How to Monetize a Blog?

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Many people have blogs and websites but most of them don’t know how to monetize or earn money from them. You can actually make hundreds if not thousands dollars per year
with blogging. Of course, at the beginning it will be difficult and you
would be happy if you earn enough to cover the domain and hosting
costs. When you move on, your experiences and knowledge will improve as
well as the income.

In this post, I will cover the basic ways how to earn money with blogs that are also easy for beginners.

1) Google Adsense

Google Adsense is the most popular way
to earn money with your personal blog/website. You must have seen or
heard that many websites have similar ads all over the place:

In order to place those ads to your site, you need to sign up to Google Adsense.
After you have submitted your application, your website will be
reviewed and after few days you will be able to use Google Ads.

If someone clicks on your ad = you will earn money.
It can either be from few cents to few dollars, depending on your blog
and advertisers who use Adsense. Once you have earned over $100, your
money will be transferred to your bank account. As an alternative, you
are able to receive checks as well.

2) Affiliate Networks

Another way to make money using your
traffic is Affiliate Networks. In short, many companies offer blog
owners to sell their products. If your visitor buys their product
through your link that is placed on your site, you will receive
commission.

Commission ranges from 5% to 75% of the
product’s sales price. For example, if you are selling a book that costs
$40 and the commission is 50%, you will get a sweet $20 just for
promoting it. Good, isn’t it? Another $20 goes to the product owner.
Those products can be books, services, physical items and so on… One of
the most famous affiliate network is Commission Junction.

3) Amazon Affiliate

If you haven’t used Amazon to buy
things, you have probably heard about it. Amazon is the second largest
“online store” besides eBay. If you have a website, you have the
possibility to sign up as an Amazon partner.

Once you have signed up and your application has been accepted, you can start putting those “Ads” on your website:

The system is a no-brainer.
If someone clicks on your links and buys (any) product from Amazon, you
will receive commission that can rage from 4% to 10%. You might think
that it’s ridiculously low, but what if someone buys a laptop or a pro
camera through your link.

Furthermore, some of the buyers don’t
buy only one thing. For example, if they are planning to buy a
snowboard, they will most likely want to buy some additional gear as
well (helmet, boots etc.)

4) Selling Ad Space

If you don’t want to monetize your blog
using Adsense or affiliate programs, you can also try selling ad space.
The price of ad space can differ a lot. It depends of quality of your
blog, the age of your visitors, the amount of your visitors and many
other aspects. It can either be $10 per day or $200 per month. Keep in
mind that you can always sell adspace to different website/business
owners. On of the best marketplaces for that is BuySellAds.

5) Sell Your Own Product

Sometimes it’s smarter to sell your own
product. If you don’t have one, you can produce it. It can be a book,
software or just some coaching lessons. Think about your passions and
something you are good at. You will be amazed how many people would be
interested in it.

Let’s say you like to cook and you have
implemented some new recipes that no-one is using. You want to share it
with other people and earn money at the same time. Open Word and write
down all the recipes you think other people will like and illustrate
them with pictures. Now save it as .PDF and sell it on your blog. Sounds
like a plan?

Additionally, here are some alternative
ways to monetize blogs. These methods don’t have that big income
potential unless your blog has not hundreds of thousands of followers or
very big mission.

6) Get leads to your own business

Do you have a business? Do you provide
some sort of service? Great, the content and blog posts on your blog can
bring you more customers. If they like what you write, they will most
likely feel motivated to do some business with you. For example, my
cousin has a Chiropractic business near LA. So far, she has managed to
get hundreds of new customers via her blog. If she can do it, I bet you
can do that too.

Last, but not least…

Set Up a Donation Widget

You’ve probably seen donation widgets or
websites where you can donate money to support the people behind it.
There are several different plugins for that, but in my opinion PayPal Donations
is the best one for that. Why? PayPal is the most universal money
transfer that many people have. Some widgets use credit card payments
but these have significantly lower conversion rates. People are afraid
of credit card frauds, so I suggest to use other methods.

Build Jobs Boards

If you have a niche blog that can be connected with any industry
where people look for new jobs then it may be a smart move to set up a
job board. When your blog is about engineering or graphic design or
something similar, get in touch with companies who are looking for new
employees in your niche. They are ready to pay you when you publish
their job offers.

The #1 requirement is to have strong community or relevant traffic.
For example my Photoshop Tips blog got about $150 per month for
publishing job offers from 3 different companies. It’s a good way to
monetize your blog but unfortunately this business model does not fit to
90% of blogs. Otherwise it’s a great way to earn some extra money
because most people don’t use that technique.

If you wish to learn more about adding a “Job boards” section to your WordPress blog then click here.

If you have any ideas about the topic or ways to earn money through blogging, feel free to leave a comment below.

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Thanks to : http://www.startbloggingonline.info/