Do you ever wonder how much niche blogs are making?
Why are so many internet entrepreneurs dedicating hours a day on writing content for their blog?
It’s simple: niche blogs make money.
In fact, they can make A LOT of money.
But they also require dedication and a lot of passion to succeed.
In this article we’ll look at exactly how much these niche blogs make and how you can start your own.
What is a Niche Blog
When the average person hears about blogging, they are most likely thinking about your classic mommy blogger who seems to blog about everything under the sun.
This type of personal blogging is very different from what we call a niche blog.
A personal blog is incredibly hard to rank and usually relies on social media and other platforms to acquire traffic.
A niche blog is small and only covers one specific topic.
This allows for the blog to establish a relevant authority online within a certain niche and thus dominate the google search results for that niche.
For example, say you drive an RV and know a lot about RV’s, you could start a niche blog about RV’s and become an authority on this particular subject.
If you keep writing content for this particular subject, eventually search engines will see you as an authority and your content will start ranking for RV-related keywords.
While a personal blog is incredibly hard and almost impossible to rank, starting a niche blog is actually quite easy and just requires input and dedication.
How Niche Blogs Make Money
Niche blogs make a passive income from different sources. Some niche blogs will have just one source of income while others may have multiple.
Here are the three main ways niche blogs make money.
Display Advertising
This is the most common way a niche blog makes money, by having display advertisements on the site.
This is a great source of income because it requires absolutely no input from the blog-owner, all they have to do is sign up and place ads on their site.
It’s a common misconception that display advertising doesn’t make any money. Display advertising can be very profitable, but you need to know which platforms to use.
Here are some popular Display Advertising Networks and their CPM (Cost Per Thousand):
- Google Adsense Average CPM $1-$10 (no minimum requirements)
- Ezoic CPM $10-$25 (10K minimum monthly pageviews)
- Adthrive CPM $20-$50 (100K minimum monthly pageviews)
- Mediavine CPM $20-50 (50K minimum monthly pageviews)
Affiliate Marketing
In an earlier article, how much do affiliate marketers make, we estimated that affiliate marketers make anywhere from $15 to $75 for every 1000 views.
Those rates are higher than most ad networks which is why many niche bloggers opt for affiliate marketing over display advertising.
One of the most popular Affiliate Networks used by niche blogs is Amazon Associates. This allows them to promote Amazon products on their website and receive compensation for anything a visitor buys from Amazon after clicking an Amazon Affiliate link on their website.
This is very beneficial to the blogger because Americans are simply SO used to purchase products from Amazon. So when a blog redirects them to Amazon, even if they don’t intend to buy the promoted product, they might still purchase another product that same day, which still results in a commission for the blogger!
Selling a Product
Some niche blogs wind up coming out with their own product. For example, if you have a niche blog about investing in real estate, why not come out with your own course and profit big from your organic audience all the while teaching them a skill?
This is by far the best way to earn money from a niche blog but it does require a lot more input from the blogger, making this less of a passive income method than the others listed here.
How Much Do Niche blogs Make?
Niche blogs make anywhere from $10 to $50 per 1000 visitors.
How do we estimate this?
For this estimation, we assume a niche blog has at least 10,000 visitors a month which allows them to sign up to a network such as Ezoic.
We also assume the majority of the traffic is from the United States.
We base this estimation on two factors: display ads and affiliate marketing.
A niche blog with display ads will make anywhere from $10 to $50 per 1000 visitors depending on the network used and the niche of the blog. (e.g. personal finance performs better than gaming for obvious reasons).
Affiliate marketing will generate anywhere from $15 to $75 per 1000 visitors depending on the network and niche.
Only exceptional niches would ever reach the $75 mark so we capped our estimation at $50.
Using this information, we can gather that a niche blog with 100,000 monthly visitors, could quickly generate up to $5000 per month.
Just like a niche blog with 1,000,000 monthly visitors, could make as much as $50,000 per month!
How To Start A Niche Blog
Step 1: Pick a niche
When it comes to blogging, you should pick a niche and stick to it.
Maybe you like sailing or know a thing or two about miter saws, there are literally millions of niches to pick and choose from.
Sticking to a niche is important as you want to become an authority on a certain subject, no one will take a second look at the products you promote if you write articles about everything under the sun.
Step 2: Set up your blog
The next step is to choose a blogging platform and set up your blog.
The most common platform is WordPress which can easily be set up with just about any hosting platform online.
WordPress has free themes and is generally very easy to set up and use.
Step 3: Create and publish content
Once you’ve picked a niche and started a blog, you’ll have to write content for your blog.
And now you may be left thinking: “what the hell do I post on a blog?”
That’s why you should develop a content strategy.
But before you do that, you should educate yourself and learn a thing or two about SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
By learning the basics of SEO (that’s all you need to get started) you’ll understand what kind of keywords you should write content for, what you should pay attention to when creating content and how you can rank those articles.
Spoiler: ranking articles takes a long time. Seriously, like up to 30 weeks long.
But it’s well worth it as these articles will remain online forever and as long as they stay relevant, they will keep generating a passive income for you through affiliate marketing.
Step 4: Monetize your blog
The last and final step comes once you start generating traffic.
You can monetize at any time but I prefer to wait until I have at least 10,000 monthly visitors which allows me to sign up to an ad network like ezoic and make a decent amount right off the bat.
Before that, you’ll be making pennies with Google Adsense and it’s just not really worth it.
If you plan on using Affiliate Marketing, you can start monetizing at around 1000 monthly visitors.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do bloggers make per post?
Bloggers can make anywhere from $10 to $50 for every 1000 monthly views on a single post.
How much do bloggers make from affiliate links?
Bloggers can make anywhere from $15 to $75 for every 1000 views on an article with affiliate links.
How long does it take to make money with a blog?
The average new blog takes around 30 weeks to start ranking on Google. Assuming you consistently wrote content during the 30 week period, you’ll likely start to make money from that point on.
How hard is it to make money with a blog
If a blog has a good, dedicated niche, and the blogger dedicates a lot of his/her attention to writing quality posts, it really isn’t that hard to make money with a blog.
The hardest part for most people is finding a good niche and sticking to a consistent blogging schedule.
Conclusion
Niche blogs can bring in a decent amount of passive income. Some niche blogs can rack in as much as $50 for every 1000 visitors which really isn’t that hard to reach.
This really is a great business model for those with a lot of time on their hands to keep a consistent blogging schedule.