Monetizing your blog This is not going to be an all-encompassing list of ways to monetize your blog - just the basics. You will find as your blog grows that you may have different needs. You may be even reaching a different audience than you had originally anticipated and your advertising will evolve to complement your blog. That being the case, I am just going to cover a few basic ways for you to monetize your blog.
There seems to be some out there that shun monetizing their blogs. Some people say that it is a turn-off and people won’t visit your site. Based upon my observations, this is totally false. Most of the successful blogs out there are ripe with ads and many of those people make a nice chunk of change from their advertising efforts. Are there extremely successful blogs out there that aren’t monetized? Sure, but they are far and few between. I would say that even those sites are monetized as it is one big ad for the author and what he or she promotes.
So let us presume that you don’t have any moral quibbles with monetizing your site. What is the best way to do it? I don’t know - but below are four good places to start advertising on your blog.
Sidenote: When choosing your ads (whatever form you decide to utilize), you need to think like a reader of your blog. How did they arrive at your blog? What interests drew them to your blog? What parallel interests would people like these have? This is where you want to direct your advertising efforts. I know you are saying “Thank you Captain Obvious,” but you’d be surprised how many people don’t even get this straight-forward concept.
Google
Let’s start with one of the most common forms of monetization - Google’s AdSense. Google allows you to place a script on your blog to display ads that were placed via Google AdWords by advertisers seeking a specific audience. Well, how are you going to know what to tell Google to put on your blog - sounds daunting doesn’t it? Lucky for you, if you want to use Google’s AdSense, it is contextual - meaning that the Google’s script analyzes the content of where AdSense is being place and displays ads that are relevant to that content. Easy squeezy lemon peasy! Oh, so you want me to give you a tutorial on AdSense - ain’t happening - just go to Google AdSense, and they got the best tutorials you could ask for.
Display Ads
Next, are display ads, or more commonly called banner ads. These are the squares, rectangles, or whatever other shape they will come up with next that are basically billboard ads on your blog. Some are unobtrusive while others are really annoying - you are going to have to decided your comfort level with ad size. You will notice that a very common size now are the 125×125 ads which refers to the ad size length by width in pixels. Why are they popular? Probably because they fit well in multiples on the sidebar or at the top of a blog while being large enough to convey a message with flare - they have graphics making them more visually appealing. The next most popular are the rectangular banner ads which come in a couple of different sizes. These usually go at the top of a site or are included within or at the bottom of a post.
Alright, where do you get these? Almost all affiliate programs that you will want to promote will have banner ads available. The easiest way to join affiliate programs is through an affiliate network. What is that? An affiliate network basically brings advertisers and publishers (you as the blog owner are the publisher) and provides what amounts to a middle-man for publishers to come to a single source to find advertisers. There are several really good affiliate networks out there you can work with, but let me just give you two to start with. The first is Commission Junction - the largest in the industry is a great place to start. They have hundreds of advertisers with dozens of different styles of ads from banners to text. In addition, their Commission Junction University is a great place for you to get an in-depth introduction to the world of affiliate marketing.
To find additional affiliate networks, just do a search. You will see names like PepperJam, NeverBlue, MarketLeverage, Azoogle, and many more. Which is the best? That depends on which works best for you.
Please be aware that you may apply to either of the services and be denied because they may not feel that you have enough blog-credibility in their opinion. If that happens, don’t fret. Use the ads available through direct affiliate channels, and keep plugging away. After you have some posts under your belt, apply again.
Text Links
When people think of text links, they often think of buying links which may or may not be a wise decision for you (just do a search for “text links” for more information). When I speak of text links, I am referring linking directly to the text of your posts.
This is something that you can and should do when the opportunity arises as it will definitely add to your bottom line. A straight forward example of this is in this sample portion of a post:
While there are many places to find a domain, I find that GoDaddy offers me the best range of solutions for…..
What I would do with this post would be to put a very unobtrusive affiliate link to GoDaddy (hyperlink the word GoDaddy to your affiliate url) so that if anyone follows that link and purchases something from GoDaddy before the cookie expires, then I get an affiliate commission. To most people this doesn’t look like advertising either, it simply looks like a link to the website being referenced.
Selling Products or Services
This should be the first thing anyone thinks about when wanting to have a business - selling products or services. However, many of us don’t have a product or service to offer, or at least we don’t think we do. If you have great content, you can organize it, package it and sell it. This is what you see with most ebook offers - simply of collection of knowledge on a subject laid out in an easy to read and easy to follow manner (hopefully anyway).
Perhaps you have a connection to buy and resell certain items that you think there is a great market for and is related to your blog - this would be a great venue to offer up those products, even if it is just an adjunct to your current eBay efforts. It could pay off big for you and may lead to other distribution opportunities - especially if your blog showcases you as an authority in that particular product field.
Of course if you have expertise in a certain area, you can and should offer up you r knowledge for a fee as a consultant. Many companies have grown out of someone offering their expertise and parlaying it into a much larger, more lucrative venture. If you are confident of your expertise, utilize it and get paid for it.
Wrapping It Up
There are many more ways to monetize your site that I haven’t covered such as Chitika, Yahoo Publisher Network, Linkworth, Direct Media Exchange…the list can go on and on. I think the few advertising avenues that I covered are the best places to start. After you have explored these ideas and are comfortable with advertising on your blog, you can start exploring other avenues.
One thing I can tell you though, is that you don’t want to try every kind of advertising that there is all at once - your site WILL look gaudy and that WILL turn some people off. Be selective, keep track of performance, and adjust as needed.
Now go monetize your blog.
This intel first appeared on: http://www.mmoneyonline.com/4-basic-ways-to-monetize-your-blog
