Blogging is a great way to share your opinions and expertise with the rest of the online world, but most bloggers don’t want to do it for free. Sure, there is a certain responsibility you feel to your readers, but that won’t drive you forever. You should be looking to gain some cold hard cash for your efforts. After all, you are providing a service. Monetizing a blog can be done in several ways. Sometimes you can utilize all of these methods, sometimes just a few. The goal is to maintain a professional appearance while you make money.
Google Adsense
It doesn’t really matter what your blog is about, Google has an ad for it. By attractively placing a few Google ads on your blog you could start down the gold paved road to internet riches. Obviously, the amount of money you make will be determined by the focus of your website and the amount of visitors you get. A popular money management site is going to do better than a blog dedicated to pumpkin farming. There just aren’t too many advertisers selling pumpkin farming ads. Whether or not Adsense is going to represent a large part of your internet earnings, it isn’t something you should ignore.
Affiliate Links
Properly placed affiliate links within the text of your blog can bring in a flood of cash. These links should be related to the topic of your conversation. If you are the writer of a review blog, this is where most of your earnings will come from. People who are already interested in the product will be reading your review of it. If they are still intrigued afterwards, they may click on the link and purchase the item. You should avoid placing more than a couple affiliate links within a post. The search engines, and your readers, won’t appreciate it.
Hosting Advertising
If you have a successful
blog, other blogs within your niche will want a piece of that success. They may even be willing to pay you for it. You can join a community like "BuySellAds" where you can sell your advertising space to potential buyers. You should also create a page that allows people to contact you with advertising offers. This will open up your business to buyers who may not be active sites like "BuySellAds".
Text Advertising
Text advertisers, such as "Kontera" and "Infolinks", are similar to Adsense in the service they offer to their customers. The look they provide to your site will be much different. When someone hovers their mouse over one of the links, an advertisement will pop up. This type of ad can be annoying to some, so make sure you aren’t losing readers by placing this on your site. Another downside to text advertising is the payout. You won’t make nearly as much as you can with Adsense with this advertising. Use text advertising as a supplement to your other programs.
Referral Links
Sometimes you may have the opportunity to provide your readers with a link to a service that you are currently using. You may be able to use a referral link and earn a bit of money when someone joins. These links are similar to affiliate links, but they are not the same. With referral links, you may be able to earn money from one referral indefinitely. This is because some referrals don’t pay for sign ups, rather actions. If your referral is active enough, you could make a lot of money from them. Gather enough of these referrals and you might be able to set up a nice stream of passive income.
The most important key to monetizing your blog is retaining readers. Without loyal readers, your monetization efforts will be in vain. You can retain your readers by making sure you don’t cover your entire blog with ugly advertising. Make sure your site looks professional, and don’t get caught up in the quest for green.
Google Adsense
It doesn’t really matter what your blog is about, Google has an ad for it. By attractively placing a few Google ads on your blog you could start down the gold paved road to internet riches. Obviously, the amount of money you make will be determined by the focus of your website and the amount of visitors you get. A popular money management site is going to do better than a blog dedicated to pumpkin farming. There just aren’t too many advertisers selling pumpkin farming ads. Whether or not Adsense is going to represent a large part of your internet earnings, it isn’t something you should ignore.
Affiliate Links
Properly placed affiliate links within the text of your blog can bring in a flood of cash. These links should be related to the topic of your conversation. If you are the writer of a review blog, this is where most of your earnings will come from. People who are already interested in the product will be reading your review of it. If they are still intrigued afterwards, they may click on the link and purchase the item. You should avoid placing more than a couple affiliate links within a post. The search engines, and your readers, won’t appreciate it.
Hosting Advertising
If you have a successful
Text Advertising
Text advertisers, such as "Kontera" and "Infolinks", are similar to Adsense in the service they offer to their customers. The look they provide to your site will be much different. When someone hovers their mouse over one of the links, an advertisement will pop up. This type of ad can be annoying to some, so make sure you aren’t losing readers by placing this on your site. Another downside to text advertising is the payout. You won’t make nearly as much as you can with Adsense with this advertising. Use text advertising as a supplement to your other programs.
Referral Links
Sometimes you may have the opportunity to provide your readers with a link to a service that you are currently using. You may be able to use a referral link and earn a bit of money when someone joins. These links are similar to affiliate links, but they are not the same. With referral links, you may be able to earn money from one referral indefinitely. This is because some referrals don’t pay for sign ups, rather actions. If your referral is active enough, you could make a lot of money from them. Gather enough of these referrals and you might be able to set up a nice stream of passive income.
The most important key to monetizing your blog is retaining readers. Without loyal readers, your monetization efforts will be in vain. You can retain your readers by making sure you don’t cover your entire blog with ugly advertising. Make sure your site looks professional, and don’t get caught up in the quest for green.
Bruno
Bruno is an an experienced web entrepreneur and social media marketing consultant who is always seeking new ways to make money online. At the moment his hobby is dogs and he owns several Hunderaser. He is blogging about Rottweiler dogs in a Norwegian Rottweiler forum.
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