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Make Money Using Your Blog!

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Monetize Your Blog Or Website

Monetizing one's blog is becoming quite popular nowadays. The most common monetization method is displaying ads on your website. But wait! There are many more ways out there from which you can earn some extra cash from your site or blog.

There are many bloggers out there earning millions of dollars through blogging (example : Steve Palina). This page offers some useful websites which can help you with the same.

Bestselling Resource on Money Making Techniques - One Week Marketing by Jennifer (Must read if you want to learn the sure-shot way of making money using Squidoo, Clickbank and other affiliate programs!)

What you will find here...

Displaying Ads On Your Website
Where To Place Ads?
Get Paid For Your Content
Merchandising
Do you believe blogs, if monetized properly, can earn you a good sum of money?
Opportunities
RSS Ads
Affiliate Programs
Sponsored Posts
Direct Banner Advertising
Other methods
Finally...
Useful Blog Posts
Useful Articles/Sites On Making Money Using Blogs
Make Money Using Your Blog/Site
Reader Feedback

Displaying Ads On Your Website

This perhaps the most common way in which bloggers earn their bread and butter. But remember less is more in this case and try to restrict the number of ads in your site. Listed below are some of the programs that allows you to show ads on your blog :

1. Google Adsense - If you ever tried to monetize your blog, you must be very familiar with this program offered by Google. They offer text ads (only) which are relevant to your site. Also, they are the most profitable for many bloggers.

2. Yahoo! Publisher Network - As far as I know, this is open for mostly U.S based users only.

3. Indeed - Post job listings on your website. Look of the ads can be customized.

4. Adbrite - I recently started the use of Adbrite on one of my websites. The problem here is that the ads won't start showing until your blog starts getting a lot of traffic! The one thing I liked is that Adbrite allows its users to approve or reject ads. This allows you to be completely in control over choosing those ads which are relevant to your blog. It offers textual, banners and full page ads.

5. Bidvertiser - It gives you the option of blocking any ad you don't want displayed on your website.

6. Blogads- Offers really high quality ads for your blog. Used by an exclusive network of bloggers.

7. Adify - Allows you to edit the content of the ads. You can even set your own prices!

8. Valueclick - You will get quality advertisers here plus some very good support.

9. Exelate Targeted Links - Pick and choose the advertisers you want for your site

10. Clicksor - Clicksor focuses mainly on contextual ads and how they can be presented in the form of text, graphics and in-line links.

11. Kontera - Offers in-text advertising (providing links inside your text). These links come with a double underline to differentiate from other normal links. Similar service is offered by Vibrant Media. Many people have earned good money this way, but others (like myself) find this type of advertising a little intrusive.

12. Azoogle Ads - Embeds ads in your site and you get paid on a per-click basis.

13. Audio Ads - When a visitor enters your site, you can play an audio piece for about 5 seconds. The user won't be able to stop it creating a 100 percent conversion rate depending on unique visitors. Such a service was introduced by Net audio.

14. ExpoActive - You can style your own ads using ExpoActive.

15. AdVolcano - Design your own ads as well as set up prices.

16. grokAds - Accept or reject advertisers using grokAds.

17. CasaleMedia - Provides you with high quality advertisers.

18. Text Link Ads - Provides textual ads only. Very popular among bloggers.

19. LinkWords - In your blog content, certain keywords get highlighted which are relevant to the advertisers. When readers click on these links, you get paid.

20. One Monkey - You can get paid very good revenue if you use the textual ads provided by this program.

21.BlueLithium - Offers selective partnership and ad targeting.

22. Ad Volcano - Design your own ads and set your own prices!

Where To Place Ads?

Use the Google Heat Map to know exactly where you should be placing your ads to get maximum click throughs and in the process earn more dollars.

Important!

Remember This (Part 1)

If you plan to display ads on your blog, do not go for ALL the programs listed above. Being a reader too, I can tell you nothing is more annoying than ads that are splashed all over the place!

Try using one program at a time, and then stick to the one which you find most useful.

Learn More About AdSense

Get Paid For Your Content

If you think you have valuable information that would be a great help for others (example : telling people how to make money), you can always get paid for it in the following methods :

1. E-Books - Lots of bloggers are creating e-books to sell their content. There are many softwares available which can help you make an e-book easily. Make sure you include exclusive information in your e-books which cannot be found in your blog! Helpful read - How To Write An Ebook For Your Blog.

Some e-book softwares can be found at -

1. E-book Writer
2. Desktop Author
3. Shareware Connection

2. White Papers - This is a more technical version of your content.

3. Tutorials - If you are an expert in your field, then your views must be very valuable to amateurs. Take this as an opportunity and create tutorials based on your subject.

4. Textmarks - You can charge your readers for SMS notifications which would be sent to them whenever there are updates on your blog.

5. X-Events - You can host your own events online and charge people for getting entry. Try attracting some sponsers too for your event. Plus, you can charge people for subscriptions on any future events!

6. Mini Guides - You can package your information into mini guides and make them available to your readers for a small fee.

Important!

Remember This (Part 2)

Don't cheat your readers by providing half baked tutorials, e-books and white papers. Provide them with premium content. It helps in building readership. Plus, if your first attempt was really good, your followers will always come back to you for more.

Merchandising

If your readers love your content, then give them something which they can have offline. People are always ready to support you if you appear genuine in your work.

1. Cafepress - This is arguably the best web store online. You can print your blog's logo on T-Shirts, bags and other items.

2. Printfection - I personally opted to open a Printfection store because it offers better printing quality. You can design and sell custom products using it's service. Similar services are also offered by Goodstorm and Zazzle.

3. Self-published books - You can earn profits by creating a book with self publishing services like Lulu, Self Publishing, iUniverse and WordClay.

4. Hard Copy - Try selling a hard copy of your content. Example : A CD-ROM "book".

Do you believe blogs, if monetized properly, can earn you a good sum of money?

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Need Help With Marketing ?

Opportunities

There are many opportunities available for bloggers to earn revenue :

1. Ever tried writing a book ? - Many popular bloggers are doing that nowadays.

2. Bloggers For HIre - Get yourself hired to blog for corporate websites.

3. Consulting - If you are a blogger who is succesful online and you happen to be an expert in your subject of blogging, why don't you share your knowledge of both your Internet mastering techniques and your area of expertise for a fee ? Chris Garrett used a similar strategy.

4. Blogger Jobs - This site helps you find blogging jobs in other sites.

5. Go Offline - Take your blogging skills offline and try writing for a newspaper or a magazine.

6. Conferencing - If your blog has created a niche for itself, conferencing is the way to go. If you have a large audience, the event could attract thousands of people and you can earn money through conference passes and sponsers. Search Engine Land created a series of conferences called Search Marketing Expo that had passes and tickets costing about thousands of dollars.

RSS Ads

RSS(Really Simple Syndication) ads allow bloggers to monetize feeds. Here are some of the sites that allow you to put ads in your RSS feed :

1. Pheedo - Offers interactive triggers.

2. Feedvertising - Embeds ads in feeds.

3. CrispAds - Offers an option in which you can place ads in your site as well as your RSS feed at the same time.

4. Feedburner - Features high quality advertisers like Comcast.

5. FeedM8 - Embeds mobile appropriate advertising.

Maximize Web Site Traffic!

Important!

Remember This (Part 3)

Readers react to RSS ads in the same way they do with regular ones. So be careful not to use too many ads and stick to the ones which are relevant to your site!

Affiliate Programs

Bloggers always keep mentioning some product or the other in their sites. Links to these products are also provided to help the readers to understand and know more. Affiliate programs help bloggers to profit from this kind of name dropping.

If you have trouble finding suitable affiliate progams you can turn to individual companies like Dreamhost.

1. Amazon Associates - This is the most popular one. You can earn upto 15 percent in referrals by advertising their products.

2. WidgetBucks - Offers shopping widgets for popular brands. Similar services are offered by ScratchBack and SmartLinks.

3. Chitika ShopCloud$ - You can list products in a cloud format.

4. Auction Ads - Helps you to place ebay auction ads on your site.

5. Commission Junction - You can promote a wide range of products and earn commission.

6. Share A Sale - You can choose the merchants you would like to promote.

7. iTunes Affiliates - Helps bloggers to keep readers updated on the latest iTunes and also helps them to earn when a sale is made.

8. LinkShare - Associated with huge companies like Dell, Apple and Disney.

9. ClickBank - You can choose the products to promote.

10. Zanox - Open a Zanox store, choose your products and earn a percentage of every sale made.

11. Affiliate Future - Offers a wide range of products.

12. uSuggest - Using this program, you can suggest relevant products and get paid in the process.

13. AffiliateBot - It's fairly new hence has less number of programs but it's easy to use and recommended for beginners especially for those who have just started out on affiliate marketing.

Important!

Remember This (Part 4)

With affiliate programs, promote only those products which are in tune with your topic of discussion.

Direct Banner Advertising

This type of advertising makes you totally in control over the prices and the revenue you earn. You can create a banner in your blog seeking advertisers. The most popular banner formats are 728x90 leaderboard, the 120x600 skyscraper, the 300x250 rectangle and the 125x125 button.

Here are some useful websites that can help you -

1. How To Find Advertisers For Your Website

2. Finding Advertisers For Your Blog

3. Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners

Important!

Remember This (Part 5)

Go for direct banner adverising only if you have a large audience. This is absolutely necessary in order to get qualified advertisers. Plus you will need to spend time on managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.

Learn The Tricks Of The Trade

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

by: Darren Rowse, Chris Garrett

Amazon Price: $5.51 (as of 06/03/2012)

Other methods

1. Sell A Website - This is your last resource but it has the potential to earn you a large amount of money in a short period of time. Helpful read - How To Sell A Website; How Much Is Your Website Worth? and Where To Sell A Website?.

2. Vizu Polls - You can host polls using Vizu for which you can get paid extra revenue.

3. Shareapic - Use this program to host your photos and get paid whenever a reader views them.

4. Pop-ups and pop-unders - This is an annoying form of advertising. Plus, many people are using pop-up blockers nowadays. But if you are trying to create as much money from your blog as possible, you should give this a try. Networks that use pop-ups are TribalFusion, PayPopup and PopupAd.

5. Forums - You can create a private forum in your blog which readers can use only after paying a one time or recurring fee. Popular forum softwares include : vBulletin, Simple Machines Forum and Vanilla.

6. Job Boards - Job listings come automatically on your job boards after they are set up on your website. List of popular job software - JobThread, Web Scribe Job Board, SimplyHired and Jobbex.

Finally...

...You can always try asking for donations! It is not as degrading as you think. Many popular bloggers are actually doing it.

Paypal - You can use the donation button offered by Paypal to request viewers to give you some pocket money. A similar service is also offered by Amazon Honor System.

A variation of the Paypal's donation button was created few years ago. This plugin allows you to enter a customized message which asks readers to chip in for a beer.

Like paypal, Amazon Honor System allows you to accept online donations.

A person who used the donation button to great success is Steve Palina. It's more advantageous to people who own personality development websites or blogs.

Another alternative of getting donations is the direct way by giving your readers your address or P.O Box.

Finally, you can't earn money without a little guidance. I would totally recommend One Week Marketing by Jennifer (popularly known as PotPieGirl) which is the bestselling affiliate marketing e-book there is! It tells you how to earn money using Clickbank, Squidoo and other affiliate programs. Must read!

Useful Blog Posts

Know more ways how to get more money from your blog

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Useful Articles/Sites On Making Money Using Blogs

Problogger: This blog offers a lot of tips, articles and advice on making money online. Really useful.
Make Money For Beginners: Another interesting website (blog rather) offering lots of information and tips.
Steve Palina's Article On How To Make Money From Your Blog: Steve Palina is one of those few bloggers who makes a 1000 dollars per day from his blog.
Microsoft Offers Tips: An article from the microsoft website.

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