3 Ways to Not Make Money Blogging

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3 Ways to Not Make Money Blogging & 4 Ways to Make It!

If you have been reading Inspire to Thrive for any length of time you know this blog has tried various ways of making money online. It was actually founded because of a retail website I had many years ago that started to make money online. The biggest sale from the website was via Twitter.

Twitter tips became my biggest asset to others starting out online. Sponsored Tweets became one of my favorite ways to make a little side money. But then they changed it to another platform – The Izea Platform. The easy money from Sponsored Tweets stopped. The new platform is not producing like the old one. I had to let you know since I had recommended this one back in October. I gave it over 6 months and it did not produce like the former Sponsored Tweets.

That got me thinking. What else has not worked to make money online?

Drop-Shipping – It is the process to ship (goods) from a manufacturer or wholesaler directly to a customer instead of to the retailer who took the order. The retail website I used to have was a drop-shipping business. It has become much harder over the years to make money this way as getting products to customers fast is not easy and almost impossible today. You must wait for others to ship out your sales to customers. If you are a little business do you think they will ship yours before a giant like Walmart? No way! The profit per item decreased over the years as shipping costs increased. Customer satisfaction went down as shipments took longer than other type of websites that were shipping the same products. Places like Amazon ship overnight and other online retailers like Zappos offer free shipping for returns. Those are things drop-shippers can not compete with.
Izea Marketplace – This was formerly the Sponsored Tweets program that I loved. I could make easy money with the old Sponsored Tweets but not with the new Izea Marketplace. (It may be the niche I’m in and it may work well for fashion and beauty type of blogs.)
Bumper Stickers – This way to make money blogging I tried for fun and within months they went bust.

What Has Worked to Make Money Blogging and Online?

Sponsored Posts – These are a good way to make some extra money but please remember the no follow links back to the sponsors websites. Otherwise you may receive a Google penalty. They do happen as I’m still in recovery mode here. (More to come in the future on this one!)
Affiliate Programs – Enstine Muki is the king of affiliate programs, see his latest post on how to make money blogging with affiliate programs. I shy away from many of the affiliate programs as we have Nexus laws in the state of Rhode Island. There are at least 5 others states that have Nexus laws. This just makes it complicated to do your taxes and many businesses do not want to do business with the states that have Nexus laws.
Products like eBooks – There is nothing like selling your own product. eBooks are a great way to make money blogging by sharing your expertise on topics from your blog. Of course you must promote your eBook and learn a lot more to produce and promote it. There are many platforms you can offer your eBook on to make money from it. It is also a great way to get new email subscribers to your blog. Ryan Biddulph is the king of producing eBooks. You can read how Ryan does 1 eBook per week!
InfoLinks – The jury is still out on this one for me but I must say the dollars have increased month over month since I started with InfoLinks back in September 2014. The dollars are still small (Just under $2 per month from pennies per month when I started) but they are there and growing! InfoLinks is another way for bloggers to make money blogging if they are willing to test and readjust their ads. It is an easy program to use. It does not take a lot of time.

More Ways to Make Money Online

There are many more ways to make money blogging and online today. Many people work from home and Corina from Not Now Mom’s Busy as many posted weekly at her website. I am amazed at the different work from home jobs that Corina has blogged about over the years. One way to make money I remember was nurses working from home. I never knew nurses could work from home. Corina separates the “real” jobs from the scams as well on her website.

Many others do writing, copywriting, proofreading and more for online websites of course. Some pay very little and some pay quite nicely. It’s something you must research and do your homework before signing up for any program.

Ad banners still rule. You will see bloggers that make money blogging with ad banners on their sites. I have not done much with them on this blog. I want to be sure if I do the ads are relevant to the topics here and not an eyesore to you. Many of the ad banners on blogs you may see are affiliate programs.

What ways are you using to make money blogging today? What have found not to work?

I’d love to know more in the comments below!

Image courtesy of bplanet at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Lisa

Lisa loves helping others to thrive online through Social Media, Blogging and SEO. What good is knowledge if you cannot share it with others?
She has 20+ years experience in marketing/advertising with 5 years experience blogging, social media and SEO. Get her new eBook Tweeting Like It's 2nd Nature Today!