Christian blogging is such an amazing way to bring more Jesus into people's lives. But it is also a way for many stay-at-home moms (or any woman for that matter) to both share their love of Jesus and earn income to help provide for their family.
What better way to earn a living than to help others grow closer in their walk with Christ?
But just like the technical blogging stuff, monetizing can be a challenge if you don't have some direction and guidance. Here are 4 of the most common ways to monetize a Christian blog.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our full disclosure here.
How to Monetize Your Christian Blog
I know there are some who question whether Christian bloggers should be earning money by writing about Jesus. I'm not going to go into that topic in this post. I'll just reference a single verse from the Bible that clearly answers that question. I will also say that it is a personal decision for each person. Talk to God about it and decide if that is the direction He wants you to go with it.
the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:14)
Before I dive into the different methods of earning money as a Christian blogger, I first want to make sure that you understand that none of these will work if you haven't first
- Really defined your target audience
- Laid down a solid SEO foundation for your blog
- Written content specifically to your target audience (that they are actually searching for)
If you don't focus on the foundation first, the rest of it will be fruitless. SEO is truly the key to getting your content found by the people who are looking for it, which in turn will result in higher conversions. Most new bloggers try to simply just throw in a random affiliate product here and there and don't understand why it isn't working.
Affiliate Marketing
The first and most common way to monetize your Christian blog is through affiliate marketing. This is where you promote products in blog content and earn a commission when sales are generated.
Most new bloggers don't do very well with affiliate marketing because they don't really have a plan or strategy and just randomly throw links in their blog posts. By focusing on products and services your target audience needs or wants and writing blog content centered around their search queries, you'll have much better conversion rates.
** Here are some great affiliate programs for Christian bloggers.
About 2 years ago, I did finally break down and take Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing which sort of opened my eyes to some things I hadn't previously thought of in the way of promoting affiliate products. While I did learn a lot from the course, it didn't teach me about the importance of (or how to do) SEO research for my blog. Now that I fully understand SEO, my affiliate products do much better than when I first took that course.
Product posts are a great way to reach your blog audience with affiliate products. Instead of just writing about a single product, think of what general types of products your audience might be searching for on Google.
For example, a Christian mom blogger focusing on helping moms of preschool children could write product roundup posts on things like “nontoxic bath toys” or something like that. Then write it like a regular blog post but list several product options in that category. These are the things your readers would naturally be searching for.
Here are some product posts we've written for Bibles and Bible journals:
Creating and Selling Digital Products
Contrary to what you may have heard, most bloggers do not earn the bulk of their money with affiliate marketing. The key to really growing a profitable blogging ministry is creating and selling digital products that serve a need for your target audience. Don't just create stuff to create stuff. Figure out what your audience really needs and either create downloadable files for them to purchase. Here are some examples of products from Christian bloggers that do really well:
Virtual Services
One, often overlooked, way to earn money as a Christian blogger is to offer services through your blog. If you are a great writer, there are lots of opportunities for freelance writing for churches and other Christian entities. You could also offer other administrative services as a Virtual Assistant. This is basically like an assistant for another blogger but it is also stuff accomplished through the computer such as posting on social media, responding to emails, editing blog posts, etc.
Ad Networks
Saving the best for last! While you may think ads on your site are a nuisance, they are a great way to earn residual income. Why? Because, once your organic traffic (from SEO) takes off, the ad revenue will continue to grow without additional effort.
For anyone hoping to make a full-time income from blogging, ad revenue is how you will earn the most income (and it will continue to grow as your traffic grows).
Most newer bloggers join Google Adsense, but I don't recommend them. Their ads do tend to look tacky and the return isn't the best. The better ones are SheMedia and MediaVine, but you do need a certain amount of traffic to your site to be eligible to join either of them. By working on your SEO and getting more organic traffic to your blog, you'll be able to eventually join one of them. We currently use MediaVine as our ad network on Kingdom Bloggers.
Making Money as a Christian Blogger
There are many ways to monetize a Christian blog but the most important thing to remember is to keep God as the priority in your blogging. The finance part should never be the primary focus! Always treat your audience with respect by never promoting stuff just to promote it. Provide solid value in anything you offer through your blog content.
Always do your research on anything you intend to promote or recommend. Even better, recommend products or services that you've actually used or tried out yourself so you can write about your experience with it. Your goal should always be to offer tools to help them in their journey as it pertains to your blog.
Connect with other Christian bloggers and find opportunities to support them by trying and recommending any products or services that they offer.
