Start a blog that is set up to start making money from day one, and learn what strategy to use so that you start off successfully and make money blogging as a beginner!

This post may contain affiliate links to products and services I’ve tried & tested. I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you when you use these services.

Whether you’re just getting started on your blogging journey, or if you’ve been on this path for a while now, your goal is probably to monetize your blog and make a little (or a lot) of money from this fun hobby.

Blogging takes a bit of work, but it’s the fun kind of work that doesn’t feel like a job. This blog you’re reading now is definitely one of the funnest ways that I’ve ever been able to make money online.

If your goal is to make money from your blog, it is extremely important that you start a self hosted blog. The most crucial aspect of starting your blog is ensuring that it is yours and that it can’t be shut down or taken away from you.

Read my step by step guide on how to easily start a self hosted blog if you don’t have one already, and you’ll be on your way to creating a money making website!

There are many ways to make money from your blog, but in my opinion affiliate marketing is 100% the easiest way to make money especially as a new blogger.

What is affiliate marketing?

If you aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing yet, affiliate marketing is a way for people (you) to send traffic to another website and the product or service that they are selling.

When you’re an affiliate marketer, you receive a unique referral code that tells the company that you are the one who referred someone to their website. When that person signs up or makes a purchase on that website, you receive a commission simply for sending the customer to the company!

It doesn’t cost the customer anything, and the company will pay you the finders fee from their own pocket.

Everyone wins in this situation, and it’s an amazing way to earn money online.

One incredibly important thing to keep in mind is that you should only promote products and services that you know and love.

There are millions of affiliate programs out there for every niche you could imagine. In order to build and keep trust with your readers, make sure that you are familiar with the companies that you join as an affiliate marketer and you’ll keep trust with your readers.

A few other ways to make money on your blog can include placing ads, writing sponsored posts, creating a product, or offering a service.

The problem with those money making tactics, although great options to consider down the road, is that they aren’t always practical when you’re just starting out as a new blogger.

The thing about being a new blogger is that you aren’t getting very much, or any, traffic in the beginning. The money making avenues that I just listed all generally require consistently higher traffic and a bigger audience that’s familiar with you for you to make any real money.

A lot of blogs are able to make their full income from ads, but that is because they have been around for a long time and have been able to build up their regular traffic through SEO and receive thousands of visitors to their website each month.

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that it just takes one visitor, the right visitor, and you’re able to make the sale!

So how did I do it? How did I make my first affiliate sale in my first month of blogging?

How I made my first affiliate sale

Not only did I make my first affiliate sale in my first month blogging, but I made my next three affiliate sales shortly after!

My first affiliate income netted me less than a dollar, and I was unbelievably ecstatic to see that I had made those first few cents!

It wasn’t about the money, it was about the confirmation that I was doing something right as a new blogger and that my hard work was paying off.

As a new blogger, I was completely out of my comfort zone and was in an entirely new world that I was learning about each day. I’m still learning an incredible amount every single day that I write/research/promote my blog posts, and I don’t anticipate that the learning will ever end.

Starting a blog is such a fun experience, but it is definitely hard work and having a little bit of reassurance in the form of making a small affiliate sale can truly mean so much.

In order to make my first affiliate sale, I had to write a few blog posts.

I launched my blog with barely any blog posts written, so I’m proof that you don’t need a ton of content to get the right reader to your blog and make your first affiliate sale.

I wrote this blog post talking about a company called Royal Draw and how I use that website to get free gift cards.

Royal Draw is an easy company for me to promote because I’ve been using it for a few years now and have had the best experience with them.

After reading my blog post, someone signed up for their own free account so that they can start earning free gift cards, and I made a small income for sending them to Royal Draw!

My reader now has a great new website to use, Royal Draw has a new fan, and I have my first affiliate income. Everything is right in my little blogging world.

The key to making that referral was to write a post detailing the honest benefits of Royal Draw. I’m a long time user and long time fan, and by talking about my experience with the company I was able to send them a new subscriber.

How to make more affiliate sales

Shortly after making my first small affiliate earning, I made my second, third, and fourth affiliate sales!

I signed up as an Amazon affiliate not long after I started my blog, and I’m definitely glad that I did. Amazon is such a versatile marketplace and almost any blogger in any niche can find relevant products on Amazon to promote.

Becoming an Amazon affiliate is incredibly easy to do and their system is very user friendly, so it makes them one of the best affiliate programs for new bloggers to use.

The way that I was able to make my next three affiliate sales so easily was by writing this blog post detailing all of the products that I use and recommend for someone looking to sell products online.

Once again, the blog post was very easy for me to write because I included all of the products that I personally use and benefit from, so I knew that I was providing every reader with honest reviews and recommendations.

Since this post was a ‘list post’, I was able to include quite a few links and products to promote to others.

List posts are a great blog post idea to make when you’re hoping to make your first affiliate sale.

I’m not rich from those first few sales that I made, but they showed me that I’m on the right track and there’s only room for more growth!

If you’re hoping to make your first affiliate sale, these are the top three affiliate programs that I recommend joining for new bloggers:

Amazon

ShareASale

Awin

I also wrote this blog post listing all of the best affiliate programs for new bloggers to join.

Consider the niche that your blog is about, and think about all of the products and services that are relevant and provide value in that niche.

No matter what topics you write about on your blog, there will always be plenty of affiliate programs for you to make money with!

I was able to pay for all of my expenses in my first couple months of blogging because of the money I made from affiliate marketing, and that was a great feeling.