5 Proven Ways To Monetize Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs

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Monetize WordPress Blogs
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As bloggers we have various options we can use to monetize our blogs. We can use advertising networks to run ads, and we can also make money without running ads on our blogs. However, making money without an advertisement program is quite difficult and requires hard work.

When you use an ad network, making money from your WordPress blogs gets easier.

In this post, I will share with you a list of advertisement networks that you can use to monetize your self-hosted WordPress blog.

Some of these ad networks have certain limitations in terms of traffic/month and minimum payouts, and I will add all of those details in their descriptions.  

Bear in mind that there are hundreds of ad networks, and I am adding only those which I have personally used, and with which I have had a good experience.

Ad networks to make money from self- hosted WordPress websites:

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1. Google AdSense:

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Google AdSense is the first ad network that I would recommend to any blogger, as it offers quality ads, and it pays well.

AdSense is a contextual ad network, and all you need to do is create an AdSense account, get AdSense ad codes for your blog, and add it to your blog.

The minimum payout is $100, and getting an AdSense approval is a little tougher than with other ad networks. AdSense prefers blogs with quality, and they have quality and content guidelines that you need to follow. They don’t accept websites in the Warez, Adult, or hacking niches.

What I like best about AdSense is that it gives you peace of mind with a recurring income.

Related resources for understanding AdSense better:

2. Media.net:

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This is another popular contextual ad network that you can use to monetize your blog. Their acceptance criteria are liberal than AdSense and implementation is easy.

Once you have an approved account, all you need to do is generate the ad code and place it on your blog using any popular ad plugin or by editing the theme.

Sign up for media.net

3. Affiliate marketing:

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In 2020, Affiliate marketing is the most popular way among bloggers to make serious money from there blog. I have a detailed guide on What is affiliate marketing here which will help you understand everything about it.

Here are some of the popular Affiliate networks that you can join right now and find products to promote.

This is the best blog monetization technique that you should start using right away.

If you wanna level up your game, you can also find recurring affiliate program which helps you earn money every month for the rest of your life.

Here is a detailed book to learn everything about affiliate marketing.

4. BuySellAds:

BuySellads Make money
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I have used BuySellAds for more than three years, and they offer one of the best ways to get direct advertisements for your blog. BuySellAds is a marketplace which connect bloggers to advertisers.

Using BuySellAds is quite simple:

  • You register for an account
  • add ad inventory on BuySellAds
  • grab the code, and place it on your blog.

An advertiser can then click on the blank placeholder, and buy the ad. BuySellAds will take care of payment and ad serving, and takes 25% of the commission in return.

Since the quality of ads via BuySellAds is quite good and you don’t have to work a lot to get direct advertisements, this is a network worth trying.  

You should be aware that getting an approved BuySellAds account is not that easy, as they focus a lot on the quality and design of your blog.

Overall, BuySellAds is an ad network for the quality WordPress blogger.

They also offer a sponsored tweets feature, which will allow you to make additional money from your Twitter network. They also have a WordPress plugin which you can use to quickly integrate BuySellAds on your blog.

  • Minimum Payout: $20 for PayPal, $500 for wire transfer.
  • Payment mode: PayPal, wire transfer, bank check
  • Sign up for BuySellAds

Related source for BuySellAds:

5. Viglink:

Viglink has become my favorite ad network, as it has the potential to increase your blog’s revenue by a considerable percentage. Moreover, Viglink works in a very different way, and it will allow you to make money from your outbound links.

Unlike other ad networks, Viglink offers a very friendly user experience.  Especially if you find it difficult to work with affiliate networks, Viglink should be your first choice. I have tried and tested it on a fashion blog, and the result was great. You can use Viglink along with AdSense or any other ad network.

Even if you are monetizing your WordPress blog with other ad networks, I suggest you try Viglink for a week, and I suspect that you will not be disappointed. You can quickly integrate Viglink with your WordPress blog by using this official plugin.

Related resources:

These are just a few of the many ad networks which you can use to make money from your WordPress blog. Apart from advertising, there are various other techniques and programs that can be used for the purpose of making money from your blogs, such as affiliate marketing, sponsored reviews, and selling eBooks.

For now, if you have not yet started making money from your WordPress blog, you can use any of the above monetization ad networks to quickly place ads on your blog, and let the money begin to flow for you.

If you are using other ad networks to earn from your blog, do let me know via the comments section below.  

Be sure to give details such as payment modes and information related to how well your advertising networks are performing for you.

If you find this article useful, do consider sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp.

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

20 thoughts on “5 Proven Ways To Monetize Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs”

  1. Titus Kamau

    Thanks for this informative post. i use Clickor but it is low paying. AdSense is hard to be verified but infokinks works well apart from redirecting visitors away.

  2. Glory

    Hello, I want to start a blog focused on social change issues, it is a non-profit project and adverts will be key to sustaining this project and the blog. My question is can one use more than one Ad network on a blog, does these ad networks work effectively with blogs created in developing countries example Nigeria? I want to used a paid WordPress blog for the project. Thank you. Any other advice you can give will be appreciated

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Glory,

      Congratulations for your wonderful initiative. Yes, you can run multiple ads at a time. But just be sure not to overload your page with ads because it decreases the user experience.

  3. sagar

    is it possible to include adds with wordpress blog(not a website). As per wordpress.com only who have upgraded with 99$ can only include adds.

  4. James

    Nice article. I notice you have restricted yourself to only self hosted WordPress blogs. What of those of us using the free WordPress hosted by WordPress? What options do we have in making money with our blogs?

    1. Devan

      Did you ever get an answer to your question? My blog is a free wordpress blog as well, though I did purchase a custom URL.

      1. James

        No, I did not get an answer. I have decided to self host and look for options.

  5. Dhananjay Mittal

    I am running my website but still I am not earn a single rupee. 1000 of visit are coming. but still I am not earning. please help me out

  6. Satish

    Adsense is surely a best way to earn a lot of money. But these days the CPC is so less that its very difficult to make good money. BSA ads are not that easy too, even they take some time to get it approved.

  7. aryan

    When I started my very first blog I found it as a place to share ideas, more like the journal-type blogs of old. As I started off to understand more about blogging, I commenced to add Adsense and gradually my own products.

    My perspective now is that viewers enjoy what you share, they will be glad for you to point them to related products that increase their knowledge and skills.

  8. Kushal

    Thanks for the article Harsh. Well I guess Google adsense will not work if you are not having decent amount of visitors.

    According to many bloggers infolinks makes a blog slow

    Buysellads is a nice one.However your blog must pass their requirements.

    OIO Publisher WordPress plugin is a new thing to me.Will try it out.

  9. Nizam Khan

    Excellent and much useful post Harsh! Well, the earnings you showed from different ad networks are quite awesome. No doubt, Google Adsense is a great platform to earn money online, however utilizing different income sources is a good strategy to increase the earnings potential. And, I didn’t know about the OIO Publisher plugin, it seems to be a much useful plugin to automate the direct advertisements on blog. Thanks for sharing and tweeted 🙂

  10. Everest

    you are 100% right all the ad network you have mention works fine and i have tried many of them but i chose adsense first but my question is can i use buysellads ad network together with adsense because i have not tried it for the first time

  11. Heru Prasetyono

    It is important to know how to monetize blogs. The various ways of how to make money wordpress blogs above can be a reference for us to choose the suitable advertisement network.
    I am sure most of bloggers and webmasters want to get revenue from blogging.
    So this information is useful eespecially for newbies.
    Thank you very much, Harsh Agrawal.

  12. Satyenhacks

    hey harsh,

    I have used Google Adsense, Infolinks and Amazon KDP and all three are giving me good amount of money. Adsense is giving more while infolinks is quite low. Amazon KDP is picking up as I will be publishing more books in future. Got 2 payments from Amazon KDP.

  13. PrIyAnGsHu

    Among these networks, I have so far used AdSense, BuySellAds and Infolinks. I’m yet to try out Viglink and the OIO Publisher WordPress plugin. And I want to ask you, do OIO Publisher have enough advertisers in their marketplace?

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Priyangshu
      They don’t have enough advertiser on their marketplace..but still its good when you want to manage direct ad selling yourself. Even with BuySellAds, most of the time advertisers find your blog via empty BuySellAds spaceholder on the blog.

  14. Shanker Bakshi

    I know how hard you must have worked to made this much of money. Hats Off, BTW haven’t read Adsense Terms and Conditions these couple of years, can we share CTC, CPM and RPM data.

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