Ways to Make Your Blog Pay and Pay and Pay
by david lloyd james
While some bloggers are happy enough expressing their ideas, opinions and interacting with their readers, many bloggers are supplementing their income with their blogs. And whilst many bloggers out there are making substantial incomes, most don't earn enough to quit their day job.
However for the majority it can provide a nice little side income, no matter what you choose to blog about. Nowadays there are so many ways to make money from blogs. New tools and ways for people to make money from their blogs seem to be popping up all the time. Below is a list and short summary of some of the most popular methods.
Advertising
There are so many different ads to choose from, and each have their benefits and drawbacks, so its important to choose the form of advertising which will be the most effective according to the characteristics of your blog.
Contextual advertising such as Adsense is probably by far the easiest and most popular form of advertising right now. AdSense allows bloggers to place text based, content relevant ads on their site.
Another popular form of advertising with bloggers are 'Blog Ads'. This advertising service for is becoming increasingly popular in the blogosphere as it is designed specifically for blogs.
RSS technology has been around for close to a decade now, but it is only recently that website and blog owners have used this form of technology for advertising. Although still early days for this form of advertising, with more and more large players investing in delivering RSS feeds, it is sure to become a more popular form of advertising in the future.
Affiliate Programs
Whatever subject you're blogging about, it's likely that the Amazon affiliate program will have something suitable for your site to advertise. Amazon has one of the largest and long-running affiliate programs. Although the typical cut of a sale is only around 10%, the Amazon affiliate program, with its sheer magnitude of categories and possibilities for your site, is well worth considering.
Another one of the big affiliate programs with products and services spanning a large array of categories is Commission Junction. It's very easy to join the network, however don't expect to be accepted by every company that you apply to. Linkshare is also very similar to commission junction, offering a wide selection of banners to its affiliates, to match their blog subjects.
Unlike Commision Junction and Linkshare, Clickbank deal solely with E-books and other electronic information and services. Clickbank affiliates generally receive great profits (often up to 75%), and can do quite well, due to the large demand of E-Books and other electronic information which can be downloaded instantly.
Merchandise
Only a few years ago blogs were almost exclusively for people who were passionate about some beliefs, ideas, political standing or used blogging as a way of personal expression, such as a journal. Today it is becoming increasingly more common to see bloggers making respectable incomes selling merchandise on their blogs. The benefits of using a blog site for selling merchandise is that bloggers only have to have basic computer skills, no need to have an in-depth knowledge of HTML and other web languages. Some Blogs have a cult following of loyal readers and are able to sell their own merchandise with their logos or message on it.
Promotion
If you are an expert in your field, Blogs are a great way to promote your services and or products. With the potential for a worldwide audience, you can spread your net 'far and wide'. If you are knowledgeable about your subject and convey this through your blogging, your blogs can also help build your credibility as an expert in this field. This can lead to consulting contracts which further enhances your reputation.
Donations
Some bloggers solicit donations from readers (about one or two dollars a month) to cover online costs. This is especially relevant for blogger who have a loyal readership.
Selling Your Blog
Although some blogs have sold for substantial amounts, this is not common. That said, as blogging is becoming more part of popular culture, we will surely see a lot more blogs being sold in the future and for higher prices too!
About the Author
david has been a keen blogger for over the past five years, and has recently started a new blog site - www.blogfreehere.com, a site for writing and blogging enthusiasts.
