There are prolific and talented bloggers all over the ‘net that
aren’t making a penny. They are failing to monetise their blogging not
because their blog isn’t very good, but because they don’t know how. In
this post, one of our affiliate marketing series, we’ll look at the why
and explain how it’s not hard to monetise your content.
If you don’t tell your readers what you do, they can’t buy from you.
Have a services page on your blog and refer to it in your content. You
may prefer a “Hire me” page or a consulting page.
Again a page and references to your consulting / coaching services in
your content. Your call to action after each post can refer people to
your consulting offers. If your readers don’t know that you do it, how
can they book it?
If you have your own products sitting on your desktop they are never
going to monetise your blog. You will never earn a thing whilst they are
sitting there doing nothing. If you haven’t got an ebook or information
product looking at creating one. Ebooks
are a great way for potential clients to sample your abilities before
they make a leap to your consulting and coaching services.
Find complimentary ebooks for your content and review / recommend
them. Add your affiliate link and you will make some sales. Go over old
content and see if you can add a link for a relevant product. Look at
your stats see what your most popular posts are and see if there is an
opportunity to monetise that content. Consider adding a toolbox or
resource page in which you list how your blog was set up and what tools
you used. Sign up to some affiliate networks and have a look around.
- ClickBank,
- PayDotCom
- Share-a-Sale
- Commission Junction
Are just four places you can find good quality products for your toolkit / resource page
Google Adsense isn’t for everyone but if you want to cover your
hosting fees and a blog revamp every now and then this is the way to
monetise for you. Don’t think you can’t earn decent money using Adsense
because you can. I have a friend who has Adsense sussed and he earns
£2,500 a month from it. He blogs twice a week about Gardening. Yes,
gardening. Very niche.
For local and mobile advertising oin your blog take a look at
Chitika. For some bloggers this is a good revenue stream. I have not
tried it myself but that doesn’t mean you can’t look into it.
Kontera specialises in ad links that are in text. The ad is
underlined and linked so if you reader clicks through you are rewarded. I
have mentioned a few times in this series of posts (about monetising
your blogging) that affiliate links in the content itself convert
better. If you don’t like Adsense and don’t want the hassle of sourcing
the right affiliate links then this is for you. Kontera understands
semantic content and acts accordingly. It’s intelligent and responsive
to your readers needs and doesn’t detract from the reading experience.
BuySellAds is
one such network, and it’s a huge network. Huge. Have I mentioned that
it’s big? BuySellAds has excellent customer service and are very
responsive. It’s worth looking into. Think that you have to be generic
in your ad network? Think again… if you are a mummy blogger / parenting
blogger / pet blogger or Latino blogger then take a look at the
BlogHer network.
Into advertising, art and design? Take a look at
http://fusionads.net/ and
think that you are just too niche for advertising or it will conflict
with your personal beliefs then you can take a look at
http://beaconads.com/.
With a bit of creative searching you can find an ad network to monetise your blog.
Add a page to your site that says “advertise here”. Simple. As I
mention in the coaching and consulting section, no one can book it if
they have no idea you offer it. Need someone to manage it for you? Take
a look at
https://www.isocket.com/.
On your advertise here page your potential advertisers will want to
know how many visitors you have and their demographics. Now is the time
to install Google Analytics if you have’t already.
Over at Birds on the Blog one of the ways we monetise is through
Sponsored Posts. This section is headed up for us by Suzan St Maur from
How to Write Better.
Suze liaises with the post’s sponsor, extracts their aims and then
creates a quality post for them. Suze’s writing and editing skills means
that the quality of the post is not compromised or spammy, but of use
to the reader and the advertiser. Your potential advertiser may just
wish to add a banner to your post or a link. Paid links are generally
set to no-follow so you don’t get a penalty from the search engines for
taking payments for links.
You don’t have to do all of the above, start testing a few of them and your blog will soon be monetised.
Things to remember when monetising your blog:
Research your potential advertisers, don’t compromise the quality of
your site by going with just anything. If you are not sure, err on the
side of caution.
Not every post has to have advertising and affiliates links in. Go with what you are comfortable with.
If you are unsure then start with a few product reviews – my review post formula is here.
You still have to build trust and you might be asking some of these FAQs about affiliate marketing via your blog.
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