I am going to leave it in Dollars because the Rand is at all-time low at the moment due to the corona outbreak. I don’t think my calculator can calculate that far in any way so……

If that does not motivate you to start a blog right now then I don’t know what will?

By now, you get the idea you can make money blogging. Remember, all those bloggers started from scratch, with an idea. So, it is certainly possible for you too.

If you want to make money by starting a blog in South Africa, just go and look at the leaders in your niche and look at what they are doing.

It will help you find motivation and take action, I am not saying you should copy them to the T. I am saying you should simply draw inspiration to what is possible. 

Also, remember blogging takes a lot of hard work and it comes with a heap of challenges you will face. So, making a few bucks here or there is a nice way to reward yourself for the countless hours you spend behind a keyboard.

You are simply just exchanging money for the value and knowledge you provide.

Blogging can be a great way to earn a full-time income or  supplement your monthly income. The possibilities are quite endless with all the capabilities blogging presents.

Although this post is about making money from your blog but I feel it is also important to mention a few key elements one should remember when starting. This will secure your chances of a successful blog down the line.

I want to talk  about 4 key pillars your blog needs to build a strong foundation. I am not going in to major depth here but it is important non the less.

1. Self-hosted – It is important to start a blog with a self-hosted company like Namehero and for one reason alone. Your blog is your and yours alone. 

If you want any chance of making money you need a blog where you can customize, personalize and optimize in a way you want. If you use cloud based website builders like Wix and Weebly you have to play by their rules.

If they feel like shutting you down because of a stupid mistake on your part, they will rip your blog out from under you.

Why Namehero? Well, Namehero is a hosting company that understands bloggers and our needs that is why they started a hosting company with blazing fast load times, free SSL’s, free domain names, cloudflare and Litespeed.

If you put all those in one package for $3.85 it is for sure one of the most amazing hosting companies you can possibly start with.

2. Platforms – There is only one content management system out there for your blog and that is WordPress. You don’t have to fear when you hear the word WordPress, It became a level playing field the last couple of years. The days WordPress was just for coders and geeky people are over.

You will be able to build an amazing blog with WordPress and the best of all, it is free.

Watch this video on how to start a blog 

3. Design – Have you ever heard of less is more? That is exactly what you are going to focus on here. Keep your blog clean and easy to navigate. Keep your colours natural and use a lot of whites in your blog. Black on white text and don’t go to nuts with all the ads and banners.

You can use awesome page builders and themes like Divi to style your blog the way you want and if you don’t have a single creative bone in your body, don’t worry , Divi comes with pre-made templates you can import with a click of a button.

4. Niche – The topics you are going to write for is essential aspects. If you write about mating rituals of east cost sea clams I am not sure your blog will make any money. You see, your blog needs to provide answers to solutions and if you write about things people are not searching for, you won’t find easy ways to monetize your blog.

It all boils down to traffic and how many visitors you can get to your blog.

Traffic = Money

Now, we have that out of the way. Let’s look at some juicy ways your blog can rake in the moola.

5 ways how to make money blogging in South Africa.

Advertising

Indirect Advertising – There are a number of options you can go with, but by far the most popular platform to use is Google Adsense.

It is extremely easy to implement in your blog, they pay well and it’s an all-around good way to monetize your blog.

There are two different forms of Indirect advertising:

CPC/PPC – Cost Per Click or better know as Pay Per Click. Every time a visitor clicks on an advertisement banner on your blog, you get paid.

AND

CPM – Cost Per Impression. Usually, you will get paid a fixed amount per 1000 impressions. In other words, every 1000 times the ad gets displayed in front of a visitor to your blog, you get paid.

Important to note –  You are going to need heaps of traffic to make any good money from this method, as the advertising platforms only pay a couple of cents to a few Rands, every time someone clicks on an ad. Not only do you get a couple of cents but you also direct the visitor away from your website.

You lose the reader. Is it worth it? I don’t know.

Alternatives to Google Adsense:

• Adversal
• Chikita
• Media.net
• Propeller Ads Media
• RevContent
• PopAds

Why don’t I use advertising platforms like Google Ad?

It makes my websites seem cluttered and spamy. I can’t stand it and would rather focus on creating a great user experience on my blog. I also don’t have a ton of traffic coming to my blog so it is kind of pointless to have invasive ads on your blog for a couple of cents. 

But don’t let it stop you from doing it. Everyone is different and you should try it out if your blog is ready.

Example of Google Ad in the picture below

Direct Advertising – Indirect advertising is not your only option but if you play the game well and can drive a ton of traffic to your website you can sell advertising spots on your website for a decent amount of money. This is a great way to make money blogging.

 This is a more attractive approach for me as I can set my own standards, fees and have control over it.

If you have a great traffic strategy in place you can contact relevant companies to your niche and offer them advertising space on your website for a monthly fee.

Remember to keep it within your niche as people coming to your website is already targeted visitors.

You want to provide advertising spots that are successful not only for you but more importantly, for the companies buying the advertising spots.

Direct advertising can come in all shapes and sizes like banners, buttons, text links and even if you have a monthly newsletter, you can add an advertisement to a newsletter for a couple of bucks.

This is a much more professional way of advertising on your website and a very lucrative way to make money blogging. 

Affiliate marketing

This is an extremely popular way to make money blogging. If you don’t have your own product or don’t want to go through the hassle of creating one, you can sell other people’s products and services on your blog for a commission.

This is called affiliate marketing.

It is a brilliant way to earn money from your blog.

One of your main reasons for starting a blog is to create a following, a loyal readership that comes back for more and trust every word they read.

You know what these users want and you can now harness the power of connecting the user with a recommended product.

When they buy, you make money. Boom.

Just like that.

Although it can take some time to establish trust, you can start promoting affiliate links from the very beginning of your blog’s existence.

It is my favourite way of monetization and this is how Web Nomads makes the most money.

So, let’s look at a couple of affiliate programs.

Amazon Associates – The master of affiliate marketing when it comes to physical products. Amazon truly makes it super easy for you to make some money by promoting literally anything related to your blog. You can promote the best motivational books to hair clippers, depending on your niche. Perfect for review websites, DIY and photography blogs.

Udemy – I can vouch for Udemy. I have bought a ton of online courses from them and it helped me tremendously in my online business. You can learn about anything, from learning how to speak French to “how to introduce your dog to your new baby”.

So help other people by recommending courses you think they can learn from and when they enrol you get paid.

Clickbank – The master of digital products. You can almost promote anything digital under the sun. If you run a health and fitness blog, you will find an e-book you can promote, if you run a DIY blog you will find an e-book on how to “how to hit a nail” The options are endless and so are your ability to make good money.

Viglink – Viglink works by converting your outgoing links into affiliate links and every time someone makes a purchase, you get paid. Go and have a look for yourself. It is not for everyone but if you can use the opportunity, why not?

Let’s look at a few affiliate programs from sunny South Africa.

Offerforge – One of bigger platforms you can join in South Africa and the sign up process is relatively easier to get accepted than other programs in South Africa.

Affiliate – Join their program and promote successful companies in South Africa’s services and products.

Mantality – Like the name suggest. It is an online store for men in South Africa and will pay you commission for every successful sale you send their way.

Sell-SA – This is a rather new online store in South Africa focused on a broad spectrum of products. If you blog about something they sell, you can sign-up for an affiliate link and make some money from it.

The above companies designed their business to grow with affiliate marketing. You also should not forget about smaller and individual companies with affiliate programs. Usually try to join programs which sells software as a service. The commissions are very good. The three companies below is a good example of excellent affiliate marketing opportunities.

• Elegant Themes (Page Builder)
• Name Hero (Hosting Company)
• Divi Life ( Plugins and Themes)

These are all companies I know and work with, so I can vouch for them and you should do the same. I promote the above companies through affiliate links and banners on my blog.

Ensure to do some research about the companies you want to promote.

How do you promote affiliate programs?

First, let me say there is a misconception about affiliate marketing on the internet. Everyone on the internet claims it is easy to make money with affiliate marketing.

It is not.

Like I mentioned before, you have to promote products from companies you trust and or work with.

You can’t just promote every affiliate link to your visitors, it is a recipe for disaster.

It also makes no sense to do it as it will leave your customers feeling confused and used. You have to keep it relevant to your niche. Promote what you use yourself.

Be a trustworthy source day in and day out. You need to be trusted for people to believe in your word.

Ok, so how?

Blog Articles

You can write an article about the product and then add affiliate links to the article by linking it to the product.

You have to remember to “sell your link”

Don’t write something like “follow the link and buy it, it is an awesome product” that will never work. 

Here in South Africa we have learned not to trust so quickly any more and writing articles that comes off spammy and salesy would just not work.

Write an in-depth article about why you recommend it and or how it will solve your reader’s problems.

In other words, you need to write complementary articles that support your links.

Take it easy with your links and place them strategically throughout your article. You don’t want to come off as being too spammy.

Banners and Ads.

Most companies that run affiliate programs will almost always provide you with awesome banners and ads that you can use to place on your site. These banners usually come with an embed link, so when someone clicks on the banner, it will link to the product and if they make a purchase you will make a commission. Like this banner below.

Emails

This is another great way to promote your affiliate links. If you have a subscriber list you can send a newsletter informing your subscribers about a new product or a new article about a product you reviewed.

Remember, these subscribers trust you enough to send them articles and products you recommend. So, don’t spam them every day with a bunch of affiliate links.

An email list is a super valuable to have, you can put amazing newsletters in front of their eyes or you can lose them in the wink of an eye.

The choice is yours.

Your own Products

Creating your own product is a great way to up scale your blogging business. You have to build trust first with your readers and when you are becoming an authority in your niche you can turn to product creation.

These products are usually info products like e-books or online courses.

It is obviously going to be a bit of extra work, creating an info product to sell to your audience, but the rewards can be great. Trust me, a great way to make money blogging.

Keep in mind the following –

• Who is your target audience
• What price are you going to sell it for?
• What payment gateway are you going to use?
• Returns? Your policy about returns?

If you find designing an online course a bit more appealing, you can always look at trusted companies like:

• Udemy
• Teachable

Both companies are great platforms for online courses. They do differ from one another. Udemy is a platform where millions of people come to learn more about your course. 

Teachable is a platform where you can host your course and market yourself. A great option if you are starting out.

Consulting

Once you have established a following, you can think about selling your time with a Skype meeting.

This is very personal and opens a whole new perspective for your following.

Let them pick your brain and just go all out with your info. Let them know and feel it was worth the time and money talking to you.

You can charge anything from R100 to whatever. I’ve seen people charge R10 000 per hour in the blog marketing niche.

That is good money.

Remember, when you start to run, there are always going to be people behind you who are crawling.

Be mindful, helpful and always be friendly.

Services

Selling your services is also a great idea that you can use to make some extra money from your blog!

As you learn how to design and build things on the internet, you can always help someone else out for a few bucks, like helping with logo design, web design, SEO and even writing articles.

It is all these little droplets that make the bucket full.

If you are a good writer and language is your thing, you could sign up to platforms like Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer and market your services there to make some extra money.

How long does it take to make money from your blog?

I beg you not to fall for the “I make R100 000 after 6 months blogging” BS. It takes a LOT of hard work and countless hours in front of your computer to be able to make that kind of money every month.

I am not saying it can’t be done, I am saying that it is not possible for the 95% of us starting our blogging journey.

In my experience, you can make a small side income from month 6 and if you keep the pace a full income in year 2.

That is realistic.

Work hard and consistent and you will reap the benefits sooner than later.

How do bloggers get paid?

• Direct payment to your bank account
• Paypal (Very Common)
• Cheques by mail (Google, Amazon)

Those are the three main ways we get paid. Quick and easy.

Wrapping It Up

There is obviously more than one way to make money blogging and the more you diversify the better it will be for you. Just keep it within reason and within your management expertise.

There is no right or wrong, best or worst. Every blog and person is different, you will have to figure out a way to best monetize your blog for ultimate gains.

It is the best practice when starting out your blog to focus on the things that matter the most like content creation, building connections, joining communities and building an email list.

The above will be your blog’s foundation and without them, you won’t make a cent.

Great content will always be your number one priority. People will come to you to learn from you and the money will eventually follow.

Monetize your blog content naturally and everything will fall in place.

Happy Blogging 

Affiliate Disclaimer: In this or most of my post I recommend products or services via links or and banners. If any of these links end up in a sale I get a small commision at no extra cost to you.

If you have any questions regarding this article please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you.