Making Money With Your Blogs
By Carol Stack
How do you make money with a blog? There are several ways, including AdSense, affiliate programs, and selling space on your blog.
For the blogger who doesn’t have their own product, it’s still possible to earn money from their blog thanks to Google AdSense. Google AdSense is free to join and easy to set up.
As you write the content for your blog, keep in mind that the ads shown are dependent upon the content on your webpages. Also, experiment with the placement of the ads to learn what location will get the most clicks.
Many believe that the best places for the ads are at the top left, at the bottom of the first post on the page and in the footer. Unless your blog is strictly an AdSense site, it’s recommended not to make it look too cluttered with AdSense ads.
Unless you are in a niche that provides you with high costs per click, you can expect to make anywhere from 10 cents to one dollar a click. There are niches that pay several dollars.
Of course, the more traffic you get to your site the more sales you will make, resulting in a higher income. There are sites that earn a few cents a day and there are sites that earn thousands a month. It all depends on the niche and the traffic.
Products
Another avenue for making money with your blog is to create and sell a product. Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula walks you through each step involved in creating a product, preparing to sell it, and launching it to the public. If you want to sell your own product, investing in Jeff’s product would be wise.
Selling a product, whether it is an ebook you acquired with resell rights or a product you made yourself, is usually a better way of making significant income. Done correctly, including researching what the public wants, you can usually make a better income selling your own product than depending on AdSense. There are always the exceptions.
Affiliate
Another way to make money with your blog is to promote affiliate programs. When researching the topic for your blog investigate what affiliate programs are available.
There are many resources for affiliate products including Commission Junction, Clickbank, LinkShare and hundreds of online stores that offer affiliate programs. For instance, if you have a pet site then possible affiliate programs would include Petsmart (through LinkShare) and PetCo (Commission Junction).
Referrals
Perhaps you are in a niche that would attract viewers who need a loan, a credit card, or debt relief. There are many companies that will pay you, the blog owner, a significant amount to refer people to their site to simply fill out a form. For each person you refer who fills out a form, you get paid as much as $45, or even more.
Text Ads
This new type of advertising is still growing and evolving and the majority of ads being served are not graphical but text-based in nature. There are two options for selling ads on your blog: Finding your own clients or using one of the third party ad services available, in which case you split the income with the service. Once you’ve setup an account and placed the ads on your site, just sit back and watch the cash come in.
How Long for Any Income?
It’s not going to happen overnight, but it shouldn’t be long, maybe two or three months, before your blog is bringing in an income that covers your blogging expenses. A little longer, and each blog should make enough to pay some of your living expenses.
Depending on how diligently you pursue blogging as an income source, you could be making a significant amount of money within a year or two, especially if you create your own product.
Carol Stack publishes the Self-Publishing Helper where she shares what she has learned from successfully marketing online.
SOURCE: Wordpreneur.com — How to Make Money Writing!
