One of the main reasons people consider starting a blog is to help them earn a living online. But where do you begin? What are the best ways to make your blog profitable? It’s an overwhelming process, to be honest, and it is slow. I hope that some of this advice will help you get started and teach you how to make money with a blog.
First, you will need patience. Most of these opportunities will require that your blog be at least 3 months old, and it needs to have regular posts before you can sign up. Plus, once you do sign up, you will need to be approved. Once approved, it can take months to see any sort of revenue. However, don’t let that dissuade you from pursuing your dream! It can be done!
Here are what are widely to be considered the best ways to earn money from your blog:
Pay-Per-Click Ads
If you’ve visited a website, you have seen a pay-per-click (PPC) ad. Websites use PPC ads to generate revenue by showing ads relevant to the user’s searches. For each click, the blog owner earns a small amount of money depending on the ad the reader clicked on. Sometimes, there is a pay-per- impression (displayed ads seen by the user), but that is not as common as PPC.
The nice thing about PPC ads is that there are no acceptance requirements, as with some of the other tactics below.
The top PPC ad service is Google’s Adsense, but there are two others that are popular: Chitika and Media.net. I use all three, and I have had a bit of success with these. If I had to choose a favorite, it’d be Google Adsense, but Media.net is not far behind.
Affiliate Networks
Affiliate marketing is another popular way to earn money from your blog. Basically, you are paid for promoting a certain service or product, usually with a percentage of sales (pay per sale) or a set amount for getting people to sign up for something (pay per lead). The best way to go about this is to sign up with services that only you would recommend, and services that pertain to your blog’s niche. For instance, it wouldn’t make sense for me to promote automotive repair services, would it? No. I try to stick to things like job boards, resume services, survey sites, books, apps, and coupons/freebies.
If you’d like to try your hand at affiliate marketing, you can try signing up with these services. However, you should know that some of them are very picky, and they may reject you because you’re not a good fit, or because your traffic is too low:
- Shareasale.com
- Panthera Network
- Commission Junction
- Rakuten Linkshare
- Amazon Associates
- Logical Media
In-Text Links
I’m sure you’ve seen them on other blogs as well. If you find them annoying, you aren’t the only one. However, when you start a blog, and are hoping to make money from it, you will probably change your tune (I did!). I have had more success with in-text links from Infolinks.com than I have with PPC ads. It is for that reason I will keep using them. Some other alternatives:
- Infolinks
- Kontera
- Vibrant Media
- Skimlinks
Sponsored Posts
You can also try writing sponsored posts, or posts that companies will pay you to write. As with affiliate marketing, you will only want to accept posts that pertain to your niche, and you should only write honest reviews, listing both pros and cons. Your readers will appreciate your honesty, for sure.
Here are some of the bigger names in sponsored post services:
- Sponsored Reviews
- Linkworth
- Blogsvertise
- IZEA.com
- Business 2 Blogger
Selling Ad Space
And last, but certainly not least, you can try selling ad space as a way to earn money from your blog. However, I should mention that you will probably need a moderate amount of traffic before trying this, because advertisers will not want to purchase ad space on a blog that’s new and doesn’t have much traffic.
Once your blog is established and has a decent amount of traffic, you’ll want to set up a page specifically for selling ad space. You’ll want to list certain information, such as Pagerank, Alexa ranking, monthly pageviews, and monthly traffic. You can also include other information, such as your social media accounts with number of followers. It’s a good idea to update this information monthly, as it will change over time.
You’ll also want to list the types of ad space available, such as the size of the banner ad (125×125, 250×250, 468×60, and 728×90), the placement of the banner (top of page, sidebar, footer, etc.), how long the ad will appear on your site, and the cost for each. You can try selling ads “manually” with invoicing your advertisers. Or, you can sign up with an ad management service, such as these:
- Passionfruit Ads: Charges a monthly fee. Accepts any blog, regardless of page rank, traffic, etc. You can also use it to swap ads, sell your posts, and sell other types of services. You are not limited to selling ad space. This is a good service if you have a regular stream of advertisers. It makes the monthly fee worthwhile.
- BuySellAds: Charges a percentage of your earnings, 25% to be exact. Getting accepted can be difficult.
- Adproval: Charges 10% commission from your earnings. Currently, they only offer ad space, but they are going to be rolling featured posts, giveaways, reviews, and social media “love” as part of their service.
- OIO Publisher: Charges a one-time fee of $47. You keep all of your earnings! Only offers ads, no other types of services like Passionfruit and Adproval.
If you’d like to share any other methods for monetizing your blog, please do so in the comments below!
