5 Ways to Make Money from Your Blog

If you have heard or read about other bloggers who rake in a killing with their blogs and you’re thinking about trying it too, you first need to know what sources there are for generating income. After you know what you need, then you need to decide if you have what it takes to actually make money with your blog.

1. Ads

Just like newspapers and magazines gain money from advertisers, you can do the same on your blog. Ads can be click-through text links, impression ads (image ads) or contextual. AdSense is definitely the most reliable and tends to be best source of income from ads. There are also others such as: Kontera, Value Click, Adgenta and AdBrite.

2. Affiliate Marketing

The only difference between affiliate marketing and regular ads is the way you are paid. The former pays a set price, while the latter pays commission based upon performance. So, if you get a lot of people clicking on your links who then buy the product, you will get paid more. Amazon has a good affiliate marketing opportunity and others include Commission Junction, AllPosters and LinkShare.

3. Continuity Programmes

This is a newer form of blog monetizing. Continuity programs pay the blogger a recurring amount to offer a service which people sign up for. Third Tribe Marketing offers a program like this.

4. Paid Blogging

Most companies will not pay you to write your own content unless you have massive traffic, loyal subscribers and a high search-ranking blog. However, there are many ways to get paid to blog for other businesses. ProBlogger is a job board just for this purpose, but there are plenty of freelance writing job boards with paid blogging jobs.

5. Product Sales

This can be something you create on your own or a product you sell for a separate business. eBooks can be a great way to not only supplement your other income, but they also provide extra value to your audience.

 

Do You Have What It Takes for Your Blog to Make Money?

You have probably heard this before: Anyone can make money from their blog. Well, yes and no. While it is true that it’s possible for anyone to monetize their blog, not everyone can actually make money from it. You can put up twenty-seven ads and join sixteen affiliate marketing groups which technically counts as “monetizing” your blog. This is no guarantee that you will actually make an income of any kind. Making significant money by blogging depends on the following things:

1. How Good Your Blog Is

If your blog is essentially an exercise in vanity where you publish all your terrible poetry and it offers value to no one except your two weird fans, you may as well try squeezing money out of a soggy paper bag.

2. How Shareable Your Blog Is

If you offer awesome information, are exceptionally funny or otherwise have a good quality blog, but you never have a single call to action and you never promote it, how are you going to increase your readership and traffic? Shareable also refers to other people sharing it. Be sure to use titles, content and images that can easily be shared. Set up social media buttons to encourage your audience to pass it along.

3. Is There a Demand or Audience for Your Blog?

This doesn’t mean “do you have 10 friends that will read your blog if you beg them?” It means, “is there purpose to your blog and does it appeal to a wide audience?” Think of your blog like a product. You may be writing some really cool stuff about giant-sized radishes that can cure hiccups, but how many people will care? A blog that reviews mobile apps for business and integrated marketing would appeal to a very large audience of corporate and private business owners.

4. Are You Willing to Work Hard for Your Audience?

If your blog satisfies all the first three things, but you don’t put much time or effort into your blog, it won’t generate a lot of income. For example, let’s say you join as an affiliate to market how to control backyard mosquitos, but you don’t put a lot of effort into selling mosquito repellants or promoting the company website. Maybe you use AdSense, but you think your blog will look like a mini-mall threw up on it if you use more than two or three per post.

Maybe you don’t take time to learn about your audience’s demographics and consequently do not have ads that market well to them. Maybe you get bored writing and start to publish lazy articles that don’t have a lot of value. These are all things that will sabotage your blog’s potential to bring in substantial income.

In other words, to make decent money from your blog, you have to work at it like a normal job. This is not a “make-lots-of-money-but-without-having-to-do-any-work” thing. It also helps to know about SEO (search engine optimization), how to build web traffic, how to increase your online visibility and other web savvy strategies. If you have great content but have no idea what backlinks or SERPs mean, you may want to think about partnering with someone who does.

Courtney Gordner

Courtney Gordner is a passionate blogger with a love for social media and all things internet! Follow her on her blog, talkviral.com and on Twitter!

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