Mom blogs make money online through a combination of high traffic paired with advertising, affiliate marketing, and sponsored content. They’re a big hit with the parenting community because they share interesting tips, recipes, lifestyle content, and helpful product suggestions.
In fact – we think mom blogs are the perfect way to explain how to monetize a site.
These mom bloggers are highly passionate and the same goes for their audience. An audience that’s growing – there’s more and more stay at home moms. Being a mom isn’t like some hot fad or hobby – there’s long-term commitment – meaning those reading the mom blogs are highly invested.
This investment goes the same for companies.
Big brands understand the influence these mommy bloggers have in their industry. Companies are shelling out millions of dollars targeting the mommy blog audience. Why? Because raising a kid ain’t cheap! We’re talking almost $250,000 to raise a child so if a company can get a fraction of that action… well, they’re willing to work (monetize) with mommy bloggers.
And then there’s the incentive:
Making money with a mom blog lets them remain at home to raise the kid(s). This then lets the mom experience and do more – which brings fresh, relatable content to their community. It’s a positive cycle.
Want in on this action?
Learn from the Best: How Successful Mom Blogs Make Money Online
We dug around at the top mom blogs. What we found wasn’t too surprising when it comes to making money from a mom blog. There was quite a bit of overlap with the popular mommy blogs, too.
Here’s a quick (visual) breakdown of how mom blogs make money online.
Note: We originally intended to point directly to pages and mom blogs, but we didn’t want to expose anyone by accident (some bloggers don’t like it). So, you’ll find screenshots with the examples from these pages, instead.
A product overview (possibly a sponsored post) pointing to an Etsy affiliate…
This sponsored post…
A recommended page with lots of affiliated products…
Or them adding an Amazon box…
A sponsored post with a healthy mix of native advertising…
Doesn’t sound too hard, right?
There are thousands of other examples if you dig around lists like Mom.me’s favorite mom bloggers or browse TopMommyBlogs.com. Spend some time looking at the most popular ones to see how mom blogs make money online.
Though…
Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, though, because the big difference a small and popular mom blog is the charming characteristics.
Charming Characteristics of Profitable Mom Blogs — The Secret of Monetization
There are thousands of mom blogs – they’re easy to set up. Content comes easy because it’s half journal and half content strategy. Anyone could create a persona and create a mom blog. But… the community would be quick to see through it because it’s lacking that special something – personality.
Mom blogs make money online when they form a strong bond with their community. They do this by sharing personal stories – the ups and downs – their readers have (or will) experienced, too.
These mommy bloggers have charming characteristics. Take one look and it jumps out. The blog design is unique and inviting. The writing style is casual and fun. Media is used all over. It feels like you’re becoming part of their family.
What type of charming characteristics do these mommy bloggers have in common?
Welcoming personality
The allure of mom blogs is their personality. These blogs (even when they become multi-author) have unique spins on popular topics. It makes sense considering they’re sharing a mix of great tips they’ve found and personal experiences. The blog benefits from having a person you can identify with (personality, politics, lifestyle, etc.).
Promotions v Content
The larger blogs tend to run more promotions. This is largely due to their authority (passionate community) and traffic (wooing brands).
Most of these promotions are A) items they received for free and want to give away, B) affiliated products, or C) sponsored. Their followers eat it up because who doesn’t like free stuff? Each promotion is usually tied to an entry requiring them to share or follow the blog – which builds new/repeat traffic.
Lifestyle-focused
There are thousands upon thousands of parenting books. What’s making these blogs different is their inclusion of lifestyle.
You’ve got fitness mommy bloggers. Holistic mommy bloggers. DIY mommy bloggers. Southern mommy bloggers. So on and so forth. These mothers find a unique angle – they’ve found a niche – and work that into content. It goes beyond parental tips. People want to be a part of this lifestyle.
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It all comes down to authenticity.
It’s impossible to fake considering mom bloggers are putting their lives out there. They detail the ups and downs. That makes the content appealing. There’s a realness to it all because it’s one-part journal, another part advice column.
How to Monetize a Mom Blog – 5 Money-Making Methods and Strategies
There are more ways to make money with a mom blog than slapping on advertisements. Or, reviewing products to make sweet affiliate marketing commissions. Should you do them all? Probably not. You’ll stretch yourself too thin chasing pennies instead of building a real business out of your mom blog.
What would we recommend? Let’s start with our main two (ads and affiliate marketing) then open up to three others worth adding:
Advertising
Advertising is the easiest way to monetize a mom blog since advertiser’s number the thousands in this niche and industry. Ad platforms take moments to join and provide autogenerated banner and text ads for your website. Soliciting ads are another option creating a one-on-one relationship with advertisers.
There are many options for including ads on your mom blog:
There’s an added benefit of running ads: research.
Advertising platforms use intelligent algorithms and filters to display the best ads based on your industry, keywords, and audience. These ads are gold for finding brands, products, and services.
Noticed repeat ads for a certain brand or product?
You could use this observation to cold email the brand and offer ato advertise on your blog. Doing so removes the third-party platform – a win/win for both mommy blogger and advertiser. The brand will provide ad copy/graphics to place on the blog and pay based on your ad guidelines.
Higher traffic = more ad revenue.
This will include money earned from ad clicks (e.g. Google Adsense). Or, charging a higher amount if you offer ads directly. You could offer different ad sizes and placement – each at variable costs. Set prices based on ad rate calculation or by looking at what other, comparable blogs are charging.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is getting paid to promote other people’s products (or services). It’s something you’re already doing on the mom blog. Whenever you recommend a product… you could make money by including an affiliate link to the product!
You could choose big programs or networks like:
Or, get specific by using affiliate programs in a niche:
The process is easy: sign up, grab your affiliate link, continue what you’re doing.
Let’s say you love the new stroller you bought at Walmart. You could find the page, grab the affiliate link to the stroller, and link it whenever it’s mentioned if you were part of the Walmart affiliate program. If someone clicks and buys the stroller, then you’ll earn a percentage from the sale (commission).
Being an affiliate doesn’t cost money nor does it increase the price for your followers. It’s a small “thank you” for helping the business sell products. You can scale this by updating old posts with new affiliate links – creating more opportunity to earn if people are finding your posts in the archives or in a search.
Sponsored Posts and Native Advertising
Sponsored posts are, essentially, giant adverts you’d accept in exchange for pay. The brand copywriters will create content pieces targeting your community with your personal brand in mind. This ensures the content is fluid with other posts you’re creating on the mommy blog.
Sponsored posts are a hit or miss so it’s important you’re selective about your screening – ask:
- Does this align with my brand and message?
- Would my community appreciate this?
- Is it overly promotional? Helpful enough?
It’s good practice to mark these content pieces as sponsored. You can include a blurb in the beginning or with a callout (author name or tag). This will sit well with Google and your community.
You can find sponsored content opportunities through:
Alternatively, you have native advertising.
Native advertising has similar parallels to sponsored posts. The main difference being that advertising sections are injected into a content piece of your creation. Mom blogs make money online with this method by sharing personal stories and product suggestions – a brand may want the mommy blogger to include a section talking about the product or service.
You can typically source native advertising opportunities through these same platforms. Else, reach out to brands to see if they’re willing to work with yours.
What should you charge?
It depends (traffic, audience, ETC) but set the bar high ($150-$300+ for most blogs). This may seem like a lot – but there’s a lot to risk. A bad relationship with another brand could upset your community and have them leaving in droves. Again, this is why you need to carefully screen these opportunities.
Sell Products or Services
Creating products and having extra time to offer services is a challenge when you’re spending so much of it working on the mommy blog. However, these two options typically lead to the biggest money-makers with mommy blogging.
- You’re monetizing the site with offers
- You’re building a stronger, professional brand
The likely avenue for most mommy bloggers monetizing their efforts will be with an info product such as a course or downloadable eBook. Smart mom bloggers will use a combination of blog stats and community feedback to pick the product topic. Then, they’ll outline, build the course, and begin offering it to their community through a series of promotional posts, banners, and internal links.
Consider the following when creating premium courses/info products:
These two eLearning platforms offer tools and resources for building your online course. They also include an affiliate backend. You can enlist your community to help promote the course through this option. Otherwise, you could add eCommerce to your site through Shopify to manage the cart and automatic delivery of deliverables.
You also have services.
The mommy blog also acts as a personal portfolio.
Content shares your skills as a blogger, parent, and with topics you cover. Are you particularly good at something? Funnel readers to a freelance services page! You could offer consulting services, too, for topics you cover – or like how many mom blogs make money online and help people set up a blog.
- Create new pages on your site for each service you’re offering
- Write a detailed description of what they’ll receive (and its benefits)
- Include a call-to-action to either get in touch or pay immediately
- Deliver on the service request, ask for a testimonial, and repeat
That wasn’t too hard, was it?
Donations
A lot of older sites used “tip jars” or a “buy me a coffee” back in the day. This died out because, honestly, people aren’t quick to pay for something they’re getting for free. However, it’s all coming back in a big way – especially with platforms like Patreon.
Patreon has made it chic (again) to support content creators.
All you’d need to do is sign up and set up a Patreon page. Then, detail what you plan to do with the funds along with rewards people get for supporting your efforts. You’d be amazed at how open people are with supporting content creators when they make and share great stuff!
There are other options besides Patreon, too:
- Drip (made by the Kickstarter people as a competitor to Patreon)
- Memberful (a minimalistic membership platform)
- Flattr (a tip jar type extension thingie followers can use to donate)
This should give you double incentive for providing actionable, motherly advice. It’ll also create a recurring revenue with your mom blog. The regular income could go toward new trips, items, and experiences your readers will love to read and see!
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There are plenty of other ways to make money with a mom blog, obviously, but these will likely be your main sources. Better to focus on these. You’ll find yourself mixing a lot, too. Such as getting free products to review from brands and sharing it via affiliate links – then doing a giveaway. Double dip!
The money will start to trickle.
More content equals more traffic. Get the traffic and you’ll build authority. It’ll also increase your exposure, potential affiliate clicks, donations, and so much more. Keep at it!
The Big Mommy Blog Monetization Element (They Won’t Tell You)
Here’s the thing:
Some mommy blogs are bought by marketing companies and reworked for their favor. You can usually see this when digging through archives – there’s a point where it goes from personal to overly promotional – and their personal posts become infrequent.
That’s nothing bad, per se, because it’s good to have a blog exit strategy.
Yet:
There’s a lot to learn from these blogs that “sold out”. Mainly, if you look at the website changes using The Wayback Machine by Archive.org. You can get a glimpse of the changes the new owners made. These changes have likely improved monetization efforts – items you could replicate on your mom blog.
What sort of things to replicate?
- Content topics that blended family life and brands
- Early brand relationships via giveaways that later became frequent
- Advertising, affiliate marketing, and sponsorships
- Teasing the community with a product idea, validating it, then launch
These mommy bloggers are smart.
They realize that blending family life and brand callouts would attract companies. These big companies monitor their social feeds and brand mentions. They have large budgets to put their products and services in front of the mommy blogger community – the type of community with a lot of free time and extra income to do honest reviews.
So, really there are two layers of the mom blog monetization:
- Upfront promotions (ads, affiliate, donations, sales)
- Backend networking (freebies, sponsorship, site sale)
Knowing this reinforces the idea that your mom blog is a business.
You’re building a passionate community, promoting great products (i.e. content), and building a list. You have the podium. Brands go crazy for it – they want in – and this join partnership is where the big money is made from mommy blogging.
Thinking about Starting a Mom Blog to Make Money Online?
It’s amazing to see what these moms are doing with their blogging efforts. They’re bringing great content to their community, stellar parenting insights, and actionable activities. It’s no wonder they’re able to make money mommy blogging – they’ve got everything a great blog needs.
Maybe you’re reading this to monetize your blog. Or, maybe you’re thinking of starting one. There’s a lot of competition but here’s the thing… there’s always room for more! It’s not like people aren’t going to stop having children, right?
Here’s the basic if you wanted to start a profitable mom blog:
- Start a blog (with a personal touch)
- Create share-worthy content people love
- Get active on social and build a following
- Build traffic by networking and outreach
- Contact interested brands about promo opportunities
- Join the best affiliate programs and add offers
- Make an information product you would buy
The first few steps are super easy (and don’t cost a lot). The others will take effort, but you’ll eventually get there with enough experience. These are the type of things you learn as you go. Considering how welcoming the mommy blog crowd is – we don’t think you’ll have too much trouble building a community!
Final Thoughts (and Conclusion) on Making Money with a Mom Blog
Isn’t it wonderful how these opportunities are available these days? Before, it was either stay at home or try to balance work and family life. Now, the two can blend by monetizing the fun activities and experiences one gets when raising a child.
The kid(s) benefit from having a parent around – the family grows because there’s extra income. There are some mommy bloggers making tens of thousands of dollars each month! Even on the low end – say $200 – $500 extra a month – is nothing to scoff at considering it could pay one or two big bills!
Let us know what you think about our coverage how mom blogs make money online.
Did we miss anything? Should we explain it better? We want to build the ultimate resource for mommy bloggers – so be sure to leave a comment and share!
