Establishing your presence online is the first step. It all starts with your blog, and this is something you must never forget. Some people tend to get carried away with monetization and focus on this aspect, but if you want to have a blog that brings money, you have to have a successful blog. And no money will come if you do not invest a lot of time, dedication, and often money into your blog.
In most cases, these strategies will be heavily influenced by your blog performance. If you have a lot of traffic, you are going to maximize the results obtained from the monetization. And to maximize the traffic, you need to have an outstanding blog, one which deserves trust and provides value.
You also have to understand that there are direct and indirect ways to earn money from your blog.
Monetizing your blog
Let us focus on direct ways to earn from your blog first. Some of these might be suitable for your blog, some might not, and you can also use multiple strategies if you can make them all work for you.
Displaying Banners
The idea with this approach is to have visual ads on your blog, usually shared in the header, sidebar or footer of your blog pages. The more exposure these banners get, the more profitable they will be as they will attract your blog readers. When you work with a company which you will promote on your blog, you offer your own pricing and promotion terms, or you agree upon terms regarding the promotion tracking and price.
The easiest way for you is to go for fixed pricing. This means that you will set up a fixed price of how much your blog space is worth and the company that is interested in the promotion will need to pay this price for the banner to appear. The price is usually set for annual promotion, but any time interval is acceptable, as long as the price reflects the period during which the promotion will be active.
The second option is to track clicks. In this case, the company you are promoting will be paying you based on clicks. Occasionally, if you have a lot of traffic, this might be even more cost effective than selling space for a fixed price. But it requires more management regarding tracking clicks and calculating payment, usually monthly.
AdSense
AdSense is a dynamic form of advertising displayed on your blog. Unlike having one static banner, the AdSense program enhances the dynamic ads, which are determined by a complex algorithm.
A common way through which the displayed ads are selected is remarketing. This is the situation when the ads are optimized based on the search history of the online users. For example, if the user has searched for HootSuite software, but no purchase has been made, and you have a blog about social media, the ad featuring HootSuite platform might appear if the company uses such method of advertising. So it remarkets to the users who already have some interest in their product.
To start using AdSense, you will need to join the online program provided by Google. Once you sign up and you are approved, you will set up the display ad space on your blog. You will also fill in your account, so the software learns how to display the most relevant ads to your visitors. For example, if you have a women fashion blog, you might not want to feature ads that promote men’s fashion.
Earning income through this form of advertising is completely passive. Once you set up everything, all you need to do is to promote your blog and the AdSense program does everything for you. The main drawback is that the income generated through this form of advertising is not that considerable. You will have to have thousands of visitors to see some profit. Even so, it is a strategy you worth exploring as a way to monetize your blog.
