Blogging can be a great way to spend your time: you get to write about
things you love or that are interesting to you, people stop by and read
them or even comment on them and if you’re lucky, your readership grows
and you become popular. But that is actually a 2-edged sword. Not you
have a feeling of responsibility to your readers. You owe them. Suddenly
your enjoyable online diversion has become a duty. You are spending
more and more time on something just to keep your readership happy.
Finally you hit the “Puss In Boots” moment – how can I make money with
this blog?
You are in luck because
making money on the internet with a blog is a growing business. While
not the heyday of a few years ago where almost anything seemed to work,
the advantages now are the wide range of money-making opportunities
available to the blogger. Following is a list of 5 easy ways to make
money from your blog.
1. Adsense
Adsense Perhaps the biggest money maker around. Big names like Problogger.net and ShoeMoney.com use it to great advantage. In fact ShoeMoney.com
got a lot of mileage and exposure for showing a photo of his $132,994
check from Google for Adsense. You most likely won’t make as much
because that check was for more than one site, but you have to start
somewhere. Sign up for an account and start testing out different
Adsense placements.
2. Amazon
Amazon
The other 800 pound gorilla when it comes to making money with your
blog. Read a book you liked? Write about it and link to it on Amazon.
Watched a good movie? Bought a great coffeemaker? Like a certain watch?
Write about them and throw up a link to Amazon. Every purchase made
within 24 hours of someone going to their site gives you a small
percentage. Not much, but it adds up.
3. Ebooks
Surely
you are an expert about something, right? Whatever it is, write an
ebook about it, promote it like there’s no tomorrow and sell it from
your website. It won’t make you enough money to retire, but it could be a
nice little extra money on the side. One ebook turns into two which
then turns into a series. Lots of places online to help you write,
format and sell, sell, sell your ebook.
4. Referrals
If
you don’t have a product to sell, you can make money by guiding people
to another place that wants to sell to them. Programs, software, ebooks
and more are willing to pay you a little bit of money for every person
who signs up for their service or buys what they are selling. Again, the
focus here is on lots of little sales that add up together to make a
decent amount of money. Paid reviews are the other side of this coin –
many companies will pay a blogger a certain amount of cash upfront to
write a favorable review for one of their products. Only accept things
you are comfortable recommending and you will sleep very well at night.
5. Advertising
If
you have people coming to your blog to read what you write or see
what’s going on, you can possibly sell ad space directly to advertisers.
Banner ads and text-link ads are two common ways for this, although
paid reviews are kind of in this genre as well. It is not always easy to
figure out what to charge advertisers. Number of visitors to your blog
everyday, both repeat and unique visitors are a factor as well as
several other things. Look around for advice on the Internet about how
much to charge. Sometimes advertisers will contact you directly although
many people will go out and track down advertisers themselves. If you
are the one on the hunt, it is a good idea to have a fair price in mind
and be willing to either stick to your guns or come down on the price if
you really want the advertiser.
Making money
from your blog may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it beats
having to go to work and listen to your boss order you around. You may
not end up like Puss In Boots’ master with a castle and a princess for
your bride, but you will most likely make some money if you put a little
effort into it.
If you don’t have a blog or don’t know what a blog is then read this post –> What is a Blog and How to create one?
About The Author: Melissa Tamura is the author of the blog Zen College Life .She writes about accredited online colleges for Zen College Life. She most recently ranked the best online colleges.