How can I become rich while working at home and focusing on a topic I enjoy? Blogging seems to answer that question. You come across bloggers who are minting money through Google Adsense and you think. Hey, I can do that, too. Because of the low barriers to entry, you can start blogging for free (all you need is an internet connection, computer and time),  so almost anyone can begin blogging. Starting a blog is easy; attracting readers is the hard part!

There are over a billion blogs on the internet. 2 million blog posts are published daily.  It’s a jungle out there (and the number of blogs is increasing every minute), and for blogs both new and old it’s harder to survive. So how do you stand out in a crowded marketplace?

Who are Top Bloggers in India? How much do they earn?

TOP Bloggers in India and their Estimated Blogging Earnings are given below

Blogger	Website/Blog	Started In	Earnings/month
Amit Agrawal	labnol.org	2004	$60,000
Harsh Agrawal	shoutmeloud.com	2009	$52,434
Faisal Farooqui	mouthshut.com	2000	$50,000
Shradha Sharma	yourstory.com	2008	$30,000
Varun Krishnan	FoneArena.com	2005	$22,000
Srinivas Tamada	9lessons.info	2009	$20,000
Ashish Sinha	nextbigwhat.com	2009	$18,000
Arun Prabhudesai	trak.in	2007	$15,000

Ways of earning money from blogging

There are a few different ways you can make money from blogging. Some of the ways are given below :

Advertising Programs  ex Google Adsense

The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from sites like Google Adsense. Google’s AdSense is a simple revenue-sharing opportunity for web sites(large, medium, small) that places ads for goods and services that are relevant to the content of your site, targeted to the people who frequent your pages. In turn, you get paid a small amount when the ad is either displayed on your page or clicked on.  Google is one of the biggest advertising networks available, so there are many advertisers.

But getting your website/blog accepted by Google Adsense is a task by itself. My website was rejected twice. But for those who got accepted, it’s simple to use, just copy and paste the code so you don’t need to have a great amount of technical know-how.

Earnings from the Google Adsense depends on a number of factors, for example, the type of ads, pricing of ads etc appearing on your pages.

Google Adsense earning is also not consistent, after almost consistent income for some time, earnings will start dropping.

Private Ads, sponsorship, paid posts

Just like magazine approaches companies to place ads you need to approach companies (or companies might approach you) to place ads in your website or blog, unlike Adsense ads which come automatically. Typically you get ads when your website or blog is doing reasonable. You have to be careful about what kind of ads you put up. But the flip side is that if you are not generating business for them, they might bug you. A friend of mine of a company put an ad on his website on click per basis model but he was bugged so much by the marketing guy from the company about little traffic coming that he took off the ad. At-times you will find people ready to pay you publishing posts on your website (you get many free offers) these are called Paid posts.

Affiliate programs

An affiliate program is a marketing program where you can receive commission for helping a parent company generate sales. For example, Amazon affiliate program, The Flipkart affiliate program is a great way for you to earn commissions by placing product banners or links on your website to refer users to the Flipkart.com website. You can earn up to 15% every time a user clicks on the banner/link and makes a purchase on our site. You only earn money when people buy something from the affiliates and the amount you earn varies based on what people buy and how many people purchase through your links. The Affiliate program is suited for people whose blog focuses on products.

Consulting, Speaking, Training

Most consultants, businesses have added blogs to their businesses but you also see bloggers who are recognised as experts on niche topics and have become consultants or start speaking assignments or provide training BECAUSE of the blogs they are considered experts.

There are many ways to earn from the blog,  Some ways might work for one type of blog, but not another, so try several to see what generates the most revenue for you and use a combination of income-generating methods., Most full-time bloggers, who blog as their primary income stream, work pretty hard on their blogs. The most important thing to remember when starting your blog is that you won’t start earning overnight.  It takes a considerable amount of focus, dedication to your blog to generate some  income. 

Sample Income Reports of Indian Bloggers

Many Indian Bloggers publish their Income report.

Sample Income Report of ShoutMeLoud

Sample Income Report of ShoutMeLoud is of Feb 2018. You can find all his income reports here.

Affiliate marketing: $34165
AdSense: $416
Media.net: $801.70
eBooks + ShoutMeLoud Store: $372
Clickbank: $112.25
ShareASale: $1086
Ezoic: $88.86
ElegantThemes: $302.50
NativeAds Direct ads: $2300
PropellerAds: $410.75

Sample Income Report of CashOverFlow

From CashOverFlow Blogging Journey – From Rs. 200,000 to 500,000 monthly revenue ($8000/m), In the financial year 2017-2018, we had a major portion of income from affiliate marketing, consulting and selling online courses. Here is the breakdown.

• Affiliate Marketing – Rs. 30,70,000
• Consulting – 12,00,000
• Courses – 1,40,000

A total of Rs. 44,10,000 (Rs. 44 Lakh = $70,000)

You can also read Bloggers Income Report February 2019: How Much Money Do Top Bloggers Make to know about how different International and National Bloggers earn.

History of Blogging

Blogging is not very old started in 1994.

• It’s generally recognized that the first blog was Links.net, created by Justin Hall, while he was a Swarthmore College student in 1994 who referred to it as his personal homepage.
• In 1997 word weblog was coined by  Jorn Barger, of the influential early blog Robot Wisdom, to reflect the process of logging the web as he browsed.
• 1998 marks the first known instance of a blog on a traditional news site, when Jonathan Dube blogged Hurricane Bonnie for The Charlotte Observer.
• Weblog was shortened to blog in 1999 by programmer Peter Merholz.
• It’s not until five years later that Merriam-Webster declares the word their word of the year.

Timeline of blogging is given below :

Blogging or Starting YouTube

Nowadays, many people prefer to watch videos than reading online. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. With five billion videos viewed every day by more than 300 million visitors, and more than 300 hours of video uploaded every minute. Because of low data cost, more and more people are coming to YouTube

Starting a YouTube channel is easy. For uploading videos you need to create a YouTube channel, which is free of cost, for creating a YouTube channel, you need a Gmail account

According to YouTube’s new policy, no ads will be displayed on your content unless you hold a total of 10,000 views, 1k subscribers and 4k hours watch time on your channel.

Video works best when you’ve got something to show — unboxing stuff, your favourite recipes, travel diary, etc. People love to engage in video content that is concise, fast-paced, interesting, and engaging.

Blogging, on the other hand, works best if you want to explain something in detail.

Will YouTube replace blogging?  I don’t think that’s true. Yes, people do enjoy watching videos than reading blogs. But you can explain a phenomenon or a problem in detail, using the written word

Blogging and vlogging both come with their own set of hurdles.

With blogging, you need to set up your own website — purchase a domain, choose a suitable web hosting, a suitable CMS, and put it together all by yourself. When you have everything set up and finally start to publish your content, you need to find a way to let your readers find you (either through social media or search).

With vlogs, the platform ie YouTube is already there. But in this case, you need the necessary equipment and set up to begin creating your content, starting off with a good camera to shoot your videos, and a pair of microphones too. Now, don’t get me wrong. Smartphone cameras are pretty good these days, but you’d want your viewers to get the best possible experience so that they keep coming back. And for that, you need good cameras, microphones, accessories to stabilize your cameras, and if you’re thinking of shooting indoors, a decent place that can act as your studio, with decent lighting conditions.

Can you earn money from Blogging?

Yes, you can, many have done it BUT. Usually a Blogger underestimates how hard it is to make money from blogging because there are so many blogs out there. Just putting the blog is not enough (unless you are  Amitabh Bachchan!).

Starting a blog is easy. Creating one that will be successful and make money requires hard work, dedication and grit.

It’s not enough to just know how to write well, but you provide value to the reader. Some people visit or follow a blog day after day for knowledge, technical information, for advice, for recipes, for news or just to be inspired. When readers feel they are getting something out of it, they are going to keep coming back. What that something differs from blog to blog.

Usually, people start blogging when they feel they have the expertise and they want to earn passive income. I want to start a blog about <so and so> because people come to me for advice all of the time, I am considered an expert and it’s something I’m totally passionate about. Ask them how will they make money from blog they say I thought the blog was the business, I could make money by advertising on it.

Income from blogging is neither quick or easy, you need to consistently put time and effort into it. There are very few professional bloggers in India, full time bloggers who earn roti-dal from their Blog and those who blog as their primary income stream ,work pretty hard on their blogs. Human Psychology is  The more time you spend working on something without a reward, the harder it is to continue doing it, hence you find many people giving up blogging with six months.

In fact the regular 90%-10% or 80%-20% rule also applies to blog. 90% of people who try to generate serious income from their blogs fail, it’s the other 10% that make money. The purpose is not to scare you but make you aware so that you get into blogging with eyes open.

Comments from a few fellow bloggers to my question “Can one earn money from blogging”

Saru of  SaruSinghal.com said “ I think, a blogger makes money from paid posts or in form, from contest wins. You need atleast 1000 hits as per google analytics to earn money from adsense. For new bloggers, blog because you are passioante for sharing your views/talent. There is hardly any money in it.”

Prof M. Pattabiraman aka pattu of freefincal.com said  “A new blogger should first identify a niche. Not a niche that would pay or get traffic but one that would give the person joy, thinking about and writing. Joy will result in quality content and traffic eventually. If the person wants to create a blog to earn, then it has to be from day one. That is a plan must be in place. Find a joyful niche, write, promote. Learn about SEO and online income streams from day one and once the traffic starts flowing, say 100 views a day, revenue can be considered and remember Passive income is an oxymoron!

 Related posts:

• Indiantopblogs.com – Reviewing the Reviewer
• Adsense Earnings for Blog, YouTuber: GST, Income Tax etc

So please have realistic expectations from making money from blogging. I don’t make money from bemoneyaware.com(okay not directly, thanks to Indiblogger I have won few competitions). As I work and consider this platform to increase my awareness of money, share my learnings, I enjoy interacting with my readers, and other personal finance bloggers,   What has been your experience of blogging? Why do you blog? Do you make money from blogging?