How to profit from blogging?

With the new dawn of the ‘internet age’ there are many frugal individuals looking to make some cash online. There are many ways of doing this; from selling a service, to creating content and earning via advertisement revenue. In this short article I am going to cover some of the best methods you can use to earn yourself some nice side-line cash.

The first thing you need to know is that your blog is not going to make you rich, not right away anyway. The amount of money you can make using a blog depends entirely on how much effort you put it. If you dedicate a lot of your time to creating quality content that people actually want to read you may find that you have a lot more success than just trying to post a larger amount of lower quality content.

Let go over a few of the key ways to make some money online, in no particular order, and as always; your mileage may vary:

Affiliate programs

Affiliate programs can be a great way to earn some money as they mean that you are working with a partner to publicise each other. A great example of this would be: A product manufacturer asks you to review their item. In return for the review they will link to your blog, and pay you a small percentage of any money earned through clicking your link. This can work out great, as having exposure from another party as well as an established payment per click can really help to drive visitors.

Affiliate programs essentially boil down to paid advertisements, but they come with much less hassle and much less red tape.

Continuity Programs

Continuity programs are a fairly new concept. In essence it is a paid subscription that somebody pays for, each time you release new content (or monthly, weekly etc.). There are a few places that work like this, if you are using your blog in association with a YouTube account, a website like patreon.com can work wonders for earning some extra cash to keep you going. There are also sites like ProBlogger.com that mean you can get paid a subscription by followers of your blog.

Continuity programs often incentivise the third party by offering something exclusive that they would not normally get from a free alternative. This can be anything related to the blogs content.

AdSense

Google AdWords/AdSense is one of the largest advertising platforms in the world. Using AdSense on your blog, you can show relevant ads, and get paid for every click that is completed by a visitor to your site. Due to the advanced algorithms used by AdSense there is typically a much higher click rate than any other ad server. AdSense also sport some of the best rates in the business, making them a very viable option to monetising your blog. Once you have established a decent amount of traffic, you can easily start to rake in some money.

eBooks

Writing and selling, or just reselling, EBooks can be a fantastic way to make some cash. If you have any knowledge on a certain topic, try your hand at writing and eBook about it. There are many guides that will teach you how to format your book correctly and even teach you how to sell it. Websites like sellfy.com are dedicated to selling digital content and they can serve as a versatile platform to host your eBook (dealing with sales, hosting and distribution in one place).

Writing your own eBooks is not the only way to make some money using eBook either, though. It is possible to buy the right to eBooks and resell them, or you can work through an affiliate program and sell somebody else’s, acting as a middle man, and taking a cut of the profit.

This brings us to our final segment:

Private advertising

Private advertising can be a fantastic way to earn money. In some cases you will be paid upfront to display a set advert, for a set amount of time. Regardless of performance you will get paid that set fee, often this type will pay less than the alternative, but the pay is guaranteed.

Another way of earning cash though private ads is pay per click. In this scenario the ad provider will pay you for each click. This can work out well if you can drive enough traffic, but if your traffic drops you can end up being underpaid.

I hope that this short article has helped you to understand some of the many ways you can make money using your blog. The aim was to cover a few topics that will enable you to not have to make many changes, but the changes you do make, can help you to see some healthy income.