Who doesn't love making money but when it comes to the part that you need to invest something upfront to get started, this is when this question arises can you really make money with a free WordPress.com blog.
You absolutely can! You can monetize the free WordPress blog with affiliate marketing, CPA Marketing, by posting sponsored posts, giving paid backlinks out, even e-mail marketing, etc.
Yes, then how can I get started and what are the different ways how I can monetize my free website with wordpress.com.
This particular article is an extension to a previous article in which I answer this specific query that most people ask can you really make money with a free WordPress.com blog?
However, this article is totally dedicated to the main ways to monetize your blog right on point. Let's go:
In my honest opinion, you cannot do a lot with the monetization part as there are too many restrictions in having a WordPress.com Blog.
This is a list of which I have come up with the ways to monetize your free WordPress.com Blog.
Here I Go:
So CPA marketing basically stands for cost per action marketing.
It means if you can generate a lead to different business then you will get paid directly.
Say, for example, you have a blog in Fitness and Weight Loss niche, it does not matter what your niche is as there are various CPA offers for every single niche.
Then what you can do is, you can join various CPA networks like Max Bounty, Peerfly, CPA Lead, Adwork media, etc.
I used to follow this YouTube channel that makes decent money with their blog in combination with Pinterest Marketing.
You can check her channel out here.
Pinterest marketing is fairly easy and you can easily generate massive traffic as I have personally grown many of my accounts to 750k+ monthly views.
You can do affiliate marketing also with this which is my next point.
Also, one most important thing!
Do not forget to add a page on your website that discloses everything that you use affiliate links on your website and all regulations are followed in accordance with FTC, Very Important!
BIG NO-NO==> Be careful with some of the affiliate networks as they sometimes can get a little shady(only non-trusted/Unpopular ones) and also make sure that the links are covered in the WordPress.com Terms of Service as they have strict certain restrictions on your blog using certain links.
Affiliate marketing is basically when you sell someone else product at a commission.
Say you are in a niche of Baby Care, again it is just for example as the niche can be anything.
You can go to different networks where people list out there products like Amazon Associates, ClickBank, Shareasale, eBay partners, etc.
These are one of the best and trusted sites that you can use and some of them have affiliate programs that are on a recurring basis.
This means you have to make a sale one time and after that whatever that company(of which you are promoting the product) will generate with an up-sell to that customer which you have generated with their e-mail marketing in the back-end, you will get a certain amount of commission on a monthly basis.
How cool that is, isn't it?
It all just depends on what kind of affiliate product you are promoting!
BIG NO-NO==> Whenever you are looking for a product in these market places that I listed above or even other ones, always make sure that you do not always go with the products that will give you the most commission on a long term basis. Rather, always pick that product that benefits your readers or will provide the max. amount of value to the people that are reading your content. In short, the product that you would also like to buy if you are also in that niche(or in your customer's place).
Now, I know you to be like WHAT?
As I just said earlier that ads cannot be used in WordPress.com blog then why I have added this as a point here?
Actually, WordPress.com have their own Ads platform called WordAds.
You can easily get approved by them if you are getting good traffic coming daily to your website.
WordPress.com does not allow other ad platforms like AdSense to show ads on their own platform unless you are a premium member there or having a full-fledge e-commerce plan there.
I do know they have this WordAds platform and I have seen people getting approved easily there but personally, I do not have any experience and cannot say much about it.
But if you want to go deep in this rabbit hole, you can search deep about it as it can also be a viable option for you to monetize your free WordPress Blog.
E-mail marketing is also one powerful way to monetize your website.
Keep that in mind that as you are on a free platform of WordPress, you cannot customize your website to the fullest.
So collecting the emails and storing it as in an Automated E-mail Responder would be the best choice.
As you do not have access to the website what you can do is, you can integrate MailChimp with a widget on your free WordPress blog.
I actually have researched this very much and got to know that the MailChimp e-mail responder is the best one to get this job done.
You can check the complete official guide here from WordPress.
You create an automation in the email campaign where you can promote your affiliate products and offers and hence monetize your website.
Check this infographic I have designed to a more clear idea:
Note: When you will go on your Mailchimp dashboard, at the end when you are done customizing your sign-up form(where people basically enter their e-mail address), you will get a specific link to that particular form which you can then place on your website. Just explaining deep as I know it can get a little bit technical when you will actually go and implement this step.
This can be executed in two ways, either you can approach the brands that suit your particular niche that I have this blog and I would love to promote your brand on my blog.
OR
You can develop yourself into an authority and work your way up so that you can have a good amount of traffic going on your website where the brands can get a reason to approach you.
The amount which you can earn totally depends on how much you can get agreed upon. It can go anywhere from $100 per post to $1000+ per post.
It totally depends on what your niche is, the traffic, and a lot of other factors.
But it can definitely be a way where you can get paid even from a free blog.
Now, this is something that will take some time as people will just not give you the money just because you have a blog.
You actually have to build your blog as an authority, a general metric can be when you get around DA= 30+ and PA=25+, this is a decent number where you can charge people money to give them a quality backlink.
OR
If you don't want to follow this metric then make sure that you have decent traffic on your website so that people would want to give you the money.
In this case scenario, you can make money by just understanding these 2 things:
Have a contact page handy where people can contact you easily.
BIG NO-NO==> Do not give a backlink to people just for the sake of earning money! Rather what I want you to do is actually check the website first to which you are giving a link. If you associated yourself with certain websites that like are known for spamming or somewhere close to that. Google actually notices that and if you just keep giving bad links, your rankings may or can drop down the road too, so just be careful!
Now, this point is something where we are kind of going a little too stretchy.
This can be done in a free WordPress blog but it would be best if you upgrade to any of their high plans, just to get more control over things.
Here is the strategy which a lot of people don't know:
Once you see your website getting traffic, you can sign-up with different payment processors.
Let me share this with you with the help of an example,
Say you have a website related to dog foods then you can create a value-packed e-book in which you just give your all and make it the best that you can produce.
After creating the e-book, just sign-up for a payment processor and 1-click check the button in your payment processor which would be like:
"Send Thank You E-mail To People That Orders Your Product"
Then you can customize that "Thank You E-mail" and send that e-book that they have actually ordered. And you just make it on automation.
OR
You can publish that e-book on Amazon Kindle and you just add that page on your website that directs people on Amazon.
Two things will happen first, you will gain rankings on Amazon and get your e-book sales from Amazon kindle platform organically next,
You are deriving the traffic from your website too!
Can you see where I'm going?
You can try out all these things and easily monetize your WordPress Blog.
If you are new and do not know anything about how you can set up a blog and earn money then you need to know some key things that will deeply affect you down the road.
If you have opened your website on WordPress.com then, by all means, skip this section BUT,
If you are planning to open up your first blog then I definitely recommend going with the free platform of Google which is Blogger.
Yes, you can make money with WordPress.com but it just has too many restrictions!
So if it's your first time starting out then go with Blogger, it would be much much better.
Later you can also transfer your blogger blog to WordPress.org, it is also a simple process and it can be done any time of the day.
The whole conclusion of all this would be that Yes, you can absolutely make money with a free WordPress Blog!
By the things that I have mentioned in this article, you can easily make decent money off of your blog.
But at the end of the day if you want to make this huge website that attracts huge quantities of people on a monthly basis.
It's just my opinion that I do not recommend going with Free WordPress blog as you will have to go with their paid plans some months down the road.
And they are very much costly as compared to when you host your own website with WordPress.org!
If you are destined to pay the money after some time then I recommend that you host your own website.
If you wanna go the Freeway then go with a platform of Google i.e. Blogger.
I hope you got your answer to the question can you make money on a free WordPress.com blog?
In the end, if you are struggling to monetize your website then check out this free course that will help you step by step on how to earn money especially with Affiliate Marketing.
Check here- bit.ly/OnlineMarketing1O1
Thank you so much for reading that you made it till here, share it to make the effort worth that would be greatly appreciated :)
Peace!
Resources:
- https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/make-money-online/
- https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-make-money-from-wordpress-com-blog.html
- https://torquemag.io/2017/10/11-ways-to-make-money-with-your-wordpress-blog/
- https://en.support.wordpress.com/monetize-your-site/
- https://blossomthemes.com/blogger-vs-wordpress-for-making-money/
- https://www.wpbeginner.com/opinion/8-reasons-to-convert-your-wordpress-com-blog-to-wordpress-org/
- https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-earn-money-from-a-free-WordPress-com-blog
- https://kinsta.com/blog/how-to-monetize-a-blog/
- https://www.lovelyblogacademy.com/monetize-wordpress-com-blog/
- https://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/407417-can-i-make-money-free-blog.html
- https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/earning-money-from-my-site/
- https://mailchimp.com/help/connect-or-disconnect-list-subscribe-for-wordpress/
- https://www.nextdestinationunknown.com/how-to-convert-wordpress-com-to-self-hosted-wordpress-org/
You absolutely can! You can monetize the free WordPress blog with affiliate marketing, CPA Marketing, by posting sponsored posts, giving paid backlinks out, even e-mail marketing, etc.
Yes, then how can I get started and what are the different ways how I can monetize my free website with wordpress.com.
This particular article is an extension to a previous article in which I answer this specific query that most people ask can you really make money with a free WordPress.com blog?
However, this article is totally dedicated to the main ways to monetize your blog right on point. Let's go:
How To Make Money With a Free WordPress Blog
In my honest opinion, you cannot do a lot with the monetization part as there are too many restrictions in having a WordPress.com Blog.
This is a list of which I have come up with the ways to monetize your free WordPress.com Blog.
Here I Go:
1. CPA Marketing
So CPA marketing basically stands for cost per action marketing.
It means if you can generate a lead to different business then you will get paid directly.
Say, for example, you have a blog in Fitness and Weight Loss niche, it does not matter what your niche is as there are various CPA offers for every single niche.
Then what you can do is, you can join various CPA networks like Max Bounty, Peerfly, CPA Lead, Adwork media, etc.
I used to follow this YouTube channel that makes decent money with their blog in combination with Pinterest Marketing.
You can check her channel out here.
Pinterest marketing is fairly easy and you can easily generate massive traffic as I have personally grown many of my accounts to 750k+ monthly views.
You can do affiliate marketing also with this which is my next point.
Also, one most important thing!
Do not forget to add a page on your website that discloses everything that you use affiliate links on your website and all regulations are followed in accordance with FTC, Very Important!
BIG NO-NO==> Be careful with some of the affiliate networks as they sometimes can get a little shady(only non-trusted/Unpopular ones) and also make sure that the links are covered in the WordPress.com Terms of Service as they have strict certain restrictions on your blog using certain links.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is basically when you sell someone else product at a commission.
Say you are in a niche of Baby Care, again it is just for example as the niche can be anything.
You can go to different networks where people list out there products like Amazon Associates, ClickBank, Shareasale, eBay partners, etc.
These are one of the best and trusted sites that you can use and some of them have affiliate programs that are on a recurring basis.
This means you have to make a sale one time and after that whatever that company(of which you are promoting the product) will generate with an up-sell to that customer which you have generated with their e-mail marketing in the back-end, you will get a certain amount of commission on a monthly basis.
How cool that is, isn't it?
It all just depends on what kind of affiliate product you are promoting!
BIG NO-NO==> Whenever you are looking for a product in these market places that I listed above or even other ones, always make sure that you do not always go with the products that will give you the most commission on a long term basis. Rather, always pick that product that benefits your readers or will provide the max. amount of value to the people that are reading your content. In short, the product that you would also like to buy if you are also in that niche(or in your customer's place).
3. Ads on Your Website
Now, I know you to be like WHAT?
As I just said earlier that ads cannot be used in WordPress.com blog then why I have added this as a point here?
Actually, WordPress.com have their own Ads platform called WordAds.
You can easily get approved by them if you are getting good traffic coming daily to your website.
WordPress.com does not allow other ad platforms like AdSense to show ads on their own platform unless you are a premium member there or having a full-fledge e-commerce plan there.
I do know they have this WordAds platform and I have seen people getting approved easily there but personally, I do not have any experience and cannot say much about it.
But if you want to go deep in this rabbit hole, you can search deep about it as it can also be a viable option for you to monetize your free WordPress Blog.
4. E-mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is also one powerful way to monetize your website.
Keep that in mind that as you are on a free platform of WordPress, you cannot customize your website to the fullest.
So collecting the emails and storing it as in an Automated E-mail Responder would be the best choice.
As you do not have access to the website what you can do is, you can integrate MailChimp with a widget on your free WordPress blog.
I actually have researched this very much and got to know that the MailChimp e-mail responder is the best one to get this job done.
You can check the complete official guide here from WordPress.
You create an automation in the email campaign where you can promote your affiliate products and offers and hence monetize your website.
Check this infographic I have designed to a more clear idea:
Note: When you will go on your Mailchimp dashboard, at the end when you are done customizing your sign-up form(where people basically enter their e-mail address), you will get a specific link to that particular form which you can then place on your website. Just explaining deep as I know it can get a little bit technical when you will actually go and implement this step.
5. Sponsored Posts
This can be executed in two ways, either you can approach the brands that suit your particular niche that I have this blog and I would love to promote your brand on my blog.
OR
You can develop yourself into an authority and work your way up so that you can have a good amount of traffic going on your website where the brands can get a reason to approach you.
The amount which you can earn totally depends on how much you can get agreed upon. It can go anywhere from $100 per post to $1000+ per post.
It totally depends on what your niche is, the traffic, and a lot of other factors.
But it can definitely be a way where you can get paid even from a free blog.
6. Charge Money For Backlink From Your Website
Now, this is something that will take some time as people will just not give you the money just because you have a blog.
You actually have to build your blog as an authority, a general metric can be when you get around DA= 30+ and PA=25+, this is a decent number where you can charge people money to give them a quality backlink.
OR
If you don't want to follow this metric then make sure that you have decent traffic on your website so that people would want to give you the money.
In this case scenario, you can make money by just understanding these 2 things:
- You have decent website authority as similar to the metric that I shared above so that people will get the benefit of an increase in their DA, PA as Google will see that they just got a high authority backlink. People will be giving you high money just because of this.
- You don't have a decent website authority but you have decent traffic going on all over your website then also people will be willing to give you high money.
Have a contact page handy where people can contact you easily.
BIG NO-NO==> Do not give a backlink to people just for the sake of earning money! Rather what I want you to do is actually check the website first to which you are giving a link. If you associated yourself with certain websites that like are known for spamming or somewhere close to that. Google actually notices that and if you just keep giving bad links, your rankings may or can drop down the road too, so just be careful!
7. Sell Your Own Information Product
Now, this point is something where we are kind of going a little too stretchy.
This can be done in a free WordPress blog but it would be best if you upgrade to any of their high plans, just to get more control over things.
Here is the strategy which a lot of people don't know:
Once you see your website getting traffic, you can sign-up with different payment processors.
Let me share this with you with the help of an example,
Say you have a website related to dog foods then you can create a value-packed e-book in which you just give your all and make it the best that you can produce.
After creating the e-book, just sign-up for a payment processor and 1-click check the button in your payment processor which would be like:
"Send Thank You E-mail To People That Orders Your Product"
Then you can customize that "Thank You E-mail" and send that e-book that they have actually ordered. And you just make it on automation.
OR
You can publish that e-book on Amazon Kindle and you just add that page on your website that directs people on Amazon.
Two things will happen first, you will gain rankings on Amazon and get your e-book sales from Amazon kindle platform organically next,
You are deriving the traffic from your website too!
Can you see where I'm going?
You can try out all these things and easily monetize your WordPress Blog.
Read This If You Are Truly Starting Out With Blogging
If you have opened your website on WordPress.com then, by all means, skip this section BUT,
If you are planning to open up your first blog then I definitely recommend going with the free platform of Google which is Blogger.
Yes, you can make money with WordPress.com but it just has too many restrictions!
So if it's your first time starting out then go with Blogger, it would be much much better.
Later you can also transfer your blogger blog to WordPress.org, it is also a simple process and it can be done any time of the day.
Conclusion
The whole conclusion of all this would be that Yes, you can absolutely make money with a free WordPress Blog!
By the things that I have mentioned in this article, you can easily make decent money off of your blog.
But at the end of the day if you want to make this huge website that attracts huge quantities of people on a monthly basis.
It's just my opinion that I do not recommend going with Free WordPress blog as you will have to go with their paid plans some months down the road.
And they are very much costly as compared to when you host your own website with WordPress.org!
If you are destined to pay the money after some time then I recommend that you host your own website.
If you wanna go the Freeway then go with a platform of Google i.e. Blogger.
I hope you got your answer to the question can you make money on a free WordPress.com blog?
In the end, if you are struggling to monetize your website then check out this free course that will help you step by step on how to earn money especially with Affiliate Marketing.
Check here- bit.ly/OnlineMarketing1O1
Thank you so much for reading that you made it till here, share it to make the effort worth that would be greatly appreciated :)
Peace!
Resources:
- https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/make-money-online/
- https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-make-money-from-wordpress-com-blog.html
- https://torquemag.io/2017/10/11-ways-to-make-money-with-your-wordpress-blog/
- https://en.support.wordpress.com/monetize-your-site/
- https://blossomthemes.com/blogger-vs-wordpress-for-making-money/
- https://www.wpbeginner.com/opinion/8-reasons-to-convert-your-wordpress-com-blog-to-wordpress-org/
- https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-earn-money-from-a-free-WordPress-com-blog
- https://kinsta.com/blog/how-to-monetize-a-blog/
- https://www.lovelyblogacademy.com/monetize-wordpress-com-blog/
- https://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/407417-can-i-make-money-free-blog.html
- https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/earning-money-from-my-site/
- https://mailchimp.com/help/connect-or-disconnect-list-subscribe-for-wordpress/
- https://www.nextdestinationunknown.com/how-to-convert-wordpress-com-to-self-hosted-wordpress-org/
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