How to Monetize a WordPress Blog In 2025

Thinking about making money with a WordPress blog? If so, chances are you’re considering launching your own website.

You’re probably wondering how long it takes to build a profitable site. Can you actually make money on WordPress? And what are the best ways to monetize it?

Starting a website from scratch can feel overwhelming, especially if you’ve never done it before. I’ve been there.

Back in 2021, I had no idea how to turn a website into a reliable income stream. I was hesitant to invest my time and energy into something so uncertain. Even with my marketing background—helping businesses build their online presence—creating something of my own felt like a much bigger challenge.

Fast forward four years, and I’ve grown my Medium blog to over 20,000 followers with thousands of monthly views. That journey gave me the confidence to launch this website, where I share my marketing insights with you.

In this post, I’ll walk you through how to start and monetize a WordPress blog.

No fluff, no empty promises—just real strategies, real numbers, and lessons from my own experience.

1. Google AdSense

Over 90% of internet users are exposed to Google display ads or banner ads, according to Power Traffick. 

Businesses, whether they sell to other businesses (B2B) or directly to consumers (B2C), rely heavily on Google Ads and social media ads to connect with their ideal customers. They use a mix of strategies, like teaming up with influencers, running short-term promo campaigns, and blending ads naturally into content.

Here’s a native ads example from Smartyads:

Perhaps this is why ad spending is expected to show an annual growth rate of 8.78% by 2025, according to Statista.

What does this data mean?

It shows an opportunity you, as a website owner, should not neglect.  

Ads help website owners monetize their websites and get paid for their hard work. Three types of websites generate good ad revenue, according to Google:

• Blog pages
• Forum pages
• Free online tool sites

If you want to make money blogging on WordPress, you fall under the first category. You can advertise on your WordPress site, make WordPress ad revenue, and show relevant advertisements for your users. 

Google AdSense calculator shows approximately how much you can make if you monetize your website by running ads. 
Let’s take my website as an example. According to Google Adsense, my website falls under the category “Work and Education” or “Business Industries.” If I had around 50,000 monthly visitors, here is how much I could make by monetizing my WordPress blog.

If you wonder how much you can get paid for blogging on WordPress, here are the most profitable niches in the USA in 2021, according to Semrush and Ahrefs studies.

Google pays you for every ad click from your website and takes a small commission from every click.

In short, the logic is the following: the more unique and narrow your website niche is, the higher could be your ad revenue.

How to use Google AdSense on WordPress

Can you use AdSense on WordPress and add ads in WordPress? Yes, you can advertise on WordPress! 

Google provides a detailed guide on how to set up Google AdSense. In short, you’ll have to register on the Google AdSense platform, add a small piece of code to your website and wait for verification. 

It usually takes up to 24 hours (it might take longer) if your website complies with Google rules. You have to be older than 18 years old. Your website should be older than six months.

No Google spam filter applied, no duplicate content, no black hat strategies used for traffic acquisition, no invalid clicks, no deceptive site navigation, etc. 

Setting up a Google AdSense account is free!

You don’t have to pay anything to monetize your WordPress website. Besides, you don’t have to create any advertisements yourself.

Instead, Google will do it for you!  Once you are enrolled in the program, your WordPress website will provide you with a steady passive income. 

If your website has at least 1000 visitors per month, go ahead and join the program!

Meanwhile, continue publishing high-quality content and promoting your website. It will help you improve its performance and increase WordPress ad revenue.

2. Affiliate marketing: $8.8k from my small website in 2024 

If you’ve been following me, you might know I often share updates about my website’s organic growth and how AI and Google updates shaped its performance last year. 

But one thing I’ve rarely discussed is how my website makes money. 

Monetization wasn’t my primary goal in 2024, so it didn’t get much of the spotlight.

In the past year, my main focus was helping my clients improve their organic search visibility. I’m incredibly grateful for working with amazing companies and recognizable brands like Fiverr, beehiiv, and Copilot, to name a few.

In my spare time, I’ve also worked a bit on my side hustles:

• My newsletter
• My website
• My Medium blog
• My ebooks

It was definitely hard to balance between my side hustles and my client business.

Clients always came first, but I couldn’t imagine giving up any of my side projects — they bring me so much joy.

To my surprise, despite limited time, my website earned $8,841.57 in 2024 through affiliate marketing and sponsorships. This was unexpected, considering I only published 12 blog posts and updated a few existing pages last year.

I didn’t even touch link-building! Yet, somehow, things worked out. 

Here’s a quick breakdown of my affiliate and sponsorship earnings for the year:

I’m sure you are curious about what has worked well for me. So, here are the insights.

1. Google recognized the effort

If you run a website, you’ve probably noticed how unpredictable Google has been lately. 

Last year, there were seven major algorithm updates, shaking up search rankings like never before. 

Even big, established websites weren’t safe — some saw their top-ranking spots vanish overnight.

Many site owners and SEOs believed that a strong domain authority guaranteed that no Google updates would ever hit a website.

But 2024 proved that idea wrong.

I was shocked to see big names like Forbes and Quora losing their organic traffic and falling from top positions. 

But here’s the thing: when some lose, others win.

Surprisingly, Google started experimenting with search results, giving smaller, lesser-known websites a chance to shine.

And that’s exactly what happened to my site!

After Google’s August Core Update and December Spam Update, a few of my pages hit the top positions, doubling my organic traffic! 

Now, my site gets over 10,000 visitors every month. 

Over half of that traffic lands on one specific page, AI SEO tools I published in January 2024.

That post has been a steady traffic driver — and it’s also responsible for the majority of the affiliate commissions I earned last year.

Honestly, I love this business model:

1. Write a high-quality, optimized blog post.
2. Let it rank.
3. Monetize it with affiliate links.
4. Watch the passive income roll in.

However, that’s not a magic formula that works for everyone. 

I’ve seen website owners devastated by Google updates, watching their traffic vanish. 

It’s heartbreaking when something you’ve built gets hit. But taking risks is part of building a successful website.

In my experience, you’ll do absolutely well if you understand how Google works and what it seeks — something I’ve explained in detail in my SEO ebook. 

Google’s primary goal is to serve users with helpful content that will answer their questions (besides staying profitable, obviously). 

We can have a long debate about whether it sticks to that mission, but I firmly believe that it does try to figure out which content is worth showing to users among millions of pages written with a single goal — to rank. 

At the end of the day, it’s super easy to please Google if you create content that adds value to readers. 

That’s been my edge, and Google has noticed!

Looking ahead, I believe SEO and personal branding will go hand in hand. I even wrote a detailed post about it recently.

What Content Creators Must Know About Using AI for SEO in 2025

This means faceless content won’t stick. 

Instead, content backed by a recognizable personal brand and authority will thrive.

So, if you plan to start and grow a website in 2025, keep this in mind. And if you’re not sure where to begin, check out my SEO bundle to get started.

2. Priority to money-making topics 

Traffic means nothing if it doesn’t help your business grow.

Period.

That’s a tough lesson I learned after running my website for years. It drained my energy, but didn’t pay the bills.

When I started, my main goal was to experiment with marketing and SEO strategies. But let’s be honest — I also wanted to see some financial return for my efforts. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t happening. And the reason? I was targeting the wrong topics.

Most of my content was purely informational. Sure, I made a few ebook sales here and there, but nothing consistent. It took me a while to realize that I needed to shift my focus to topics with commercial search intent.

That’s when I started writing tool reviews, creating tool alternatives lists, and diving deep into tool comparisons.

Slowly but surely, things started to turn around. I started getting affiliate commissions— nothing huge at first, but enough to make a difference.

By 2024, I was having $500–$1,000+ months. 

For instance, my partnership with Semrush brought in over $3,700 that year alone!

It wasn’t an overnight success, but it proved the power of aligning content with business goals.

That’s just one example of a partnership that showed me it’s totally possible to earn a decent income from my website.

Fun fact: my website pretty much runs on the Pareto Principle — 20% of my pages bring in 80% of the income.

So, if you’re busy building and monetizing your website this year, remember that not every page will be a hit. Some might fall flat, while others take off.

And if you don’t have a website but want to learn how to make money writing online, my Writer Bundle has all the answers!

3. Search engine optimization is key 

I saved SEO for last on this list, but it’s key to why my website does well in organic search. 

Even the most amazing content won’t rank or perform if it’s not optimized.

I’ve lost count of how many small website owners and big brands I’ve seen publish random content that didn’t help them achieve their goals. 

Sure, Google’s pretty smart at figuring out what your content is about, but it’s still up to you to ensure your content ranks for the right keywords.

That’s why I never skip keyword research and always plan my content for at least a quarter ahead. 

In fact, I’ve already kicked off my 2025 content plan with an expert post on AI marketing tools.

If you wonder how to write optimized blog posts that hit the Google front page, I’ve shared my SEO writing process and tips in my SEO ebook. 

What you should know before launching a blog on WordPress

Now, let me share a few more thoughts about some of the most frequently asked questions. 

Is WordPress free? 

WordPress is free to use as a CMS or content management system. All you have to do is download and use it. 

However, your final goal is to have a website up and running. In this case, you’ll have to add the costs of a domain name, web hosting, website theme (if you choose a paid one), and set-up costs. I paid over $200 to set up my WordPress blog with a simple website theme. 

Is WordPress legit? 

In short, yes! WordPress is the most popular content management system. WordPress accounts for over 62% of all websites that use CMS, according to Techjury.

Over 455 million sites relied on WordPress for publishing in 2021, including TechCrunch, TED, CNN, and Spotify use WordPress. 

Why is WordPress so popular? Many website owners love it for its simplicity. You don’t need to study manuals to understand WordPress functionality. Besides, you can publish a new page in seconds. 

I run my website on WordPress and could not be happier. It allows me to share my experience and message with people worldwide and get paid for doing what I love.