10 ways to monetise your blog

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.
  • Services (done for you)
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.
  • Consulting and coaching
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?
  • Sell your own products
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.
  • Affiliate offers
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.
  1. ClickBank,
  2. PayDotCom
  3. Share-a-Sale
  4. Commission Junction
Are just four places you can find good quality products for your toolkit / resource page
  • Google Adsense
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.
  • Ad Networks
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.
  • Sell Advertising
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.
  •  Sponsored posts
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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