Some blogs earn, while some blogs don't – it's hit or miss. If you're looking to monetize, here's what you need to know about the types of blogs that make money.
Why are some blogs wildly successful in racking in money while others get buried in the depths of obscurity? A blog's money-making potential depends on a lot of factors – a fact newbie bloggers need to know.
Before publishing their first blog post, it’s essential that beginners do research.
To make money online through blogging, most ‘experts' will offer you cookie-cutter advice – pick the most popular niche and your content will take care of the rest. While this sounds madly convenient, there's an established science behind lucrative blogging.
Providing valuable content to a popular niche is just half the story – there are several modern strategies bloggers need to employ to achieve earning success.
Most bloggers are so obsessed with selecting the right type of niche that they forget about the other factors that are as important.
This includes your selected mode of earning (e.g. affiliate links, sponsored posts, private ads), the quality of your posts, and so much more.
If you've just begun conceptualizing a blog, you’ve come at the right time.
I've built several successful blogs that have generated over $250,000 of income in the past year. All completely part-time.
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Here are some important insights on the types of blogs that make money.
See Related: Blog vs Website: 7 Key Differences to Know
Table of Contents
What types of blogs make the most money?
Before we get into the types of blogs that actually make money. You need to be able to start a blog.
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Blogs with topics that have the right audience size
Blog writing for a well thought-off niche is incredibly important. When talking about the types of blogs that make money, the size of your audience matters. We already discussed this in our previous article, ‘How Bloggers Make Money – 8 Ways to Monetize‘, but here's a refresher.
Pick a blog topic that is too general and you run the risk of having too much competition. Topics with too much competition end up having a minimal audience. On the other hand, blogs with topics that are too specific also run the risk of having a poor readership.
So what's a blogger to do?
The strategy is to find a topic or niche that hits the sweet spot between generality and specificity. If you're writing about food, for example, it's wise to hone in on a specific cuisine (e.g. Vietnamese, Indian, Italian).
If you're confident about never running out of content, you can get even more specific by delving into food categories (e.g. Vietnamese desserts, Indian snacks, Italian pasta). Now here's where we advise you to stop.
Getting even more specific will not only severely limit your audience, but the number of content you can publish as well.
Blogs that ease people's pain points
The secret to the success of any product is its capacity to solve a consumer's problem. This truth extends in the world of blogging. Blogs only become lucrative when readers find value in them – and there's always value in learning about solutions to problems.
Knowing what problems to solve should guide you in finding out the most lucrative blog niche or topics to post on your blog.
You can determine your target reader's pain points by looking at what similar successful blogs are focusing on, researching keywords on Google Trends, and asking your existing customers.
Blogs that employ the right SEO
If you're looking for ways to make money through blogging, you cannot possibly get anywhere without employing the right SEO. New bloggers should be wary of the outdated strategies that some inexperienced bloggers employ up to this day.
Today, search engine optimization strategies now revolve around utilizing keywords in a way that enables smooth and seamless reading.
Google algorithm updates have eschewed keyword stuffing in favor of quality and substance; Google now has the capability to decipher user intent instead of putting a premium on individual keywords and keyphrases.
In other words, keywords are still a thing, but they need to be integrated into your blog posts in a way that caters to the reader instead of appealing to bots. If you're just starting out with blogging, you'll find several hosting providers like Bluehost which offer pre-built SEO tools to help you employ the best SEO strategies.
These SEO tools can automatically check your website for SEO weaknesses to help you regularly improve on them.
See Related: Are Blogs Still a Thing? [What You Need to Know]
Blogs that employ the right monetizing methods
There are several ways to generate income with blogs, and the types of blogs that make money are those that employ the right practices.
Not all methods are applicable for the type of blog you have, so be extra careful in selecting strategies that are right for you. Here are some of the best ways to make money blogging.
Integrating ads through Google AdSense. Recognized as one of the most popular ways to make money through blogging, integrating CPC or CPM ads allows you to earn money every time an ad is clicked by your readers or for every 1,000 times your ad is shown to your audience.
Affiliate marketing. This involves promoting a company's products in your blogs through an affiliate link. Each time someone purchases the company's products or services through your link, you earn a commission percentage. Here are the 20 Best Affiliate Programs to Earn Extra Income.
Digital products. Bloggers who want to keep their blogs ad-free can resort to selling digital products like eBooks, plugins, apps, photos, and videos to earn money.
Membership. Membership blogs are some of the most popular types of blogs that make money. Selling exclusive access to your website is a great way to generate passive income.
See Related: Blogging vs Vlogging
Blogs with evergreen content
Blogs with content that withstand the test of time are some of the best types of blogs that make money. Content with evergreen topics generates long term passive income as people's interests in the topic do not decline.
If you're just starting out with blogging without clues on how to monetize it, select an evergreen niche like health tips, parenting tips, workout tips, or money-saving ideas and start from there
Select evergreen content with care. When writing evergreen content, bloggers must be aware of which industry topics have already been covered.
There's a huge chance that your topic selection has already been discussed, even hundreds of times, so it's important that you add your own spin on the topic. You can do this by selecting long-tail keywords with low competition but a decent amount of traffic.
Repurpose your content. One of the best things about evergreen content is that they can be repurposed in many ways.
If a content you wrote proved to be particularly successful, you can spin it into various formats: turn into a video, a podcast, or write another blog with the same topic but with a renewed perspective.
See Related: How to Become a Content Creator
Blogs that target trends
Publishing blogs with evergreen content are great for those with little time to spare, but if you have a lot of time for blogging, then you may want to consider targeting trending topics.
While trends are a lot riskier to write about, bloggers can make a lot of money by writing about trending topics with little competition.
Blog about trends before they take off. Trends are best blogged about before they gain popularity, so bloggers need to do some research to find out what's currently on the rise. Listen to the news, study the developments in your field, or consult Google Trends or Pinterest's trend report to identify popular blog topics.
Focus on evergreen content if you're just starting out. If you're just starting out with blogging, it's good to focus on writing about evergreen content instead – especially if you're still figuring out how to monetize your blog.
New bloggers publish blogs slower, so by the time you're done writing about the trend and setting up your blog post, it may have already passed way beyond the point where it's profitable.
See Related: How to Create a Blog on Instagram
Blogs with a visually appealing design
While text content matters, visual design is what readers see first. It should go without saying, but blogs that have a user-friendly interface, utilize good imagery and have organized content earn more compared to blogs that have poor aesthetics. Here's why.
People read differently. While some readers are prone to skimming content, others will want to dive in deep. Blog design devices like headlines, subheads, and sidebars allow you to cater to both types of readers.
More people are visual. Around 65% of people learn visually – that's a big portion of your audience. This is why bloggers need to have a good understanding of various content types and formats like photos, videos, or infographics.
Good design spurs readers into action. The top money making blogs are those that have exceptional design, but why is this? By effectively calling attention to their offering, good design is a powerful tool to convince a reader to purchase a product or a service.
You'll find hundreds of tips online about how to make your page look great, but some of the most important are selecting a legible font, having clear and crisp images and videos, and having a properly organized sidebar.
Check out these best laptops for blogging and video blogging to ensure you are arming yourself with the right tools for success.
See Related: 10 Best Blog Fonts to Improve Readability
Blogs in popular niches
Searching for a profitable niche? After extensive research, we discovered that these are the types of blogs that make money.
Since these are big niches, you may want to narrow down your selection to lessen the competition.
Health and fitness
Looking for the best blog to make money? Fitness is a massive industry, and you'll find yourself competing for space if you intend to develop a blog with this topic as your choice. However, it is also one of the most lucrative.
A great way to build your audience is to choose more specific topics, this may include a particular diet (gluten-free, paleo, keto), exercise (CrossFit, weight lifting, running), audience (men, women), or approach (wellness, homeopathy, acupuncture).
You can also share your fitness progress with blogs about your challenges and what you've learned.
If you plan on selling your website to make a profit, we recommend Flippa, a platform where you can buy and sell websites.
Sites in the health niche fetch the highest sell rates on Flippa, so you may want to consider this if you're looking to make money through website flipping.
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Check out these personal development blog examples that make money if this niche sounds right for you.
Personal finance
If there's one thing people want to know, it's about how to make money. They're also looking to save and spend less. Blogs about personal finance have a massive following, so you'll want to be more specific with your approach.
You may focus on investing, frugality, budgeting, or debt.
Fashion
If you're into clothes and styling, fashion can be one of the most profitable blogging niches – but only if you're able to pull it off. There's massive competition in this space, so you'll have to find unexplored angles while offering a unique selling point.
Most fashion blogs focus on the bloggers themselves- so if you already have a sizeable following on social media, you won't find it difficult to earn from having your own blog.
If you're not comfortable with being the subject, then you may opt to blog about different trends within fashion or discuss fashion-related news.
Check out these various lifestyle blog examples that make money if this niche sounds right for you.
See Related: Best Advertising Networks for Bloggers
Business and marketing
Dominated mostly by business and marketing experts in the field, this is one of the most popular blog niches that make money. As with other niches we mentioned, this one has a massive community, so we suggest going even more specific with your niche choice.
You can develop a blog that focuses on B2C, B2B, small businesses, entrepreneurship, digital marketing, and the like.
Technology and gaming
If you're looking for a niche where you'll never run out of things to talk about, technology and gaming are one of the best types of blogs that make money.
This is a great niche for bloggers who want to earn through affiliate marketing or earn through direct advertising from software companies or manufacturers.
Travel
Travel is another popular blogging niche that you can earn from through affiliate links from hotels, travel buys, and so on.
Great photos are essential to the success of a travel blog, so if you have nowhere to source photos, we suggest selecting a different niche.
Your blog may be focused on particular types of travelers (backpackers, luxury travelers), travel deals, specific continents or countries, or your own travels.
See Related: List of 35 Blog Niches to Consider
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