WAYS OF MONETIZING YOUR BLOG

 

Monetizing your blog is what should be on your mind whenever you think of making money from your blog.

 This is where most bloggers get it wrong, One thing you should know is that adsense is not the only way of monetizing your blog. Below are other ways of monetizing your blog.

Selling Advertising Space

You can monetize your blog by selling space on your website for advertisers to display a banner. This can be a very lucrative method as it allows you to cut out the middleman and charge what you want for other people to advertise on your site.

Generally these deals are worked out so that you display an ad for a fixed amount of time for an agreed fee with the advertiser. The downside of this method is that you need to commit time to manage the whole process with the advertiser and that your site needs to have a lot of traffic to be considered by advertisers.

Using Pop-ups

 Pop-ups are very common online, but they are also very annoying. Many people hate pop-ups and have pop-up blockers installed to stop them. However, if executed in the right way, they can work. Having a single pop-up on your website that only appears to new visitors may work. They grab the attention of the visitor on their first visit and after that they won’t be bothered again by them.

Pop-ups don’t necessarily need to sell products directly.  You can use them indirectly to promote aspects of your website, for example PopUp  can be used to encourage people to sign up to your email list of tutorial course.

Pop-ups can work if you make them less annoying to people. The more frequently they appear, the less traffic you will get coming back!

Affiliate Marketing

 

If done right this, method is a great way to monetize your blog. Many of the previous methods can be used as affiliate marketing methods, but often a review of a product can work just as well.

For example, if you have a health website you could research affiliate programs that contain products related to health. Perhaps someone wants people to advertise their new health product, you could write a blog entry ‘What’s the best care for my skin?’ and at the end you could promote the affiliate product.

With this type of advertising, you can get a commission with every sale that resulted from your recommendation. You refer viewers from your site via recommendations, banner ads, text link ads, etc., which takes them to the product page. If they buy, then you get a commission. This is often worked out on a percentage of the sale price, maybe 10-20%, sometimes more.

You can check sites like

• ClickBank
• ShareASale
• Skimlinks
• AffiliateWindow

Create & Sell Your Own Product

 

We are a society of consumers! If you have a product that you have made, then why not sell it on your website. Perhaps you are a software programmer and have designed an app to help people track stocks on their mobile phone. You could let people download it from your website for a small fee. Maybe your hobby is pottery and you want to sell off some of your work, then sell it on your website. Or write and sell eBooks. If they are popular, there might be a full-time business for them!

The good thing about this is that compared with selling a product in a shop that has a small customer basis, online you have the world to sell your product to.

Be a Consultant

 

You could monetize your blog by offering consultancy in your specific niche. You need to have a large number of followers and have built a good reputation in your field for this method to earn you money. You can offer one-on-one consulting to people over the phone or via Skype for a fixed rate. People would be willing to pay a premium for this service as they are paying for your undivided attention for an hour or more.

For example, you have built a reputation as being an expert in health and fitness and have a successful blog talking about methods of weight-loss and healthy eating. You could offer a consultancy service, where for one hour a day people can arrange to talk to you via web-cam to plan out a personal tailored exercise regime. You might charge $10 for the hour and the individual might not need to contact you until the next month.

 This is not a method for a start up website, but it could be something to aim for in the future as you grow your website.

Membership Site

 

Most sites offer premium membership areas. The most famous of these are Newspapers who are switching to more online content due to decreasing sales of actual newspapers.  Websites attract visitors with free content and then they realize that they can get added benefits by paying a membership fee.

An example of this could be a 3D modelling website. The website could offer free tutorials, detailing step-by-step instructions on how to create 3D renderings of objects, perhaps a car. Paying members can download pre-made 3D models that they can use in animations, etc.

Email Marketing

Email marketing can generate you lots of money. The key is to build a large email list of your customers/visitors. When people register to become a member, you get their email address. When people sign up to your weekly newsletter, you get their email address. The more ways there are to get someone’s email address the better.

With an email list, you can build a brand, recommend products, promote any events/workshops that you may be holding and more importantly to can encourage people to keep returning to your website.

Email marketing isn’t a direct way of making money, but it is a powerful way of increasing your income from your other methods by driving traffic back to your site. Just don’t go overboard with emails so that they are viewed as spam! Nobody likes spam!

Sell Your Custom Template or Theme

If you have spent time making your OWN custom template or theme, then you can consider selling it. An increasing amount of people are making their own website, therefore there is a demand for more templates that people can use.

The amount of money that you can make from this method depends on your website skills. A high quality template can be sold for as much as $15+ but that is the top of the range themes. If you have a skill for making these then you could build a small business around making and selling them.

Donations

A method that a lot of people don’t even think of, Donations can provide an alternate source of income from your website. You can get a donate button from PayPal to place on your site and ask people to donate a small amount to you for the service that you provide.

This method is a good way to generate some income if you have a small website, you could ask people to donate an amount to help you pay the upkeep of the website. This method can work for much larger sites as well, generally sites that offer helpful information to its users, can benefit from this method as it allows readers to donate a small amount of money if they feel that you have helped them in some way.

Some people may not like the idea of this, but the advantage of this method is that it can be easily set up and left. If people want to donate anything then they can, if not they don’t have to. You’ll be surprised how many people are willing to give you some money if you have genuinely helped them.