12 irresistible money making blog ideas to never struggle with creativity as a content creator
Money making blog ideas… that’s the dream… But sometimes you can run out of ideas of how to go about it…
What blog post ideas will drive your revenue up?
How not to end up always creating the same kind of content and keep your blog ideas fresh?
How to drive income indirectly, without feeling you’re constantly selling to your readers?
This blog is a menu of options for you, so that you never run out of money making blog post ideas during the year!
You’re going to get 12 great ways to create blog posts that drive revenue naturally. They leverage blog ideas that create one of these 4 types of revenue streams from your blog:
Selling products (either physical or digital)
Affiliate marketing revenue
Ads revenue
Sponsored blog
Let’s get started!
And as always, if you only have 5min, here is the summary for you!
Full disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission from.
This is a great money making blog idea for organic traffic generation.
Your readers have pain points they need to resolve. You need to deeply understand them to be specific enough to address them successfully.
And those pain points will lead them to look for solutions. This could be by searching Pinterest, Google or YouTube, because these are content search engines and people use to find answers.
Great formats for this type of blog ideas are:
“How to” blog post
These are the most straightforward posts to answer your audience's pain points.
When doing these, it’s essential to put yourself in the your audience shoes. It’s easy to forget that certain basic concepts might not feel basic to your audience. So keep things simple and don’t assume.
A list blog
These posts not only provide a solution, they drive even more curiosity because they promise a defined set of ways to the solution.
For example: 41 Ways To Repurpose Your Content To Explode Your Blog Reach & Website Traffic
Blog series
Blog series are more involved and required you to spend more time prepping the structure of the series in advance.
They’re great to build and demonstrate authority on a field.
Example: How To Be Productive Working From Home Series - Set Yourself Up For Success
All these formats lend themselves to providing solutions following this approach: first, provide free solutions to the pain points.
It’s highly frustrating to look for solutions and get pitched a paying product on a blog to start with. So don’t. Always provide plenty of value first with free options.
You can then propose and justify alternative options, paying ones, that you’re an affiliate to, or your own products.
Remember that making money blog ideas don’t necessarily require paying affiliate products. When your blog is truly on point for your audience, your traffic will rocket and bring you ads revenue if that’s a making money blog strategy you want to have.
Just think how many times these days we look for reviews before we buy or try my products…
Many.
You also know that many reviews are completely biased and are only trying to push for a product sale.
So remember when pursuing this money making blog post idea to have strong principles:
Only review products that you know and you’ve tried (it may seem obvious… but you’d be surprised how many blogs don’t!)
Be unbiased and truthful: a review with pro’s and con’s (even if the con’s are small and limited) will always have more credibility and value that “an-all-rosey-and-perfect” type of review.
The beauty of these money making blog ideas is that you’re running on search volumes linked to the brand / product name you’re reviewing. That can help with discoverability.
Make sure, however, that you target your keywords well to have a chance to rank. If your blog title is too generic, you’ll end up competing with high authority blogs and struggle to find traction.
One important point on all of this type of money making blog post ideas related to product reviews: if your post is being sponsored or include affiliate links, please disclose it clearly! Plus don’t accept sponsored blog posts to recommend things to your audience that you don’t deeply believe in. In the long run it’s absolutely the wrong thing to do.
Here is a range of ideas to approach product reviews with variety:
These need to be done timely.
The searches for these reviews peak at launch… so don’t miss the boat! The earlier, the better.
At launch it’s where you’re likely to grab the most money making opportunities related to early adopters.
These don’t tend to be thorough, top to bottom reviews, but more blog post that concentrate on the new features and first initial impressions.
Your audience loves these when they trust your opinion.
Yes, they are more often seen on YouTube and Instagram than on blog posts, however, done timely and including photos or short videos through your blog, they are a great way to connect with your audience.
Consider the aspects that are truly valuable for your audience.
Don’t be afraid to deviate from the norm in terms of what you review.
It can pay off enormously to niche down your review.
For instance, for a DSLR, you could consider only to review the video blogging capabilities of the camera.
Yes, you could review many other things of the camera, but this way you differentiate yourself from the many other reviews available.
Generic reviews going through product specs are booooooring. Leave that to the manufacturer!
Always review in the way your audience intends or to use the product or could use the product (they don’t know it yet and you’ll unveil this new opportunity for them!).
These are gold mines.
The “xxx vs yyy” blog post ideas work really well. Why?
Because that’s exactly how your audience mind operates before making a decision for a product… they compare to alternatives.
For example: Kartra versus Kajabi (in the all-in-one online platforms), Sony versus Canon (for photography and videography), Samsung versus Apple on smartphones…
This is different from the previous one. Here you truly provide an alternative (usually cheaper or easier) to a well established product.
You’re still benefiting from the search volumes of the main product name but tap into the needs your audience have to find other ways to achieve what they need.
You’ll be delivering maximum value here.
When your audience looks for product reviews they essentially want to answer this question: Is “xxx” worth it?
By approaching your money making blog idea in this way, you’re anticipating the outcome your audience needs from your blog post. You’re committing to give them your opinion.
Be thorough and truthful. You have your audience trust in your hands.
It’s totally ok that people disagree with you. Respect other opinions and be 100% clear on your recommendations.
For example: Is Kartra Pricing Worth It For Solopreneurs? Kartra Review
This is the equivalent of a list blog related to product reviews. It goes one step further than the product alternative blog post by providing a range of alternatives.
It can be very powerful to rank your product options in this type of money many blog idea.
That’s absolutely a fantastic way to tap into curiosity… Who doesn’t want to know the top spot in your rank?
Always leave the #1 position for last.
Reviews where you recommend not to use a certain product are less frequent.
Be prepared for controversy and reactions.
They can be huge traffic drivers exactly because of that.
Be careful though! Do your homework and be prepared to back up your statements. The last thing you want is the product company to come at you and you being legally exposed.
All in all, you have a variety of ways to approach product reviews that can be great money making blog ideas, either through affiliate marketing, sponsored blog posts or simply ads.
The fundamental point is to absolutely know the product and bring your value to your audience through your opinion.
Do you know the #1 mistake in affiliate marketing?
Link stuffing for the sake of link stuffing.
What do I mean?
Successful affiliate marketing never relies on just link dropping everywhere and expecting your readers to click and buy.
One of the best money making blog ideas are tutorials about the affiliate marketing product you want to promote.
Remember that people aren’t likely to spend money on a product they aren’t familiar with. On the other hand, when you show them for free how to use it, and specially the benefits and outcomes of doing so… it will make a real difference to your click-through rates and eventually to your affiliate revenue.
You can create for example:
A complete guide to…
How to use…
Step by step tutorial to…
The best 5 ways to use… to… [outcome]
Top hacks to use …
[product] 101 for beginners
The ultimate [product] tutorial
Here is an example of one of my blogs with a Tailwind tutorial: Discover My Secrets To Maximise Your Website Traffic With Tailwind For Pinterest And Be Super Productive
Pro-tip: If you can offer a special discount or an extended trial period for your affiliate product even better! More about this later on.
Your audience is always super interested in discovering your tools.
They see what you do, your results and success and… want to know how you do it, what tools you use.
This money making blog idea is one that always works really well. So be ready with your affiliate links for this post.
You could create a list blog (for example: My 5 most popular…) or a complete guide to your tools.
Always think from the reader's perspective and remember they don’t have the knowledge you have on the tools. So keep it simple, accessible and importantly, provide examples of the results that you have achieved.
These money making blog idea posts are not about a list of widgets for the sake of the list… it’s about people wanting to achieve the same results as you. So keep on relating back to your results and the logic behind your tool decisions.
Who doesn’t want to know a secret?
Exactly!
That’s exactly the point of this money making idea blog post.
You need to have a very strong promise that your audience will really want, and, this is of paramount importance, you have to deliver on your promise throughout your blog post.
This type of money making blog idea can drive significant traffic to your website, hence great for ads revenue, plus can be great to recommend your affiliate product or your own products.
Here is my own example, which is built to support lead generation to my own digital product for course creators, a ready-for-you webinar template:
The 3 Secret Content Components For A Successful Free Online Webinar For Your Course Launch
You can also use variations of the “secrets” post like:
“The hacks” post
“Unique method / framework for / system to achieve [very desirable promise]”
Here is different way to drive traffic and clicks for money making blog ideas.
Instead of creating curiosity to know how to reach a truly desired outcome, create curiosity and trust through empathy by sharing a problem you encountered or mistakes you made.
This only works well if:
you‘re sharing mistakes or problems your audience is very likely to have also experienced or will experience (even if they haven’t yet)
You’re absolutely truthful about the whole experience
And, provide the ways to avoid them!
What you want to achieve is the connection between you and your audience. Your vulnerability (we are all human and make mistakes) and your openness to share the solutions is a very powerful combination.
You’re giving your audience a very valuable insight plus the ability for them to avoid the mistakes that you made through your personal experience.
This is not only a great money making blog idea but also a fantastic way to build that love and trust that it’s so needed for your sales funnels for both affiliates and own products.
You may want to do it less personal and just refer to mistakes to avoid... It doesn’t have the same connection result though… but still work really well. Here is an example: 9 Big Mistakes When Blogging To Make Money Online (And How To Fix Them Fast)
Obviously, this is only for applicable for course creators and authors. This type of money making blog idea is to be used sparingly… and usefully is even better as part of your sales funnel, as a lead magnet or a free webinar.
However, you can also choose to create a blog post with part of the framework or system of your paying online course.
The key question associated with this type of money making blog post ideas is how to deliver enough content for it to be valuable without giving your paying product away.
The simplest way to do that is to:
cover the why or the what, and
leave the step-by-step how method for your course.
This sort of blog posts are a sort of appetizer to your audience to lead them to want to know more.
You can approach this by sharing one of the following:
The framework or system you teach in your online course
One of the modules
The beginning of your course
There are blog posts specifically dedicated to share special coupons or discounts for your niche.
These are great for traffic when you target your keywords well.
Be however mindful of keeping it up-to-date or being clear about timescales. Nothing more annoying than landing on pages for coupons or discounts that are completely expired and lead you to give your email address for nothing.
There is an alternative to this approach, which is associated with one of the previous money making blog ideas: offer a special discount or an extended trial period in the tutorial of one of your affiliate products.
This works particularly well as you’re giving a very strong reason to your audience to click your link instead of using the company product homepage.
Here is an example of this in my blog Is Kartra Pricing Worth It For Solopreneurs? Kartra Review, where I have a section called How can I get Kartra? Hack to double your Kartra trial period to 30 days.
A more subtle way to promote your affiliate products (and your own) is to create a blog sharing your behind the scenes, showing “A Day in The Life of A …”
This is totally comparable to the money making blog idea #4, about Resources or Tools post. However, it can be a more enticing and subliminal way to place your own products and affiliates.
It’s based exactly on the same principle: your audience wants to replicate your success. The difference is in the form. This money making blog post idea reads more like a story, with a timeline and insider anecdotes.
It shows the resources and tools in action.
This is also a great way to demonstrate how you use your products (either physical or digital). Nothing better than showing products in use. It projects and demonstrates value immediately.
The blog post about tools and resources, on the other hand, is shaped more as a list which includes the benefits and reasons of why you use what you use.
A completely different approach to making money blog ideas is interviews.
If you secure a well known name in your niche, the interview will drive traffic to your blog and you can then leverage that for ads revenue.
You may also want to agree to a collaboration with your interviewee where you become an affiliate to their products that you’ll cover in your interview.
Here is an example of one interview. I didn’t want to drive any revenue from this interview, as it was pure free support to a fellow entrepreneur, but you can easily see how the links to his book could have been affiliate links. By the way, if you haven’t got the book yet… you’re missing out on gold advice on how to start successfully you’re online business! From Online Business Ideas At Home To The Perfect One To Start Generating Revenue As Solopreneur
Interviews have a similar effect to “The Day in The Life of… “ or “Behind The Scenes” blog idea posts. They demonstrate the potential of a product or service by telling the story of the results.
Needless to say, an interview could also be a sponsored blog post, so that’s another way to raise revenue from your blog idea.
While in the subject of money making blog ideas by delivering behind the scenes insights, this one is a very impactful way to show results.
Income review blog posts are not for everyone and you may or not want to be open about your income. However they’re proven to work very well to make money. You can easily drive ads, affiliates and own products revenue with these posts.
They will also build authority and credibility for you and your blog.
They are widely used in the blogging world, to demonstrate how to make money blogging.
And here comes the last of the money making blog ideas: roundup posts. As with some of the previous ones, the round up posts can generate revenue indirectly.
These are far less about pushing your products or affiliates, and more about building credibility and traffic. Obviously, a roundup post is ideal for traffic generation and you can always get revenue ads if you choose to.
It is also a great way to support other bloggers and online entrepreneurs, plus it provides SEO goodness to them with a quality backlink.
Roundup posts are win-wins and one of the most especial blog posts you can create.
What can be truly beneficial with roundup posts is your interaction with the people collaborating with you in the post. These interactions are gems for future collabs and to expand your audience.
So don’t try to push hard on revenue generation and be strategic with roundup posts. They can create for you the biggest of the potential opportunities for the future!
Wow! That was a lot! So how can I still have a bonus for this blog post?!!!
Well, this is something many times forgotten by bloggers… You’ll always looking for a new idea for your next blog post…
Don’t create everything from scratch every time! Update your most popular posts to give them a second life.
Someone like Neil Patel, who has hundreds of blog posts, concentrates the efforts of his team of writers on updating blogs. The ratio of new posts versus updates is surprising. They update 20+ blogs weekly versus creating a new one!
So don’t underestimate the power of updating your popular posts!
And once you’ve done that… don’t forget to pin on Pinterest to extend even further the reach and life of your posts!
Ahhhh! Don’t forget to grab my free guide on how to grow your email list with Pinterest!
Here are the 12 money making blog ideas to never struggle with creativity as a content creator:
“How to” blog post
A list blog
Blog series
Full review of a new product just launched
Unboxing blog post
Product review (not necessarily at launch)
Product comparison review
Product alternative blog post
Is this worth it…
Top 'x' products for…
Negative reviews
You can create for example:
A complete guide to…
How to use…
Step by step tutorial to…
The best 5 ways to use… to… [outcome]
Top hacks to use …
[product] 101 for beginners
The ultimate [product] tutorial
These aren't just about a list of tools… it’s about your audience wanting to achieve the same results as you.
So keep on relating back to your results.
For example: The 3 Secret Content Components For A Successful Free Online Webinar For Your Course Launch
You can also use variations of the “secrets” post like:
“The hacks” post
“Unique method / framework for / system to achieve [very desirable promise]
You can approach this by sharing one of the following:
The framework or system you teach in your online course
One of the modules
The beginning of your course
For example of this in my blog Is Kartra Pricing Worth It For Solopreneurs? Kartra Review, where I have a section called How can I get Kartra? Hack to double your Kartra trial period to 30 days.
For example: From Online Business Ideas At Home To The Perfect One To Start Generating Revenue As Solopreneur
Note: This wasn’t a sponsored blog or a blog with affiliate links at all. However, it could have been easily. Hence the example.
These are super successful blog posts. Not my style but they can work very well for you.
One coming very soon…
And once you’ve done that… don’t forget to pin on Pinterest to extend even further the reach and life of your posts!
Ahhhh! Don’t forget to grab my free guide on how to grow your email list with Pinterest!
And before you go…
What next?
As always… take action! Consider what money making blog ideas resonate more with you and your audience and go for it!
Nothing better than experiment with new formats and types of blog content.
Don’t forget to comment and tell me:
It is an absolute privilege to know that you read and find value in my blog!
A HUGE thank you for being here with me until the end.
Don’t forget to get my 14 Pinterest Secrets that 10x my Email List for Free if you have not got it yet :
Hi! I’m Isabel
For years and years I have created and produced content, in particular visual content. You can find me very often with my cameras and tripod out and about!
My passion: to help you with your online presence and drive business growth through my blog and visuals collections (marketing templates, styled photos & video).
Ah, I have also worked for 24+ in the corporate world, leading quite a mix: transformation, marketing, coaching, sales, productivity, programme management, investments and product management.
I love sharing all these skills with you in my blog.
I am also founder of Agavea Properties, our family holiday rental business. My husband and I lead it with the passion with one goal in mind: serving our customers to create a memorable holiday experience for them.
So there you have it, that’s me! Ah... I almost forgot, my happy place is by the sea.
Thanks for being here with me!