There are different ways that you can monetize your blog or website. Your online content can be a source of income to you if you do it just right. There are various options like advertisements and affiliate links/products that you can sell in order to earn some money. But doing it is not that simple or tough, for that matter.
The first thing that you must do is build a healthy flow of regular traffic to your blog or website. Doing that is really tough because you need to create a bunch of quality content to serve your visitors. Only when you get that going, you should focus on the next step and that is monetizing your blog. You don’t want to monetize from the start as it is worthless when you virtually have no traffic.
Here are some top ways to monetize your website or blog content:
Advertising
There are many advertisement networks that you can use. These will provide sponsored advertisements for your blog and share the revenue generated by those. Revenue is generated when your interested visitors click on the ads or view them. The amount of revenue generated per click or per 1000 views is highly dependent upon several factors like your content type and your visitors’ location.
There are many ad networks that you can join. However, only a few of those will provide you real earning opportunities because they are able to sell a large number of ads.
Here are a few ad networks for your web site:
Google AdSense: The best and the biggest one in this industry. You can place highly targeted advertisements.
Chitika: Features advertisements that can blend in well with your content. This one has a low payment threshold and some useful display configuration options.
Clicksor: Another ad network which supports a variety of ad formats such as banners, text ads, in-line text links, popunders and interstitial ads.
Infolinks: Famous for in-line text ads, this network provides you an alternative method to monetize your content.
BuySellAds: Used mostly by bloggers, this advertisement network connects publishers and advertisers. Feature your blog, share the impressions that you can provide and begin selling ads.
Besides these there are a ton of other ad networks. But not each and every one of them works for your best. Some ad networks that you come across can be for a specific niche. Like epicgameads.com which I use for my gaming websites.
Affiliate Programs
Here’s how affiliate programs work. You place their banners and other ads on your website, advertising products. Visitors see those advertisements, click on them and buy products. You are then awarded a certain percentage of the sales that you make. It sounds kind of tough, but once you have the right content and target the right niche, you can earn big this way. Having affiliate ads and content in your blog is also an alternative to having pay per click ads. Both combined also works well.
For example: You can have a blog reviewing laptops and you can sell laptops on the side via the affiliate ads. Works well if you target right and place the right kind of products.
Here are few of those affiliate networks that you can join:
Amazon Affiliates: This one is one of the biggest affiliate programs that I know of. With the number of products that they sell on Amazon, you can virtually place any product to sell in your website.
LinkShare: Place advertisements and links to generate leads and you get paid easily.
Commission Junction (CJ): A large cost per action program that you can use to sell and earn.
ShareASale: If you are a good affiliate marketer, you can get paid for every sale that you generate.
ClickBank: A marketplace that unites product creators and sellers. You being the seller can make it big.
Additionally, if you look at every website that sell something, there might be a referral program which pays in commissions. You can get highly targeted affiliate programs this way. For example: if you talk about webhosting, WordPress and websites in your blog, you can try HostMonster or Bluehost affiliate programs. They pay a lump sum when you make a sale.
Other Ideas on Generating Revenue
Besides advertisements and affiliate programs, you can also try selling your own products. Sell your eBook or a service that you can provide for your visitors. For example, you can optimize their blog like you optimized yours. Offer consultancy services if you are really good at it.
But remember, for all these you must have a large number of eyeballs and followings. Build content around your niche and continue it for a while. Know your target customer and you will slowly get visitors. Retain them with email lists and subscriptions. As you grow, you can implement advertisements, affiliates and other revenue generating programs.
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