If you have heard or read about other bloggers who rake in a killing
with their blogs and you’re thinking about trying it too, you first need
to know what sources there are for generating income. After you know
what you need, then you need to decide if you have what it takes to
actually make money with your blog.
1. Ads
Just like newspapers and magazines gain money from advertisers, you can do the same on your blog. Ads can be click-through text links, impression ads (image ads) or contextual. AdSense is definitely the most reliable and tends to be best source of income from ads. There are also others such as: Kontera, Value Click, Adgenta and AdBrite.
2. Affiliate Marketing
The only difference between affiliate marketing and regular ads is the
way you are paid. The former pays a set price, while the latter pays
commission based upon performance. So, if you get a lot of people
clicking on your links who then buy the product, you will get paid more.
Amazon has a good affiliate marketing opportunity and others include
Commission Junction, AllPosters and LinkShare.
3. Continuity Programmes
This is a newer form of blog monetizing.
Continuity programs pay the blogger a recurring amount to offer a
service which people sign up for. Third Tribe Marketing offers a program
like this.
4. Paid Blogging
Most companies will not pay you to write your own content unless you
have massive traffic, loyal subscribers and a high search-ranking blog.
However, there are many ways to get paid to blog for other businesses. ProBlogger is a job board just for this purpose, but there are plenty of freelance writing job boards with paid blogging jobs.
5. Product Sales
This can be something you create on your own or a product you sell for a
separate business. eBooks can be a great way to not only supplement
your other income, but they also provide extra value to your audience.
Do You Have What It Takes for Your Blog to Make Money?
You have probably heard this before: Anyone can make money from their
blog. Well, yes and no. While it is true that it’s possible for anyone
to monetize their blog, not everyone can actually make money from it.
You can put up twenty-seven ads and join sixteen affiliate marketing
groups which technically counts as “monetizing” your blog. This is no
guarantee that you will actually make an income of any kind. Making
significant money by blogging depends on the following things:
1. How Good Your Blog Is
If your blog is essentially an exercise in vanity where you publish all
your terrible poetry and it offers value to no one except your two weird
fans, you may as well try squeezing money out of a soggy paper bag.
2. How Shareable Your Blog Is
If you offer awesome information, are exceptionally funny or otherwise
have a good quality blog, but you never have a single call to action and
you never promote it, how are you going to increase your readership and
traffic? Shareable also refers to other people sharing it. Be sure to
use titles, content and images that can easily be shared. Set up social
media buttons to encourage your audience to pass it along.
3. Is There a Demand or Audience for Your Blog?
This doesn’t mean “do you have 10 friends that will read your blog if
you beg them?” It means, “is there purpose to your blog and does it
appeal to a wide audience?” Think of your blog like a product. You may
be writing some really cool stuff about giant-sized radishes that can
cure hiccups, but how many people will care? A blog that reviews mobile
apps for business and integrated marketing would appeal to a very large audience of corporate and private business owners.
4. Are You Willing to Work Hard for Your Audience?
If your blog satisfies all the first three things, but you don’t put
much time or effort into your blog, it won’t generate a lot of income.
For example, let’s say you join as an affiliate to market how to control backyard mosquitos,
but you don’t put a lot of effort into selling mosquito repellants or
promoting the company website. Maybe you use AdSense, but you think your
blog will look like a mini-mall threw up on it if you use more than two
or three per post.
Maybe you don’t take time to learn about your audience’s demographics
and consequently do not have ads that market well to them. Maybe you get
bored writing and start to publish lazy articles that don’t have a lot
of value. These are all things that will sabotage your blog’s potential
to bring in substantial income.
In other words, to make decent money from your blog, you have to work at
it like a normal job. This is not a
“make-lots-of-money-but-without-having-to-do-any-work” thing. It also
helps to know about SEO (search engine optimization), how to build web
traffic, how to increase your online visibility and other web savvy
strategies. If you have great content but have no idea what backlinks or
SERPs mean, you may want to think about partnering with someone who
does.
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