34 Experts Reveal 3 Best Blog Monetization Tips
Blogging is a labor of love for most bloggers. On the other hand, there’s no rule demanding that you can’t do something you love and still get paid for it. The trick is figuring out how. Chances are, anything you’re saying is already being said. The web is world wide, after all, and the world is a very, very, big place.
How do you make it happen?
The first thing you’ve got to do is get your blog started right: Make it a really nice blog, one that works well, and appeals to your market. Not sure how? We’ve got you covered there! After that, though, you’ve got to figure how to turn potential into dollars.
There’s no one right way to do this, and sometimes the best way is to do something that hasn’t been done before. . . either way, though, the best next step is to find out how the people who have already succeeded are doing it. One look around, and you’ll notice they’ve taken a lot of different paths to success. We’ve brought a whole bunch of them together to tell you how they get it done, so listen, learn, and then go make money!
List of All Monetization and Blogging Experts
Adeline Ganley
Bio: This blog is dedicated to showing others how to save money and live a frugal lifestyle. I also enjoy writing about ways to make money, and show people how they can supplement their income to build a savings account.
#1: Placing ads on your blog.
#2: Connecting with brands for sponsored campaigns.
#3: Using affiliate marketing.
Placing ads on your blog is an easy way to earn money from your blog, but you want to make sure you take the time to optimize the ads to increase your earnings. Working with brands can help bring a new revenue stream while still maintaining your voice through your blog, and affiliate marketing is a great way to earn commission on products that you recommend to your readers.
Adrienne Smith
Bio: I have learned a LOT about blogging and I share that on my blog. Along with that I’ll teach you how to drive traffic to your blog and build a community where your readers won’t be able to wait until you have another post.
I go about things a lot differently than most and as I’ve progressed online I’ve learned that a lot of the very successful people who are running seven figure businesses went about this the same way.
If I’m just starting a blog, no one knows who the heck I am so they certainly aren’t going to trust me and purchase from me. You have to build your audience first and then they’ll buy from you.
If you just throw up affiliate ads on your site expecting to make a lot of money then you’re going to be sadly disappointed and probably end up quitting. If you’re just focusing on niche sites and are blogging that way then it still is the same principle.
So I’m not really for any type of monetization at the very start, I’m the opposite actually. Build up a loyal following and then they’ll purchase from you. It also doesn’t have to take you forever either because I know plenty of people who have accomplished this in just six months time.
Angie Nelson
Bio: Virtual Assistant, serial blogger and subscription box addict. Love social marketing. Owner of a home business blog on a mission to make you successful. Helping you make money from home…and keep It!
#1: Choose your programs wisely. Don’t sign up for every affiliate program you come across in hopes you will get to it someday or because you heard someone else makes a lot of money on it. Start with a few trusted merchants you love and can incorporatenaturally into your content.
#2: Don’t just focus on creating new content. Dig into your stats to find your most popular posts and start monetizing those with relevant affiliate links.
#3: Don’t bother signing up for programs you only plan to promote once. Instead, use a service like VigLink to affiliate those links. You will still make money on resulting sales. If you find it’s performing well, you can always sign up for the affiliate program directly later on. This is also a great way to monetize if you aren’t yet big enough to get accepted by premium partners you want to promote.
Andy Forsberg
Bio: I am a senior digital marketer and blogger, Pulpify Co-Founder and creator of WPSNIFFERand Sexy Author Bio plugin.
#1: Only promote products you have used and believe in personally.
#2: Focus on growing your mailing list.
#3: Track success with Google’s Tag Manager and optimize continuously with Google Analytics.
You need to establish and maintain trust, without it you won’t get anywhere. In addition you need to diversify your audience acquisition, the best channel by far is your own mailing list so make it high priority. Relying on a few key traffic channels is too risky. Use Google’s Tag Manager in conjunction with Google’s Universal Analytics to track every form of success you can and identify ways to continuously optimize your results. The more good data you have to act upon the better.
Ashley Faulkes
Bio: I created this website to help you learn and use all the ideas and strategies I find to get more customers for your business. There is lots of hype and complex techniques out there, but let’s ignore all that.
Monetizing your blog is one of the hardest things you have to do when you are starting out so I want to give you some tips that have really helped me.
Many people will tell you to use Adsense, but unless you have a serious amount of traffic on your site, this is not the first thing you should consider. Instead I would start with affiliate marketing. There are a whole bunch of options from Amazon, ClickBank and Commission Junction to specific people, courses or products that are being sold in your niche. The percentage commission varies too. But my main piece of advise is to only sell things you truly endorse and would use yourself. Otherwise you will get a name for promoting anything just to make money.
The other area that is great when you are starting out is selling services or courses and ebooks. Normally you start a blog or website based on something you know, so it follows that you can share some of your knowledge and expertise with your audience. You can start at the bottom, with simple ebooks (which can also be sold on Amazon) and build up to video courses (even on Udemy) and services.
Charles Coxhead
Bio: WP Dev Shed develops free WordPress themes, and our blog aims to help WordPress webmasters build and market better websites.
#1: Focus on quality of traffic, not quantity. You will make more by focusing your content on a narrow niche and going deep. This will attract a very specific audience which is much easier to monetize than a general audience. There is so much content online today that people are just not impressed by generalities, they are searching for real depth and quality. You won’t be able to differentiate your self with a wide range of general content…go deep on something specific and you will attract much more attention.
#2: Forget about Adsense. Google Adsense can be decent source of income for sites with a high volume of organic search traffic, but for a new site it will be pennies and will only serve as a distraction. If you focus on a tight niche and deliver great content, even a small audience will make you more through affiliate marketing of relevant products and services.
#3: Remarketing. Remarketing is a great way to make the most of all the traffic you get to your site. Set up remarketing tags for Facebook and Twitter and you will be able to market your latest content to recent visitors who are the most likely people to engage with. Remarketing can be done very cheaply and is also a great way to grow your social channels too (in addition to building an email list of course!).
Christina Hills
Bio: Christina is a speaker, educator, mentor and Internet marketing expert to non-techie entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to build an online business using WordPress as their website. She puts the fun into teaching technology and empower business owners to be in full control of their marketing and online presence.
#1: Utilize your blog to constantly get your message out. Getting your message out enables you to attract your ideal clients/customers. And a blog is a perfect platform that allows you to do just that quickly and easily.
#2: Make it easy for the readers to share your posts on social media. Blog posts can be easily shared on social media especially if you provide sharing tools/plugins for that, and that will allow you to get more exposure in other communities.
#3: Encourage people to opt in for your email list on your blog. You can use your email list to further build and nurture relationships with your readers. Then via emails, you can drive them back to your website to purchase your products and services.
David Risley
Bio: I started blogging in 1998 as a technology blogger completely as a hobby. That hobby blog turned into its own company, and turned into a six-figure blog-based business with an editorial staff and multiple products within a few years.
#1: Orient your blog around a central transformation – and that transformation is something your prospect wants to become or achieve. The beginning of the transformation is where they’re at right now – and on the other end is where (or who, or what) they want to be. All of your content – and your PRODUCTS – would be aligned with moving them along this transformation.
#2: When you have a few products that deliver this transformation, you set them up to sell in a sales funnel. Start off with a low-ticket offer in order to turn email subscribers into customers. $10 or less is best for most markets. Then, work on getting them to take a higher-ticket core offer (I prefer a membership site of some kind).
#3: Treat affiliate marketing as a way to maximize profit, but not the foundation of your monetization. The way to build your business and income is for YOU to get the customers. Banner ads and affiliate marketing send your visitors off to somebody else. For that reason, it isn’t the foundation of a good monetization strategy.
David Schneider
Bio: David is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new Blogger Outreach software for marketers. He writes about business and entrepreneurship at SelfMadeBusinessman, and enjoys travel.
#1: Create a product – Inevitably if you want to make a lot of money, you need your own product. This allows you to control the marketing, the price, and take 100% of the commissions.
#2: Start small – I recommend starting small with something like an ebook, or a small info product/course. This allows you to get your feet wet and learn more about your audience, what they want to buy, and what goes into a product launch.
#3: Build an email list – This is considered fairly mandatory for any type of product sales. Focus on list building.
Dr. Rachna Jain
Bio: I’ve been working online since 1998 – I am a creator of the Profitable Popularity method and my deepest goal in my business is to help my clients streamline their businesses so they are efficiently making more money and creating more impact. Most of the time, this involves simplifying and improving rather than adding more.
#1: Promote affiliate offers. These are often simple to get started with and can be an easy first step to creating income from your blog. Just be sure to sign up with a reputable network and promote a content relevant offer.
#2: Sell a small, simple product of your own. If you make jewelry or crafts, you can offer your own products for sale right away. Otherwise, you can look at develop a small information product that you can sell. This is a good strategy if you can easily create a product and can figure out the technical aspects of getting it online and for sale.
#3: Offer an introductory service. Is there something you could easily teach or show others how to do, or do for them? These would make excellent introductory services to sell from your blog.
Enstine Muki
Bio: I love doing things in PHP, blogging and writing articles. I have developed a couple of applications in the Wood sector, Money Transfer and social medial.companies in my country.
#1: Review Affiliate Products.
#2: Sell your own products.
#3: Sponsored post.
The best way to monetize your blog is promote and sell your own products. The simple reason is you can cut down prices, run special offers and boost sales while keeping 100% profit. With PLR and a lot more resources, it’s becoming quite easy to create and own a product.
Affiliate Marketing has always been the a top income generator especially for those marketers who don’t have a product. Reviewing affiliate products on your blog is an important way to monetize it. I recommend you focus on affiliate products that pay recurring commissions so you make money month after month on autopilot.
The third method I recommend you try out is sponsored posts. You get paid upfront to review a product and tell your readers about it. Depending on your traffic and exposure, you could make something between $50 and $5000 per post.
Jeff Goins
Bio: Jeff has been writing most of his life. He’s an author of four books, and he helps other writers and creative individuals find their passion and share it with the world through his award-winning blog, books he wrote, speeches he delivers and online courses he teaches.
#1: Build an audience.
#2: Ask them what they want.
#3: Give it to them (and let them pay you).
Erik Emanuelli
Bio: I started blogging for passion, which turned now into a steady income online. I run several niche sites about different topics – how to make money online, internet, local and affiliate marketing, SEO, social media and web traffic.
#1: I start with the easiest strategy to implement: advertising platforms. The most popular choice is Adsense, but you may consider valid alternatives such as Infolinks or other CPM/CPC networks. You can earn by displaying on your blog relevant ads, making money from the clicks your readers generate or simply by impressions, depending on the program you select.
#2: The other resource I want to suggest is TrenDemon (linkuj http://trendemon.com/ ). It’s quite a new tool, which can help you generate more income and conversions from your website and traffic, by displaying personalized content and call to actions. Plus, it’s good for boosting social signals and gagement with your audience, through gamification principles.
#3: The third (and most important tip) is building your email list since the first day of your blogging journey. I suggest GetResponse (linkuj http://www.getresponse.com/), interesting prices and great tools included, like email design, landing page creator and of course an autoresponder, with 99% email deliverability. You want to consider your mailing list as an alternative source of traffic and your base of fans, to whom offer, from time to time, your products or services.
Harsh Agarwal
Bio: Creator of ShoutMeLoud, an award-winning blog popular among bloggers who are ready to learn the tricks of the trade to turning a blog into a successful business.
#1: AdSense
NO brainer this is the simplest & authentic way to monetize your blog. This is the first ad monetization network almost 70% of bloggers around the globe try. Reason being:
-It’s from Google
-Ad quality is high
-They pay in time
#2: Affiliate Marketing
This is recommended for anyone who want to make a living with their blog. Affiliate marketing can do wonders, and out of my $12000/month earning, more than 80% is from Affiliate marketing. You can see the complete breakdown of my income here..
#3: Launch your product
This is something I started implementing recently, and launched few products :
eBook
WordPress Theme
Premium WordPress plugin
And I’m glad I did. DigitalProduct have great future, and it gives recurring income. More over, these days it’s easy to launch your own digital download store. You can use plugin like EasyDigitalDownloads to launch a store on WordPress. You can see a live example here..
Jerry Low
Bio: Jerry low is a geek dad who enjoys building web assets and hacking growth online. You can get more of his blogging tips via Twitter @WebHostingJerry.
In my experience, the three best ways to make money blogging are:
#1: Sell your own info products
#2: Sell affiliate products
#3: Blogging / social media marketing services
Info product offers the best profit margin as far as I knew.
Affiliate marketing is easy to start and scale up because as affiliate, you get to focus only in selling (while your merchants take care of the product development and inventories).
And, I know high profile bloggers who are getting paid thousands of dollars for one 2,000 words post because of their large social followings.
To start making good money via blogging – you need to be in a profitable niche and able to pull in sufficient targeted traffic. From my experience, content is only 50% of the game, if not less.
While your great Aunt Mary’s unique recycled dress quilts might be amazing, not that many people are as interested in reading about them as about quilting in general. Don’t limit your topic too much.
Here’s an example I like to use when comes to this topic – When I first got started, I created a site selling inflatable boats online as affiliate. Can you imagine how many people might buy inflatable boats online? That’s right, not many.
What’s worse, this product is a seasonal product and only sells during the summer, so I was further limited in my sales. Needless to say – My inflatable boat business didn’t even take off enough to launch it onto the small pond, much less a big pond.
So, how do you find a profitable niche? Well there are a number of tools and methods you can make use of. One easy way is to use SpyFu to check out what advertisers are spending in a niche. If advertisers, or merchants, are spending big money on that industry, then it means there is money to be made.
Keith Everett
Bio: The one thing with any Internet based business is, you are either selling a product or a service. I prefer to sell products as I can sell them 24/7, 365 days a year, even when I’m asleep.
#1: Selling Affiliate products. This is how I got started making money from my first blog back in 2011. I started off blogging about ways to make money, so I simply went to Clickbank, created an account and sought out good quality products in my niche to promote. Nowdays you also have JVZoo and many other Affiliate platforms to choose from. I then included a link to the product within my post and that worked for me. Of course you need to have traffic, I was sharing my posts all over social media, especially Facebook. The products that worked best for me were residual paying products, for instance membership site products, (monthly payments), this meant that each month your income increases as long as people keep paying their fees.
#2: Sell your network marketing opportunity within your posts. The Network marketing opportunity I am involved with has a residual component. By talking about related subjects, this gave me an opportunity to have calls to action at the bottom of each post to get people interested.
#3: Learn to do stuff, like create headers, graphics, logos etc and sell your service from the blog. I know people who write articles and at the same time sell an article writing service. Just use your imagination, people are always looking for something. Find out what it is your niche has a problem with, and sell them the solution.
Konrad Sanders
Bio: An SEO and sales-savvy copywriter with a pretty darn creative noggin on shoulders. He has a team of word-slinging cowboys who go by the name of The Creative Copywriter. Follow him on Twitter.
I’m only going to talk about one blog monetization technique. And that’s because I only really have experience in this particular one. But it’s also because I believe this to be the most potent way to make money as a blogger. If you can nail this, then forget all the rest.
The best way to make money blogging is…
To create and sell your own products or services based on your niche.
And don’t just create an offering. Create a brand.
I’ve seen bloggers with bucketloads of niche blogs, generating traffic from each one, but only making pittance from Adsense or affiliate marketing. Sure, you can probably make a decent bit of extra cash from them collectively. And some very determined people do make great money building niche blogs all over the shop.
But why scrape a few pennies out of affiliate marketing, when you can make serious profits out of selling your own products or services? Why have ten blogs which display ads for other people’s products, when you could have ten powerful brands selling your own shit-hot products?
That blog about ‘fishing in the Lake District’ – why not turn it into an awesome little boutique for bespoke fishing gear?
And that blog on English language tips – why not create and sell your own line of unique interactive language learning products? Or create a portal for English language tutors to conduct Skype lessons – with you taking a slice of the pie, of course.
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to discover what kind of products your readers will actually purchase. A brilliant way to test the waters before investing in any kind of long term commitment. So I definitely recommend you try it at the halfway stage. But once you’ve got good traffic and devoted readers, who you know will buy stuff, then it’s time to get creative.
Turn your blog into a brand. A slickly-designed website, with a sexy, unique line of products or services which you just can’t find anywhere else. And use your blog to reel those target customers in to that special, tailored offering you have waiting for them.Once you’ve got the inbound marketing funnel working like a dream; do some outbound marketing too. A multi-channel marketing approach works best.
That’s my two cents 
Lars Lofgren
Bio: From products to social innovations, I want to take the best solutions we have and make sure people know about it. Every day, my goal is to help spread products, brands, and solutions throughout the world. And I accomplish this with the internet.
#1: Don’t use ads. The revenue you’ll earn through affiliate networks, Adsense, or any other ad network is incredibly low. It’s just not worth the effort that it takes to build a blog.
#2: Your blog is the marketing, not the product. Don’t try to monetize your blog directly. Instead, think of it as your marketing channel for your real business. You could be offering consulting, looking for freelance clients, pushing a SaaS product, or offering ebooks. There’s lots of options to choose from.
#3: Most blog visitors won’t purchase, get them to sign up for your email list instead. Most people will never buy after visiting a blog for the first visit. You’ll need more time to build value and trust with your audience. So pushing blog visitors directly into a purchase rarely works. Instead, give them an incentive to sign up for your email list. Then you can contact them regularly, build trust, and push your product later on.
Lauren Hooker
Bio: Lauren is a brand designer, Squarespace enthusiast, and blogger behind Elle & Company that loves to help creative entrepreneurs.
The opportunities of creating a pasive income are truly endless. Here are my top three tips, but for a few ideas on what I recommend to make money bloggging you can check out this post I wrote.
#1: Premium membership content
Offer premium content (videos, blog posts, design files) for a monthly charge by setting up a paywall on your site. Subscription-based income is recurring, which brings in more money over time and helps create a consistent income.
#2: Ebooks
Ebooks are a great way to create revenue through passive income; you create them once and you can sell them over and over at no extra cost. Ebooks also help establish your authority and expertise in your field. If you’ve been blogging for a while, consider making things easier on yourself by compiling some of your previous posts into an ebook.
#3: Online courses
Create an online course to give your audience a deeper understanding of the topics you cover on your blog. There is a higher perceived value with online courses which allows you to charge more, and there are minimal overhead costs.
MaAnna Stephenson
Bio: BlogAid specializes in helping you avoid the pitfalls and expense of suffering from what you don’t know about WordPress, SEO, and content and conversion that is targeted to your unique site and audience.
#1: Set an ultimate goal for what you want the site to accomplish, i.e. draw traffic for clicks on ads or affiliate offers, buy your product or service.
#2: Make every post a way to reach that ultimate goal.
#3: Keep it focused. The more narrow your niche, the more you get known for something. Stay with that focus and
http://firstsiteguide.com/blogging-and-monetization-tips/
Blogging is a labor of love for most bloggers. On the other hand, there’s no rule demanding that you can’t do something you love and still get paid for it. The trick is figuring out how. Chances are, anything you’re saying is already being said. The web is world wide, after all, and the world is a very, very, big place.
How do you make it happen?
The first thing you’ve got to do is get your blog started right: Make it a really nice blog, one that works well, and appeals to your market. Not sure how? We’ve got you covered there! After that, though, you’ve got to figure how to turn potential into dollars.
There’s no one right way to do this, and sometimes the best way is to do something that hasn’t been done before. . . either way, though, the best next step is to find out how the people who have already succeeded are doing it. One look around, and you’ll notice they’ve taken a lot of different paths to success. We’ve brought a whole bunch of them together to tell you how they get it done, so listen, learn, and then go make money!
List of All Monetization and Blogging Experts
Adeline Ganley
Bio: This blog is dedicated to showing others how to save money and live a frugal lifestyle. I also enjoy writing about ways to make money, and show people how they can supplement their income to build a savings account.
#1: Placing ads on your blog.
#2: Connecting with brands for sponsored campaigns.
#3: Using affiliate marketing.
Placing ads on your blog is an easy way to earn money from your blog, but you want to make sure you take the time to optimize the ads to increase your earnings. Working with brands can help bring a new revenue stream while still maintaining your voice through your blog, and affiliate marketing is a great way to earn commission on products that you recommend to your readers.
Placing ads on your blog is an easy way to earn money from your blog, but you want to make sure you take the time to optimize the ads to increase your earnings. Working with brands can help bring a new revenue stream while still maintaining your voice through your blog, and affiliate marketing is a great way to earn commission on products that you recommend to your readers.
Adrienne Smith
Bio: I have learned a LOT about blogging and I share that on my blog. Along with that I’ll teach you how to drive traffic to your blog and build a community where your readers won’t be able to wait until you have another post.
I go about things a lot differently than most and as I’ve progressed online I’ve learned that a lot of the very successful people who are running seven figure businesses went about this the same way.
If I’m just starting a blog, no one knows who the heck I am so they certainly aren’t going to trust me and purchase from me. You have to build your audience first and then they’ll buy from you.
If you just throw up affiliate ads on your site expecting to make a lot of money then you’re going to be sadly disappointed and probably end up quitting. If you’re just focusing on niche sites and are blogging that way then it still is the same principle.
So I’m not really for any type of monetization at the very start, I’m the opposite actually. Build up a loyal following and then they’ll purchase from you. It also doesn’t have to take you forever either because I know plenty of people who have accomplished this in just six months time.
I go about things a lot differently than most and as I’ve progressed online I’ve learned that a lot of the very successful people who are running seven figure businesses went about this the same way.
If I’m just starting a blog, no one knows who the heck I am so they certainly aren’t going to trust me and purchase from me. You have to build your audience first and then they’ll buy from you.
If you just throw up affiliate ads on your site expecting to make a lot of money then you’re going to be sadly disappointed and probably end up quitting. If you’re just focusing on niche sites and are blogging that way then it still is the same principle.
So I’m not really for any type of monetization at the very start, I’m the opposite actually. Build up a loyal following and then they’ll purchase from you. It also doesn’t have to take you forever either because I know plenty of people who have accomplished this in just six months time.
Angie Nelson
Bio: Virtual Assistant, serial blogger and subscription box addict. Love social marketing. Owner of a home business blog on a mission to make you successful. Helping you make money from home…and keep It!
#1: Choose your programs wisely. Don’t sign up for every affiliate program you come across in hopes you will get to it someday or because you heard someone else makes a lot of money on it. Start with a few trusted merchants you love and can incorporatenaturally into your content.
#2: Don’t just focus on creating new content. Dig into your stats to find your most popular posts and start monetizing those with relevant affiliate links.
#3: Don’t bother signing up for programs you only plan to promote once. Instead, use a service like VigLink to affiliate those links. You will still make money on resulting sales. If you find it’s performing well, you can always sign up for the affiliate program directly later on. This is also a great way to monetize if you aren’t yet big enough to get accepted by premium partners you want to promote.
Andy Forsberg
Bio: I am a senior digital marketer and blogger, Pulpify Co-Founder and creator of WPSNIFFERand Sexy Author Bio plugin.
#1: Only promote products you have used and believe in personally.
#2: Focus on growing your mailing list.
#3: Track success with Google’s Tag Manager and optimize continuously with Google Analytics.
You need to establish and maintain trust, without it you won’t get anywhere. In addition you need to diversify your audience acquisition, the best channel by far is your own mailing list so make it high priority. Relying on a few key traffic channels is too risky. Use Google’s Tag Manager in conjunction with Google’s Universal Analytics to track every form of success you can and identify ways to continuously optimize your results. The more good data you have to act upon the better.
You need to establish and maintain trust, without it you won’t get anywhere. In addition you need to diversify your audience acquisition, the best channel by far is your own mailing list so make it high priority. Relying on a few key traffic channels is too risky. Use Google’s Tag Manager in conjunction with Google’s Universal Analytics to track every form of success you can and identify ways to continuously optimize your results. The more good data you have to act upon the better.
Ashley Faulkes
Bio: I created this website to help you learn and use all the ideas and strategies I find to get more customers for your business. There is lots of hype and complex techniques out there, but let’s ignore all that.
Monetizing your blog is one of the hardest things you have to do when you are starting out so I want to give you some tips that have really helped me.
Many people will tell you to use Adsense, but unless you have a serious amount of traffic on your site, this is not the first thing you should consider. Instead I would start with affiliate marketing. There are a whole bunch of options from Amazon, ClickBank and Commission Junction to specific people, courses or products that are being sold in your niche. The percentage commission varies too. But my main piece of advise is to only sell things you truly endorse and would use yourself. Otherwise you will get a name for promoting anything just to make money.
The other area that is great when you are starting out is selling services or courses and ebooks. Normally you start a blog or website based on something you know, so it follows that you can share some of your knowledge and expertise with your audience. You can start at the bottom, with simple ebooks (which can also be sold on Amazon) and build up to video courses (even on Udemy) and services.
Monetizing your blog is one of the hardest things you have to do when you are starting out so I want to give you some tips that have really helped me.
Many people will tell you to use Adsense, but unless you have a serious amount of traffic on your site, this is not the first thing you should consider. Instead I would start with affiliate marketing. There are a whole bunch of options from Amazon, ClickBank and Commission Junction to specific people, courses or products that are being sold in your niche. The percentage commission varies too. But my main piece of advise is to only sell things you truly endorse and would use yourself. Otherwise you will get a name for promoting anything just to make money.
The other area that is great when you are starting out is selling services or courses and ebooks. Normally you start a blog or website based on something you know, so it follows that you can share some of your knowledge and expertise with your audience. You can start at the bottom, with simple ebooks (which can also be sold on Amazon) and build up to video courses (even on Udemy) and services.
Charles Coxhead
Bio: WP Dev Shed develops free WordPress themes, and our blog aims to help WordPress webmasters build and market better websites.
#1: Focus on quality of traffic, not quantity. You will make more by focusing your content on a narrow niche and going deep. This will attract a very specific audience which is much easier to monetize than a general audience. There is so much content online today that people are just not impressed by generalities, they are searching for real depth and quality. You won’t be able to differentiate your self with a wide range of general content…go deep on something specific and you will attract much more attention.
#2: Forget about Adsense. Google Adsense can be decent source of income for sites with a high volume of organic search traffic, but for a new site it will be pennies and will only serve as a distraction. If you focus on a tight niche and deliver great content, even a small audience will make you more through affiliate marketing of relevant products and services.
#3: Remarketing. Remarketing is a great way to make the most of all the traffic you get to your site. Set up remarketing tags for Facebook and Twitter and you will be able to market your latest content to recent visitors who are the most likely people to engage with. Remarketing can be done very cheaply and is also a great way to grow your social channels too (in addition to building an email list of course!).
Christina Hills
Bio: Christina is a speaker, educator, mentor and Internet marketing expert to non-techie entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to build an online business using WordPress as their website. She puts the fun into teaching technology and empower business owners to be in full control of their marketing and online presence.
#1: Utilize your blog to constantly get your message out. Getting your message out enables you to attract your ideal clients/customers. And a blog is a perfect platform that allows you to do just that quickly and easily.
#2: Make it easy for the readers to share your posts on social media. Blog posts can be easily shared on social media especially if you provide sharing tools/plugins for that, and that will allow you to get more exposure in other communities.
#3: Encourage people to opt in for your email list on your blog. You can use your email list to further build and nurture relationships with your readers. Then via emails, you can drive them back to your website to purchase your products and services.
David Risley
Bio: I started blogging in 1998 as a technology blogger completely as a hobby. That hobby blog turned into its own company, and turned into a six-figure blog-based business with an editorial staff and multiple products within a few years.
#1: Orient your blog around a central transformation – and that transformation is something your prospect wants to become or achieve. The beginning of the transformation is where they’re at right now – and on the other end is where (or who, or what) they want to be. All of your content – and your PRODUCTS – would be aligned with moving them along this transformation.
#2: When you have a few products that deliver this transformation, you set them up to sell in a sales funnel. Start off with a low-ticket offer in order to turn email subscribers into customers. $10 or less is best for most markets. Then, work on getting them to take a higher-ticket core offer (I prefer a membership site of some kind).
#3: Treat affiliate marketing as a way to maximize profit, but not the foundation of your monetization. The way to build your business and income is for YOU to get the customers. Banner ads and affiliate marketing send your visitors off to somebody else. For that reason, it isn’t the foundation of a good monetization strategy.
David Schneider
Bio: David is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new Blogger Outreach software for marketers. He writes about business and entrepreneurship at SelfMadeBusinessman, and enjoys travel.
#1: Create a product – Inevitably if you want to make a lot of money, you need your own product. This allows you to control the marketing, the price, and take 100% of the commissions.
#2: Start small – I recommend starting small with something like an ebook, or a small info product/course. This allows you to get your feet wet and learn more about your audience, what they want to buy, and what goes into a product launch.
#3: Build an email list – This is considered fairly mandatory for any type of product sales. Focus on list building.
Dr. Rachna Jain
Bio: I’ve been working online since 1998 – I am a creator of the Profitable Popularity method and my deepest goal in my business is to help my clients streamline their businesses so they are efficiently making more money and creating more impact. Most of the time, this involves simplifying and improving rather than adding more.
#1: Promote affiliate offers. These are often simple to get started with and can be an easy first step to creating income from your blog. Just be sure to sign up with a reputable network and promote a content relevant offer.
#2: Sell a small, simple product of your own. If you make jewelry or crafts, you can offer your own products for sale right away. Otherwise, you can look at develop a small information product that you can sell. This is a good strategy if you can easily create a product and can figure out the technical aspects of getting it online and for sale.
#3: Offer an introductory service. Is there something you could easily teach or show others how to do, or do for them? These would make excellent introductory services to sell from your blog.
Enstine Muki
Bio: I love doing things in PHP, blogging and writing articles. I have developed a couple of applications in the Wood sector, Money Transfer and social medial.companies in my country.
#1: Review Affiliate Products.
#2: Sell your own products.
#3: Sponsored post.
The best way to monetize your blog is promote and sell your own products. The simple reason is you can cut down prices, run special offers and boost sales while keeping 100% profit. With PLR and a lot more resources, it’s becoming quite easy to create and own a product.
Affiliate Marketing has always been the a top income generator especially for those marketers who don’t have a product. Reviewing affiliate products on your blog is an important way to monetize it. I recommend you focus on affiliate products that pay recurring commissions so you make money month after month on autopilot.
The third method I recommend you try out is sponsored posts. You get paid upfront to review a product and tell your readers about it. Depending on your traffic and exposure, you could make something between $50 and $5000 per post.
The best way to monetize your blog is promote and sell your own products. The simple reason is you can cut down prices, run special offers and boost sales while keeping 100% profit. With PLR and a lot more resources, it’s becoming quite easy to create and own a product.
Affiliate Marketing has always been the a top income generator especially for those marketers who don’t have a product. Reviewing affiliate products on your blog is an important way to monetize it. I recommend you focus on affiliate products that pay recurring commissions so you make money month after month on autopilot.
The third method I recommend you try out is sponsored posts. You get paid upfront to review a product and tell your readers about it. Depending on your traffic and exposure, you could make something between $50 and $5000 per post.
Jeff Goins
Bio: Jeff has been writing most of his life. He’s an author of four books, and he helps other writers and creative individuals find their passion and share it with the world through his award-winning blog, books he wrote, speeches he delivers and online courses he teaches.
#1: Build an audience.
#2: Ask them what they want.
#3: Give it to them (and let them pay you).
Erik Emanuelli
Bio: I started blogging for passion, which turned now into a steady income online. I run several niche sites about different topics – how to make money online, internet, local and affiliate marketing, SEO, social media and web traffic.
#1: I start with the easiest strategy to implement: advertising platforms. The most popular choice is Adsense, but you may consider valid alternatives such as Infolinks or other CPM/CPC networks. You can earn by displaying on your blog relevant ads, making money from the clicks your readers generate or simply by impressions, depending on the program you select.
#2: The other resource I want to suggest is TrenDemon (linkuj http://trendemon.com/ ). It’s quite a new tool, which can help you generate more income and conversions from your website and traffic, by displaying personalized content and call to actions. Plus, it’s good for boosting social signals and gagement with your audience, through gamification principles.
#3: The third (and most important tip) is building your email list since the first day of your blogging journey. I suggest GetResponse (linkuj http://www.getresponse.com/), interesting prices and great tools included, like email design, landing page creator and of course an autoresponder, with 99% email deliverability. You want to consider your mailing list as an alternative source of traffic and your base of fans, to whom offer, from time to time, your products or services.
Harsh Agarwal
Bio: Creator of ShoutMeLoud, an award-winning blog popular among bloggers who are ready to learn the tricks of the trade to turning a blog into a successful business.
#1: AdSense
NO brainer this is the simplest & authentic way to monetize your blog. This is the first ad monetization network almost 70% of bloggers around the globe try. Reason being:
-It’s from Google
-Ad quality is high
-They pay in time
-Ad quality is high
-They pay in time
#2: Affiliate Marketing
This is recommended for anyone who want to make a living with their blog. Affiliate marketing can do wonders, and out of my $12000/month earning, more than 80% is from Affiliate marketing. You can see the complete breakdown of my income here..
#3: Launch your product
This is something I started implementing recently, and launched few products :
eBook
WordPress Theme
Premium WordPress plugin
WordPress Theme
Premium WordPress plugin
And I’m glad I did. DigitalProduct have great future, and it gives recurring income. More over, these days it’s easy to launch your own digital download store. You can use plugin like EasyDigitalDownloads to launch a store on WordPress. You can see a live example here..
Jerry Low
Bio: Jerry low is a geek dad who enjoys building web assets and hacking growth online. You can get more of his blogging tips via Twitter @WebHostingJerry.
In my experience, the three best ways to make money blogging are:
#1: Sell your own info products
#2: Sell affiliate products
#3: Blogging / social media marketing services
Info product offers the best profit margin as far as I knew.
Affiliate marketing is easy to start and scale up because as affiliate, you get to focus only in selling (while your merchants take care of the product development and inventories).
And, I know high profile bloggers who are getting paid thousands of dollars for one 2,000 words post because of their large social followings.
To start making good money via blogging – you need to be in a profitable niche and able to pull in sufficient targeted traffic. From my experience, content is only 50% of the game, if not less.
While your great Aunt Mary’s unique recycled dress quilts might be amazing, not that many people are as interested in reading about them as about quilting in general. Don’t limit your topic too much.
Here’s an example I like to use when comes to this topic – When I first got started, I created a site selling inflatable boats online as affiliate. Can you imagine how many people might buy inflatable boats online? That’s right, not many.
What’s worse, this product is a seasonal product and only sells during the summer, so I was further limited in my sales. Needless to say – My inflatable boat business didn’t even take off enough to launch it onto the small pond, much less a big pond.
So, how do you find a profitable niche? Well there are a number of tools and methods you can make use of. One easy way is to use SpyFu to check out what advertisers are spending in a niche. If advertisers, or merchants, are spending big money on that industry, then it means there is money to be made.
Keith Everett
Bio: The one thing with any Internet based business is, you are either selling a product or a service. I prefer to sell products as I can sell them 24/7, 365 days a year, even when I’m asleep.
#1: Selling Affiliate products. This is how I got started making money from my first blog back in 2011. I started off blogging about ways to make money, so I simply went to Clickbank, created an account and sought out good quality products in my niche to promote. Nowdays you also have JVZoo and many other Affiliate platforms to choose from. I then included a link to the product within my post and that worked for me. Of course you need to have traffic, I was sharing my posts all over social media, especially Facebook. The products that worked best for me were residual paying products, for instance membership site products, (monthly payments), this meant that each month your income increases as long as people keep paying their fees.
#2: Sell your network marketing opportunity within your posts. The Network marketing opportunity I am involved with has a residual component. By talking about related subjects, this gave me an opportunity to have calls to action at the bottom of each post to get people interested.
#3: Learn to do stuff, like create headers, graphics, logos etc and sell your service from the blog. I know people who write articles and at the same time sell an article writing service. Just use your imagination, people are always looking for something. Find out what it is your niche has a problem with, and sell them the solution.
Konrad Sanders
Bio: An SEO and sales-savvy copywriter with a pretty darn creative noggin on shoulders. He has a team of word-slinging cowboys who go by the name of The Creative Copywriter. Follow him on Twitter.
I’m only going to talk about one blog monetization technique. And that’s because I only really have experience in this particular one. But it’s also because I believe this to be the most potent way to make money as a blogger. If you can nail this, then forget all the rest.
The best way to make money blogging is…
To create and sell your own products or services based on your niche.
And don’t just create an offering. Create a brand.
I’ve seen bloggers with bucketloads of niche blogs, generating traffic from each one, but only making pittance from Adsense or affiliate marketing. Sure, you can probably make a decent bit of extra cash from them collectively. And some very determined people do make great money building niche blogs all over the shop.
But why scrape a few pennies out of affiliate marketing, when you can make serious profits out of selling your own products or services? Why have ten blogs which display ads for other people’s products, when you could have ten powerful brands selling your own shit-hot products?
That blog about ‘fishing in the Lake District’ – why not turn it into an awesome little boutique for bespoke fishing gear?
And that blog on English language tips – why not create and sell your own line of unique interactive language learning products? Or create a portal for English language tutors to conduct Skype lessons – with you taking a slice of the pie, of course.
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to discover what kind of products your readers will actually purchase. A brilliant way to test the waters before investing in any kind of long term commitment. So I definitely recommend you try it at the halfway stage. But once you’ve got good traffic and devoted readers, who you know will buy stuff, then it’s time to get creative.
Turn your blog into a brand. A slickly-designed website, with a sexy, unique line of products or services which you just can’t find anywhere else. And use your blog to reel those target customers in to that special, tailored offering you have waiting for them.Once you’ve got the inbound marketing funnel working like a dream; do some outbound marketing too. A multi-channel marketing approach works best.
That’s my two cents
The best way to make money blogging is…
To create and sell your own products or services based on your niche.
And don’t just create an offering. Create a brand.
I’ve seen bloggers with bucketloads of niche blogs, generating traffic from each one, but only making pittance from Adsense or affiliate marketing. Sure, you can probably make a decent bit of extra cash from them collectively. And some very determined people do make great money building niche blogs all over the shop.
But why scrape a few pennies out of affiliate marketing, when you can make serious profits out of selling your own products or services? Why have ten blogs which display ads for other people’s products, when you could have ten powerful brands selling your own shit-hot products?
That blog about ‘fishing in the Lake District’ – why not turn it into an awesome little boutique for bespoke fishing gear?
And that blog on English language tips – why not create and sell your own line of unique interactive language learning products? Or create a portal for English language tutors to conduct Skype lessons – with you taking a slice of the pie, of course.
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to discover what kind of products your readers will actually purchase. A brilliant way to test the waters before investing in any kind of long term commitment. So I definitely recommend you try it at the halfway stage. But once you’ve got good traffic and devoted readers, who you know will buy stuff, then it’s time to get creative.
Turn your blog into a brand. A slickly-designed website, with a sexy, unique line of products or services which you just can’t find anywhere else. And use your blog to reel those target customers in to that special, tailored offering you have waiting for them.Once you’ve got the inbound marketing funnel working like a dream; do some outbound marketing too. A multi-channel marketing approach works best.
That’s my two cents
Lars Lofgren
Bio: From products to social innovations, I want to take the best solutions we have and make sure people know about it. Every day, my goal is to help spread products, brands, and solutions throughout the world. And I accomplish this with the internet.
#1: Don’t use ads. The revenue you’ll earn through affiliate networks, Adsense, or any other ad network is incredibly low. It’s just not worth the effort that it takes to build a blog.
#2: Your blog is the marketing, not the product. Don’t try to monetize your blog directly. Instead, think of it as your marketing channel for your real business. You could be offering consulting, looking for freelance clients, pushing a SaaS product, or offering ebooks. There’s lots of options to choose from.
#3: Most blog visitors won’t purchase, get them to sign up for your email list instead. Most people will never buy after visiting a blog for the first visit. You’ll need more time to build value and trust with your audience. So pushing blog visitors directly into a purchase rarely works. Instead, give them an incentive to sign up for your email list. Then you can contact them regularly, build trust, and push your product later on.
Lauren Hooker
Bio: Lauren is a brand designer, Squarespace enthusiast, and blogger behind Elle & Company that loves to help creative entrepreneurs.
The opportunities of creating a pasive income are truly endless. Here are my top three tips, but for a few ideas on what I recommend to make money bloggging you can check out this post I wrote.
#1: Premium membership content
Offer premium content (videos, blog posts, design files) for a monthly charge by setting up a paywall on your site. Subscription-based income is recurring, which brings in more money over time and helps create a consistent income.
The opportunities of creating a pasive income are truly endless. Here are my top three tips, but for a few ideas on what I recommend to make money bloggging you can check out this post I wrote.
#1: Premium membership content
Offer premium content (videos, blog posts, design files) for a monthly charge by setting up a paywall on your site. Subscription-based income is recurring, which brings in more money over time and helps create a consistent income.
#2: Ebooks
Ebooks are a great way to create revenue through passive income; you create them once and you can sell them over and over at no extra cost. Ebooks also help establish your authority and expertise in your field. If you’ve been blogging for a while, consider making things easier on yourself by compiling some of your previous posts into an ebook.
Ebooks are a great way to create revenue through passive income; you create them once and you can sell them over and over at no extra cost. Ebooks also help establish your authority and expertise in your field. If you’ve been blogging for a while, consider making things easier on yourself by compiling some of your previous posts into an ebook.
#3: Online courses
Create an online course to give your audience a deeper understanding of the topics you cover on your blog. There is a higher perceived value with online courses which allows you to charge more, and there are minimal overhead costs.
Create an online course to give your audience a deeper understanding of the topics you cover on your blog. There is a higher perceived value with online courses which allows you to charge more, and there are minimal overhead costs.
MaAnna Stephenson
Bio: BlogAid specializes in helping you avoid the pitfalls and expense of suffering from what you don’t know about WordPress, SEO, and content and conversion that is targeted to your unique site and audience.
#1: Set an ultimate goal for what you want the site to accomplish, i.e. draw traffic for clicks on ads or affiliate offers, buy your product or service.
#2: Make every post a way to reach that ultimate goal.
#3: Keep it focused. The more narrow your niche, the more you get known for something. Stay with that focus and
http://firstsiteguide.com/blogging-and-monetization-tips/
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