The Third Step of Blogging – How to monetize

A lot of people are happy blogging for their own enjoyment. They enjoy to share their views, experiences and knowledge for amusement. This post is not for you, if you are not looking for an additional income source.

You should not be excited that much to find this post. I’m not an expert in this field. I’m still a student with some success and happy to share what I learned throughout these years, attempting to earn. Today online income has became one of the major source of my additional earning. I’ve grown up from that skeptical kid - always eager to test and fail - into somewhat stable earner through internet. Today I realize, it has very attractive potential and I still need to explore more and more, adding up to the knowledge inventory.

There might be numerous ways to monetize your blogs. I will be talking throughout my blog posts about the methods I followed and gained some success. They can be a good path to follow for you too!

The best way to monetize you blog is by selling your own product. It might be an eBook, tracing path of your experience or departing the knowledge you’ve gained. It might be a design you think many people will be interested. It can be a script, applications, templates. Why not your photographs? You snapped nice photograph with your good camera and put them for sale. My friend recently sold one virgin photograph of a mountain in $6 to a magazine reporter. I know that’s very cheap, but you can always make more money! Internet lets you access to greatest number of people. You can certainly find good number of them for whatever you have to sell. But, yes, patience, consistence and diligence are the keys to success.

Its more effective to sell your own product through your blog because you have already built good relation with the readers. Its more easier selling thing to known people rather than to somebody completely stranger. Your blog readers already know you more, so will be eager to buy if you have something really useful for them.

I can’t say much about this since I don’t have much experience on it, but I believe there is a good potential selling other’s product through your blog. You can find many affiliate products and programs. Amazon is one most reliable. I welcome you to share your view on this aspect.

Advertisement are another good method of monetizing your blog. Display advertisements of other websites and services in your blog and get payment. It would be great to get some Ads that are related to your blog subject matter but are not your direct competitors. For example, if you blog about blog widgets, it would be good to have advertisements of blog themes, templates etc which are closely related with each other but are not mutually exclusive.

Do you find it hard to get advertisements? There are services like www.buysellads.com. You list your site with them entering URL, description and keywords of your site. After approval you will find them searching for Ads for your blog.

How can I forget Google’s Adsense? This is the first and most reliable advertising network for any blogger. You might feel it is earning very less compared to the direct Ads sources but until you find sufficient direct Ads, it is always the best. Have you heard a lot about getting ban from Adsense? Believe me, you will enjoy the network as long as you are ‘HONEST’.

There are some other alternative to Adsense if you don’t like it for any reason. Bidvertiser, Adbrite and many others. More experienced friends will put more light on the topic.

If you believe your readers won’t mind to display a few in-text ads, you certainly give a try to www.infolinks.com. This has higher click through rate and better earning results as per my experience. But beware! a lot of in-text Ads are annoying and too much greed is never good. Better earn little than loose your readers.

After your blog start getting popularity, you might get offers to review different products and sites of other blogger and write about them in your blog. You will be paid for this task. How much you will earn this way depends upon mutual agreement. How popular your blog is and the value your sponsor believes he will get back from the review you post in your blog are the determining factors. I have seen many good bloggers who agree - its a good earning. You are welcomed to put some light on this topic as well.

It won’t be possible to discuss everything in a small post like this, but be assured, things will keep rolling in coming Sunday Posts.