Everyone who has started a blog should know about this great opportunity to earn money online. Although it takes time to build a site and get enough traffic, in the end, you will admit that it was worth your effort! You will succeed in monetizing a blog, but only if you plan it correctly. Read the list of advice below and start immediately! Remember that nothing comes without effort – if something goes wrong, try another technique.
Ads via text links
With this way of monetizing your blog, you can insert ads, which are based on the text you have posted. Therefore, if you are writing about a certain sphere – types of laptops for example, you can leave links that refer to any product you mention. Of course, you cannot just raise money for anything you link to in the text. Firstly, you have to sign up to a special provider that will set up the service. This service is very comfortable for readers because they usually do not like many advertisements.
Ads inside of a text
It looks like the previous one, but with the difference that with this method you add links inside of the text content. You have probably seen them while reading some of your favorite blogs – they are underlined twice, and if you point to such a link with a mouse, a small advertising pop-up will appear. The visitor can then decide to click or not, so it is advised to make it interesting enough.
PPC – Pay per click advertising
One of the most common methods is to get paid for every click on ads. The amount of money you can get with PPC (pay per click) ads depends on the traffic of your website. So the more people that visit your website, the more profit you will get. Therefore it is suitable for blogs, which generally have a lot of traffic.
The click-through rate (CTR) of your visitors depends on how you design website. For example, the space at the beginning and end of blog posts is more visible, so if you put PPC ads in these positions, you will automatically increase the chances of someone clicking on one. Obviously, if you put ads at the bottom of the page where nobody will pay attention, very few will click on them.
The cost per click (CPC) can also spot how much you will earn from this type of advertising. Adverts of financial products will bring you more income as the prices of the actual products are higher, compared to baby clothes, for example. With the first example, you can earn more than $1 for every click, whereas a click on clothing ads may bring you much less. So, PPC is a working way to monetize your blog, but only if you have a lot of traffic.
CPM – Cost per mile advertising
This method is just like the previous one, but the amount of money you get depends on page views rather than clicks. It works in the way that for every 1000 impressions – you can get $1, so you can easily count how much you can earn depending on your traffic. There are many providers of CPM which can provide cheaper or more expensive ads depending on the rate of the provider. In addition, as it was mentioned before, it depends on the placement of the advertisement on a page – not every visitor will scroll to the bottom of a page.
You can monetize desktop and mobile traffic coming to your blog with several ad types, not necessarily banners or text links. Publishers tend to choose the least intrusive Popunder ads or the trending In-Page Push format. These two pay off well and don’t require any static place on a webpage, so no need to redesign the whole layout.
Widgets
Unlike the previous two, this method is comparatively new. More and more people nowadays are using widgets on their blogs to earn money. They are made in a way that allows you to use all of the previously mentioned methods – PPC, text link ads as well as any partnership programs.
Place for advertising
You can generate more money if you allow placing an advertising banner anywhere on your blog or website. This method works a little differently compared to the previous methods – you don’t get paid for clicks or impressions but for the amount of time you are hosting the advertisement. For example, you can choose a month, two, or more. However, not every advertiser will accept your proposal – because if the traffic is too low, there is no point considering few people will see it.
PPR – pay per play
This kind of advertising is highly paid. How does it work? Every time when somebody opens your website, an audio advertisement starts to play and usually the user cannot stop it. However, it should be short, only a few seconds, not to scare the visitors away. Another form of this type of advertising is similar to podcasts. You can record a podcast for your website and unobtrusively insert some ads.
Pop-ups
This type of advertisement is highly used throughout the Internet, we are sure that you stumbled upon them many times. We can even predict that you were mostly annoyed and just like many people, have blocked them in order to have have normal access to a site. However, if you design it the right way, they can work. For instance, if you set up a pop-up that will appear only to new visitors. Users will pay attention to it at first sight and click on it if it is interesting. The main rule for this method of monetizing your blog is to make it as less annoying as possible.
Partnership marketing
If you do it the right way, this method is one of the best ways to monetize your blog! All of the previous methods can be used as affiliate marketing, but often a review of a product can also work well.
For example, if you have a website with recipes, you could search for affiliate programs that have products which might be connected to cooking. Maybe kitchenware – you can write in one of the recipes that your favorite frying pan is exactly the one that you can buy via the link. This type of advertising can bring you commission from every sale.
Product reviews
Similar to affiliate marketing, but not hidden. You should write detailed reviews of some products and post them on your blog or website. But they must also be connected to the main idea/topic, because who will look for leather bags on a website about kitchenware products?
Create your own product and sell it
Everyone can create something if he or she puts enough effort into it and thinks over the main needs of society. You can create an app, for example. Do not forget to consider your hobby because the way to reach happiness is to love what you do and do what you love! Maybe you write poetry or sew dresses, paint oil paintings or make ceramic plates. Create a website and try to sell your products. You can use the above-mentioned types of advertising to promote your creations.
E-Book
If you like writing, why not write your own e-book? Many people earn money by just sitting home and writing about their ideas. E-books are getting more and more popular nowadays, so it seems to be a good business idea. Just think about the topic that you can tell the world about and sell it either directly on your website (you get 100% of the sale price, and you get traffic to your website) or on Amazon. Selling your own E-book can be a wonderful way to raise money from your blog!
Hardback book
This is obvious but only for the people who have the talent to write or freely generate ideas to implement via writing. You can sell your book on your website too. Alternatively, vice versa – if you have a book, you had better create a site to monetize your intellectual property as well. There is a lot of advice on the Internet about writing and selling your own book. However, it takes time, so you choose!
Guides and tutorials
If you know how to do something very well, you can write a tutorial for people who are looking for someone to teach them how to do this. The Internet provides us with many reading guides just like this one. For example – a person that owns a car will definitely need some tips on driving. Everybody knows some information that they could teach to one another, so why not write about it and publish it on your own website?
Teaching program
The next step you can take after writing a tutorial is to develop an online course. They are extremely popular worldwide. You can put a pricing model on membership and then send videos, articles, or any other way of sharing the necessary information with those members. You can choose any topic you like and search for potential clients. For example, if you’re skilled in financial management, you can create courses to teach people about budgeting strategies, such as the 50/30/20 rule.
Live workshops
You can do even more – create live seminars on a certain topic. That is how you can find out who your audience is and what they like or dislike on your website. People who can speak with you face to face are unlikely to unfollow your blog, because a live connection is something more than just a photo in a profile. You can also set up a payment for membership, sell any other related products or anything you can think of on such workshops.
Host a webinar
A webinar is the same as a workshop but online. It is very comfortable for those people who live away from the place of the workshop, especially for an audience from other countries. You make money from webinars by charging for attending them. They pay for the information you give via an online presentation, and they can interact with you during the process. Webinars can incorporate powerpoint presentations, web-cams, photos, microphones, polls, etc., making them fully interactive with your audience. Choosing the right webinar platform provider is very important, you can follow Costofincome webinar software guide that covers all FAQ about this topic.
Consulting
Another way of promoting your talents and monetizing your blog is by offering assistance in your area of competence. However, to use this method you have to have quite a big audience relying on you and for which you have a good reputation. For example, it is very popular to have a psychologist as a consultant who you can connect with anytime via Skype for a fixed payment. People also would tend to pay extra money for this service as you are paying them more attention.
Sponsorship
If your website organizes events – any workshops, webinars or weekly podcasts you could find companies to sponsor you. Then at the beginning and at the end of an event, you would have to promote the sponsor. This type of advertising is very popular on TV. The pros of this method are that it gives website owners more options to monetize every aspect of their site. Advertisers are attracted to sponsorship contracts on high traffic websites as it allows them to reach a large targeted audience.
Selling services
You may have a usual job, for example, you are a lawyer or architect. You work only five times a week and have a lot of spare time? You can create your own website and promote your professional services through it to grow your client base. Users (future clients) can pay for your professional services through your website and receive your help, as in the previous example this could mean full financial planning. Obviously, with this type of promotion you only get paid when you are already working.
Membership site
More and more websites offer different membership areas. An example of this could be a dancing tutorials website. Only certain people can have access to videos with famous people teaching them how to dance.
Private forums
Similar to the previous membership sites, private forums can be created to please your audience. Members can pay an annual/monthly fee to access the forum and interact with other members. An example could be a lawyer’s forum where people can interact with real lawyers. A forum can focus on legal aid.
Marketing via e-mails
With this type of marketing, you can earn a lot of money. The main point is to create a large e-mail list of site visitors. When people register to become a member, you get their email address. With an email list, you can build a brand, recommend and promote any products, etc. Email marketing is not a direct way of raising money, but it is an amazing way of increasing your traffic rate. Just do not send too many emails to people or they might consider your emails as spam!
Polls
You can place polls from certain companies on your website that will help your rate too. You can sign up for these sites and choose a particular poll that will fit your website. The visitors of your site can participate in voting, and you get paid for displaying it. It’s as easy as that! Additionally, it is less annoying for site visitors than banners or pop-ups.
Paid directory listings
This type of monetizing is another way of selling advertising. Unlike displaying adverts on a page, you assign space on your website to link to different companies and services that are related to your area. For example, a blog about smartphones could have a separate page that displays links to companies that sell cases and covers for these smartphones.
Job boards
Create a separate page on your website and allow companies to post job vacancies. You can charge a fee if a job is filled by one of your visitors. With this method, you cannot earn a lot, but it can still generate some kind of income. This method is perfect for larger sites that have high traffic because you are likely to attract more listings.
Custom template or theme
You have to remember that you can sell anything that you can think of – even templates or themes. More and more people are creating their websites, so this option is very popular. Especially with the people that do not know how to use tools for creating it. If you are good at this or have created your own website by yourself – sell it! The amount of money that you can make from this method depends on your website development skills.
Donations
This method is not that popular because people are usually ashamed of asking for help – but there is nothing wrong with that! Donations can provide an alternate source of income from your website. Remember the thesis of Wikipedia’s policy is no advertisements? Then how do they exist? They ask for donations if you really enjoy using it. If you have a small website, this method is a good way to generate some income to help you pay for the upkeep of the website.
Auctions
There are still websites that just do not make money for whatever reason, but if you give up even after reading this article, you could consider selling your website. You can find many sites that offer to list your own site for sale. Some people do not want to put any effort into creating their own websites so they will be happy to buy yours instead.
Conclusion
Blogging offers a pathway to online income, emphasizing the need for strategic planning and effort. Monetization methods include text link ads, in-text ads, pay-per-click (PPC), cost per mile (CPM), non-traditional ads, widgets, advertising space, pay per play (PPR), pop-ups, partnership marketing, product sales, educational content, consulting, memberships, email marketing, polls, and paid directories. Success hinges on engaging content, targeted ads, and diversifying revenue streams.
