How to Monetize a Blog to Make Money
Are you looking for ways to make money with your blog? Learning to make some extra money blogging can be frustrating to say the least. It is a never-ending battle to get you site found, and increasing your click-through ratio, so you can make some money with your blogging efforts. Either you don’t have enough traffic or you are not sure what to do.
For the newbie bloggers, I have put together this list of a few ways you too can “Make Money Blogging“ on the Internet.
This website is designed for the average online newbie who is seeking advice on how to make money online with their blog. It is full of money-making tips, tricks, tools and resources complete for implementing money making elements into your blog. Within this blog you will find earning tips that are also divided into Newbie, Intermediate, and Experienced Bloggers based on the differing qualifications and needs of each.
Making money on the Internet is mostly about customizing a specific set of elements known as you monetizing formula for your website or blog. Depending on your skill level, network, and current traffic levels your blog has a variety of options. So find your blog’s formula below to maximize your earnings.
Beginner (Newbie)
To classify as a Blogging Newbie, then more than likely you will have low levels of traffic, relatively new to blogging, little or no Internet experience, no design experience and limited SEO skills, and probably a sense frustration over the lack of earnings.
Below are some of the more common options you have to help monetize your blog. In this section are wealth of advertising venues that can be used no matter what your specific experience level may be. Be sure to read through each of their offerings prior to applying.
Newbies can use any level monetization methods. However, it will take some learning to implement some of these methods. For the Intermediate and Problogger, Most of the information on this site will be relatively easy to comprehend, with a few current black and white hat techniques you may or may not have been exposed to.
For the Blogging Newbie, take the time to go to each of the site links below and research before you begin your monetization efforts.
PPC – Pay Per Click is an advertising program in which ads are placed on your blog and you are paid whenever your visitors click on the ads. It is the most common method bloggers use to make money online. It involves almost no effort and is so incredibly easy that many blogs have too much advertising on them. Money is maximized as traffic levels increase.
Resources: Google Adsense Chitika Yahoo! Bidvertiser Adbrite
CPM - Cost Per Thousand (“m” is roman numeral for thousand) is an impression based advertising system. This means advertisers place ads on your blog and you are paid based on how many times the ad shows up. This can be profitable for blogs with big traffic, and can start to bring money to even the smallest blogs. All you need is page views to increase this monetization method.
Resources: Value Click Tribal Fusion
Money Widgets -A very simple advertising system is easily integrated into your blog’s sidebar with widget advertising. Just embed the widget into your sidebar and watch the ads begin.
Resources: The Newsroom WidgetBucks ScratchBack SmartLinks
In-Text Ads – You know what these ads are. You have probably seen them all over small blogs and websites on the Internet. They are contextual links with double-lines below them. Although in-text ads are sometimes useful for generating blog income, they do tend to irritate most readers into leaving your blog and not returning/subscribing. In-text ads should be used with caution.
Resources: Kontera Vibrant Media
Parked Domains – If you have some domains you are planning on using, but have not begun building your site around, the parking your domains with parked domain advertisers may be the just the ticket to easy earnings. This is perhaps the easiest way to make money, although in small doses, online. Just get a domain name and use the parked domain programs that are available.
Resources: Parked Google Parked
Ask for Site Donations – You have probably all seen the little button that says, “donate” in someone’s sidebar. It is an easy and perhaps out-of-date way to try and earn some revenue. Many programmers use this still, but very little revenue is earned through the donation feature. For example have you ever donated? But still it is simple and if you don’t mind the button then go ahead and try. There have been several successful bloggers who have used this method to pay for trips around the world.
Resources: Paypal – it really is the only major ‘donate’ resource around!
Affiliate Marketing – Perhaps the most lucrative process for earning money online is by using your blog to recommend useful and relevant products to your readers. The best examples are seen by the many bloggers linking to different themes, ebooks and other products. The primary benefit about affiliate marketing is that you only market the product and leave the selling to the product owner. Just make sure the product is relevant and not over-used.
Resources: ClickBank Commission Junction Azoogle Ads Link Share
Text Link Ads – As your blog builds reputation and traffic your posts/pages become great places for links. Many people will even pay you to put their link on your website or page. While it has earning potential, be leery of this form of revenue as it may be detrimental to your blog in Google’s algorithm. So study it out before you make your decision.
Resources: Text-Link-Ads Text-Link-Brokers
Feed Ads – An easy way to increase the advertisement on your blog is by adding them to your rss feeds. The simplest way is to get Feedburner and set it up for your blog. Once you have done that then click on the monetize tab and Google Adsense will be added to your feeds in almost one-click!
Resources: Feedburner BidVertiser Pheedo
Paid Surveys and Polls – It is just what it says it is. You fill out surveys and polls or place them on your blog for others to fill out and earn money. In doing this option be careful to find survey or poll companies that have credible backgrounds as this is a source for scammers.
Resources: VizuAnswers
Pop-up Ads – These pesky and annoying advertisements may be great for some of your niche blogs or sub-domains. Not worth putting on blogs you actually want to build a community on, pop-up ads offer decent revenue to blogs looking to exist but not grow significantly. But be aware that it is annoying to the reader.
Resources: Adbrite Tribal Fusion PayPopup PopupAd Adversal
Audio Ads – “You are a winner”, “You may have just won a free Ipod”, etc. These audio ads can be very targeted to your traffic and very successful or completely useless. For instance, many surfers do not even have their sound on while they surf to avoid such advertisements. I would recommend not using this sort of advertisement for long-term projects.
Resources: NetAudio
Article Marketing – A two-edged sword. You get both quality backlinks to your blog and its posts while also creating earning potential. I use Squidoo and Associated Content personally and earn enough money to support my blogging efforts and some advertising. It’s also very easy through the simple resources available to you. Using this blogging income source is both potentially lucrative and excellent marketing.
Resources: Squidoo Hubpages Associate Content
Pay Per Call – Perhaps one of the most lucrative of all online monetization programs available is the Pay Per Call program. With this program you market products in combination with your Affiliate marketing efforts. You are given a proprietary phone number that you promote on your site to induce your visitors to call the advertiser. Once they complete the specified criteria set by the Advertiser, you can make as much as $75.00 per completed phone call
Resources: Click Bank
There you have it! You now have several ways to make money blogging by monetizing your site with reliable ad sources. For more information on how to make money blogging, read though this site for other articles that will help you in your online money making business.