Starting a new blog has become a very profitable business for some experienced bloggers. Others use their blogs to earn additional income to their monthly revenues too. In case you want to follow their footsteps and you have just started a blog, or if you haven’t yet embraced the opportunity to get some money back for all your hard work and efforts to write great content and grow your audience and reputation, here are five of the most popular ways to start earning some cash from it.
Sell ad spots
You can offer advertisers to display their ads on your blog for a certain fee and at terms which you are able to negotiate with them.
This means giving them banner space, or any other space on your blog where they can place their ads for all your viewers to see.
Of course, in order to attract companies willing to purchase ad spots on your blog, you will need to persuade them that your blog is the best place for their ads. This can be done by providing them with relevant information regarding the traffic to your site, your audience niche, and demographics, as well as the following you have on social media. You can also attract advertisers with good quality blog posts and content pertinent to their marketing needs.
The advantage of this type of advertising is that you don’t need to pay someone else for finding advertisers for your blog, and thus get all the earnings for yourself. Also, you can decide how much money to ask for an ad spot, and what your terms will be.
The downside is that too much or too intrusive advertisements on your blog can get some of your readers aggravated and push part of your audience away.
The advantage is that you do not have to rely on readers clicking on the ad in order to get paid, and also that you don’t need to put too much effort in it. Just place the ad at the dedicated area on your blog, and swap it with another when the advertising time runs out.
Display Ads
This is probably the easiest way to earn money from your blog, and you can start using it from day one. It involves using a service such as Google AdSense to display ads on your blog. This is a pay-per-click advertising method, so you will have to rely on your readers clicking on an ad in order to get paid. Still, it is much easier than direct marketing, especially if you have a new blog with relatively low traffic. If you work hard on improving the reachability and traffic of your blog, you will be more likely to get more money from readers clicking on the ads displayed on it.
Part of your earnings will be withheld by AdSense or the service of your choice as a fee for finding advertisers for you.
The main disadvantage again is that some readers get annoyed by such ads, and either ignore them or have ad blockers installed, so as to avoid them altogether.
But given that your blog starts growing a steadily increasing traffic, chances are that you will be earning more and more cash from this type of advertising as times goes by.
Affiliate Programs
One of the most common and easy ways to monetize your blog is through affiliate programs. All you need to do is to promote a certain product or service offered by an online retailer who gives commissions for referrals. You will be given a special referral code which will inform the retailers whenever a product is purchased based on your referral. Then you will be paid a commission.
This is an excellent method for earning a decent revenue from your blog, as long as you find the most suitable products or services to suit the preferences and demands of your audience niche.
Once you find out what your readers need or what they are ready to purchase, you can start promoting limitless numbers of products on your blog in any way you like.
Every purchase will be adding dollars to your bank account.
Also, it is a perfect opportunity in the cases when you have nothing of your own to sell.
The problem with affiliate programs is that your reputation could be hurt if your readers start thinking that you are being paid for promoting products but not specifically telling them.
Otherwise, if you write for a specific niche, or on a specific subject, it is very easy to narrow down the most suitable products to promote as part of your regular blogging.
It is a great opportunity to make a profit from the billion-dollar online retail business without actually buying or selling anything yourself.
Sponsored Content
This is an easy way to make money from your blog, if you are able to persuade a company to pay for adding sponsored content to it. This can be in the form of sponsored posts or sponsorship of the entire blog for a certain period of time. Again, the payment and terms are up to you and are directly negotiated between you and the sponsor.
Like with direct advertising, you will need to show potential sponsors that your blog is worthwhile the money they will be paying for the sponsorship. This is best done by providing them with information regarding the topics discussed on your blog, the number of visitors and subscribers, the following you have on social media and other pertinent information.
You may be asked to publish the sponsor’s own post or information, or you could agree upon getting paid for mentioning or promoting the sponsors products or services instead.
Please note, that in many countries including the US you are required by law to clearly inform your readers that you are posting sponsored content on your blog, so makes sure you do that if you decide to offer this type of paid content.
If you have loyal readers, and great traffic ratings, chances are that there will be many companies and organizations willing to pay you for posting their sponsored content on a regular basis.
Service or Product
Offering your own product or service to your readers is another very efficient method to make money from blogging. You can offer them paid content which is useful or with extra high quality in the form of an e-book or other downloads. Depending on your skills and experience you can also offer online courses, training, consults or just about any type of service or product which your readers and subscribers are ready to pay for.
One of the best methods for finding out what your audience is interested in, and what they are willing to pay money for is to ask them to participate in an online survey. This will let you see what they want or what problem they need resolved. As a result, you will receive valuable feedback and will be able to answer their demands for certain types of products or services once you know what they want exactly.
Conclusion
Blogging is not just a fun way of reaching hundreds and thousands of readers from around the world who are interested in what you want to say. Today, more bloggers are relying on their blogs to earn additional income or as a means of making a living.
Whichever method of making money from your blog you choose, you must know that you cannot stop working on adding new high-quality content and building up your audience and subscriber numbers if you want to continue earning from it.
So, overall it is not an easy way to make some cash, but if you have a blog for personal, business or for other reasons, why not use the opportunity to get paid for your time and effort spent for running and improving your blog?
Good luck with your blog and let’s hope the money will start pouring in once you start implementing my ideas for monetizing it!
