Do you already have a blog? If so, you might have a potential money-maker on your hands. When you find yourself investing your time & energy into something like a blog, it’s only natural that you eventually get paid for it, not only to help sustain yourself, but to also be able to push yourself further to offer more.
A blog by itself meets all the criteria of a full website, and therefore it is possible to use it to create a small business.
By posting interesting, high-quality content, and by adding in the right measures for optimizing SEO (Search Engine) exposure, you can gain hundreds if not thousands of visitors. If you have a stream of visitors, you can you convert that into a revenue stream.
So how do you go about making money with blogs?
Here we list the most popular advertising techniques that paid bloggers utilize daily:
The quality of your content should never be compromised for the sake of advertising revenue. If your content becomes overpopulated with advertising techniques then it will only corrupt the flow of your content, it will seem too commercialized and you will surely lose readers over it.
1. Create or Promote a Product
A great way to earn money is to produce and ship a product and make some extra money from that. It can be a digital (downloadable) product too; such as e-book or even an online course. Creating your own digital or physical product as a blogger should be an exciting path to online success.
Types of products a blogger might create and sell:
- Retail (or wholesale) merchandise
- Ebooks, Webinars, Online Courses
- Software, Plugins, Apps
- Video, Audio, DVD
- Reports
Note: a successful product launch also begins with great timing. You probably will feel a sense of urgency in introducing your service or product, but rushing could also foil your ambitions. If after second thought, postponing your product launch until everything is perfectly in place could mean the difference between experiencing no traction or receiving glowing reviews.
2. Use of Affiliate Marketing
What is affiliate marketing? It’s very likely that you’ve heard it before. Affiliate marketing is the process of selling some other company’s product which returns you a commission based on each sale.
We here at 4GoodHosting have an excellent affiliate system (add link). Additionally, companies like ShareASale, LinkShare, and Amazon Associate are some of the leading affiliate programs which a vast variety of bloggers use. You can sell branded products easily through Cafepress. These sites allow you to select products of every kind imaginable. This gives you freedom of choice as to what types of products you wish to promote on your blog.
3. Advertising Partnership
There is an array of advertising programs which you can join that will advertise directly on blogs.
You can approach companies directly too, perhaps companies that you like. It can be any company that advertises online. If you have a photography blog, you can write to camera companies, or perhaps film, or frame companies.
Many blogs explore sponsorship with advertisers at present and we will only see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship can also happen on a post by post basis, with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies, either a once or on a regular schedule – some bloggers have actually made big money from their blogs by doing so.
Google these adverting companies: AdHearUs, AdGenta, Adknowledge, AVN, CrispAds, Double Click, Clicksor, Industry Brains, Intelli Txt, Kanoodle, OneMonkey, Pheedo, YesAdvertising, Peak Click, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point
4. Offering Paid Services
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, blogging is going to yield you a significant number of skills, all of which can be utilized together (as a blogger) or individually, and still provide a solid stream of income. Here are some of the most common services that bloggers might promote themselves as being able to do:
- Freelancing : Freelance is the most widely known way of working online. As a blogger you can showcase your valuable skills in writing and marketing; there is a plethora of jobs available to individuals with internet skills.
- Coaching : You can promote yourself as an online coach who can teach others the ins and outs of successful blogging.
- Events : attending events and promoting your services in the real world is a great way to make new connections and meet new friends.
- Speaking : If you like to speak, make yourself available for speaking purposes, if some group will pay for your flight and accommodations, you might as well make a vacation of it, if fits your schedule. This can allow you to promote yourself beyond your usual reach.
- Web Design : Bloggers are also by virtue web designers, you can charge to setup blog or entire websites for others. Sell yourself!
5. Donations
Donation buttons and “tip jars” have been a part of blogging for years. This past year we noticed a number of bloggers offering fund raising drives.
Flipping Blogs : You can also put your blog up for sale right on your blog itself! Or you can start a service for offering people easy setup of their own blogs, like Wordpress.org. Weblogs Inc was sold to AOL for millions.
We hope you have found these suggestions helpful. Don’t forget about checking out joining our 4GoodHosting affiliate program as one method to make some bucks from your blogs. We will pay you once you have commissions of $50 or more. : )
