How to monetise your blog.

From the outset of starting your blog for financial gain, you will have to make a decision, are you only going to rely on online resources and affiliate marketing to bring revenue into your blog and live a free-roaming laptop lifestyle?

This you can do from anywhere in the world.

Or will you use your blog to create authority in your niche and leverage this authority to gain additional offline clients with consulting gigs or speaking appointments?

This method keeps you geographically bound to a certain extent.

By geographically bound, I mean you will probably build your business in one country, province or state for a start.

However, if you do decide to stay in your area it also opens up additional doors for soliciting private advertising and other advertising-related revenues.

Start by registering and applying for local marketing offers on a local affiliate network.

1. Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

As the name explains, pay per click advertising means you get paid every time a visitor clicks on an advert on your website. These adverts are supplied by the ad network you select to feed ads to your website. The most popular advertising network is Google Adsense.

These adverts are supplied by the ad network you select to feed ads to your website.

The most popular advertising network is Google Adsense.

The ads will be text or display adverts and your payment will depend on the competitiveness of the ad category.

Your website will be fed advertising relating to your website content by your ad network.

WARNING: Do not click on your own adverts, you will get caught and banned across the entire Google network of websites including YouTube.

Here is a huge list of content advertising platforms.

2. Cost Per Mile (CPM)

Another ad network option to consider is Cost Per Mile (CPM), which is great for high traffic websites as you get paid for every 1000 visitors to your site that view the banner, usually you would put these banners on your most popular pages.

3. Cost Per Action (CPA)

These campaigns pay you when the user has completed a specific action, usually, it would be filling in a form or participating in an offer.

For instance, as an Amazon Affiliate you can offer your readers a “Get 2 Books Free” offer and for each person that signs up for the offer, you would receive $5.

4. Text link ads

Text link ads are usually linked to affiliate products and thus click through to a specific landing page or a product page. Often CPA ads are also run on this basis.

Often CPA ads are also run on this basis.

5. In-text ads

The text links are usually double underlined to make them stand out and when a reader hovers over them they will pop-up. The reader can then decide to click through on the link.

The reader can then decide to click through on the link.

6. Advertising widgets

Although fairly new, many prebuilt WordPress themes now come with advertising widgets built in. Advertising widgets are often a mixture of PPC, text link ads and affiliate programs.

Advertising widgets are often a mixture of PPC, text link ads and affiliate programs.

7. Private advertising

Private advertising is a little more hard work as you would secure the advertisers yourself and obtain contracts on a paid monthly basis, for example, you would set out to sell 6 advertising spots at R2500 a month each and thereby create a steady R15 000 per month in revenues.

This does require you to have a high amount of traffic each month to ensure the advertisers get real value for money.

You should provide monthly analytics report to these clients which show their return on investment and click-through rates.

8. Special features

By setting up a weekly special feature editorial calendar, you could go about selling advertising space in these special features.

Basically, it means you will take a category of your primary niche and do a feature on it, ie. on a food blog you could do a special feature on kitchen equipment and invite advertisers to participate therein with adverts, text contributions and even photo’s or videos.

9. Advertising campaigns

This is where a client will launch a full campaign using your site and all of your other offerings, like social media and newsletters to launch new products or services. Again this would rely on having a steady amount of visitors every month.

Again this would rely on having a steady amount of visitors every month.

With some creative bundling, you can put together an attractive package for your advertising clients which will add nicely to your bottom line income too.

A full house package would usually look some along these lines:

The top headline advertising banner on your homepage for a full month.

One or two sideline banners on other portions of your site.

Two article post (different weeks).

Three Facebook posts, sometimes even your timeline banner (if the price is right and you are happy to do that).

6 or more Tweets.

Headline banner in your weekly email newsletter.

A survey or poll about your client’s product, related to your content.

10. Articles in your email newsletter

Additional items could also include video adverts, coupons or loyalty program registration, and other offers.

11. Press releases

Press releases can be a lucrative income generator, this is where you allow clients to publish press releases on your blog and charge a “per insertion fee”, just keep it tasteful and not too blatantly commercial if you can help it.

12. Lead generation services

Here you would charge per lead generated, you would charge for instance R25 for every actual “bona fide” lead passed on to the client by means of a lead generation form on a specially created landing page.

The client would pay you upfront an amount equal to 100 leads and when it is finished they can top up for more leads.

You can also charge an initial fee to set up the landing pages in the first place.

13. Paid directory listings

A directory consisting of companies in your niche would not only help your visitors find products they are looking for but you could charge the companies that participate in the directory a monthly or annual fee to be included therein.

14. Newsletters and email marketing

Newsletters not only serve the purpose of continuously getting your subscribers to return to your website but also are an ideal platform to inform these subscribers about your new product offerings.

In addition, you can also sell advertising space inside your newsletters, this can be done in many ways.

You can sell the headline banner or sell a sponsorship package thus “this newsletter brought to you by XYZ Co”

You can also have sponsored sections in your newsletter.

Using your same subscriber list you can also use email marketing to introduce new products you have on offer, promote events and webinars, just write a quick note to touch base and inform about anything of interest in your niche.

15. Popup lightboxes

Probably too annoying to use for advertising banners but ideal for newsletter signups or lead magnets.

16. Create your own products for sale

This can be your biggest revenue earner if you go about it the right way. Once your blog is ready to take to market, you can start adding your own products.

Once your blog is ready to take to market, you can start adding your own products.

Keep adding and developing new products, it is what makes your blog uniquely different from all the others in your niche.

These products also have the additional benefit of building your authority in your niche.

The types of products that tend to be the best revenue earners are:

eBooks

Hardcover books

Teaching programs and niche related courses

Guides and tutorials

This does not mean you must start an eCommerce store, you can easily set up simple payments with Paypal or Payfast.

17. Membership sites

Membership sites are a fast-growing sector of the industry. They are also useful for creating leads thus growing your email list.

They are also useful for creating leads thus growing your email list.

Start with offering a free membership section where you offer some great free content and then charge a monthly fee for the upgraded membership where your premium content and added membership features and benefits are made available.

18. Deals and coupons

This is a straightforward revenue producer, where you can offer deals and coupons of suppliers in your niche, which your visitors won’t find anywhere else.

It can also include your own products and affiliate products.

Cost per action deals should also be included in this section.

19. Affiliate marketing

An awesome way to add easy revenue to your blog.

For instance, if you have a tech blog, you could feature an article on wearable tech. In the article or in the sidebar you could add actual products from a website such as www.mantality.co.za, they pay their affiliates a handsome 10% on all products sold.

You would thus earn 10% on all readers that click on these items and buy them from Mantality.

You can find loads of affiliate products on sites like Clickbank too.

20. Product reviews

Product reviews are similar to affiliate marketing but more detailed, thus reviewing a specific product as opposed to writing a general article.

21. Hosting webinars

Hosting a paid for live webinar is a good way to sell virtual seats for a workshop on your area of speciality. People in far-reaching areas can attend and they can ask you questions too.

People in far-reaching areas can attend and they can ask you questions too.

Webinars are also often used to provide an introduction to a product, service or course you are selling, with the attendees then buying the product during or after the webinar.

22. Job boards

Although they are difficult to get started at first, job boards can be extremely lucrative once you have a consistent amount of visitors to your website every month. Conversely, a job board will also ensure that you attract many daily visitors to your blog that are interested in obtaining positions in your niche.

Conversely, a job board will also ensure that you attract many daily visitors to your blog that are interested in obtaining positions in your niche.

For an excellent example of a company that has successfully managed to do this and now makes daily income from these advertisements, see www.bizcommunity.co.za.

23. Donations

Wikipedia relies almost exclusively on donations. You can receive many contributions from visitors that have found your site useful. You will be surprised how many people are happy to support your site if they find it useful and believe that you bring a valuable contribution to their area of interest.

You will be surprised how many people are happy to support your site if they find it useful and believe that you bring a valuable contribution to their area of interest.

It is possible to receive substantial contributions from visitors that have found your site useful.

You can easily just set up a donate button via Paypal.

Another way to find donations or sponsors is to try and find regular contributions from supporters via the www.patreon.com crowdfunding site.

24. Hire yourself out as a consultant or speaker

Establishing yourself as an authority in your niche will lead to many opportunities as you become more and more sought after in your industry.

You can start charging to provide speaking services at corporate events and industry exhibitions. It might be wise to also start off your speaking career by volunteering to speak for free at some of these industry events.

It might be wise to also start off your speaking career by volunteering to speak for free at some of these industry events.

Becoming a consultant is also quite easy as you already have your fingers on the pulse of what happens in your industry on a daily basis and your articles and blog posts will soon position you as a thought leader on all things related to your niche.

25. Crowdfunding

Find donations or sponsors and regular contributions from supporters via the www.patreon.com crowdfunding site.

Conclusion

Each of the above items is fairly easy to implement, on your website, but it just takes time to do, so just start at the top and keep plugging away at them. The more popular your website or blog becomes, the more revenue streams you can build from it.

The more popular your website or blog becomes, the more revenue streams you can build from it.