How to Blog Anonymously And Still Make Money

When I first started blogging, I was terrified to show my face in any way.

I was afraid of what my friends and family would think of me.

Now, after I’ve been blogging for years, I have no issues showing my face online.

But, I don’t show current pictures of my twins, and if I do, I work on not showing their face as much.

I want to protect my family and since this is my blog, I can control what I show.

I enjoy making YouTube videos and interacting with my audience every chance I get.

There are many reasons why someone would choose to blog anonymously rather than show their face.

But the real question is…can they still make money doing it?

Let’s take a look at how to blog anonymously and still make money!

Should You Show Your Face?

When I first started a blog I wanted to protect my kids from the internet and was afraid of what people would think of me for putting myself and my family out there.

But as the years have gone on, I have gotten over my camera shyness and thoroughly enjoy being online and interacting with my audience.

Now you may not want to show your face on your blog for many different reasons.

Perhaps you are blogging about things are rather personal – an eating disorder or addiction problems – and you don’t want other people to actually know who you are.

Or maybe you are starting a blog and you won’t want your boss or coworkers to know about it.

Or, you might be blogging as a super secret side gig that you don’t want your partner/friends/family to know about.

This is what I faced in the beginning – and still do, at times.

To be honest, my extended family have no clue what I do. I only told my sister recently and I don’t talk about my blog and business to my aunts, uncles and cousins.

And, you know what? I’m still successful!

Whatever the reason, it’s ok, you don’t have to justify it to anyone.

You don’t have to put your entire life online in order to make money blogging.

I know, it can certainly look like that when you look at other “influencers” and it looks like they post about everything!

Advantages and Disadvantages to Blogging Anonymously

One of the biggest advantages of blogging anonymously is your writing is strictly judged on your writing rather than your age, gender, lifestyle, or who you are.

Did you know JK Rawling kept her identity secret for this very reason?

And just look how much money she has made (She’s worth about $1.1 billion in case you were wondering).

Authors use pseudonyms all the time for many reasons.

Often they do this if they are writing in a new genre and they don’t want people to judge their new work based on their previous work.

But how does this apply to blogging?

You can do the exact same thing authors do.

Use a pseudonym or fake name in your writing.

Come up with a funny title for yourself.

One that comes to mind is Mr. Money Mustache.

While he isn’t exactly anonymous, he doesn’t post much about himself, personally, or his family.

He refers to his kids as “Little MM.”

Another advantage of anonymous blogging is you can write about more sensitive topics without experiencing any backlash IRL.

But what about the disadvantages?

If you do indeed want to “make a name” for yourself one day, starting out anonymously might not be the best idea.

If you aren’t writing about sensitive topics, your work isn’t going to care about your blog, and if you don’t care what your friends and family are going to think of you, then there really isn’t any need to hide who you truly are.

But that is your decision to make.

So, if you decide to hide behind the curtain, can you still make money?

Of course!

Quick Tips to Blog Anonymously

If you decide to blog anonymously there are some things you can do when you start a blog so that people won’t know your name or what you look like.

Here are some quick tips to follow if that is what you want.

When setting up an email account for your blog, name your email your blog name. For example: twinsmommy(@)gmail.com
On your About Me page, you can talk about your blog and not mention your name. Here’s and example from the Stay At Home Mom Community.

If you are okay with sharing your name, only share your first name or a nickname.
Or, use a pseudonym
Once you start your WordPress site, don’t use your name as the user profile for WordPress. You can use the blog name instead so when you comment on blog posts, it will show up your blog name instead of “admin” or your real name.
Go ahead and use a logo or an avatar for your Gravatar.
Don’t have an author bio at the end of each blog post
Consider opening up your blog to contributors so that your site looks like a community

Okay! Now that you have some quick tips to help you blog anonymously, let’s look at how bloggers make money and how an anonymous blogger makes money!

How Do Bloggers Make Money?

When discussing how you can blog anonymously and still make money, we need to look at how bloggers make money in the first place.

No matter what type of blog niche you are writing in, there are likely several ways you can make money.

If you want to know how I make money, check out my Youtube video on my different income streams.

1. Ads

Ads are one of the simplest ways bloggers can make money.

Just sign up with an ad network, put some code or a plugin on your site and you can start running ads.

Certain ad networks pay more than others and you can add ads to your site almost immediately.

I use Mediavine for my ad agency, but you do need 50,000 page sessions (like pageviews) to apply for Mediavine.

The great thing about ads is you certainly can remain anonymous.

The only person you really need to interact with is your ads account manager to help you get things set up.

I use ads on my several of my sites and they all make great income.

If you need help once you are in Mediavine, check out my post on boosting your Mediavine income.

2. Sponsors

Sponsorships are a great way to make a good income from your blog.

While it might be a little more difficult to make money from a sponsor if you are writing anonymously, it’s not impossible.

This should be something you discuss with your potential sponsor though.

Some sponsors really like to work with influencers and have their face tied to their brand, while others might not care if you do not show your face.

3. Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is another great way to make a ton of income from your blog.

Pretty much any product has an affiliate offer nowadays.

Blogging about working from home? Become an Amazon affiliate and promote work from home products.

Blogging about pets? Become an affiliate for your favorite online pet retailer.

Just as with making money from ads, there generally is not a need to show your face when you are promoting affiliate offers.

While this certainly can help when people see you, it’s not totally necessary.

Let’s go back to our work from home example.

You can write an anonymous post about the best standing desks to use while working from home.

Here you could insert several affiliate links from Amazon, Wayfair, Overstock, or similar retailers and earn an affiliate commission whenever someone buys something from that blog post.

If you don’t want to show your face but are ok with doing a voice over, you can even make videos for YouTube, shorts, reels, stories, and TikToks showing products and linking to them for people to purchase.

For more affiliate programs, check out my post here.

4. Create an Online Course

Are you knowledgeable about a certain topic and want to create a course on it?

Great!

Your audience is sure to love whatever course you put out.

The great thing about it, you don’t have to show your face. You can put together a simple course on platforms like Teachable and just use PDFs, or add a voiceover with instructional videos if you are comfortable with that.

Courses are great for aggregating your knowledge and building an extra income stream.

5. Consulting or Services

Many bloggers offer consulting or other types of services.

This is another great way to share their knowledge and add another stream of revenue.

While it’s more likely you are going to have to share your identity when you are consulting, there are ways around it.

If you are set on offering consulting services, you could do Zoom calls and just not do video.

You could also offer consulting services via text message or email.

There are many other types of services you could offer, other than consulting, that are a bit more anonymous.

If you are blogging, it’s a good chance you like writing. You can offer ghostwriting services to other bloggers.

You can also offer things like social media marketing, copywriting, copyediting, email marketing services, and so on.

As long as potential clients can see your work and your results, that should be what matters.

6. Memberships

Memberships in the blogging community is simply offering your audience something of value they are willing to pay for on a recurring basis.

For example, a weekly meal plan, one-on-one access to the blogger, Facebook group memberships, ongoing memberships to courses and so on.

If you are not going to be showing your face, again there are other ways around this.

Similar to creating courses or consulting, you can still make money and be successful without ever showing your face.

7. Products

There are thousands of things you can make and sell online.

From DIY crafts you can sell at home to creating online courses to sell to your audience.

Creating your own products as a blogger is just one more way to create a revenue stream.

You can create merchandise with your logo or pseudonym, or just even sayings your audience can relate to.

Have a mom blog, create merchandise for moms. T-shirts with funny mom sayings on them, mugs with humorous antics, or custom home products featuring their kids.

Printables are always a hot selling item! Need some ideas to get started?

Check out Etsy for fun, easy, and profitable printable ideas.

Yes, You Can Still Make Money Blogging Anonymously

As you can see, you can still make money blogging anonymously.

People have built entire businesses and audiences without ever showing their faces.

There is a blogger and well-known individual in the cryptocurrency space that goes by the pseudonym “PlanB.”

The only thing people really know about him is he is an institutional investor from the Netherlands (or at least that is what he tells people).

He blogs, he’s on Twitter, he appears on podcasts…all without ever showing his face, only his avatar or logo.

Artists do this often as well, creating entire businesses without ever showing their faces.

It’s not always about the person who is creating the work, it is about the work itself.

So if you want to make money blogging but are afraid to put yourself or your family online, there are ways around it.

Tell me in the comments if you blog anonymously and what you do to keep your life private.

Please remember to pin me!