How to earn money from blogging?

In February 2015 when we were invited as a speaker for the “Travel Blogging” session at Social Media Week, Bangalore, we were stoked to see that people were more curious to know how to earn money from blogging and making it a full-time profession.

Monetizing our blog never crossed our mind as we are not full-time bloggers, traveling was always our passion and blogging just happened. So, last year after the session, we thought of giving it a shot.

At Four Seasons Seychelles

We know there are so many bloggers making a living from their blog and it has always been very inspiring to see people ditching their 9-5 job and living their dream life. But it could have been an outrageously foolish thing to just take a plunge looking at someone else’s life. You never know if something that works for others it might not work for you. It is always good to be practical and work hard to achieve your dreams with open eyes than regret later.

But one year down and having tasted both the waters, we can happily say that yes it is pretty much possible to earn a pretty decent income from blogging and to travel the world for (Not Exactly ) free. 😉

Having said that, we would also like to add that it is not a cakewalk as it sounds, at times it is more demanding than a 9-5 job, and travel is no more the same. But if you love it then this is the best job in the world.

Island Stay at Bangaram island, Lakshadweep

This post is for all newbies who are planning to make it a full-time profession and have loads of queries on how to earn money from blogging.

Our Journey…

We started this blog on WordPress in 2013 just to share our travel tales but we were never that serious about the whole blogging thing back then. It was when we moved to our own domain ( http://thetalesofatraveler.com) in the month of October 2014, we dived into the world of blogging with all seriousness and gave it all the attention it always deserved. We are happy to reach where we are now, slowly and steadily learning from our mistakes and improving ourselves over the years.

Be it changing the website layout, content presentation, and writing ( PS: We are not amazing writers but yes like all of us we too are  – Work in progress.

“Every human being is a work in progress that is slowly but inexorably moving toward perfection. We are each an unfinished work of art both waiting and striving to be completed. God deals with each of us separately because humanity is a fine art of skilled penmanship where every single dot is equally important for the entire picture.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

HouseBoat Stay at Kerala

We started monetizing our blog last year on an experimental basis. Since we both have to manage our day jobs and have to keep our blog running, we kept our remuneration for blog posts and social media campaigns pretty high. Unfortunately, most of the PR/ Brands in India don’t pay that high, but, we were fortunate to get loads of emails from PR agencies based out of London, US, and Singapore for digital campaigns and sponsored posts.

3-day Road trip to Isle of Sky ( c/o – Rabbies Trail Burner )

Here we share our experience and a few ways that worked for us:

– Affiliate Marketing –

This is one of the best ways to earn and we have been seeing a constant growth in our income from this. The affiliate programs that we are currently part of are Flipkart, Amazon,  Booking.com, and Cuelinks .

Villa at Four Seasons Seychelles

Joining an affiliate program is pretty easy and anyone can join it for free. But remember this won’t pay you huge from day one, it will slowly grow and if you have considerable traffic then VOILA you might see income flowing from day one.

Our Luxury Suite at Oberoi Cecil Shimla

– Sponsored/Paid Post –

This has been the major source of income for our blog. We were pretty fortunate to work with various brands, review some amazing products, and were paid really well.

A trip to Penang, Cameron Highland & Ipoh, Malaysia w/ Malaysia Tourism

Sponsored/ Paid posts are the posts you write about a specific brand or service. You are paid for selling a spot on your blog. It is that simple. The company pays for the blog post and social media updates. At times, the post is entirely written by the brand and you just have to post it on your site and get paid 😀 😀

We always shared the ones which were written well and was about travel. We had to say “No” to too many requests — who wanted to sell a flat on our blog or write a post on Scotch Whiskey 😉 and the list goes on …

When it comes to a sponsored post, we have always been honest with our readers while considering any collaboration and had to reject/ ignore many. We always kept our reader’s best interests in mind while accepting sponsored posts.

http://textasimage.com

– Digital Campaigns –

We were part of numerous digital campaigns for which we were paid.

For the campaigns, we were generally asked to share a post/ update/ participate in a contest on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The amount varied depending on the number, duration, and brand reach. There were brands that paid really good.

Hampi with our American Tourister Backpack

Some sponsored posts

• Lufthansa Campaign
• American Tourister India ( You can check details about all the brands we have worked so far HERE )

Seychelles Trip – All thanks to Air Seychelles and CSIA Mumbai

 You can signup on below portal for digital campaigns:

• Blogmint
• Indiblogger
• Influencer.in
• SocialPubli

Join FB Groups –

• Media Movement
• PR Jobs
• Indian PR Forum

– Selling Ad Space –

If you have good traffic then you can definitely give it a shot. We did sell a few ad spaces in the past. The pay was good.

So, well the choice is yours. Choose what works for you and make sure the placement is perfect.

Breakfast at Kempinski Seychelles Resort

– Writing Assignments –

There was two major writing assignment that came our way. One was a contract we signed for a leading travel website, it used to be a constant source of income every month of more than $ 800 for more than a year.

We have few invite emails in our mailbox to write for magazines but unfortunately, we don’t have the time nor the so-called amazing writing skills. Maybe this year we can give it a shot, but we know we are not great with words. We just love traveling and sharing our experiences.

Redang Island, Terengganu on the invite of Terengganu Tourism

Squid Jigging Festival w/ Terengganu Tourism

So, if you have a flair for writing, then do pitch to travel magazines or newspaper and try your luck earning from that.

Stay at Ramada Resort Goa ( PS: Our stay was hosted )

Ladakh w/ Hotel Grand Dragon Ladakh

– Sell –

Yes, selling products or photographs is also one of the best ways to earn money. But we do lack some serious dedication here. If you want we can share an entire list of apps and websites where you can start posting pictures and get paid really good. The income from this source has not been much as we were not that active but it did add a bit to our travel fund. There are apps that pay starting from 100-500$ for just one photograph.

Afternoon Tea at Landmark London ( PS: We were invited )

You could also sell postcard prints of your travel photographs or ebooks on Amazon.

At Le Meridien Piccadilly ( PS: Our stay was hosted )

There are many other modes and one of the most popular is Google AdSense from which you can earn money. But, we always wanted an uncluttered layout so we never gave any thought about earning from Google Adsense. But yes there is no harm in trying, but be careful don’t go overboard on this, and place numerous ads all over your website. A misplaced advertisement can be distracting and can annoy your readers too.

Asus Phone Review

Flying Business Class from Bangalore to London ( c/o: British Airways )

I hope you could take some cue from our post and earn pretty awesome. We still have a long way to go and this year we are planning to try many other ways. We will keep you posted if any of those works. Keep checking this space for more details and our new blogging series.

Happy Blogging & Traveling !!!

Do you have any other questions? Do post in the comment box below, we will be more than happy to reply back.

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