How to Make Money with Your Blog
Everyone needs some extra cash. People often say that blogging is an easy way of making money. But how do you do this? Once you have set up the blog, what next? Your blog is not a get-rich-quick scheme. But it is a good way of making money. Read on to find out how. Monetize with CPM or CPC Ads
Placing ads on a website is the most common mode of making money for bloggers. Most ads fall into one of two popular categories: CPC/PPC ads: pay per click or cost per click ads are in the form of banners placed on your sidebar or in your content. You get paid every time a visitor clicks on the ad. CPM ads: these are “cost per 1000 impressions” ads. You are paid a fixed amount depending on the number of people that view the ad. Google AdSense is the most well-known program for these kinds of ads. Others include Media.net, Infolinks, and Chitika.
When it comes to placing ads, you don’t have to work with advertising programs. If your blog receives a lot of traffic, advertisers will start reaching out to you asking you to sell ads. You can also find the advertisers yourself. This is better than using networks because you get to cut out the middleman.
Affiliate Links in Content
This is how affiliate marketing works:
- A seller or advertiser wants to sell a product.
- The two of you agree that if you help them sell it, you will get a commission.
- You are given a unique link (it will be used to track your affiliate code).
- You then place the link on your site.
- If someone clicks through and buys the product, you get a percentage of the full price.
Amazon Associates is a good place to start.
Sell Digital Products
Selling your own digital products is also another great idea. The products can include:
- Themes
- Plugins
- Apps
- Music
- Video
- Images
- Online courses
- eBooks
Before you get into this, make sure your readers need the product. Don’t just assume. It is wise to know and understand your visitors first, then make a product that solves their problem. You can make money by selling physical products as well. This involves using your blog for content marketing and drive readers to your actual business website. Sell anything from manufactured products to handmade goods.
Another way of making money is by selling memberships to special areas of your website. If you have a career blog, for instance, you could charge a monthly fee for readers to access your job board. The exclusive membership must be something valuable. Don’t sell a service that they can get for free elsewhere. If your blog is popular and the content is great, people will recognize you as a guru in the niche (whatever you are blogging on). People may then start approaching you for opportunities in the industry.
Many people make money writing blogs nowadays. If you have your blog website, you can make money by selling ads. Some of the bloggers founded their blogs because of the thought of earning huge sums of money through ads. This method of earning is legit and very convenient to do. However, most of your readers and followers hate seeing ads and become irritated when one ad pops up from somewhere.
As a blogger, you need to discover the best way to make ads work without annoying your followers. Let’s be honest here, writing blogs is easy but constructing a blog site that is appropriate for ad space is tricky. Don’t give up though! You can still create your dream blog while earning cash from ad space if you read and follow through our tips down below. Before you proceed any further, it is important to keep in mind that making money out of your blog takes a systematic process.
You cannot make money out of it as soon as you start blogging. But if you are an influencer that has an established blog already which can generate lots of traffic through your followers, you can sell space for ads and generate money this way. In creating a blog appropriate for ads, you must think about the amount of traffic, stability, and your blog’s design. These requirements are important because these are what entice an advertiser to pay you for an ad on your blog. For advertisers to get interested in your blog, you must have at least 10,000 blog visitors per month.
This may be hard to achieve if you are a start-up blogger, but over time and with great content and marketing, this number is highly achievable. A professional blog design with spaces for ads is also a must because advertisers are looking for layouts which can highlight their advertisements. Moreover, the stability of a blog focuses on generating constant traffic. You need to maintain your number of blog visitors per month, and it’ll be best if it keeps growing in number over time. Advertisers want to rent an ad space that many people can see and read. What are the Ads You can Sell on Your Blog? You can post different types of ads on your blog.
You need to know what these different types are for you to distinguish which among the different types work better for your blog, and which you must stay away from. Google AdSense (PPC). PPC or pay-per-click is one of the ways at which you as a blogger can earn from ads on your website. Google AdSense allows website owners to place targeted ads on their respective sites. When these ads are clicked on by a website visitor, it generates income to the blogger. You don’t have to work on it directly since it is the advertiser who will put the ads on your blog. As the website’s founder, what you need to do is to make an AdSense campaign that is relevant to what your blog is all about. If you choose random ads that are in no way connected to your blog, it will only generate negative results.
For example, if you run a blog about weddings, advertise ads related to weddings such as wedding gown boutiques, flower shops and photography ads. If you blog about health-related contents, only put up ads that are related to health such as pharmaceuticals, gym and food ads. Prices on AdSense are paid dynamically and are set through an auction. Hence, it is hard to give an exact amount to how much a blogger can make from using AdSense. A lot of websites get profit using AdSense, but you must check on it first if it is the best one for you. Also, try optimizing the ads on your site to help increase revenue. Affiliate Links.
Affiliate marketing involves earning a commission every time you promote other people’s products by inserting an affiliate link on your posts. An affiliate link is a specific URL which has the affiliate’s details. If you have a large following on your blog, it is guaranteed that your followers trust you and values your opinion. When you write contents with affiliate links, chances are they will consider your suggestion and check out the link you have posted. Every time you can insert a link into your content, do so. It is a chance to promote other products and give you revenues. Getting paid through affiliate links, however, is different from getting paid through PPC. In affiliate links, the advertiser will only pay you if a reader clicks on the link and completes a certain action such as making a purchase or registering for a subscription.
To get better revenues through affiliate links, make sure that you put the links in the right parts of your blog. Make sure that you have built-up the product before inserting the link in the content so that your readers have an idea of what they are clicking into. Furthermore, do not insert misleading links nor deceive your followers by advertising poor products and services. Not only will this tarnish your reputation as a blogger, but you can also lose some of your followers. Amazon Affiliate Program. Amazon is one of the largest and most famous online marketplaces.
The Amazon Affiliate Program can be considered as a blogger’s pot of gold. Each product sold through an affiliate link gives you up to 10% of the advertising commission. 10% may be small for some of you, but once you get the hang of the process and many people purchase through the links you provided, you can generate a good amount of income. If you are a tech blogger, you can write reviews on different gadgets such as phones, laptops, and other devices. You can insert an Amazon affiliate link which will lead your readers to your reviewed products in Amazon.
The blog comes naturally as you reviewed a product for them and provided them with a link should they choose to buy one for themselves. One tricky thing though is the geolocation of the affiliate program. Make sure that you put appropriate links based on where your readers are located. Banners, links and widgets may also be included on your post. If you do this right, you will surely earn big bucks from the Amazon Affiliate Program. Direct Advertising. Direct Advertising allows you to reach out to advertisers so that they choose your blog for their advertising campaigns.
In this type of advertising, you do not need a third party to facilitate your advertising gigs as you are placing your own advertisement on your own blog saying that the exact spot is for rented ads. This type of advertising requires your blog to have good traffic and reach a wide range of audience for advertisers to consider renting your ad space. Sponsored Blog Posts. Sponsored blog posts mean articles written by other people that are published on your blog site. There are occasional moments though that you, as the primary blogger, must write these articles. Mostly, you will receive an article that you can publish on your blog.
As the owner of the website, you may recommend some edits or requests to get paid in return for writing a blog for them. Do not ever accept free sponsored blog posts except when the request comes from big-time bloggers who can help your site get more followers. When accepting sponsored blog posts, you must make sure that you accept only the things that are related to your blog’s theme. As the owner of the site, you can request specific contents that you want to post and can take advantage of these articles to fill in spaces on your blog while making a profit out of it. Chitika.
Chitika is an ad network suitable for bloggers with a lot of search engine traffic. It is a great substitute for AdSense. This ad network shows effective and relevant ads if your blog has not reached strong traffic yet. Chitika offers different ad types on their system, and they are easy to make and customize. Its primary domain is contextual ads. You can also find hover ads, in-text ads, and highlight ads.
Chitika is a large-scale blogger’s pot of gold, but even small ones can make money out of it too. BuySellAds. This is a network where bloggers can connect with potential advertisers. Biggest niche blogs also rely on BuySellAds for their advertising gigs. One downside of using this network, however, is the fact that they are very costly. BuySellAds takes 25% from every ad sale that you have. The upside is that they help with payments, ad hosting as well as bookkeeping, which makes the process of advertising transactions smooth and easy.
The Importance of Lead Generation for Ad Selling
Blogs have quality leads you can use for various ad strategies. Blogs should be able to talk about topics that generate interest among people, especially those topics that are vital in their daily lives and provide them with information to solve existing problems. Quality contents mean appealing topics. If you want to achieve a strong lead, you need to produce quality content that appeals to the general public. It may sound easy, but it can be difficult to settle on one niche alone. To help minimize your choices, ask yourself what problems people have and what advice you give them to help find a solution to their problems. Choosing your blog’s topics matter, therefore think about what you want to write carefully.
You can take other ideas from similar blogs but do not copy them altogether. You can check it out to inspire you for more ideas or how to deal with a similar matter from a different angle. Blog posts should be published consistently and shared on different social media platforms for better exposure and increased traffic.
You should also include helpful external links that will direct readers to other contents on your blog. Providing quality contents that are honest and reliable will make people trust you and your blog. Once trust has been built you can now lead your readers to paid ads for which you can earn revenues. Make sure that you only direct them to products and services that offer quality and class. Do not ever compromise your integrity for paid ads, which provide lousy products and services.
There are two important factors in selling ads: your blog and your readers. Your blog should make an impact online and must remain classy so that it will not reduce the quality of your posts nor the reading experience of your followers once you add advertisements. Remember, your readers control traffic and you need to keep them interested in your contents so that advertising companies will choose you. Good luck on your blog endeavor!