How to Monetize Your Blog
Ellie from thepinkc.net posts several times a day on
many topics. She loves technology, lifestyle-related things and writing about other blogs, websites, products and current events. Ellie has successfully monetized her blog, but is always looking for ways to improve. This is her first guest post here at LinkyLove – "How to Monetize Your Blog."
Starting earlier this summer, I have been experimenting with various ways to monetize my blog. Sites like LinkyLove, John Chow and Tina Silva’s Blog are all successful in their own rights.
Why? Because they have successfully intergreted monetization methods into their site’s mission. These are just a few of the dozens of bloggers I read daily who have monetized their blogs.
Some bloggers would feel that you selling out and diluting your blog’s brand by monetizing your blog. However, think of monetization like this:
You want to get some of the profits that other people make from YOU having YOUR site! I don’t think that you can write your webhost, internet provider, Google or other bloggers and tell them to send you a check every month!
So, your best, most viable option is to educated yourself about the options out there for monetization and get to work!
Do additional research on other ways to monetize your blog without compromising your integrity. The Blog World has an excellent list of opportunities available, and so does WalletBoosters.
Listing your blog in blog directories is also a good way to get your blog’s name out there and generate more traffic to your site. This can help you get higher rankings with Google PageRank, Alexa and other tracking sites. However, do not get your hopes up too high. Blog directories will generate traffic, but it is sometimes not the type of traffic you really want. You want visitors to "stick" to your page, rather than hit and run!
Also, test the banners or code that you are required to use with blog directories. Sometimes, they can slow down the loading of your site, thus making visitors go somewhere else for information!
Another way to monetize your blog is to set aside space on your blog for graphical or text link ads. I use direct contracts with advertisers and Text Link Ads (TLA) to sell ads on my site. I limit my ads to those that I feel would suit my audience and promote products and services I enjoy. There are lots of text link ad providers out there, so do your research and ask other bloggers who they use.
It is also important to remember that making money online is not as easy or glamorous as it looks. You have to consider your regular readers BEFORE monetizing your blog – do they want to see these "commercial breaks?" Ask yourself, "What can I do to minimize the impact on my regular readers?"
Also ask yourself whether or not visitors to your site will be turned off by lots of sponsored posts or ads. Is making money or building a community your reason for blogging?
Some bloggers may find that creating a separate category for these posts works well, or perhaps changing the font or title, so readers know that they can skip over the posts if they want to. If you are using ads, try to make them as unobtrusive as possible.
Bloggers, you should also consider the time that monetization requires. Each post or ad requires investigation, research, writing, editing, posting and sometimes, follow up. This is time you could spend at a “regular” job
or spending time with your family or friends.
Questions? Comments? Let me know!
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Friday, August 31st, 2007
