People who are passionate about writing used to start a blog to publish content on topics within their area of expertise or interest. It used to be that there was no profit involved in it, but these days things have changed a lot. Blogging has become more of a profession these days than a hobby.
Still, there are many bloggers who do not monetize their blogs, but the ones who do make use of this opportunity have a chance of earning a decent amount of income every month. These earnings mainly depend on the size of followers and the amount of trust they have in the blog along with the monetization strategies adopted. Bloggers are earning from a few hundreds to thousands of dollars every month with different monetization techniques and here you will be introduced to some of the best practices.
Start earning through your site like your fellow bloggers! Following are some important tips that could be most useful to you.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing always comes to mind first when considering the list of monetizing options for a blog. The percentage of income generated from Affiliate Marketing is directly proportional to the number of followers a site possesses. More visitors equals greater income.
There are tons of affiliate programs out there for various niches. Different programs pay you on different terms. Let’s take a look at them:
Pay per Sale: This program pays you when a visitor from your site completes purchasing the promoted product or service from the seller’s site. The commissions are high for affiliate programs that pay per individual sale that you make selling the merchant’s product or service.
Pay per Click: Here you earn for every visitor you redirect to the seller’s website and it is not necessary that they need to purchase a product, you are paid just for getting the user onto the seller’s site.
Pay per Lead: This program pays you whenever a visitor from your site becomes prospect to the seller by filling in a subscription form on their site.
Apply for Google Ad Sense
Google Ad Sense requires the minimum amount effort from your side to monetize your blog. Just create and Ad Sense Account and activate monetization and leave the rest up to Google. Google pays the website owner an amount based on the number of clicks received for the Ads displayed. Your earnings depend on the number of visitors you got – more visitors will get you more earnings as there will be more people that could potentially click on the advertisements.
How Ad Sense Works
Advertisers pay Google for displaying Ads on the websites and Google in turn pays the sites that display these Ads. The program is designed in such a way that Ad placements will be somewhat relevant to the blog or website. Suppose a site that writes about eco-friendly topics gets Ad Sense approval, then Ads on Solar Panels and other related things will be displayed on that site.
Ad Sense Registering Process
Registering with Google Ad Sense offers you a pool of Ads to be displayed on your site. It is a simple process and you need to provide your blog or website URL at the time of registration. You can find many tutorials on YouTube that help you in creating an account.
Once you apply for Ad Sense, you will know the result in 24 hours. You require quality content on your site to get approved for Ad Sense. If your site does not get approved, don’t be disappointed and give up; check the reason for the disapproval and try to resolve it and reapply – you’ll likely be approved then.
Choosing the right Keywords
The keywords you select determines the Ad campaigns displayed on your site. Choosing irrelevant keywords wastes your Ad space and irks your followers as well. Always select the keywords that best suit the content on your site. Keep changing the keyword every month and see which combination works best for you.
How do you get paid?
You are paid based on the following 4 bidding methods. Check your Ad Sense account to know which bidding has earned you most.
- Cost per Click (CPC)
- Cost per 1000 Impressions (CPM)
- Active Views
- Cost per Engagement (CPE)
Google pays a site 1 month after a site starts earning and the minimum earnings required to be get paid is $100. Say you earned $200 in the month of February you will get paid in March. You need to provide the bank details and it is the only way Google considers for clearing the Ad Sense Payments. Kindly read the terms & conditions while creating your Ad Sense account.
If you do not get the approval from Ad Sense, don’t worry, this is not the only option out there. Check out these alternatives:
- Amazon Associates
- Revenue Hits
- Propeller Ads Media
- Yllix Media
- Chitika
- Adversal
- Infolinks
- net
- Popcash
- PopAds
Get your “Advertise with Us” page ready
Let advertisers know you are ready to advertise their products! Create a simple page on your site describing the kind of advertisements you offer and this will surely attract different advertisers. Always be selective in the brands you are promoting and make sure they help your followers so that you don’t lose their trust.
Publish Banner Ads
This is similar to the bill board Ads you see along the roads except the bill boards turn out to be a small spacing on your blog posts or landing pages. The cost per Banner Ad is determined by considering the blog’s reputation & fan base and the number of days the advertiser is planning to keep it on your site. If you are not sure of how to determine appropriate prices, contact your fellow bloggers and they will help you out.
Try Text Ads
Text Ads are similar to the Banner Ads except they do not contain any images, as the name suggests. A link to the advertiser’s site is anchored to the text and you will get paid based on the number of clicks.
Sponsored Posts
Sponsored posts have become a major source of earnings for bloggers & social media influencers these days. There are many advertisers who are willing to pay a pretty penny to promote their products through blogs & social media channels. Coming to sponsored blog posts, they are developed in a non-promotional way as if the blogger is narrating an interesting topic.
You basically write a generic article and include links to the advertiser’s landing page or other internal pages. The purpose of advertiser is to make their brand known to newer people and sponsored posts serve them well, as you are introducing your followers to the advertiser’s products or services. Further, these sponsored posts don’t make the viewers fell like they are reading an advertisement as its disguised as a normal blog post.
To get sponsored post opportunities, you can either wait for advertisers to reach out to you or sign up with agencies like ReachFlare to get regular publishing content.
Write Product Reviews
Advertisers often pay online influencers for reviewing their products, so you can monetize your site by writing reviews for the products that are relevant to your niche. The advertisers compensate bloggers either by offering their products for free or giving you gift cards or direct cash payments. Select the products that you feel are interesting to your target audience otherwise these reviews may create negative impression in your followers’ minds.
Organize Giveaway & Online Contests
From time to time, you can offer your followers a chance to win some exciting products and other gifts offered by the advertising brands. The advertisers pay you for organizing giveaways and online contests and in turn you are pleasing your followers as well. Announce the winners of these contests on your site to gain trust and make the audience feel your work is legitimate and not a scam.
Sell your Own Products
Your blog is one of the best places to sell if you have any products or services to sell online as you would have formed up a list of followers. Keep sending newsletters to your subscribers with engaging content and you will see the positive results.
Tutorials & Webinars
Your knowledge can be well utilized if you can share it with others, and what’s even better is if sharing it with others also earns you some money in the process. Offer training to your followers on a subject in your area of expertise through online video tutorials and webinars and you can charge them for booking virtual slots online.
These are the most effective approaches of monetizing your blog or niche website. Experiment with these different approaches to find the ones that are best suited to your site and implement these techniques to start earning money online.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below, always love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for reading!
Lish