Make your content engaging
Don’t just throw in a random link to one of your affiliate websites. Most readers will see right through this.
If your readers don’t find value in clicking the link you posted, they won’t click it. Write a compelling review or interesting anecdote about how a certain product or service helped you, and explain how it can help your readers.
Make sure you’re genuine and that you are being yourself. Your readers trust you. They will trust a product that you endorse if you are 100% open and honest about it.
Endorse the right product or service
Make sure that you thoroughly research who or what you will be endorsing before you do it.
Makes sure the product or service you’re promoting will help your reader.
Remember, your readers trust you. You don’t want to promote something which can be harmful to your readers and make them lose their trust in you. Do your research and make sure that the product or service you are promoting will serve to help your readers.
Make sure your content is user-friendly
The user experience plays a huge role in whether or not someone will come back to your blog, or how likely they are to remain loyal to yours.
What goals can visitors accomplish on your site? Is it easy for them to do so?
If you pepper links in everywhere and make your ad placement look messy, you will minimize the user experience and quite possibly lose readers. Make sure you place your links cleverly and have a good balance between your content and links that you are promoting. Remember: you’re helping your reader, not just selling to them.
If you’re interested in starting affiliate marketing on your blog, here are some resources we recommend:
- Beginner Guide to Affiliate Marketing (source: Blogging.com) – Includes a video intro to affiliate marketing
- Affiliate Marketing Infographic – (source: WhoIsHostingThis.com) – Visual guide to affiliate marketing
Where to Find Affiliate Programs & Products?
We recommend these well-established programs & networks as a good place for beginners to start:
- Amazon Associates – one of the web’s oldest and largest affiliate programs
- CJ.com – large selection of products for you to promote
- ShareASale – hosts 1000s of affiliate programs
2. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to reach out to your subscribers on a personal level. To start making money off of email marketing, you need to use it as a way to promote and sell your own services or products.
One of the great things about email marketing is that it is extremely cheap. Not only is it cheap, but if done the right way it is extremely effective. It allows you to reach your subscribers to provide them with information about your blog, and you can even choose how often you send an email. It is a great way to bring in customers and experience growth in revenue, whether it gets them to click through to your site, purchase a product or service or take interest in your blog.
You can even put affiliate links in the email, which can earn you extra cash.
Make sure that you don’t make your emails look like sales pitches. Personalize them and make them unique to you, your niche, and your voice.
One really great thing about email marketing is that it offers measurable metrics. These metrics let you measure the results of all your email campaigns. These metrics include:
- Click-through rate: the number of people who actually clicked on the links provided in the newsletter
- Open rate (those who have opened and read the email)
- Revenue made (those who actually made a purchase).
Some great (and free!) email marketing tools you can use include:
Some great email marketing tools you can use include:
Please see our in-depth guide to Email Marketing for Bloggers for more information & options
3. Google AdSense
If you want to make direct income from your blog through ads, Google AdSense is something you may want to consider. Google AdSense is a type of advertising program known as CPC (cost per click, also known as pay per click) in which publishers display relevant ads on their websites. It is one of the easiest ways you can make money as a beginner blogger.
After you apply for Google Adsense and place their code on your site, AdSense automatically displays ads on your blog. The ads are geared towards the type of content you have on your website.
Essentially, the ads you place on your blog are placed there by advertisers to earn profit and revenue from the traffic coming to your website. One of the best things about AdSense is that it is completely free. This is a great way to earn extra money as you start to gain more growth and traffic to your website. You can even include AdSense ads (as linked text) in your blog’s internal search engine.
Get started with Google AdSense and get on the path to earning money.
4. Adsense Alternatives (Contextual & PPC)
Contextual & PPC advertising networks and services like Clicksor, Media.net work in a similar fashion to Google AdSense, each with its own set of available advertisers.
There are dozens of alternatives to Adsense, here are the most promising:
- Media.net – like Adsense, but Bing and Yahoo Networks
- Clicksor
- Chitika
- Infolinks
- Buysellads
- Bidvertiser
5. Banners Ads & Selling Ad Space
Advertisers can rent space on your blog or website to place a banner with a link to their website. Like other advertisements, the sole purpose of a banner is to get people who are viewing your website to click on the banner, with an ultimate end goal of purchasing a product or service.
Banner ads work much like traditional ads in print (newspaper or magazine), but banner ads can actually physically bring users directly to the website that is being advertised. Banner ads can come in all shapes and sizes and can earn you a good deal of monthly income, all by simply adding a graphic to your blog.
Advertisers measure the success of banner ads a number of ways, including:
- Page views: this measures how many visitors are visiting your website and are being exposed to the ad
- Cost per sale: how much money is actually spent to make one sale.
- Click-throughs: how many people clicked on the advertisement
If you’re interested in putting banner ads on your blog, you can contact businesses yourself to sell space on your site — or join a banner ad network. Besides Google Adsense & alternatives above, many of which have banner advertising, you can also check out:
Pro tip: If you have a website that is very niche or very local, sometimes selling year-long contracts via banner advertising space can be lucrative.
For example, you have a website about tourism in your area — rather than looking to a big advertising network, you would be better off selling space to local related businesses like hotels or B&Bs.
Be sure to include a “Advertise on this site” link in your footer and contact page so the right advertisers can find you.
6. Digital Downloads
If you’re selling digital products or working with an affiliate who sells digital products, you might want to consider looking into digital downloads.
The right digital download service makes it extremely easy for you to sell digital products on your website. Selling products like e-books, videos courses, or software, directly from your website will increase your sales and make it extremely convenient for the customer.
Look into a digital download system that works for you, and do your research. Once you choose one, you can set up digital downloads to your website so that customers can easily purchase your products or services with the click of a button.
You may also consider buying the rights to an ebook, and repackage as your own. This is sometimes referred to as “white label e-books”, and can be very lucrative.
7. Membership Sites
Membership sites are another great way to earn passive income. People join membership sites and pay a monthly fee to receive the services that you offer. These services can include:
- Software subscriptions
- Consulting services
- Business or Financial expertise
- Make-up consultations
- Online courses in your hobby or professional area of expertise
- Niche life experience advice
- DIY handyman tips. Related services sold by the hour or seasonal blocks (everything from raking leaves, to shoveling snow, lawn maintenance, stacking firewood, carpentry fixes, etc.)
- Computer technical support services
- Graphic design services (a story about a designer who made $20k in 5 days)
- Writing or marketing tips
- or any other type of service related to your niche that you can provide.
Membership sites can improve your traffic, growth and even the engagement of your readers. Remember: people who register as members also tend to be loyal . . . and loyal readers are the best readers. It means that they trust you. If you continue to provide great services and products for them, they will continue to pay for their monthly subscriptions.
Membership sites also increase your credibility and bring in a trusting community of members who are likely to refer or recommend your products and services to others.
Check out these helpful links for a run-down of how to start a membership site and start earning money:
- Membership Sites on WordPress 101 (source: MemberPress)
- Membership Site Toolbox (source: HTML.com)
8. Consulting Services
Consulting is a great way to make money on your blog. It also helps improve your blog’s traffic and growth. This is why it’s extremely important to have a very specific niche. That way, you attract readers who are interested in your niche and are looking to learn more about it.
For example, if your niche includes digital marketing and SEO, you may want to consider offering SEO consultation. If your blog is focused on graphic design, you can offer graphic design consulting services where you charge a fee for an hour of consultation. The consultation can be via Skype, phone or even in person.
Consulting is also a great way to show off your expertise and gain credibility as an expert in your field. Once you gain enough clients and earn their trust, they can write testimonials for you which you can post on your blog. This will gain more attention from prospective clients and will make you look like a trustworthy, credible expert.
Other consulting services people offer include:
- Photography
- Design
- Health/Fitness
- Life Coaching
- Web Development
- Project Management
- And many more!
Getting started selling your expertise & knowledge:
- How to sell your knowledge online – Free course from Udemy
- Experts Exchange – Is an online marketplace for tech experts, and offers multiple ways to earn. Worth checking out if your niche is related to app development or computers.
- Upwork.com – A marketplace for freelancers of all sorts, has a variety of consulting-related job boards, such as this one for startup consulting.
9. Influencer Marketing & Paid Reviews
As a blogger, you are an influencer. People rely on you for your expertise because you have credibility and trust with your readers. This is why your readers are more likely to purchase a product that you provide a review for.
Paid reviews are a great way to earn extra cash on your blog. Advertisers can reach out to you and ask you to write a review that includes links back to their product.
There are lots of different ways you can do paid reviews. Some advertisers reach out to bloggers directly from their websites. There are also lots of websites that allow you to create profiles and let advertisers purchase posts.
Some websites also let you reach out to advertisers directly and even bid on jobs.
Some sites that can guide you in the right direction:
Influencer Marketplaces:
Paid Review Marketplaces:
10. Guest Posts
Did you know that as a blogger, you can offer your services to other websites and blogs as a guest poster?
Guest blogging can be a great way for you to earn extra cash. This might be a little difficult at first, especially as you first start to post and gain traffic to your website. As you begin to grow your brand and make a name for yourself, people will begin to notice you. Once that happens, you can start offering your services as a guest blogger.
This can be as simple as setting up a “hire me” page on your website or even reaching out to blogs in your niche and offering your services.
Once you begin writing more guest blogs and begin to develop and grow your client base, opportunities to earn extra cash as a guest blogger will increase exponentially.
Have a look at blogger marketplaces for opportunities to get paid as a guest blogger:
11. Podcasts & Vlogs
You have a blog, you’re using Google AdSense and promoting various links. Why not do a podcast and make money through that as well?
Much like you can use affiliate marketing in your blog posts to earn extra cash, you can do the exact same thing with podcasts. So while you’re earning passive incomewith your blog, you can also earn the same income as your podcast.
You can also promote your podcast on your blog. You can use your podcast to promote your products and services and even network with other bloggers. It’s also a great way for your readers to hear your voice and get a feel for the type of person you are, which will grow their trust and make it more personable for them.
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