by Ogi Djuraskovic and FirstSiteGuide team (Last updated: November 12, 2018)
In order to maximize the monetary return from your content, you must first maximize the pleasure in reading it
In this guide, you will learn how to prepare your blog for monetization. And master tried-and-true strategies to make money for new and established blogs.
If one of the driving factors for starting a blog was to make money online, then this guide is for you. For those who work full-time jobs, earning money from your blog is an excellent way to generate side income. For those who plan on making a living by blogging, it’s possible to achieve and make it a regular source of revenue.
Before you start making money, you will have to master the following steps:
Bio: Pat is the creator of The Smart Passive Income, a very successful website and podcast where he provides useful online business tips and real world examples of his own income.
#1: Relationships matter more than anything! Relationships with your audience and having them understand you, to know you, like you and trust you needs to happen before any sort of transactions can happen.
#2: Start with the problem, not the solution. A lot of people try to say ‘oh I’m going to build an online course’ or ‘I’m going to create a software solution’ but without diving into the problems first… You need to understand what the problems are that you’re solving before you can build the right solution or put yourself on the right platform in order to understand how to actually deliver something that people will want to pay for.
#3: Read my book “Will It Fly”. Because it can help you understand how to validate your product ideas first before you actually spend money and time on them to help you run through a series of litmus tests so you can understand what actually your audience will eventually pay for versus trying to just guess what those things are ahead of time.
Bio: Jeff has been writing most of his life. He’s an author of four books, and he helps other writers and creative individuals find their passion and share it with the world through his award-winning blog, books he wrote, speeches he delivers and online courses he teaches.
Bio: Founder of The Nectar Collective, a go-to hub for creatives who want to improve their lives, their blogs, and their budding businesses.
#1: Grow your email list. Your email list is where you’ll connect with potential clients and customers the most. Start growing your email list sooner than later. A great way to get more sign-ups is to offer something for free (i.e. a “lead magnet) to your subscribers. Make sure that whatever you’re offering is something you’re ideal customer would want.
#2: Create a service or product. I believe blogs are moving away from earning their main income from ads and affiliate sales. Now, bloggers earn their income from services and products. How can you combine your experience and passion to create something that people would want?
#3: Create highly niche/specific posts where you suggest a product (that you love) and add affiliate links. Creating highly specific posts will help you rank higher in search engines because you’ll be targeting people more efficiently. Once they visit your post and purchase the product you’re suggesting, you’ll make a commission. I have a post like this that earns me $1,500+ each month and I don’t have to do anything since the post is already written. It is truly passive income.
Bio: I created this website to help you learn and use all the ideas and strategies I find to get more customers for your business. There is lots of hype and complex techniques out there, but let’s ignore all that.
Monetizing your blog is one of the hardest things you have to do when you are starting out so I want to give you some tips that have really helped me.
Many people will tell you to use Adsense, but unless you have a serious amount of traffic on your site, this is not the first thing you should consider. Instead I would start with affiliate marketing. There are a whole bunch of options from Amazon, ClickBank and Commission Junction to specific people, courses or products that are being sold in your niche. The percentage commission varies too. But my main piece of advise is to only sell things you truly endorse and would use yourself. Otherwise you will get a name for promoting anything just to make money.
The other area that is great when you are starting out is selling services or courses and ebooks. Normally you start a blog or website based on something you know, so it follows that you can share some of your knowledge and expertise with your audience. You can start at the bottom, with simple ebooks (which can also be sold on Amazon) and build up to video courses (even on Udemy) and services.
Bio: David is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new Blogger Outreach software for marketers. He writes about business and entrepreneurship at SelfMadeBusinessman, and enjoys travel.
#1: Create a product – Inevitably if you want to make a lot of money, you need your own product. This allows you to control the marketing, the price, and take 100% of the commissions.
#2: Start small – I recommend starting small with something like an ebook, or a small info product/course. This allows you to get your feet wet and learn more about your audience, what they want to buy, and what goes into a product launch.
#3: Build an email list – This is considered fairly mandatory for any type of product sales. Focus on list building.
Bio: Virtual Assistant, serial blogger and subscription box addict. Love social marketing. Owner of a home business blog on a mission to make you successful. Helping you make money from home…and keep It!
#1: Choose your programs wisely. Don’t sign up for every affiliate program you come across in hopes you will get to it someday or because you heard someone else makes a lot of money on it. Start with a few trusted merchants you love and can incorporatenaturally into your content.
#2: Don’t just focus on creating new content. Dig into your stats to find your most popular posts and start monetizing those with relevant affiliate links.
#3: Don’t bother signing up for programs you only plan to promote once. Instead, use a service like VigLink to affiliate those links. You will still make money on resulting sales. If you find it’s performing well, you can always sign up for the affiliate program directly later on. This is also a great way to monetize if you aren’t yet big enough to get accepted by premium partners you want to promote.
Bio: I am a senior digital marketer and blogger, Pulpify Co-Founder and creator of WPSNIFFER and Sexy Author Bio.
#1: Only promote products you have used and believe in personally.
#2: Focus on growing your mailing list.
#3: Track success with Google’s Tag Manager and optimize continuously with Google Analytics.
You need to establish and maintain trust, without it you won’t get anywhere. In addition you need to diversify your audience acquisition, the best channel by far is your own mailing list so make it high priority. Relying on a few key traffic channels is too risky. Use Google’s Tag Manager in conjunction with Google’s Universal Analytics to track every form of success you can and identify ways to continuously optimize your results. The more good data you have to act upon the better.
Bio: I started blogging in 1998 as a technology blogger completely as a hobby. That hobby blog turned into its own company, and turned into a six-figure blog-based business with an editorial staff and multiple products within a few years.
#1: Orient your blog around a central transformation – and that transformation is something your prospect wants to become or achieve. The beginning of the transformation is where they’re at right now – and on the other end is where (or who, or what) they want to be. All of your content – and your PRODUCTS – would be aligned with moving them along this transformation.
#2: When you have a few products that deliver this transformation, you set them up to sell in a sales funnel. Start off with a low-ticket offer in order to turn email subscribers into customers. $10 or less is best for most markets. Then, work on getting them to take a higher-ticket core offer (I prefer a membership site of some kind).
#3: Treat affiliate marketing as a way to maximize profit, but not the foundation of your monetization. The way to build your business and income is for YOU to get the customers. Banner ads and affiliate marketing send your visitors off to somebody else. For that reason, it isn’t the foundation of a good monetization strategy.
Bio: Creator of ShoutMeLoud, an award-winning blog popular among bloggers who are ready to learn the tricks of the trade to turning a blog into a successful business.
#1: AdSense
NO brainer this is the simplest & authentic way to monetize your blog. This is the first ad monetization network almost 70% of bloggers around the globe try. Reason being:
-It’s from Google -Ad quality is high -They pay in time
#2: Affiliate Marketing
This is recommended for anyone who want to make a living with their blog. Affiliate marketing can do wonders, and out of my $12000/month earning, more than 80% is from Affiliate marketing. You can see the complete breakdown of my income here..
#3: Launch your product
This is something I started implementing recently, and launched few products :
eBook WordPress Theme Premium WordPress plugin
And I’m glad I did. DigitalProduct have great future, and it gives recurring income. More over, these days it’s easy to launch your own digital download store. You can use plugin like EasyDigitalDownloads to launch a store on WordPress. You can see a live example here..
Bio: WP Dev Shed develops free WordPress themes, and our blog aims to help WordPress webmasters build and market better websites.
#1: Focus on quality of traffic, not quantity. You will make more by focusing your content on a narrow niche and going deep. This will attract a very specific audience which is much easier to monetize than a general audience. There is so much content online today that people are just not impressed by generalities, they are searching for real depth and quality. You won’t be able to differentiate your self with a wide range of general content…go deep on something specific and you will attract much more attention.
#2: Forget about Adsense. Google Adsense can be decent source of income for sites with a high volume of organic search traffic, but for a new site it will be pennies and will only serve as a distraction. If you focus on a tight niche and deliver great content, even a small audience will make you more through affiliate marketing of relevant products and services.
#3: Remarketing. Remarketing is a great way to make the most of all the traffic you get to your site. Set up remarketing tags for Facebook and Twitter and you will be able to market your latest content to recent visitors who are the most likely people to engage with. Remarketing can be done very cheaply and is also a great way to grow your social channels too (in addition to building an email list of course!).
Bio: Ramon is a celebrated author, speaker, technology evangelist passionate about helping small businesses grow their businesses by educating them about technology and marketing best practices, hence the birth of SmallBizTechnology. You can also find him at Smart Hustle.
My Top Monetization Tips are a bit more than three, but they are exactly what every blogger should hold on to, by my opinion and it will definitely get results!
Bio: UKs No1 Personal Development blogger with over 40,000 subscribers, and 200,000 pageviews per month. He is the creator of CYTGuides.com and has written and produced 11 personal development products, and authored 4 books.
#1: E-Mail Signups
The main goal of your blog should be to give amazing, quality information on a consistent basis. For that
you will need to know your audience and what they are looking for. Obviously a business person looking
for info on starting a business will prefer longer more detailed blog posts than someone who is looking
for a quick read in the personal development niche. Once you have consistent, high quality articles, your readers will start to sign up for your newsletter, which should be a priority you. Whenever someone signs up for your newsletter you can then send them out information on your blog posts, your personal journey, and of course your new products.
#2: Google Adsense Ads
A lot of bloggers have been turned off from Google Adsense and I don’t understand why. I think it’s because they think readers will be turned off from the ads in the posts, however this is not the case as long term readers develop an ad blindness and just read your work, whereas ‘passers by’ are the ones more likely to click the ads.
Having said that, with the proliferation of advertisers using ‘retargetting’ ads, you will find that even long term readers start to click the ads therefore giving you more adsense revenue.I don’t feel there’s anything wrong at all in putting ads on your site as you are spending a hell of a lot of time writing and developing your blog, so why not make it work for you at the same time.
#3: Advertising Your Own Products
This is a must if you have your own products out there. Putting simple ads in the sidebar and having a product page is a good way to bring in extra money.if you don’t have your own products you can advertise products you’ve personally used and you can sell them as an affiliate – depending on the amount of traffic you get you can make a lot of money from doing this.
Bio: This blog is dedicated to showing others how to save money and live a frugal lifestyle. I also enjoy writing about ways to make money, and show people how they can supplement their income to build a savings account.
#1: Placing ads on your blog.
#2: Connecting with brands for sponsored campaigns.
#3: Using affiliate marketing.
Placing ads on your blog is an easy way to earn money from your blog, but you want to make sure you take the time to optimize the ads to increase your earnings. Working with brands can help bring a new revenue stream while still maintaining your voice through your blog, and affiliate marketing is a great way to earn commission on products that you recommend to your readers.
Bio: Christina is a speaker, educator, mentor and Internet marketing expert to non-techie entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to build an online business using WordPress as their website. She puts the fun into teaching technology and empower business owners to be in full control of their marketing and online presence.
#1: Utilize your blog to constantly get your message out. Getting your message out enables you to attract your ideal clients/customers. And a blog is a perfect platform that allows you to do just that quickly and easily.
#2: Make it easy for the readers to share your posts on social media. Blog posts can be easily shared on social media especially if you provide sharing tools/plugins for that, and that will allow you to get more exposure in other communities.
#3: Encourage people to opt in for your email list on your blog. You can use your email list to further build and nurture relationships with your readers. Then via emails, you can drive them back to your website to purchase your products and services.
Bio: I’ve been working online since 1998 – I am a creator of the Profitable Popularity method and my deepest goal in my business is to help my clients streamline their businesses so they are efficiently making more money and creating more impact. Most of the time, this involves simplifying and improving rather than adding more.
#1: Promote affiliate offers. These are often simple to get started with and can be an easy first step to creating income from your blog. Just be sure to sign up with a reputable network and promote a content relevant offer.
#2: Sell a small, simple product of your own. If you make jewelry or crafts, you can offer your own products for sale right away. Otherwise, you can look at develop a small information product that you can sell. This is a good strategy if you can easily create a product and can figure out the technical aspects of getting it online and for sale.
#3: Offer an introductory service. Is there something you could easily teach or show others how to do, or do for them? These would make excellent introductory services to sell from your blog.
Bio: I love doing things in PHP, blogging and writing articles. I have developed a couple of applications in the Wood sector, Money Transfer and social medial.companies in my country.
#1: Review Affiliate Products.
#2: Sell your own products.
#3: Sponsored post.
The best way to monetize your blog is promote and sell your own products. The simple reason is you can cut down prices, run special offers and boost sales while keeping 100% profit. With PLR and a lot more resources, it’s becoming quite easy to create and own a product.
Affiliate Marketing has always been the a top income generator especially for those marketers who don’t have a product. Reviewing affiliate products on your blog is an important way to monetize it. I recommend you focus on affiliate products that pay recurring commissions so you make money month after month on autopilot.
The third method I recommend you try out is sponsored posts. You get paid upfront to review a product and tell your readers about it. Depending on your traffic and exposure, you could make something between $50 and $5000 per post.
Bio: I started blogging for passion, which turned now into a steady income online. I run several niche sites about different topics – how to make money online, internet, local and affiliate marketing, SEO, social media and web traffic.
#1: I start with the easiest strategy to implement: advertising platforms. The most popular choice is Adsense, but you may consider valid alternatives such as Infolinks or other CPM/CPC networks. You can earn by displaying on your blog relevant ads, making money from the clicks your readers generate or simply by impressions, depending on the program you select.
#2: The other resource I want to suggest is TrenDemon (linkuj http://trendemon.com/ ). It’s quite a new tool, which can help you generate more income and conversions from your website and traffic, by displaying personalized content and call to actions. Plus, it’s good for boosting social signals and gagement with your audience, through gamification principles.
#3: The third (and most important tip) is building your email list since the first day of your blogging journey. I suggest GetResponse (linkuj http://www.getresponse.com/), interesting prices and great tools included, like email design, landing page creator and of course an autoresponder, with 99% email deliverability. You want to consider your mailing list as an alternative source of traffic and your base of fans, to whom offer, from time to time, your products or services.
Bio: Jerry low is a geek dad who enjoys building web assets and hacking growth online. You can get more of his blogging tips via Twitter @WebHostingJerry.
In my experience, the three best ways to make money blogging are:
#1: Sell your own info products
#2: Sell affiliate products
#3: Blogging / social media marketing services
Info product offers the best profit margin as far as I knew.
Affiliate marketing is easy to start and scale up because as affiliate, you get to focus only in selling (while your merchants take care of the product development and inventories).
And, I know high profile bloggers who are getting paid thousands of dollars for one 2,000 words post because of their large social followings.
To start making good money via blogging – you need to be in a profitable niche and able to pull in sufficient targeted traffic. From my experience, content is only 50% of the game, if not less.
While your great Aunt Mary’s unique recycled dress quilts might be amazing, not that many people are as interested in reading about them as about quilting in general. Don’t limit your topic too much.
Here’s an example I like to use when comes to this topic – When I first got started, I created a site selling inflatable boats online as affiliate. Can you imagine how many people might buy inflatable boats online? That’s right, not many.
What’s worse, this product is a seasonal product and only sells during the summer, so I was further limited in my sales. Needless to say – My inflatable boat business didn’t even take off enough to launch it onto the small pond, much less a big pond.
So, how do you find a profitable niche? Well there are a number of tools and methods you can make use of. One easy way is to use SpyFu to check out what advertisers are spending in a niche. If advertisers, or merchants, are spending big money on that industry, then it means there is money to be made.
Bio: An SEO and sales-savvy copywriter with a pretty darn creative noggin on shoulders. He has a team of word-slinging cowboys who go by the name of The Creative Copywriter. Follow him on Twitter.
I’m only going to talk about one blog monetization technique. And that’s because I only really have experience in this particular one. But it’s also because I believe this to be the most potent way to make money as a blogger. If you can nail this, then forget all the rest.
The best way to make money blogging is…
To create and sell your own products or services based on your niche.
And don’t just create an offering. Create a brand.
I’ve seen bloggers with bucketloads of niche blogs, generating traffic from each one, but only making pittance from Adsense or affiliate marketing. Sure, you can probably make a decent bit of extra cash from them collectively. And some very determined people do make great money building niche blogs all over the shop.
But why scrape a few pennies out of affiliate marketing, when you can make serious profits out of selling your own products or services? Why have ten blogs which display ads for other people’s products, when you could have ten powerful brands selling your own shit-hot products?
That blog about ‘fishing in the Lake District’ – why not turn it into an awesome little boutique for bespoke fishing gear?
And that blog on English language tips – why not create and sell your own line of unique interactive language learning products? Or create a portal for English language tutors to conduct Skype lessons – with you taking a slice of the pie, of course.
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to discover what kind of products your readers will actually purchase. A brilliant way to test the waters before investing in any kind of long term commitment. So I definitely recommend you try it at the halfway stage. But once you’ve got good traffic and devoted readers, who you know will buy stuff, then it’s time to get creative.
Turn your blog into a brand. A slickly-designed website, with a sexy, unique line of products or services which you just can’t find anywhere else. And use your blog to reel those target customers in to that special, tailored offering you have waiting for them.Once you’ve got the inbound marketing funnel working like a dream; do some outbound marketing too. A multi-channel marketing approach works best.
Bio: From products to social innovations, I want to take the best solutions we have and make sure people know about it. Every day, my goal is to help spread products, brands, and solutions throughout the world. And I accomplish this with the internet.
#1: Don’t use ads. The revenue you’ll earn through affiliate networks, Adsense, or any other ad network is incredibly low. It’s just not worth the effort that it takes to build a blog.
#2: Your blog is the marketing, not the product. Don’t try to monetize your blog directly. Instead, think of it as your marketing channel for your real business. You could be offering consulting, looking for freelance clients, pushing a SaaS product, or offering ebooks. There’s lots of options to choose from.
#3: Most blog visitors won’t purchase, get them to sign up for your email list instead. Most people will never buy after visiting a blog for the first visit. You’ll need more time to build value and trust with your audience. So pushing blog visitors directly into a purchase rarely works. Instead, give them an incentive to sign up for your email list. Then you can contact them regularly, build trust, and push your product later on.
Bio: Lauren is a brand designer, Squarespace enthusiast, and blogger behind Elle & Company that loves to help creative entrepreneurs.
The opportunities of creating a pasive income are truly endless. Here are my top three tips, but for a few ideas on what I recommend to make money bloggging you can check out this post I wrote.
#1: Premium membership content
Offer premium content (videos, blog posts, design files) for a monthly charge by setting up a paywall on your site. Subscription-based income is recurring, which brings in more money over time and helps create a consistent income.
#2: Ebooks
Ebooks are a great way to create revenue through passive income; you create them once and you can sell them over and over at no extra cost. Ebooks also help establish your authority and expertise in your field. If you’ve been blogging for a while, consider making things easier on yourself by compiling some of your previous posts into an ebook.
#3: Online courses
Create an online course to give your audience a deeper understanding of the topics you cover on your blog. There is a higher perceived value with online courses which allows you to charge more, and there are minimal overhead costs.
Bio: BlogAid specializes in helping you avoid the pitfalls and expense of suffering from what you don’t know about WordPress, SEO, and content and conversion that is targeted to your unique site and audience.
#1: Set an ultimate goal for what you want the site to accomplish, i.e. draw traffic for clicks on ads or affiliate offers, buy your product or service.
#2: Make every post a way to reach that ultimate goal.
#3: Keep it focused. The more narrow your niche, the more you get known for something. Stay with that focus and become the go-to person for it.
Bio: Natalie – Krispy Kreme lover and digital marketing geek an Ning.com. I write about community building, social media, growth hacking, brand ambassadors, and much more. Stay tuned on Twitter!
#1: A good practice is to ask yourself very sincerely “If I stumbled upon this article, would I skip it or be ready to pay for it?” Avoid mediocrity, dare to be different, take a helicopter view of what you have written and make the necessary changes. The more your community is impressed with your writing, the higher your profits will be.
#2: When starting to write content, determine the type of content you would like to use: free or paid. In the free articles, you can include multiple hooks to stimulate your reader to visit the paid content.
#3: Launch a paid access feature on your blog and monetize your posts and articles. Ning could be a great fit for this model. If your core is non-profit then including donate button is a must. This button can be useful in different circumstances, there always will be visitors and readers who will be more than happy to express their appreciation.
#1: Start without selling. When you are creating a blog for the first time you don’t have to focus on monetization, otherwise, you will won’t reach your goals. The first steps are to curate content and create a unique audience ready to listen and interact with you. Once you engage with them, you can start thinking about ways of monetization. Your audience will understand that you need to promote products or services to make a living.
#2: Offer value, not offers. People engage with a blog by its value or worth information it gives. If you create this value to your audience, they won’t care about offers and promotions, they will purchase what you recommend them as they are 100% engaged, no matter the price or offers. At the opposite way, if you don’t create value for them and try to offer a promotion, nobody will care about it and so no income for you.
#3: Take care of your audience. Treat your readers as unique as they are not by how much they spend on your products. If you can achieve this, you sales will grow quickly and you won’t have to be worried about monetization. I have seen several times, people forgot users because they don’t purchase anything. Probably those users are engaged and will purchase in the future but they are not prepared yet. Think about they belong to the % of users you need to convert, without them, you won’t get customers.If you think it that way you will see your users (no customers) as allies to achieve your income goals 😉
Bio: A Chief Content Marketer and founder of ContentMarketingUp.com. A blog that teaches you how to dominate your niche, attract customers and increase sales.
#1: Freelance Writing: Since you’re new to the game and have little or no influence at all, you can always write content for other blogs and get paid to do so. Though I now take consulting clients, but I still do get paid to write articles. It’s easier to get paid writing for other people, because they already have a level of influence with their readers, but you do not.
#2: Affiliate Marketing: I believe a beginner can monetize a new blog with affiliate offers. This is simple actually – just find software, plugins, or online course that pays a decent commission and affiliate with them. You don’t have to spend sleepless nights creating a product of your own, which you can’t predict the future. And you can get started as an affiliate within 15 minutes.
To maximize your earnings as an affiliate, write a step by step tutorial on how the product works, and the results you or someone else got. Your blog readers will trust you more and a handful of them will purchase through your affiliate link.
#3: Teaching: Yes, you can make money by teaching others what you’ve learnt. It could be as simple as showing people how to install WordPress on your webhost, and how to tweak a theme to make it delectable. Charge a fee for your time, but focus on solving people’s problems.
Bio: The bestselling author of ‘How to Blog a Book’ and ‘The Author Training Manual’ , a speaker, blogger, and coach. Nina helps creative people move from idea to inspired action and positively and meaningfully impact the world as writers, bloggers, authorpreneurs, and blogpreneurs.
#1: Blog a Book: Every blogger should write and publish a book to increase authority or expert status. You may also want a book to use as a free item to use for your call to action to build your mailing list. You can easily blog a book–or more than one book–in a year or less.
#2: Create a Course: Develop an email course or an audio or video course to sell from your site. This can be three to five modules or more. It can be written and delivered through your email marketing system or multi-media and delivered via your blog or a membership site plugin.
#3: Publish Posts Often, Consistently and in a focused manner: Your site and the posts you write will make it to the first Google search engine results page if you pick a posting schedule and stick to it. But you need to publish a minimum of twice per week for the first year; it’s better if you publish posts three to five times per week for at least six to twelve months–and always stick to your primary topic. This will make your site discoverable much faster. That means you can make money more quickly as well.
Bio: I am an ardent blogger who works around interesting topics. I ensure to provide the readers of my blog with informative and original content – latest SEO, internet, blogging, social media, business and technology tips.
#1: Use Adsense: This is the most useful monetizing tool that you can use in your blog. Though to work for you this one will require a considerable traffic. You can easily achieve this being regular and creative with your blog posting.
#2: Sponsored Review/Posts: No matter which niche you write on, there will always be some product or service that you can review on your blog. So, reach out to the relevant brands and post sponsored reviews for them. But to be able to do that you’ll need good branding and traffic to start with.
#3: Affiliate marketing: This one is the ultimate parameter for measuring success for a blogger. To make it work, you first need to establish yourself as an opinion leader. The trust factor is really important, as your readers will base their purchase decision on your recommendation.
Bio: Pradeep is an owner and editor of HellBound Bloggers (HBB), a great technology blog and web community that’s covering topics like social media, blogging, WordPress, Internet and technology. He’s also a CEO & a founder of Slashsquare, an Indian blog network and web consulting media.
#1: Build a Community: Yes, do this first before planning to monetise your blog. I’m running a hub for Food Lovers called FoodGravy, so I formed a Facebook group for that and started a community. The more you connect with people personally, the more you can define your brand. Your personal branding increases, your authority increases, and that’s a good start for “Affiliate Marketing”.
#2: Review for Money: Okay, first, there is nothing wrong in reviewing for money, but before that, make sure you are writing a review completely out of your personal experience and you are true with your words. If you are a Movie Blogger, it is okay to get paid by the movie’s PR for the review, but it doesn’t mean you should rate it 4/5 just because you were sponsored, be true to your heart and share your views.
#3: Don’t rely on a Single Income Source: If you are a Professional Blogger (ProBlogger) then you should definitely focus on 2-3 additional income sources for your blog. Don’t ever rely on Google AdSense alone. Try to experiment with Affiliate Marketing, Sponsored Reviews and other monetisation methods to become standard.
Bio: I’m a business consultant that’s helped lots of folks in the fields of health care finance, leadership & management, and social media/blogging/writing. I also write a finance blog. Just Sharing is where I share my thoughts on writing, blogging social media, internet marketing, and many other things. I’m a guy with things to say and always in the process of discovery.
#1: The first monetizing tip is to pick a niche that you want to concentrate on. Don’t make it too finite that you have nothing to talk about because content is what helps drive people to your blog. For instance, if you want to write about law and legal ventures, that’s not a bad niche for ideas to write on. However, if you concentrate on forensic loan analysis, you might get 5 articles out of it if you’re lucky.
#2: The second monetizing tip is to have products on your site that have something to do with your niche. Also, sometimes write articles where you talk about a product or service so you can include those in your copy. Thing is, you’ll want to only put things up that you’ve actually used and can recommend. If you promote something that someone buys and doesn’t like and you don’t have a good response back, you’ll lose credibility and, unless you’re already a big name, you’ll never be able to get it back. I knew someone who had a blog on hydroponics who was earning $3,000 a month by showing what she was using in growing her plants in her house.
#3: The third monetizing tip is to write on a niche that potential advertisers might like. I have a finance blog that, at one time, was supported by a lot of advertisers because every product they showed or service they offered was related to finance in some way. At the time I was able to write at least 3 financial articles a week, which kept traffic and ranking pretty high. Once I started traveling more for work I didn’t have the time to write as much anymore and the advertisers pulled back. Still, there are lots of avenues one can find advertisers if they can make their blog attractive enough by the content they produce.
Bio: A graphic designer and internet marketer. His company, Rob Cubbon Ltd., offers companies all-encompassing marketing strategies.
My first monetizing strategy for a blog isn’t passive income. It’s offering your services as a consultant (or design, developer, copy-writer, it could be anything) through your website. Blogging and content marketing is still an amazing way to get clients to a new business. Write specific and helpful blog posts showing people how to solve certain problems with a call to action about how you can do this for them at the end.
This is what I did at first to build my business. It’s very difficult to earn passive income through a new blog as you won’t have much traffic and you won’t have much of a following. So earning money by working for clients is the easiest way to start.
This lays down the foundations for making passive income. As you are creating great content to try to attract clients you will also attract visitors to your site that don’t want to be your client but appreciate you content.
You need to catch some of these people with email subscription forms. Think of the most useful document your target customer would like and offer it for free in return for an email address. This free giveaway (e-book, report, short course, etc.) doesn’t have to be very long but you need to constantly test different giveaways to find which one collects the most email addresses.
So that’s my second strategy, email marketing.
My third strategy would be to start making products. There are other ways of making money from a blog – affiliate commissions and advertising are another two. But, in my experience, selling products is the easiest way of making a passive income from the blog.
But you need to keep on creating the amazing free content on the blog in order for all this to work. The amazing free content will help you attract clients, collect email addresses and create and sell products. It all stems from the quality of the free content you give away.
To increase affiliate sales from blogs here are three tips that will help:
#1: If I can offer one piece of advice for new bloggers, it is this: consider your goals before launching your blog.
#2: Constantly create new relevant content. Keeping our blog fresh and interesting will increase traffic.
#3: When (if) you review products you are recommending – keep your reviews informative and practical and avoid wild claims – If you come off as trustworthy, people will click on your affiliate links and buy the products you recommend – but if you sound like a used car salesman they will instead click away.
Bio: Lisa loves helping others to thrive online through Social Media, Blogging and SEO. What good is knowledge if you cannot share it with others? She has 20+ years experience in marketing/advertising with 5 years experience blogging, social media and SEO. Get her new eBook Tweeting Like It’s 2nd Nature Today!
#1: Your Own Products – I believe this way is the best way to generate revenue. Your product could be eBooks, your own apps or instructional guides/videos. You set your own price and you can sell via Paypal. Once people know and trust you they will purchase from you. This way is great since you don’t have to rely on another party for revenues. It will take time and money to produce a product.
#2: Affiliate Marketing – This is another way to generate revenues via your content. Your content must be relevant to your affiliate products. You will need to generate traffic to product sales. You get paid a percentage of the price of products. Be careful with Nexus laws which vary from state to state.
#3: Sponsorships – Offer sponsorships and ads on your blog to advertisers. Again your content must be relevant to their products. You set the price and offer to relevant advertisers too. You must have traffic to your blog or website for them to spend money with you. You will have to prove your stats to them. You will have to sell yourself as well.
No way of making moneyy online is easy, they all take hard work and time to generate revenue.
Bio: I have learned a LOT about blogging and I share that on my blog. Along with that I’ll teach you how to drive traffic to your blog and build a community where your readers won’t be able to wait until you have another post.
I go about things a lot differently than most and as I’ve progressed online I’ve learned that a lot of the very successful people who are running seven figure businesses went about this the same way.
If I’m just starting a blog, no one knows who the heck I am so they certainly aren’t going to trust me and purchase from me. You have to build your audience first and then they’ll buy from you.
If you just throw up affiliate ads on your site expecting to make a lot of money then you’re going to be sadly disappointed and probably end up quitting. If you’re just focusing on niche sites and are blogging that way then it still is the same principle.
So I’m not really for any type of monetization at the very start, I’m the opposite actually. Build up a loyal following and then they’ll purchase from you. It also doesn’t have to take you forever either because I know plenty of people who have accomplished this in just six months time.
Bio: The one thing with any Internet based business is, you are either selling a product or a service. I prefer to sell products as I can sell them 24/7, 365 days a year, even when I’m asleep.
#1: Selling Affiliate products. This is how I got started making money from my first blog back in 2011. I started off blogging about ways to make money, so I simply went to Clickbank, created an account and sought out good quality products in my niche to promote. Nowdays you also have JVZoo and many other Affiliate platforms to choose from. I then included a link to the product within my post and that worked for me. Of course you need to have traffic, I was sharing my posts all over social media, especially Facebook. The products that worked best for me were residual paying products, for instance membership site products, (monthly payments), this meant that each month your income increases as long as people keep paying their fees.
#2: Sell your network marketing opportunity within your posts. The Network marketing opportunity I am involved with has a residual component. By talking about related subjects, this gave me an opportunity to have calls to action at the bottom of each post to get people interested.
#3: Learn to do stuff, like create headers, graphics, logos etc and sell your service from the blog. I know people who write articles and at the same time sell an article writing service. Just use your imagination, people are always looking for something. Find out what it is your niche has a problem with, and sell them the solution.
Bio: An owner of a blog on how to become a successful blogger by making part-time or full-time earning with your blog and enjoy your life. I decided to share my blogging knowledge and skills with you because I know how difficult is to do blogging without much knowledge.
An excellent monetizing strategy always follow the rule of “not putting all eggs in one basket. So it should be excellent mix of different methods with each having potential to offset the losses if incurred by another method of the strategy. I suggest beginner blogger to follow these three monetizing methods:
#1: Self-created product reviews to sell the products that offer huge discount on the occasion of cultural and seasonal festivals like “hosting discount on Black Friday” or “cheap travel package in vacations”.
#2: Content selling by creating highly valuable contents and putting a “buy now” button within the contents after its introductory part to sell the most valuable part as premium post on nominal price ranging from $3 to $6.
#3: Selling advance solutions of the most common problems by first offering several free solutions with shorter life and then offering the permanent solution on price.
Once a beginner blogger manages to get higher traffic then he can go for most common monetizing methods like affiliate marketing, own product selling and pay per click & pay per action advertising.
Bio: Thomas is the founder of BlogPhoto.tv and host of Social Theory. He’s been blogging since 2009, before choosing to help others experience some of the same success he found. In 2014, he launched BlogPhotoTv with a mission to rescue remarkable visionaries from internet obscurity.
#1: If I can offer one piece of advice for new bloggers, it is this: consider your goals before launching your blog.
#2: If your goal is to make money, take that into account. There are a ton of ways that bloggers can make a living on the web. This includes affiliate marketing, ads, sponsorships, consultation, membership sites, courses and webinars, offering unique services, selling unique products, speaking at conferences, publishing books, and the list goes on. These are all viable means of monetization, but they all target different metrics and engage with different marketing strategies. If your goal is to monetize your blog, the worst thing you can do is hope to make money without any clear direction for how you want to do it.
#3: So identify what you want to do and how you want to make money off of it. Then, align your marketing strategies to facilitate that monetization goal. Make sure that the way you design your site, write your articles, and promote your posts all reinforce that goal. That way, everything is working together to move you from hoping to make money to actually driving revenue.
Monetization misconceptions
The majority of bloggers want to make money from their sites, yet more than 98% of the blogs in the world today don’t make money
First, let’s clear up a few misconceptions you may have heard about making money from a blog.
Passive income
Bloggers’ income
2% bloggers spend less than 2 hours a day blogging and make more than $150K (like Tim Feriss)
Less than 5% of bloggers earn more than $10,000 per month
12% are able to sustain their lifestyle or support their family with their blogs
81% never make $100 from blogging
Most bloggers who report their income seem to earn way more than the average of the industry
It isn’t entirely false, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. Bloggers who are well known for their passive income generation did not start their blog one day and earn piles of money in their sleep the next. Like any other income source, passive income requires a good bit of hard work in the beginning. But if you do it right (and we’ll teach you how), you can start earning money, even while away from the computer.
Misleading income reports
Revenue reports are monthly blog posts written by bloggers who make money online,
showing exactly how much they made throughout the month and how they did it. You can see some great examples of income reports below from Pat Flynn and Darren Rose to get an idea of how bloggers are generating revenue.
How Bloggers Make Money—Income Reports of 50 Blogs
Course Sales, Training and Coaching
Affiliate Earnings
Ads
Product and Services Sales
Sponsored Posts and Listings
Misc. Sources
Software and Apps
Book/eBook Sales
Niche Sites
Podcast Sponsorships
Pat Flynn
Michelle
Lindsay and Bjork
So Over This
Harsh Agrawal
Trevor and Jennifer
Abby Lawson
Reese Family
Kristin Larsen
Alex &Lauren
Matthew Woodward
Sarah Titus
Johnny
Regina–but
Pauline Cabrera
Bobby
Lisa Jacobs
Tom Ewer
The Treasure Gnome
Rosemarie
Suzi
Dave Child
Lauren Bowling
Nicky
Alexa
Jennifer
Kristen
Anil Agarwal
Allan
Lotus
Carly
Jessica Gavin
Rose
Randa
Eden Fried
Paula
Matthew
Ali
Matthew Allen
Caroline
Jeremy and Angie
Carmen
Kaitlin
Andrzej
Sam
Yandra
Kayla Buell
Stephanie
Madisyn
Afreshstartonabudget
Be on the lookout for misleading income reports — those that show how much a blogger makes, but not how much they spend. Many bloggers invest a lot of money on their blog every month to earn revenue, but some conveniently leave that fact out in their income reports, making it look like they are gaining tons of free money.
When you craft your monetization plan, you’ll need to keep some expenses in mind.
These include your web hosting, email marketing software, search and social media tools, mastermind memberships and online advertising.
Total Expenses vs. Total Income
Start to monetize from day one
For every $1 invested in their business, top bloggers earn $4.93 back.
That means that if a food processing company (around 10% gross margin) wants to make as much gross profit as John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneur on Fire, they need to sell roughly 3.7 million dollars/month of products (over $44 million/year)
Pro bloggers suggest that you don’t rush into making money mode at the beginning.
Although you can only utilize certain monetization strategies with a young audience, you shouldn’t give your readers expression that you all about the advertisement. However, you shouldn’t spring into monetization mode as soon as you hit a certain number of visitors. Finding middle ground is important.
For example, Tim Ferriss explains in his book Tools of Titans that he didn’t start accepting advertisement to his podcast until he hit 100,000+ downloads. Same could be applied to blogging. Now every blog is different; you might expect 10,000 visitors a month or a day, it depends on your niche. Thus you have to plan for it and know your goals.
You don’t have to go into monetization mode from the minute you launch your blog but have your monetization strategy in place from the day one.
Now, that we’ve debunked a few misconceptions let’s look at how to prepare your blog for monetization.
Tools for building your initial email list
SumoMe plugin
OptinMonster
List Builder
LeadPages
Scroll Box
Preparing to monetize
Before you start monetizing, there’s one fundamental thing you need to do to ensure your current and future success – start building an email list.
We’ve mentioned this before, but it is important to repeat it since your subscriber list will be one of your biggest assets and will help you to make money.
If you start to capture email addresses at the beginning, you will have the chance to retain your first visitors as lifelong readers. No one has to know if initially there’s only one subscriber on your mailing list.
When you start utilizing monetization methods such as email list sponsorships, affiliate marketing or selling your products, you’ll already have a loyal audience that used to receiving and consuming your emails.
Now that that’s out of the way let’s start with some specific monetization strategies.
90% of advertisers stated that affiliate programs were either “important” or “very important” to their overall marketing strategy
Different streams to make money
Affiliate marketing (promoting products and services of others)
Selling products (personal digital and physical products)
Selling services (consultant or design services)
Selling advertising (AdSense, direct ads, other)
Other (sponsorships, donations, memberships, events, speaking)
If you have a relatively new blog or one that doesn’t receive a lot of traffic, then the following are monetization strategies you can put into place to start the revenue-generation process.
Affiliate marketing
Where does the money come from?
While it may sound like a relatively new form of marketing, it is as old as online selling itself. You receive a commission every time a person buys an online product based on your recommendation.
“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s or company’s products.”
The mechanics of this process are simple. It starts by finding an interesting product that you like, making an effort to promote it to other people and, in the end, earning a piece of the profit (commission) for each successful sale.
A legitimate approach is to be an affiliate for anything you have paid for and used on your blog. So, if you use a StudioPress WordPress theme, Constant Contact email marketing software, Bluehost hosting or any other product with an affiliate program, be sure to create a page on your blog with resources aimed at other bloggers in the niche. As your blog grows in popularity, other bloggers will want to follow in your footsteps and may sign up for the same services you use for their blog, thus generating some revenue for you.
Developed affiliate programs account for generating 15% to 30% of all advertiser’s online sales
There are three main verticals that you can use to search for affiliate opportunities:
Pros and Cons of Affiliate of Marketing
Direct affiliate programs
Affiliate networks
Shopping sites affiliate
Direct affiliate programs
It’s quick and easy to set-up.
Reach a larger audience.
Small investment.
Low accountability.
Ongoing passive income.
Many companies offer direct affiliate programs. In some cases, it’s easier to deal directly with the business who sells products or services that you are planning to promote. Plus, you could always negotiate better commission once you start selling more of their products.
To find affiliate programs, go to Google and perform a simple searching. Use the following query “[niche/product] affiliate program.”
For example, if you are running a fitness blog. You would do the following search:
“fitness affiliate program,” and here are the results:
You’re not in charge.
High commission.
Lots of competition.
Pay on sale.
Reputation problems.
Choosing the right products.
If you have a hard time to find what affiliate products you can promote, check your competitors and popular blogs within your niche. The successful bloggers know which products are reliable and convert the best.
Affiliate networks
Affiliate networks are marketplace sites that connect publishers (bloggers) with merchants who want to get their products promoted. In some cases, it makes it easier for bloggers who want to promote multiple products to find relevant offers in one place. Each network has its pros and cons, but overall they make life easier for publishers. Here are few favorite choices:
As a top 100 online retailer with 200 million customers, ClickBank sells digital products worldwide created by entrepreneurs. From advice for getting in shape to healthy cooking recipes and dating advice, ClickBank delivers digital lifestyle products to customers in 190 countries. Rated A+ on BBB.org.
ShareASale has been in business for 17 years, exclusively as an Affiliate Marketing Network. Their technology receives the accolade for speed, efficiency, and accuracy –
and reputation as a fair and honest business. They provide customers with an advanced Affiliate Marketing platform. Rated A+ on BBB.org.
CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formerly Commission Junction) is the leading global affiliate marketing network, specializing in pay-for-performance programs that drive results for businesses around the world. The CJ Network helps to reach and connect with millions of online consumers every day by facilitating productive partnerships between advertisers and publishers. Drive more sales and expand your reach – experience the Network Effect with CJ. Rated A+ on BBB.org.
Global affiliate network that empowers marketer to engage shoppers across the entire consumer journey. They connect advertisers with publishers to reach new audiences and influence repeat purchases. Voted as the #1 Affiliate Marketing Network, and in 2016 facilitated more than 100 million orders worldwide. Rated A+ on BBB.org.
PeerFly was launched in January 2009 by Chad French. PeerFly is unique because although they’ve made tremendous strides and a great impression in the industry, they’re still a very small company. Their team is made up of only 15 people, so their clients don’t have to go through several layers of staff to get the service they need. Rated A+ on BBB.org.
Niches: All
Product types: Digital and physical
Commissions: Varies by merchant
Shopping site affiliate
These are marketplaces where people sell physical products. Many bloggers write content about specific technologies or processes where they mention different goods, and it’s logical to include affiliate links. For example, if you have a blog about gardening, then you should apply to affiliate programs for gardening books and tools. Here are few favorite shopping affiliate programs:
The #1 Internet Retailer and is among the best global affiliate programs around. The benefits are that people like to shop on Amazon and it’s good at converting people.
Participation in the program is easy.
eBay has 800 million listings, so you can offer your audience links to the things they love in fashion, electronics, collectibles, home goods and more. You’ll find amazing brands and sellers on eBay offering a wide array of products.
Join the Target Affiliate Program and partner with one of the most recognized brands in the U.S., and one of the fastest growing retail sites on the Internet. People can select from over 1 million of products at low prices, plus exciting new promotions every week.
Niches: All
Product types: Physical goods
Commissions: 1%-8% of product price
The best practices for promoting affiliate products
Most common affiliate networks used among affiliate marketers worldwide in 2016
Write reviews about the product or service and include an affiliate link to your review post. Don’t just repeat information found on the product or service sales page, but write about your experience with it. People can distinguish a thorough, honest review from one that’s done purely to generate revenue.
Create a resource page on your blog of the top products and services you recommend, including an affiliate link for each, plus a link to your in-depth review, if applicable.
Get banners for the top products and services you know which will appeal to your audience and put them in your blog’s header, sidebar and at the end of posts. Affiliate product banners are also great placeholders for future advertising spots you may want to sell when you start getting a substantial amount of traffic.
Email your list whenever you write a review or a particular affiliate program has a great special going on that your subscribers would be interested in.
Be prepared to do special promotions on your blog and email list around Black Friday and Cyber Monday — it’s the hottest time to share affiliate product sales and earn some significant income.
Important reminder: Whenever you promote an affiliate product, be sure to include a disclaimer in your review, at your resource page or in your emails that you are an affiliate of the product. It’s a good way to build trust with your audience, and it’s a requirement in some countries like the United States.
Selling products
Overall growth 93%
E-publishing/E-book global sales
Many bloggers start out making money from affiliate promotions, however many of them diversify and begin selling their digital or physical products. For example, Darren Rose shares that his number one source of income comes from selling eBooks and courses. These products take time and work to create but can be a lucrative channel of revenue.
Digital products
Virtual goods can take many forms like eBooks, courses, software, reports, etc.
Here are some stats of digital products sold online:
Overall growth 5%
Self paced e-learning global sales
Overall growth 69%
SaaS global sales
eBooks are the fastest growing digital product online with $16 billion in 2016.
Combined annual growth is projected to be around 16% between 2016 and 2020.
Online courses market including corporate and universities are massive and expected to grow 5% from 2015-2020.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market is estimated around $78 billion in 2015
and is projected to grow to a $132 billion dollar industry in 2020 (69%).
There are two approaches you can take to sell your digital products online:
Sell directly on your website
Sell through established marketplaces
Both of these methods are legit but have different pros and cons. Let’s look at each technique in details.
Sell directly on your website
In some cases preferred method since you have more control of the sale process and can customize your sales pages. Also, you don’t have to pay a big cut of the profit to the platform helping to sell your product. However, you are on your own when it comes to organizing how everything will look and work on your website.
Sell through established marketplaces
In some cases, this could be the way to go. The benefits include, by placing your product on existing platform, you tap into visitors and fans of this marketplace. Thus, you don’t have to spend as much time and energy to promoting your products. The downside of this approach is, you would pay a certain percentage of your profit to the marketplace.
Here are some platforms you can check:
Envato is the most popular place to sell website templates, HTML code, marketing themes, PSDs, and plugins.
Udemy is the most popular place to share your knowledge and sell online courses.
There are more marketplaces you can find online. It all depends on what kind of digital products you are planning to sell. Thus do your research and find what fits your needs.
Physical products
Books: Many bloggers publish books as a form of monetization, like Jeff Goins has done with his new book,
The Art of Work
Aside from digital products you can look into selling real goods through your blog. It’s common when the blogger sells digital products, but sometimes bloggers also create merchandise such as t-shirts, posters, etc. to sell.
To start selling you will have some expenses and you need to invest some time. But,
selling a product online is easier than ever these days.
Here is an example of how Gary Vaynerchuk created an online store with his swag:
T-Shirts: Scott Dinsmore of Live Your Legend created a t-shirt line based on inspirational sayings voted on by his readers
We are not talking about setting up the full blown online store, for these purposes you would have to look for a different solution like Bigcommerce.
Accessories: The husband and wife bloggers behind the popular DIY blog Young House Love created a line of home goods which are sold at Target
An attractive approach that many bloggers use to make money is through offering various services to their readers. These might be anything from coaching or consulting, to writing or design, training or other freelance services.
Here are two examples of how bloggers sell their services of their blog websites:
No matter how you decide to go after selling services through your blog, you cannot expect people to come rushing in to check out what you have to offer. You need to take the best marketing approach that will help you spread the word about your services and reach out to potential customers. Only then will you be able actually to sell your services online and generate revenue and ROI.
Selling advertisement
Another way to make money off a blog is to sell ads. Some people even create blogs with this goal in mind as it’s an entirely viable option and one of the legit ways to earn money.
Some of the essential things for making your blog advertisable include the amount of traffic, the blog’s design, and stability. Without this stuff, you cannot expect that a serious advertiser will be interested in your blog.
You will need around 10k unique visitors per month to get on the radar of advertisers.
The design should be professional, and your blog should have allocated ad spaces. You also need to have constant traffic so that people will not feel like their money is going to waste.
There are different types of ads you can run on your blog, and some approach works better from one case to another. Below are the most popular ads options you can use:
Google AdSense
Google AdSense is still the most effective way to monetize a blog. But it can give you decent money once your blog start getting massive traffic.
Let’s say you are getting 1,000 visits a day, you can easily expect 200$ to 300$ a month by leveraging your blog traffic. Place your GA ads wisely to get more clicks. After all, it’s all about more clicks = more money!
Adsense is one of the most popular options when it comes to ads. It’s a Google product that lets website owners make money by placing targeted ads on their sites. You as a website publisher get paid per click (PPC) when visitors click on (or view, in some cases) the ads. You don’t have to invest any money or work into it, as the advertiser will put ads on your blog and pay you every time someone clicks on the ad located on your blog.
You will have to create an Adsense campaign that revolves around your blog. But, you must be careful with which ads you choose to put on your blog because having irrelevant ads will bring you no results.
It’s in your interest to do this right and avoid putting ads that are completely unrelated to your blog or your content. If you are running a fashion blog, it would be a good idea to advertise fashion lines, retailers, and fashion brands.
The most frequently asked question and the hardest one to give a definitive answer is –
“How much money can I make from Adsense?”. It’s believed that earnings from 1,000
ads impressions are $1 across the global network. In reality, prices paid on Adsense are dynamic and set by auction.
Many websites generate real revenue through Adsense, but you need to try it to find out what you could earn on your site. Here are some success stories.
It’s also important to spend time on optimizing ads you are running to increase earnings potential.
Banner ads
Depending on your niche, you can start selling ad space directly to advertisers once you get a certain traffic volume. You have few choices, to sell ads directly or use platforms like BuySellAds.
Direct ads
With this method, you are not relying on third parties to create an advertisement. Instead, you are reaching out to advertisers on your own and making a direct deal with them.
Here is an example from GaryVee how to sell ads on your blog.
That way you will be able to earn more from your ads, but you will need to put some work to find these deals. To get great deals your blog needs to have good reachability and good traffic. Overwise, advertisers, won’t consider placing ads on your website.
BuySellAds or similar platforms
With this service, you can sell and manage ads through their platform. You just put a snippet of code on your blog where you want particular ad sizes and types to be displayed. It’s also a great platform to use in researching your traffic volume versus how much you can charge for ads.
For example:
An automotive site with 110,000 monthly impressions sells 125 x 125 banner for $245
per month.
A site about mythology with 60,000 monthly impressions charged $1,50 per 1,000
impressions per month for their 300×250 top sidebar ad space.
Selling ads strategy has the potential to generate continually increasing amounts of revenue based on your ability to drive more traffic to your blog. Be sure to create an advertising page on your blog and update your metrics (traffic, social audience, email list subscribers, etc.) regularly so you can increase your ad pricing on a monthly basis.
If you want the best chance of success in monetizing your blog,
remember to:
Define your end goal before monetizing – e.g. do you want to quit work,do you want some passive income, do you want to create your own product
Choose at least 2-3 strategies that complement each other, your goals, personal approach and your niche. one strategy is usually not enough to effectively monetize a blog
Use a mix of entry level, mid priced and premium products or services to get the most of your monetization. Try to link your products or services so the entry level products lead to your premium services
In addition to selling ad space, you can also offer sponsored reviews. This is where someone pays you to write about their product or service on your blog. If you choose only the products your audience will most likely be interested in, you can earn money while creating great content—a win-win situation. If you pick any product just because someone is paying you, however, you could lose your hard-earned audience as they will not be interested in the content.
To write a great sponsored review, insist that you want to use the product or service for a trial period to get some insight into it. That way, you can write an honest, compelling review.
Memberships
Another popular category that can bring a significant stream of income is membership offers. Many bloggers are experimenting with it since it a great channel of recurring revenue. That means readers pay a regular amount usually on a monthly basis for access to either premium content, a community area, some service, tools, or coaching.
Pencil Kings
Donations
It’s not very common to see the donation button on blogs, but some people use this option to support their blogging efforts. In some cases, it’s done just to make enough money to cover the expenses, and sometimes bloggers could make enough money to make a living from it. Here is an example of donating widget on the blog:
BrainPickings
Selling your blog
This may be the last thing on your mind at this point, but if you have a blog that isn’t directly tied to your name, products or services, and mostly depends on ad revenue, you may want to consider selling your blog later down the road. The more traffic, quality content and advertising dollars you earn with your blog, the more you can sell it for, if you choose so.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this guide to creating a successful blog—from setup to monetization. There are many other monetization strategies you can try with your blog. These are just the most popular ones that tend to generate a lot of income for a lot of bloggers!
