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Saturday, January 12, 2008

How To Make Money Blogging


People start blogging for literally hundreds of different reasons. Some are simply looking to share their daily lives with loved ones, talk about one of their interests, or, in many cases, just claim their small piece of internet real estate. For others, however, blogging is a business endeavor, which, when done correctly, can yield thousands of dollars in returns relatively quickly.


In the current state of the blogging "scene", there are thousands of monetization options. From direct advertising to affiliate offers, the possibilities are endless. However, none of these monetization options will succeed without "The Big T", or traffic. The bottom line is, if no one sees your advertisements, they will not generate revenue of any sort. For the purposes of this article, however, we will assume that you have built adequate traffic to support a monetization model of some sort. With that said, let’s take a look at some options bloggers have to make money blogging.


The first option for relatively new bloggers is to utilize a service such as ReviewMe or PayPerPost. The beauty of these programs is that they are not directly related to traffic, click-through-rate, or other similar metrics. Basically, advertisers can purchase a review on your website, which you will be required to research, write, and maintain. For busy bloggers, this is a great option, as the reviews that you write are also a source of content for your blog, as well as direct revenue producers. It is important, however, to not allow these paid posts to take over your normal posting routine. Too many sponsored posts can lead readers away, lower your credibility, and make your site less attractive to advertisers, so be sure to only accept reviews that are related to your blog’s content.


For revenue based on your readership’s participation, actions, and purchases, the options are much more vast. Affiliate offers are very effective for some niches, given the ability to inject your existing content with offers that make you money. For example, if you run a blog about credit repair, providing links and advertisement to affiliate offers for credit reports, credit repair services, or other related products and services could yield outstanding returns. Some of the key players in the affiliate network industry include Commission Junction, Share-A-Sale, AzoogleAds, and NeverBlueAds. They all offer lucrative offers from hundreds of niches, and have excellent histories.


The last option is slightly less invasive, and involves placing content based advertising throughout your website’s pages. The ads that are displayed are automatically generated based on each page’s content, which allows targeted advertisements to each user. Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publisher Network are the larger players in this arena, and provide outstanding results. Making these ads a part of your site increase your chances of making money from each visitor to your blog, and also provides additional related content and options to each page.

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