Monetising your blog

Written by Arthur Wong

Monday, 05 November 2007

Monetising Your Blog

You wake up at ten (or eleven), freshen up, turn on your computer and read the day’s news. Something interesting catches your eye, and you make an entry on your blog. As usual, you check your bank account to make sure that payment has been made, and you make a few calls to arrange the next few shipments. You update your blog with some new stuff, then the officer from the bank called.

“Sir, we regret to inform you that we no longer have space in our bank to hold all the money that you’re making.”

Oops! Wrong life? Or is it?

The World Wide Web has presented us with limitless potential to make money, and while the few wise ones have taken to it which much success, there are of course the elites who have made monetising their blogs an art.

Is it that hard to make money off your blog? What are some of the ways to do it? How do the money-making bloggers do it? Well, while it’s a tough market out there, let us show you a few simple ways to start the cash rolling.

Sidebar Article:
Blogging for money – is it ethical?

Before you start blogging for money, or using your blog to make money, take this thought to mind - would you consider it a betrayal of your moral integrity?

Of course, there are those who stand firmly by their citizen-journalistic integrity, preferring to end their lives rather than to sell out to the immoral world of marketing and commerce. These are the people who stick by their principles! Their blog comprised of their thoughts, and nothing evil will penetrate their online sanctuary.

Kudos to integrity, but if you prefer the practical (some might argue rational) route, you would be glad to know that there are more than one way to skin the online money-making cat.

Last but not least, think about this – if your blog offers the community something of great value? Why not make money from it?

For starters: Can you make money off your blog?

Well just like anyone can learn to ride a bike, almost anyone can make money from blogs. However, it doesn’t mean that everyone who knows how to ride a bike is a Tour de France winner though. Making serious money off your blog takes a whole lot of determination, curiosity, and knowledge. It all boils down to how much you know of what you need to know.

Without wasting too much of our time (because we all know the thing about time and money!), here’re some of the stuff you would need to read up on before you embark on your journey to blog-millionairedom!

•   HTML / XML / CSS
•   RSS / Syndication
•   Feeds
•   Trackbacks
•   Blog Carnivals (how to kick start your blog’s traffic)
•   Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
•   Page Rank
•   Tagging
•   Contextual Advertising
•   Affiliate Programs
•   Emails
•   Traffic Statistics
•   Podcasting
•   E-Commerce
•   Online Databases

If you’re looking at the above list like a chimpanzee staring at a typewriter, then we would suggest that you stay on your day job.

The next step: Key players

So you’ve done your research and got your business strategy thought out. The World Wide Web is your oyster, and you’ve got a voracious appetite. Ok then, on to the meat!

Right now, all you need to know are the key players – tools that are critical to make your campaign a success.

1.   Your best friend

Every online money-maker needs this to survive, and if you’ve not guess it by now, you’ve officially fallen back to the ‘chimp and typewriter’ stage.

Three words – traffic, traffic, traffic.

No one can make money off a blog that has no visitors, so get cracking and take every opportunity you can to make people come to your site. Some of the best blogs in the world attract more than 2 million page views per month, and you have got to match that to even think about the cushy scenario you had read at the beginning of this article.

2.   Google AdSense

Want to make money? Do it like the magazines, and sell advertising space! If you look at it, a blog performs virtually the same function as a magazine, fulfilling the readers’ thirst for information. One key difference is that content on the blog can be adjusted to suit the ever-changing taste of the market.

Google AdSense (www.google.com/adsense) allows you to display up to three content-specific advertising boxes on your blog, and when people click on them you earn. In the words of Google’s Biz Stone, “If you’re writing about sports cars, they’ll be ads about sports cars.”

Google’s cheque comes when you reach $100, so get cracking already!

3.   Affiliate Programs

While it might be strange that people would actually want to help you earn money, affiliate programs are other avenues for you to earn some spare change off the Internet. Here’s where companies let you place buttons on your blog to help direct people to their website. When the poor suckers are enticed to buy their products, you earn money from commission.

One of the more prolific affiliate programs is the Amazon Associate Program (http://associates.amazon.com). Here, links of books are placed on websites for interested parties to click on and buy, earning the website a nifty part of the sales. Other affiliate programs include Commission Junction (www.cj.com) and LinkShare (www.linkshare.com).

4.   Good Old Advertising

Last but not least, we introduce the traditional way of doing things – letting people pay to use your space!

Drop by Blogads (www.blogads.com) for a visit, and you’ll be introduced to the money-making method of placing adverts on your blog. In short, advertisers who are interested will pay you to advertise on your blog, and Blogads is your directory of keen takers. Of course, you have to give a 30% cut to Blogads for all the hard work.

Sidebar Article:
Masters of the Trade

Enough talk. With all the interest that might have germinated from the article, it’s time to show you some of the people who actually made it. Look, read, and learn. Who knows? You might be living the high life soon enough!

John Chow
URL: www.johnchow.com

Jeremy Schoemaker
URL: www.shoemoney.com

Steve Pavlina
URL: www.stevepavlina.com

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