How to Monetize a Blog by Brian Ringland
For a lot of bloggers and most website owners, bringing in a few extra dollars from their page or site is reason enough for doing it in the first place. We are going to go over the different ways and methods of generating income from things such as Google AdSense, affiliates, click-thrus, referrals and linkbacks to name just a few here. There is a section further down this page that details and summarizes monetizing your blog or website. Blog hosts such as Blogger, and WordPress have templates that are generally set up to accept ads very easily on to the page. In the case of Blogger,Google adSense integrates itself almost automatically into many of the templates that you can choose from when setting up your account. If you would like to use adSense on your website or any other page you need to set up a gmail account. Do this if you don’t already have a gmail email address. Once you have a google account you can start using adSense.
Affiliates
Another type of revenue stream from your blog to look into is an Affiliate program like one from AffiliateBOT. This is where you agree to put an ad on your website or blog advertising some one else’s product or website. Payments are usually made on a per-click basis and monies are paid out at set minimum amounts. Affiliate programs such as the Google Affiliate Network and Yahoo! Affiliate program are a good place to start. Affiliate Bot also offers a wealth of information regarding tons of affiliates.
Setting up an account with an affiliate is as easy as finding a reputable one and joining. About the only thing that can and sometimes pose a problem is site or blogs content. Most affiliates will not accept pornography, or sites dedicated to hate or bigotry, blogs that talk about or deal with illegal activities or narcotics. Almost all affiliates will look at your sites content before accepting you into their affiliate program. There are two types of programs out there to look for. Those that are simple one site or blog affiliations or the ones like Affiliatebot that put you in touch with hundreds of potential affiliates. Use affiliates. If you are serious at all about generating ad revenue then you need to have some affiliates set up.
Text Links
Next on the list: Text Link Ads. These are another good addition to any page. They are user-friendly and unobtrusive. Here’s an example of the type you have seen a lot: Create a website the fun and easy way! They are easily placed and there are a number of websites offering text link services. As a matter of course almost any website that sells almost anything offers some sort of link exchange. You can work text links two ways. They can be part of an affiliate program or you can have a reciprocal link placed on your site. In the case of reciprocal links, a link back to your website is placed on the other site. It is a simple link trade. Remember Ad relevance. Are the ads you are placing on your blog or site relative to the content it contains? Also important. Every second word in your paragraph should NOT be a text link. Remember that website you were at that had every second word as an underlined link and that whenever your mouse pointer passed over one of these links something annoyingly popped up? It’s annoying and trust me the person reading it, or at least trying to read it, will not do you any favours by clicking on the links.
Since in all our examples we talk about a blog or site that talks about or sells camera lenses, we’ll continue the theme here. So lets suppose your blog about lenses is ready to go and you have all sorts of areas put aside for ads and the like. It’s time to put the coffee on again and start searching. Do a search and look for companies and websites that compliment your site or blog or share a common interest. Since you site is selling lenses its time to start finding websites and blogs that deal with photography. Once at a website or blog that meets your standards look for an Affiliate button or link either at the top or the very bottom of the page. Almost all sites and blogs have a “contact” link somewhere on the page as well. Use this if there is no affiliate link or link exchange button to be found. Send an email requesting a possible affiliation between your blog or site and theirs. Point out what your two pages have in common. Be very polite and let them know the reason you are enquiring about becoming an affiliate with them is because you are impressed with their product or blog. Offer to place a link on your site or blog in exchange for one of your on their page.
A simple link exchange between websites or blogs is still one of the best ways to improve your blogs listing in search results generated by a blogs or sites keywords and phrases. Yes, it takes a lot of time to contact quality people and sites. There are a lot of emails to be written and sent. It’s par for this course. Remember what was discussed earlier and avoid the temptation to use a site that sells links. It isn’t profitable and your sites listing will suffer because of your affiliation with what is considered a unethical way of promoting your site. Also, be very critical of the sites or companies that you become an affiliate with. Pick only the very best ones. This is what I meant above when I spoke of your standards. Only align yourself with professionals. Quality content above all else. This should always include ads.
Banner Exchanges
Next: Companies such as WorldBE and Buzzerhut have banner exchange programs allowing you to earn money through referrals and click-throughs. In this category there are literally hundreds of choices so it shouldn’t be that hard finding a company and product that is a good match for your blog or page. Again, relevant ad content is just as important as ad placement and should remain a first consideration. Use a program that you have on your computer like Paint, or Photoshop or something similar to create banner ads about your blog or website. Create a few of them to submit to your banner exchange. If you don’t have any of those mentioned programs on your computer there are quite a few online banner creation websites where you can create a banner for free. The banner you make for your blog or site is placed on different websites in exchange for an ad of theirs being place on yours. The horizontal banner ads you see on this page are part of a few banner exchange agreements. Once your blog or website is up and running keeping the revenue generating portion of your page relevant and refreshed becomes doubly important. Continually research more profitable and more effective ways to get more value for the space you are giving up to ads in order to prevent your profits from reaching a plateau.
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Article Source: http://www.earticlesonline.com/Article/How-to-Monetize-a-Blog/699754
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