: you create something once and it sells continuously. A digital product is any product that is delivered automatically and digitally after purchase. That includes ebooks, recipe PDFs, audio books, templates, printables, guides, and online courses. Once the product is created and listed for sale, the transaction happens automatically every time someone buys. The customer pays, the file downloads or the course access unlocks, and you receive the money regardless of whether you are at your desk, asleep, or traveling. The income does not stop when you stop working.

For loveandlemons.com, the example Alston gives is premium recipes. The blog already publishes free recipes that drive 10 million monthly page views. That same team could package exclusive or enhanced recipes into a downloadable PDF and sell them for even a dollar each. At that scale, a modest conversion rate on that traffic turns into a significant monthly income from a product that required one upfront block of time to create.

The rule for digital products mirrors the affiliate marketing rule: the product has to solve a problem your audience already has. You cannot sell a social media marketing course to a cooking audience. But you can sell a meal planning template, a seasonal recipe collection, a beginner’s guide to a specific cooking technique, or a shopping list system built around your content style. The best way to figure out what to create is to look at what your readers keep asking about. Recurring questions in your comments section or inbox are the clearest signal for what your audience would pay to have answered in a well-organized, downloadable format. Create that answer once, sell it indefinitely.

Way 7: Physical Products

Physical products work differently from every other method on this list. Affiliate marketing, display ads, memberships, digital products, and merchandise are all mostly passive or semi-passive. Physical products involve active inventory and real fulfillment work, which means this method demands considerably more hands-on effort. That said, it can also generate higher revenue per unit than most of the other approaches, especially when you build a recognizable brand around your products.

The approach Alston describes is buying products from wholesale suppliers like AliExpress, branding them with your logo (a practice called white labeling), and selling them through your blog. For a cooking blog, that might mean sourcing stand mixers from a wholesale supplier, applying your own branding and packaging, and selling them at a markup to an audience that already trusts your recommendations. Alston walks through AliExpress on screen during the video to show how the supplier lookup process works. You search your niche product, find suppliers offering bulk pricing, and calculate what margin you can build in for your audience.

The honest tradeoff here is that you only make money when products sell and ship. There is no passive element to this unless you eventually move fulfillment to a third-party logistics company, which adds cost and complexity. For most new bloggers, physical products make the most sense as a later addition after your audience is already established. Starting with affiliate marketing or digital products first lets you test demand with no inventory risk. If your readers consistently ask where they can buy a specific type of product you recommend, that is a clear signal that physical inventory might be worth considering. Alston also notes that loveandlemons.com is already doing a version of this on their shop page, including a branded cookbook, which is itself a physical product that a food blog is uniquely positioned to create and sell to a loyal readership.

Way 8: Selling Ad Space Directly

The eighth method goes a step further than display ad networks. Instead of letting Google AdSense or Mediavine place ads on your site and taking a cut for brokering the relationship, you sell ad space directly to brands or individual advertisers yourself. You set the price. You negotiate the terms. The advertiser pays you directly. No middleman takes a percentage.

This approach works well once your blog has meaningful, consistent traffic in a specific niche. Brands that want to reach your exact audience will pay a premium to advertise directly to them rather than relying on a broad ad network that may scatter their budget across sites their customers do not visit. A food blog with 100,000 monthly readers who actively trust the publisher’s product recommendations is worth more to a cookware company than a generic display ad placement on a network with mixed demographics and low intent traffic.

The practical way to find direct advertisers is to look at who is already spending money to reach your audience type through other channels. If certain brands consistently show up in Instagram ads targeting home cooks, in podcast sponsorships on food shows, or in other cooking blogs’ sponsored content, those brands are already allocating budget to reach your readers. You can reach out directly with your traffic numbers and audience profile, or use platforms that connect publishers with brands looking for direct placements. The key advantage over standard ad networks is full control: you decide who advertises on your site, at what price, in what format, and for how long. That control also protects your readers from ads that feel out of place for your audience.

Which Method Should You Start With?

Eight methods can feel like too many options at once. Here is a simple framework for deciding where to start based on where your blog is right now.

If your blog is brand new with no traffic: Start with affiliate marketing. Write content that targets specific buyer-intent keywords in your niche, include relevant affiliate links naturally within that content, and apply to Google AdSense at the same time. Running both from the beginning costs nothing and creates two income streams from day one, even if neither produces significant income until traffic builds.

If you have consistent traffic but no products of your own: Apply to a premium ad network if you qualify, and create one digital product that solves a specific, recurring problem your audience asks about. These two work well together because the ad network monetizes your existing traffic passively while the digital product builds a revenue stream that does not depend entirely on page view volume.

If you have an engaged audience that trusts you: Add a membership or private community. An audience that reads your content regularly, leaves comments, shares posts, and emails you questions already trusts you enough to pay for more. A membership converts that existing trust into recurring monthly income without requiring you to create anything fundamentally new. You are packaging access to more of what they already value.

If brands are already reaching out to inquire about your blog: You are ready to consider direct ad space sales and sponsored content. Inbound brand inquiries are a clear signal that your blog has enough authority in your niche to make direct brand relationships worthwhile. At that point, the question is not whether you can get paid for placements, but whether you are being paid what your audience attention is actually worth.

The goal is not to run all eight methods simultaneously from the start. The goal is to identify which one or two methods match your current stage, get those producing consistent results, and then add additional layers as your traffic and audience grow. Each method you add is an additional income source that does not require you to build a brand new audience from scratch.

Find Your X

The eight methods above all work on real blogs right now. The question is which one fits your specific blog, your audience, and where you are in the process today. That is not a question you should have to figure out through trial and error alone. The free tool at finder.platformproof.com is built specifically to help working adults identify which online income method matches their skills, schedule, and goals. Answer a few questions and walk out with a clear, specific starting point instead of a list of options that all sound equally reasonable.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to start making money with a blog?

It depends on which method you choose and how consistently you publish. With affiliate marketing and Google AdSense, you can technically earn from the first month, but income that covers real expenses usually takes three to twelve months of consistent posting to build enough traffic. Premium ad networks like Mediavine require a traffic minimum to qualify, so those take longer. Digital products can generate sales faster if you already have an email list or social following pointing traffic to your blog from the start.

Do I need a lot of traffic to make money with affiliate marketing?

Not necessarily, but you need the right kind of traffic. A small blog with highly targeted readers in a specific niche can outperform a large blog with scattered, general-interest traffic when it comes to affiliate conversions. Readers who land on your post because they searched for a specific product comparison or buying guide are already in purchase mode. Traffic quality matters more than raw volume, especially when you are starting out and total page views are still modest.

Can I run multiple monetization methods at the same time?

Yes, and most successful bloggers do. The practical approach is to start with one or two methods that match your current traffic level and audience size, get those working consistently, and then add additional streams. Running all eight methods from day one usually means none of them get enough attention to actually produce results. Focused execution on fewer methods beats scattered effort across all of them.

What is the difference between Google AdSense and networks like Mediavine or AdThrive?

Google AdSense has no traffic minimum and accepts most blogs with compliant content. The tradeoff is lower revenue per thousand visitors. Mediavine requires roughly 50,000 monthly sessions, and AdThrive requires around 100,000 monthly page views. Both premium networks pay significantly more per visitor than AdSense. Most bloggers treat AdSense as the starting point for immediate monetization and migrate to a premium network as soon as they qualify for one.

Is print-on-demand merchandise worth it for a blog with a small audience?

It works best when your audience has a strong connection to your brand or personality, not just to your information. If your readers feel like they are part of a community built around your voice and perspective, they are more likely to want branded merchandise. If your blog is primarily informational and readers arrive, read one article, and leave without engaging, merchandise will be harder to sell. Build audience engagement first through consistent publishing, email list growth, and community interaction. Then consider merchandise as an additional layer once readers actively identify with your brand.

How do I find brands willing to pay for direct ad placements on my blog?

Look at which brands are already advertising in your niche through other channels: social media ads targeting your demographic, podcast sponsorships on shows your audience listens to, and sponsored content on other blogs in your space. Those brands are already allocating budget to reach your type of reader. You can approach them directly with your traffic data and audience breakdown, or use influencer and publisher marketplaces that connect bloggers with brands looking for direct placement opportunities. Once you have 20,000 or more monthly readers in a clear niche, inbound inquiries from brands often start arriving on their own.

What type of digital product makes the most sense for a new blogger to create first?

Start with whatever your audience keeps asking you about. Look at the questions that show up repeatedly in your blog comments, in your email inbox, and in social media replies to your content. If the same question appears over and over, that recurring question is a product brief. Answer it completely, organize it well, format it as a downloadable PDF or a short ebook, and list it for sale. Complicated products with long development timelines are rarely the right starting point. A focused, specific answer to a real, common question will convert better than a comprehensive course built before you have validated what your audience actually wants.

Can a blog still make real money in 2024 and beyond?

Yes. Blogging as a business model predates most social media platforms and continues to produce income because search engines continue sending traffic to well-written, specific content that answers real questions. The bloggers who struggle are typically producing generic content on broad topics where they have no real credibility or depth. Bloggers who build genuine authority in a specific niche, serve their readers consistently with original insight, and layer multiple monetization methods tend to build durable income that holds up over time. The fundamentals have not changed: give a specific audience something genuinely useful, and the income follows.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “How To Make Money With A Blog 2022 – 7 Ways To Earn $100 Per Day,” YouTube, https://youtu.be/mGGztaqOPcA
loveandlemons.com, used as a live case study for blog monetization examples throughout the video
Ahrefs, cited in video for loveandlemons.com keyword and traffic data: 936,000 ranking keywords and 10 million-plus monthly page views
Google AdSense, display ad network for publishers: adsense.google.com
Amazon Associates affiliate program: affiliate-program.amazon.com
Spring (formerly TeeSpring), print-on-demand platform: www.spri.ng
AliExpress, wholesale supplier marketplace, cited in video as an example source for physical product sourcing: www.aliexpress.com