There are so many different ways to monetize your blog these days, especially when many of them can be combined on your blog to optimize your profits. It's hard to know what way will be the best for your blog and for your niche that's why trial and error is such a big factor in the monetization game.

When first starting your blog I strongly suggest that the first few months should be solely used for the purpose of building traffic, readers and subscribers. A blog with tons of ads can be a very off-putting thing to have in the early days, therefore having blog with little to no ads is a lot more welcoming and comforting thing for your visitors, it says to them that you are here to help, give advice, make connections and not here strictly to make money (even if that is why your blogging). A less obtrusive strategy will make it a lot easier for you to build your blog and gain legitimate readers that will come back time and time again...thats what makes monetizing your blog work, TRAFFIC!

9 Ways To Monetize Your Blog


1. PPC (Pay Per Click) Ads

This is by far the most common type of monetization that I've seen on blogs, mainly because it's so simple to set up, especially if your using Blogger. Pay Per Click advertising is very simple you put ads on your site and when a visitor clicks on it you make a a percentage of what the advertiser pays, this is because you are working through a middle man. Adsense is the king of PPC ads,the only reason you should ever use something else is if a) you were banned from the program or b) your site didn't pass the requirements, usually meaning that your site contains profanity, violence, pornography, etc.

2. CPM (Cost Per Mile) Ads

CPM stands for cost per mile which means that when you place one of these ads on your blog you will get paid for every 1000 ads seen by your visitors. This can be a great way to monetize your blog if you have a mass amount of traffic, otherwise it's best to go with another type of monetization. CPM programs like Tribal Fusion, Value Click Media, Casale and Burst Media usually require a certain amount of traffic to be accepted into the program, it can be anywhere from 3 000 to 100 000 (sometimes even more) pageviews or unique visitors a month, which can be a hard feat to accomplish for newer blogs.

3. Donation Button

This was a very popular way to monetize your blog a while back, basically you ask for donations from your readers by putting a paypal donation button somewhere on your blog (like directly after a post). Not as many people use this way of monetization anymore because it's hard to rely on this for a steady source of income. In order to make it work you would have to have very little to no other ads on your blog and you would also have to have very dedicated readers who wouldn't be able to survive without your blog.

One way to go about this in a neat way is instead of having a button that says "Donate" you have a button that says something like "buy me a beer" or "buy me a coffee", it's a little less intrusive and kind of a more humorous and open way to go about it.

4. Reviewing Products

Sites like Pay Per Post and Review Me offer a slightly different and more unique way of advertising on your blog, every time you make a post about a certain product or service from their list you'll get paid, the only problem I hate with this method of monetizing your blog is that it's hard to find products that fit in with your niche, I've gone on to sports blogs before and end up reading a post about Lima Beans or something else completely off topic. It's worth checking out because if the niche of your blog ties in with some of the products offered then it could work out great for with your blog.

5. Selling A Product

This method of monetization is pretty broad, but having your own quality product (and I emphasize quality here) can be a great source of income. It allows you to sell it directly cutting out the middle man (oh man, I'm starting to sound like those sell your gold now commercials). One of the more popular and simple products I see that are sold from blogs are ebooks, they're very easy to sell because you don't have to ship them and they're easy to write because chances are it will be in the same niche as your blog, you can even take a few of your best blog post and incorporate them into your ebook.

Another unique type of product to sell, that again would have to be the right niche, is your own customized t-shirts, buttons and mugs with your blogs name on it. Not only could you sell them to make a good return profit but they would be a great way of advertising. Cafepress offers an affordable way to make these products for you.

6. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is yet another great way of advertising on your site. When up put up an affiliate ad or an affiliate link and someclicks on it and buys something you get a certain percentage of the sale. The amount of money you make all depends on how much the product costs and how much the company is willing to share to their affiliates, some products can get up to 60% while others may be 5% (usually on bigger sales like flights or music equipment). I use, or have used, a couple of affiliate sites that have many different products and companies to choose from, my favorite being Commission Junction, there is also Amazon Associates, Google Affiliate Network and Clickbank which are all great too.

7. Selling Direct Ad Space

Most methods of monetizing your blog involve you sharing a profit with a middle man like an ad agency, the great thing about selling your own ad space is that you get 100% of the profit. The first thing you should do is set up a sell page on your blog, include a good sales pitch and give plenty of stats about your site like Alexa rank, page rank, Compete rank, number of inbound links, number of impressions/visitors per month and most importantly your email and a link to your paypal page. The good thing about making your sell page is that you don't have to put anything on it that you don't want to, so for example if you have a great Alexa rank but not the greatest Compete rank then only put the Alexa rank, something you should always include though is the number of visitors per month.

Sometimes people (like me) get lazy and although one of the points to selling your own ad space is to make 100% of the profit, there are networks like Buy Sell Ads that can help all us lazy people out. When you sign up you create your ad zone of any size and they give you a code to put on your site which advertisers can click through and go to your sell page that Buy Sell Ads creates for you. In my opinion I don't mind giving them a small percentage if it makes my life easier.

8. In-Text Advertising

In-Text advertising is a more intrusive way to monetize your blog than others but it could still work well for you. Sites like Adbrite, Vibrant Media, Kontera will advertise on your site by looking through your blog for related keywords and make it link to their advertisers page. At first this may seem like a great method of monetization because a) you don't have to sacrifice space to put ads b) it looks more natural and c) it probably has a higher click through rate than other ad agencies but just remember that some of these ads will not exactly be relevant and may piss off some of your readers, if you don't mind that then it could work for your blog, it all depends on what kind of readers you have.

9. Sell Your Blog

Although it might not really be considered monetizing your blog, selling your blog can be a great way make money, some people even make blogs just to sell them at a later time. In order to sell your blog you should already have a decent community around it, meaning lots of traffic, comments, subscribers, etc. One of the best ways to go about selling your blog is on forums like Sitepoint and Digitalpoint, they both have pages dedicated to the selling and buying of blogs. You should also announce on your blog that your trying to sell it, so that people know about the transition of owners and so that readers of friends of readers might buy it. Another couple of places to sell your blog are Sedo, Bloggeries and don't forget about good old Ebay.


So what do you guys think? What methods of monetization work best for you? Are there any other major ones I missed?

-FBI