The 6 Different Ways You Can Make Money From Your Blog
Have you ever noticed that the majority of bloggers have maybe one or two methods of making money from their blog – and that’s it. For example they will have adsense and private ad sales, or the affiliate minded ones will have their adspots with affiliate links as well as promoting affiliate links in their post.
Today I want to take a quick look at the different ways you can make money from your blog and hopefully you are able to at least pick up another revenue stream.
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CPC Advertising
This is adsense, bidvertiser or another other advertising program that pays you per click. Usually this is where people start and most of the time it is only pocket change - a dollar here, a dollar there. However some blogs do make a substantial amount from adsense, but these blogs are usually in niches outside of the MMO or blog about blogging niches.
I use adsense on a couple of my blogs, including this one. Only one of them is pulling in over a dollar a day, and that is a blog outside of those niches I mentioned above.
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Affiliate Ad Sales
When you blog is new, you realise that no one is going to buy your adspots because you have no traffic stats. So what do you do? You sign up with Commission Junction and Clickbank and ad your little 125×125 ads, hoping that someone clicks though and buys something.
Affiliate ad sales can be quite lucrative if you find one that your readers seem to connect with. I know a lot of hosting companies are paying $90+ on the affiliate sales (pity HostsBlog.com can’t seem to get any referrals yet :P)
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Private Ad Sales
This is the path I have taken this month with my Adspot Auction. And seemed to do alright. I mean I’m no John Chow making $500 a month per spot, but its a start. Your adspot price usually seems to be determined by RSS subscribers because while I am earning about $10 per 125×125 spots, Tyler Cruz is selling out his 125×125 adspots and his alexa rating is almost twice what mine is (even though he has 4 times the subscribers!)
But if you can make good money off your private ad sales it does provide a steady income.
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Paid Reviews
Similar to private ad sales, where you get paid in advance for the ad. A paid review is where you get offered money to write a review about someones product of website. Prices for these vary greatly and it doesn’t necessarily depend on PR, feed count or traffic.
I do a mixture of private paid reviews and using paid posting websites. Currently my private paid reviews are $30 – and I get about 2 of these a month, and paid posting websites which can be quite lucrative (I know Jim from TheNetfool.com got $200 for one paid review using the program I also use, Sponsored Reviews – they pay great and have a great referral commission for you affilliate ad people :D.
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Affiliate Reviews
Here is where things start blending together. Affiliate reviews are a mixture between affiliate ad sales and paid reviews. The way you go about making money from affiliate reviews is you find a product that you like and wouldn’t have any trouble recommending, see if it will pay you a commission for getting people to sign up to their service or buy their product, and then write up a blog post reviewing the service or product (inserting affiliate links as you see fit).
If you can make a habit of writing non-biased reviews that once again find your visitors sweet spot you can make quite a lot of money from affiliate reviews!
The only thing I will add is that make sure you don’t just rewrite the sales blurb the the product has on their website. Make sure you try and test it out, see how it works. Even try and score yourself a free one by telling the creator that you want to make them some sales! But just don’t rehash what everyone else is saying… (Sorry. This is a pet hate of mine :P)
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Creating A Product And Use Your Blog As A Launching Pad
I have watched a fair few bloggers get REALLY good results from this. I remember when Yaro announced his Blog Mastermind Program. His blog and the network he build from his blog is what really helped him successfully launch his blog. The same thing with Darren and his Problogger book.
I am in the initial stages of doing the same, but a little bit different because I see this as the one way to make money from your blog that can quickly and exponentially increase your earnings!
I think that about covers them all, but if I missed one just let me know. I’d love to hear your stories of the methods that have work and those that haven’t – so please comment below!
Great post.Thanks for mentioning about commission junction and clickbank.I hope these will help me in MMO
Hello Standout Blogger,
Yes the key to making money with blogs is diversified marketing, Diversity draws more readers hopefully more sales.
Good article
Regards,
Gerald Roberts
Macclenny, fl
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Paid reviews are one of the best earners for a blog that is just starting out. especially if they have high PR and low traffic.
Paid posting/reviews is really one of the easiest. If you don’t have a “soul” then you can just clutter your blogs with paid reviews and make a hundred bucks easily…
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Hey Tom
You’ve pretty much covered everything but if I were to add – probably a freelance services i.e. logo design, blog setup, freelance writing can be considered one of the ways to make money from a blog. Anyway, great coverage, Tom.
Yan
Harish – Thanks! I hope you can profit from them.
Gerald – Thanks
Trever – I agree. But different blogs are easier to monetize in different ways.
Melvin – haha, so true! But I would hate having a blog that is just full of paid reviews.
yan – Why did I not think of that! There are a lot of successful freelancers who have leveraged their blog traffic for success.
Nice tips. I’ll try them. Thanks.
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These all sound great … how does the referral commission work for Sponored Reviews? For sending … advertisers or bloggers? Thanks for the great info. *SmiLes* Suzanne
Suzanne Franco ~ Want FREE Prizes? Up to $1,900!s last blog post..What Is Blogging Idol All About … and Have I Earned the Title?
PPC = Adwaords, not to confuse the beginner. The cost and learning level should also be stressed. :)
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Typo – Adwords.
Dennis Edells last blog post..2 NEW BLOGS Unveiled! FINALLY!!
One thing you forgot to mention is newsletters Tom. A blog can make a lot of money by creating a list of follows that you can then use these other methods to monetize your newsletter.
Such as affiliate networks and advertising.
Some good tips though, I think that every blog should have a newsletter, just just gives you so much potential.
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Suzanne – Theie website says that they pay up to $175 for publishers referred ($1 for every $5 they spend) and up to $90 for referred bloggers ($5 for every $50 they earn).
It looks like a great affiliate program and maybe something I should work on promoting more. If you sign up for it, I’d really appreciate if you did it through my link :P
Dennis – Sorry, my mistake, it should have read CPC not PPC…ill fix that now.
Robin – Great point! This is something I am currently looking into and have kinda been converted from not seeing the point in them to realising they are vital for long term profitability. Newsletters could possibly fit under the creating a product category?
Tom ~ you got it … I’ll use your link for sure. Is it multi-tier? So … sorry to pick your brain … but is that total you can earn? Like $175 and then you’re done with referral credits? S
Suzanne Franco ~ Want FREE Prizes? Up to $1,900!s last blog post..What Is Blogging Idol All About … and Have I Earned the Title?
Their website says:
“Earn up to $175 per Advertiser and $90 Per Blogger Referred.”
So I’m guess that means that is the maximum you can earn from each referral, so the more you refer the more $175’s and $90’s you can earn…if that makes sense.
and thanks :D
Sorry … wasn’t trying to be lazy … just thought you might have the info handy … Thanks. That’s a great deal and I’ll definitely do it (through you). It might be next week after I settle down from the Blogging Idol craziness LOL
Speaking of that … my contest/drawing starts tomorrow … it coincides with the reader voting dates … and I sure hope one of those ads of Jim’s will be replaced with one of my “I Voted Suzanne Franco” buttons! LOL …
In fact, did you see his “Sunday Love and Announcements” today? I got an honorable mention! Well … of sorts … “Jim” style anyway. *SmiLes* Suzanne
Suzanne Franco ~ Want FREE Prizes? Up to $1,900!s last blog post..What Is Blogging Idol All About … and Have I Earned the Title?
How long into a blogs lifespan should the person focus on making money? Isn’t it a good idea to get a steady base of readers before you start plugging different advertisements?
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Keg – It’s up to you, but I usually do it from the start, so that people dont start following under the misconception that you will never monetize the blog.
I never had the luck or the skill in affiliate marketing. Yeah, I earn some from sign ups but not on sales :(
CPC and Private ad sales is my thing :D
Blogging from Scratchs last blog post..Monetize your blog too soon or too late?
Good stuff, i was going say you forgot newsletter but i think someone else above already mentioned it. I’m just a newbie blogger at this moment but hopefully i’ll get to where you and other bloggers are at right now.
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