The Canadian blogger community has grown exponentially in recent years, as Canadians look for legitimate ways to make money online from home. Many of these blogs are profitable, some more than others. We wanted to know how the most successful Canadian bloggers are monetizing their blogs these days, so we conducted an informal study.
It’s simple to determine how a blog is making money, just visit their website. By nature, virtually all monetization is fully visible on each blog. You can see their ads, products, services, and whatever else they’re using to make money online.
I’ve been creating revenue-generating content for websites for over two decades, and naturally moved into blogging when it came on the scene. I’m experienced and trained in just about every type of website monetization.
One thing my experience has taught me, is making money with a blog differs from generating revenue on other types of sites. Part of the reason for that is bloggers gravitate towards the most basic online income opportunities. Their main focus is providing information of some kind. While they want to make money blogging, they typically aren’t interested in learning complex systems for doing so.
More recently, people began publishing blogs for the sole purpose of making money, such as those built entirely around affiliate marketing. More often than not, the content consists of poorly written, fake reviews or mash-ups of bot-generated or stolen content. A high quality blog can certainly be built for this purpose, but the creators often aren’t interested in putting in any effort to be unique. In fact, it’s usually blatantly obvious that they don’t know their niche at all. Search engines can detect this low quality or stolen content, so they’re finished before they start.
The most successful, profitable blogs that make money over the long term will produce helpful content based on their own knowledge and experience. Their posts are well-researched and their sources are credited. They would never consider stealing content from other sites, or mixing it up and regurgitating it as their own work. They serve their audience so their readers trust them, and naturally want to support them in return.
Top 5 Ways Successful Canadian Bloggers Earn Money
We reviewed 105 of the most popular Canadian blogs in a broad range of niches. Many of those blogs are listed in our post, Popular Canadian Blogs for Blogger Outreach and Influencer Marketing, if you’d like to check them out yourself.
Some of these methods of blog monetization will be more suitable for your blog than others. I recommend you choose one, test and master it before adding another. Ultimately, you’ll combine more than one revenue stream to further ensure profitability.
Following are five legitimate revenue streams that top bloggers in Canada use to generate income:
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways to monetize blogs. It has consistently generated the most income for us and our clients over the past 25 years, long before blogging was even a thing. All you have to do is join an affiliate program and they’ll pay you a certain percentage of the sales you bring them through a custom link on your website. These links may be banner ads or text.
It’s one of the most passive ways to generate revenue with your blog, but it isn’t fully passive. In reality, bloggers who make the most money with affiliate marketing put in a lot of time & effort to promote their affiliates and increase conversions. However, you don’t have to worry about anything except generating a sale or lead. The follow-through is up to the merchant, from payment processing to customer support.
Products or services can be promoted from various angles, such as reviews, gift guides, or recommendations within an article. As you gain more experience, you may find some affiliate programs are worth more concentrated effort, inspiring you to create landing pages, webinars, tutorials, and so on. You can also take affiliate marketing outside of your blog and into email or social media.
Check out our guide to starting affiliate marketing in Canada for details.
2. Direct Advertising
From banner (display) ads to sponsored content, selling advertising directly to businesses can be a significant source of revenue for bloggers.
Once your traffic has reached a level high enough to catch the eye of advertisers, you will have the opportunity to make private deals for ad placement on your blog (direct advertising). The more you grow, the more you can charge. Most private advertising is paid by the month or annually. If your traffic volume isn’t high enough yet, you can use affiliate advertising in the meantime.
Bloggers will also have the opportunity to take advantage of the wildly popular content marketing trend. Sponsors (brands) or their agency representatives will approach you eventually, looking for guest posts, reviews, and a variety of other content.
Add an advertising page to your website with a summary of options available. Have a media kit ready to send to those who inquire, and/or offer it as a download on your site.
3. Email Marketing
The email list you build in association with your blog can become a source of additional revenue. Several of the website monetization methods mentioned here can be applied to your email list, including affiliate marketing, sponsored advertising and solo ads, and email courses. Familiarize yourself with CASL and the anti-spam laws of any country your subscribers might be from.
4. Digital Products
Digital information products or downloads are often what takes a blog to a whole new level of revenue. You could share your expertise with an ebook or teach through an online course. Read How to Create and Develop Your Own Digital Learning Products for detailed information about this method of monetizing your blog.
Downloadable products include apps, software, website themes, WordPress plugins, photos, printables, etc. The beauty of digital downloads is they take time to create, but after that they require little direct effort to make money again and again. Even marketing these products can be largely automated. When you have your product ready to go, check out the Top 8 Ecommerce Platforms for Digital Product Downloads.
[DISCLOSURE: We may receive compensation for links to products on this website.]
Once you have your digital products, you can use one to sell the other and considerably boost your sales. For example, many marketers use a “sales funnel” that takes the buyer through an automated sales cycle, from a lead magnet or first sale, on through several offers (often leading up to more expensive products, such as a course). You can even feed affiliate products into your sales funnel. Thrive Themes Funnels offers lots of funnel functionality for small businesses on a tight budget, and the Systeme suite of tools has a free level.
5. Online Consulting/Coaching
One of the benefits of having a blog, is you can demonstrate your expertise on a topic or show off your online business, marketing or design/developer skills. That can lead to opportunities to contract out your services, provide individual consulting/coaching, or even book speaking gigs if that interests you.
Get Started With Blogging for Money
For more information, please read:
How to Make Money Blogging in Canada: The Ultimate Guide
11 Unexpected Ways You Can Make Money From Blogging
How do you make money with your blog in Canada? Please share in the comments below or join us in the Online Business Canada Facebook group.
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Melody McKinnon is an internet entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in a wide range of online business models, backed by a formal business/marketing education and enhanced by training and mentorship. She has owned or managed both educational and ecommerce websites. Her book, 7 Recession Proof Online Businesses to Start From Home, is available from all major ebook retailers.
Melody has worked with many businesses in a multitude of capacities. She can often be found on CanadianDigitalMedia.com, CanadiansInternet.com, CanadianFamily.net, and AllNaturalPetCare.com, as well as other quality digital publications. Her content has earned reference links from highly-respected websites, magazines and university textbooks.
OK so now how about how NOT top bloggers make money? Do I need to have as much traffic as they do to earn enough?
You’ll need traffic and the more (well targeted) traffic you get, the more money will follow. That said, you don’t have to generate as much traffic as top influencers to make money with your blog. Promoting the right programs to the right visitors is the trick.
how long does it take to make money online? like with a blog?
Does anyone pitch local businesses for a local blog? I’m not sure where to start but that’s what I’d like to do. Places people recognize and sponsored content. Anyone????
I’ve had a taste of success and now I just want more LOL! I have some from affiliate marketing slowly. I can’t decide if I should write a book or some lead ebooks for the newsletter numbers. Both eventually for sure.
Your blog post was a compelling and insightful read. I appreciated the way you synthesized information from various sources and presented a comprehensive overview.
So excited about these possibilities to make money with my upcoming blog. I thought I had to wait to have a ton of traffic to use some things like affiliate advertisers. Will they accept new blogs? Maybe… 😉
All of these look like prospering channels, Melody. I enjoy creating and selling courses and eBoooks. The key is to keep creating and connecting to increase exposure. Most bloggers sell helpful stuff but nobody sees their work. We need to be seen, to profit.
Ryan