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We get people asking us the same question every single day: “I have a blog, how can I make money with it?” It seems like most bloggers started blogging without a revenue model in mind. If that’s your case, this article will give you some ideas on how to profit from your blog. Sell Advertising This can be done in several ways. You can offer banner advertising, text links, and contextual advertising. For banner ads, you can find the advertisers yourself or use advertising networks such as BlogAds, Blogsvertise, and BuySellAds. Text link ads are keywords in your posts that you transform into links to your advertisers. Some good networks are Text-Link-Ads and LinkAdage. |
Contextual ads are selected based on the content of your post. They are usually very relevant. Unlike banner and text ads, most contextual ad networks pay you for each click the ad gets as opposed to a fixed fee. Some of the most popular networks are Google AdSense and Chitika.
Sell Your Own Products
If you have several readers and subscribers, write reviews about your own products once in a while. You don’t want to abuse this or your readers will leave. Email your subscribers and offer them a special deal. You can offer physical products and downloadable products (i.e. ebooks, videos, and exclusive information).
Blogs are a great way to build rapport with potential clients. Become an expert in your field. Always be researching and sharing great information. Sales will come without effort if you provide your readers with valuable information and they see you as an authority in your industry. Important: make sure that your readers have a real need for what you have to offer them.
You also need to make sure that you are writing for the right audience. Sure, you can have a lot of fun blogging about politics, your trip to Europe, or your favorite TV show; but it’s a lot harder to monetize those kind of blogs than it is to profit from a blog around a niche you are an expert in and people in your niche actually spend money on what you sell (even if they don’t buy it from you yet).
Sell Your Own Services
Blogs work incredible well for consultants and advisers. What better way to establish authority than writing excellent articles about your field of expertise? And because the gross profit per transaction in professional services is a lot higher than that of retail businesses, you only need a handful of clients to make your blogging efforts worth it.
Sell Someone Else’s Products
Have you ever heard of affiliate marketing? It is a very simple system. You promote someone else’s products and get paid a commission for every sale you make. Some of the most popular affiliate networks are ClickBank, PayDotCom, CommissionJunction, and ShareASale.
Get Paid to Blog
There are several ways you can do this. You can get paid to write reviews about other people’s businesses. This is a great service that will help you find business that pay you for posting about them: PayPerPost.
If you are a really good writer, you can find a blogger job at BloggersForHire and BloggerJobs.
Sell Leads
One of our clients has a real estate blog. She has a form in her blog for people who are searching for real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and real estate attorneys. Her readers can fill out the form and they get three free quotes from qualified professionals. She then charges them for each lead she sends their way.
Sell Merchandise
If your readership is full of raving fans, you can sell them merchandise. Not only they will pay for it but they will also spread the word about the blog every time they wear your blog’s t-shirt.
Beg for Money
If your readers find your posts very useful but you don’t have anything to sell them, ask for donations. Some blogs are getting really creative about this: “Buy Me a Coffee”, “Buy Me a Beer”, and “Help Me Buy an iPhone” are really nice ways to ask for cash.