From Blogs To Riches
Blogging for money is big industry in its own right
, and one which is still climbing on a high growth curve. More and more people are turning to make money by blogging for earning a few extra bucks on the side. Some have even endeavored to earn a living by blogging, and there is a long list of fairly successful bloggers who are making a living solely through these websites. The last couple of years of economic difficulties and a slump in the employment market has also exponentially boosted the number of people who are turning to make money by blogging.
But how exactly do you earn money from your blog? The growth of the blogging phenomenon has had one positive outcome - there are a number of monetizing options that are easily available to any blogger. If you are looking to monetize your blog, you will definitely find a number of options that can be used separately or in combination to earn a decent income. And the best part is - most of these monetization options are absolutely free!
So, what are some of the most effective and popular blog monetization strategies that have been adopted by successful bloggers? All the blog monetization strategies can be divided into the following categories:
Advertisements - Banner Ads / Text ads
Displaying advertisements on your blog is perhaps the most popular and effective strategy to generate revenue on a blog. What's more, displaying advertisements from established ad networks, such as Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher Network and AdBrite (just to name a few of the many options available) does not take a great deal of effort or technical knowledge, and can be successfully implemented even by a newbie blogger. More experienced bloggers with established blogs can even strike their own exclusive deals with relevant advertisers.
Affiliate Income
Earning money by being an affiliate, that is, selling someone else's products on a commission is another highly popular and successful method to monetize a blog. In this respect, you can take different approaches as a blogger - you can devote your blog to promote just a single product (e.g., a book) or a very focused group of products (e.g., digital cameras). You can also promote a very wide variety of diverse products on your blog. For example, if you have a blog on small business, you can promote books on small business, different business software and a other business merchandise such as business cards and office furniture.
The most widely used affiliate networks are Amazon, eBay, and Google Affiliate Network. You can use just one of these options, or combine a different option to get the best returns. Again, almost all of these affiliate networks are absolutely free to join.
Merchandising
Merchandising of goods and services is another successful option to monetize your blog. You can pitch a product or service to the visitors on your blogs, and when these visitors purchase the merchandise, you make money. The merchandise that you sell on your blog can be either products in tangible form, such as books, or in intangible/electronic form such as e-books, white papers and reports. The products that you can sell on your blog can either be created by you, or procured with the help of specialized third parties and services.
You can also devote your blog to pitch a specialized service offered by you, such as a resume writing service or a marketing consultancy. Realistically, you can market any service by blogging - you just have to be creative about it.
Sponsored Posts and Paid Reviews
Once your blog has gathered sufficient momentum in terms of readership and authority, you can also explore another highly lucrative option of writing sponsored posts and paid product/service reviews. There are a number of advertisers out there who are looking for blogs with sufficient readership and authority to write favorable reviews and to provide all-valuable backlinks to their websites. The trick is to have a blog with a fair number of daily visitors, both unique and repeat. If you really work hard and make a name for yourself in the blogging world, you can even get a number of advertisers to beat a path to your door to review their products.
Others
The above options pretty much cover most of the ground, as far as blog monetization is concerned. In addition, there are a number of other options such as:
Donations - You can put a PayPal button on a prominent place in your blog, and ask your readers to make a suitable donation. PayPal provides a number of customized buttons for this purpose.
Membership - You can sell membership to your blog/website to to your readers. The idea to have content so unique, valuable and authoritative that readers are ready to pay a price for it.
Sell Your Blog - Some smart bloggers have developed this to an art form - they will take up a suitable topic, start and develop a blog around it, and once the blog gathers a critical mass, they will sell it for a decent (sometimes very decent) profit. Then, they will repeat the process.
by: Melissa Smich
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