When you first started out blogging, you recall how daunting and challenging it has been. After all, building a successful blog requires an extensive knowledge and effective strategies. It’s a steep learning curve and not everyone is able to do it. For those that do, it was definitely well worth the effort, because a successful blog can generate an income that you didn’t think could be possible! The secrets to a high-income generating blog lie in how you monetize your blog. Years of hard work, time and efforts will have finally paid off once you know the secrets and you’ll be on your way to the bank laughing while earning money online! Here’s how to monetize your blog.
1. Advertising
Do you know you can allocate advertising spaces on your blog to earn advertising fees? Sell these advertising spaces privately or join Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ad networks such as Google AdSense, Media.net, Infolinks etc., to rent out spaces on your blog for ads. Private advertising skips the “middle man” and allows you to deal directly with an advertiser. From there, you can negotiate with the advertiser on the details of the ads, the placement, the size, the format, the duration, the design, the charges etc. This gives you fine control over the appearance of the ads for a high-quality blog. Should you decide to go along this direction, here’s a recommendation for you: publish a page on your blog specifically for this purpose. On this page, you should introduce your niche, your audience, your traffic and position yourself as a good choice for them to run ads on your blog.
Joining PPC ad networks is also an alternative way to earn advertising fees. This will simplify your tasks as all negotiations with advertisers are performed by them. They will decide which ad will appear on your blog, based on biddings by advertisers. Through the PPC ad networks dashboard, you should be able to define and choose the ads that appear on your blog, such as the designs, the colours, the formats etc. This will ensure that the ads are relevant and meet your expectations and requirements to fit well with your blog.
2. Affiliate marketing
Do you know you can earn a commission when you promote other business’s services and products on your blog? Some businesses offer an affiliate program and you can sign up to earn commission on every successful deal that is referred by you. The way it works is that you craft and publish contents that promote the services and products that are relevant to your blog topic, and then insert your own personal tracking links into the contents. If any of your visitors click on the links and resulted in a purchase, you’ll get credit for referring the purchase and earn commission. Here’s a few recommendations if you want to do affiliate marketing: only promote services and products relevant to your niche, and it’s best if you have personally used it and recommend it. For best practice, put a disclaimer notice on your blog about affiliate marketing, so that your visitors are well informed. This is important in gaining trust from your audience that you spent so much effort to build up.
3. Sponsored posts
Do you know you can get paid for writing a blog article featuring a business? This is what they call a sponsored post, where a business sponsors you to write about them. It usually comes in the format of product reviews, launch news, lists, feature etc. Sometimes, a business might even prepare the post for you and pay you to publish it on your blog. It is important to keep in mind that you put a disclaimer telling your audience that this is a sponsored post. It is required by law in some countries and also showcases your transparency to your audience, which will definitely go a long way in establishing your blog’s credibility and success.
4. Influencer marketing
Do you know if you are an authority in your niche, then you are an influencer? An influencer is a person whose thoughts, advices and recommendations often shape his/her audience’s perceptions of a business or product? This is more apparent in younger generations who grow up watching and seeing influencers. Congratulations if you are an influencer with a loyal audience, you get more advantage when monetizing your blog! You will have a higher chance to receive many free products from many different brands requesting for a review write-up, or even get invited to exclusive brand events, in return for featuring them! You can even run competitions on your blog to giveaway free products, sponsored by brands, and in the process gain many advantages. You can feature the brands, and they in turn feature you on their social media. You can design the competition in a way that asks people to follow you or subscribe to you to gain an entry. Competitions are highly engaging and shareable which benefit your blog. The possibilities are limitless, the only limit is your creativity! This will grow your blog readership and further position your blog as an appealing voice online, which provides more opportunities for monetization.
5. Become an online entrepreneur
Do you know you can start an online business and sell to your blog visitors? You can sell a wide variety of things such as digital products, ebooks, online courses, coaching service, consultation or even a paid membership site? Do you have a library of valuable contents on your blog? Turn them into digital products to sell online! Do you have extensive knowledge about your niche? Write it into an ebook to sell online! Do you have particular skills or abilities? Turn them into online courses to sell online! Do you have vast experience on a topic? Put it to great use by offering coaching service and consultation! Do you create exclusive contents or have access to them not found on your blog or online? Set up a paid membership site to sell exclusive contents, services or products to your audience! Other than selling online, you can sell services online! One good example is if you have good writing skills, then you can leverage your skills to become an in demand freelance blogger. Become an entrepreneur and do business online is easy and fast now with the help of technology! In fact, it is even possible to automate your entire sales process, helping you to earn money 24/7/365.
So, now that you have a few ideas how to monetize your blog, get started building an awesome and quality blog! It will definitely take up a lot of time and effort to build a successful blog, but the rewards are well worth it! Make sure to stay consistent and focus on creating quality contents. Once your blog starts to gain momentum and grow at a rapid pace, the possibilities to monetize it will be endless! Making money online is no longer a dream!
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