More Monetizing Options - Part II

Another source of income on your blog could be ClickBank
Products. You can find tens of thousands of digital products
to promote and they pay up to 75% commission on sales.

The products are all digital, so they offer instant delivery
to your readers. Again, strategically placed links that blend
in with your blog content can mean sales for you! You can
sign up as a ClickBank Affiliate here. 

Last but definitely not least, you can sell advertising space
on your blog if your blog is really popular. Just take a look
at blogs like http://www.smartbloggerz.com/ This particular
blog receives 1000s of page views every day and it follows
that merchants want to strike a deal with the blog’s owner
to post their advertisements there.

If you manage to pull in huge amounts of traffic like that
blog, you can definitely get people to buy ad space on your
blog for prices from $150/month and up, depending on your
blog popularity.

To gauge how many page views and visitors you get everyday,
just use the free tool available at http://www.statcounter.com/
They have a very detailed setup guide there so I won’t go into it.

If your blog has not acquired a large amount of visitors yet,
you can still sell ad space on your blog on a per click or per
impression basis. Just visit sites like http://www.adbrite.com/

Hopefully, this will help you maximize earnings and profits
from your blog!.

More Monetizing Options - Part I

I’ve spoken about using the Google AdSense program and other

merchants’ affiliate programs to generate profits from your blog.

However, there are a lot of other options to monetize your blog,
so we’re going to look into those now.

The first option I'll be looking at is Chitika, which is a very
innovative contextual advertising program and can provide
very detailed advertisements. For example, on your sets and
reps for fitness blog (as metioned in a previous post), Chitika
will show advertisements that are fitness-related. The way they
show them is in different tabs: one for “Best Deals”, another
for “Details”, another for “Reviews” and so on.

This way, it is more informational in nature for your visitor
rather than an advertisement, and naturally the click-through
rate will be higher. You can apply here.

You can also be an affiliate for Amazon.com. Amazon offers
a wide range of products and they are always expanding their
product base. For example, they have a category called “Sports
and Outdoors” which includes, but is not limited to, “exercise
& fitness”, and “athletic & outdoor clothing”. Whatever your
niche is about, you can probably find a something related to
it on Amazon.com. Click here to join the their Affiliate Program.

Once you join, you can refer visitors to them and earn up to 10%

commission. It’s not a lot, but if you can manage to refer big
volumes of visitors, Amazon is for you.

This program really shines when it comes to the ways you can
refer visitors:

1) you can use their predefined templates to pull up recent
items that match a certain criteria you set,

2) you can target your ad to show a specific item on sale or,

3) you can just simply weave your referral links into your blog
posts.

Monetizing Your Blog - Part II

Another way to earn profits from your blog is to recommend
products to your readers. When your visitors buy from the
merchants you recommend, you get to keep a little commission
too. This is known as affiliate marketing and it is very easy to
start because you don’t have to create your own products or
services.

Let’s say for instance that you blog is about sets and reps for
fitness.  You discover Fitness Product X on a merchant’s website,
and they offer an affiliate program. You would join the affiliate
program and then create a post in your blog and do a mini-review
on Fitness Product X.

Be thorough and point out its benefits and bad points, if any,
and include your affiliate link (which is provided by the merchant)
for the visitor to purchase Fitness Product X online.

If your visitor clicks and purchases the gadget, the merchant
will track the sale from your link and will send you your share of
the profits. Imagine if 1 out of every 100 visitors you get
purchases this product, and you earn $27.00 commission from
each purchase! If you get 10,000 visitors in a month that would
be a $2,700.00 pay check for you just for writing about ONE
product.

Now, affiliate programs are very nice ways to generate profits,
but how do you find affiliate programs that are related to your
blog’s theme? Easy, just go to Google and search for
<your niche> + “affiliate programs” (without the quotation marks,
but with the + sign). Another slightly better way is to go to programs
http://www.associateprograms.com/search to look for affiliate
programs in your niche.

The two ways mentioned above are basic ways to generate profits
from your blog. We’ll be discussing other great, profitable ways,
so keep your eyes peeled!

Monetizing Your Blog - Part I

You’ve been working hard to produce good-quality, original
content on your blog and you have attracted a decent amount
of traffic by doing so.  However, money is not going to appear
out of thin air just because you have traffic. You have to turn
your traffic into money.

There are several ways to generate profits from the visitors to
your blog, and Google’s AdSense program allows you to do so
with ultimate ease.  First, visit their website at
http://adsense.google.com/  You’ll find out more about their
advertising program there, but here’s some extra information:

- Google’s AdSense program is a really useful way to monetize
your blog because when users finish reading your newest post,
they are ready to move on, but if your AdSense advertisement
block is visible on your blog, they might see advertisements
relevant to their interests and click on them (to exit your blog).
Cha-ching! You’ve just earned your first virtual cents!

- Yes, your profits will only be cents if you don’t “do it right”.
This involves placing your Google ads in the right places and
ensuring they blend in to your site so that they appear more
like links rather than advertisements to your visitors. Consult
this page:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html
to see the “heat map” of your blog. The “hotter” a certain area,
the greater the chances of someone clicking on the ads.

- Once you get a Google AdSense account, you can change the
color of your advertisement text and links. You will want them
to match the colors of your blog. If your blog’s text is black and
the links are red, do the same for the ad blocks too! It’s that simple.