Now that you have created your own blog, how do you monetize it? Or how do you make money from it?
There are hundreds of ways to monetize your blog but let’s make it very simple. Here are several of the most practical and easiest ways to monetize a blog.
1. Google Adsense
Selling contextual ads with Google adsense is by far the most popular option for bloggers.
Contextual means that the ads being served on your site should be closely relevant to your post. For example if your main topic is “forex trading“, expect to see closely related ads about “forex trading“.
However, that’s not always the case. The type of ads that will be seen by your visitors may depend on whatever country or Geographical location they’re viewing your site.
You need to apply as a Google publisher to be able to display adsense on your site. (I’ll posting a tutorial about this later.)
2. Affiliate Marketing
Sell other people’s products and earn a commission. It’s one of the easiest way to monetize your blog. It is less risky, cost effective and has great potential for earnings.
There are hundreds of affiliate networks online, but for starters use Clickbank and Amazon. These two are the largest and most trusted affiliate networks.
Sign up as a Clickbank affiliate if you want to promote digital/intangible products such as info products, eBooks, video tutorials, and software.
Apply as an Amazon affiliate if you want to promote physical/tangible products such as appliances, gadgets, clothing, and apparels.
Clickbank commission ranges from 25% up to 75%. Select products with higher commission rates. For Amazon, commission rates often starts at 4%.
3. Sell Your Own Product
If you have a product to sell, then by all means sell it on your blog. Most bloggers I met in my area are selling physical products such as accessories, art related products, and even gadgets and clothing. And they are making a wholesome money.
I personally sell digital products mostly in the private label rights and master resale rights niche.
4. Offer Your Own Services
There are many people out there who are willing to pay you for your knowledge and time. You can offer services to your readers to earn an income and raise your profile as an authority.
If you have online related skills like coding and programming, WordPress setup and management, digital drawing, animation, image retouch, and etc you can set up a blog and talk about topics that are related to your skill sets.
5. Sell Advertising Space
You can offer adverting space on your blog in the form of banners (usually in sizes 125×125, 468×60, and 300×250).
There are two ways to achieve this:
1) Use online advertising marketplaces
If you’re just starting, you can use advertising brokers or marketplaces such as BuySellAds. Keep in mind though the service will keep a percentage of your income.
For example, BuySellAds will take a commission of 25%. So if you earn $100 from one advertiser, you will only cash out $75.
2) Sell ads directly
Advertising space can be sold directly to advertisers. Most blog owners normally charge advertisers a fixed fee. For example, they charge $25/month for a 125 banner space. Some with high traffic blog can charge as high as $100.
Other bloggers charge per thousand impressions of the ad (cost per impressions are frequently referred to as CPM). For example, an advertisement with a CPM rate of $3 would cost $300 for one hundred thousand impressions.
If you want to sell ad space directly, then use the WordPress plugin OIOpublisher.
6. Product reviews or blog sponsorships
This kind of monetization is popular among WAHM bloggers (work at home moms) in my area. It involves writing a review about a company’s product in exchange of some cash or freebies.
Sometime in 2008, I’ve seen hundreds of sites serving as brokers between online advertisers and WAHM bloggers. The process involves submitting your blog to the broker’s platform, an interested advertiser choose your blog, request you to write a blog post promoting his/her product/site/company and you get paid a few dollars.
Today 2014, this practice may have gone somewhere but as I have stated above I’ve met bloggers who are still using the same monetization method. This can work greatly if you’re perceived as a popular or well know blogger in your area.