We hear about people blogging all the time, but does anyone know how to make money with an online blog?
Blogging used to mean just jumping online and using a blog as a sort of online diary or place to express your thoughts or what you were doing. These days various social media platforms have become the preferred method of choice for achieving that goal, so what exactly does blogging mean in today’s internet world and how does it generate an income?
What Is A Blog Today?
Blog is an abbreviation of “web log”, but it’s more than just a way of expressing random thoughts. These days it’s big business. You will hear advertising agencies, blue chip companies and successful online entrepreneurs talking about content marketing. Well, most companies have regular blogs written for the purpose of content marketing in a bid to increase brand awareness and increase sales by bringing in more relevant traffic to their websites. It also keeps websites looking fresh and interesting in the eyes of both visitors and the search engines.
Blogs tend to be about interesting subjects that are relevant to the business. A blog could be an information article, a “how to” piece, or a product review. Online marketers and affiliate marketers blog all the time in an effort to promote either their own products, or the products of companies they have an affiliate partnership with. When sales are made, these bloggers earn a commission.
How Do Blogs Actually Make Money?
Let’s first look at the affiliate marketing angle. An affiliate marketer who promotes the weight loss niche, for example, might write a blog post offering exercise tips to lose stubborn belly fat. Within the article he or she will place a few affiliate links or banners promoting a weight loss product related to the post. If someone is interested after reading the article, they may click through on the affiliate link and make a purchase. That’s how the blogger gets paid.
On this website you are reading right now I promote various affiliate products related to the IM (internet marketing) niche and making money online (MMO). Everything you read on here are essentially blog posts. Some are information articles such as this one, while many others are reviews of various money making products, both good and bad.
Affiliate marketing is one of the very best ways – and one of the easiest ways – to make money from blogging.
Other Ways To Monetise Your Blog
Affiliate marketing is the best way in my opinion, but you can monetise your blog in other ways too. One popular method is placing Google AdSense ads on your site. You see these everywhere. A few downsides to AdSense though. For one, when someone clicks on a Google ad they are directed away from your site. Secondly, usually only a few cents are paid to the advertiser for ad clicks, so not very lucrative. On the upside though, no one has to actually buy anything for you to get paid.
If your site starts getting quite a lot of traffic you then have the option of being paid by companies (usually a monthly fee) to host a display ad in the sidebar of your site. Many popular websites make money this way, and the more traffic your site gets the more you can charge clients for ad placement.
As you advance your skills in the online marketing arena you might decide to create your own digital product (software, training course, eBook) and promote that on your site as well. This way you get to pocket all the profits. Many marketers list their digital product on ClickBank and get affiliates to market it for them, further increasing their product’s reach and awareness, leading to even more sales and handy cash.
The Possibilities Online Are Endless
The internet is always growing and evolving. There are just endless possibilities for making money online. As I’ve said affiliate marketing is not only one of the very best ways, it’s also one of the cheapest online businesses to set up. All you really need to get started are 3 things:
- A computer
- An internet connection
- Quality training
If you have the first two covered then you have your basic business tools and equipment. Everyone who seriously wants to be successful at making money online should get some training. Affiliate marketing training doesn’t cost very much compared to other offline types of training courses and study, and you can actually earn money while you learn to set up your business.
I Trained With Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate is possibly the best place to learn both affiliate marketing and how to set up an online business in general. It’s free to get started there and check it all out, and it’s even free to create 2 websites and do the first 10 lessons of their great training. The training is a mix of text and video, you can learn at your own pace and it’s super easy to follow and implement. Anyone of any age can learn to be successful at affiliate marketing. It’s a great money spinner for students, retirees and everyone in between. And as I said, it’s set up in such a way that you can earn while you learn. That's the very best scenario; where you can actually make some money from your efforts while you are still training.
Another great thing to point out about WA is the community of members there. Many are very active on the site and everyone has the attitude of helping each other out and motivating one another to success. I finished the training a long time ago, but I’m still a member there for this very reason. The community interaction is vital to my business, so I maintain my membership.
If you would like to learn more about Wealthy Affiliate and how it can help you achieve your online financial dreams, you can read my full review by clicking below. It only takes a few minutes, so go check it out…
Darren Burton
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Hi Darren,
Very interesting article.
Once a site starts getting quite a bit of traffic and you have the option of being paid by companies to host their ads on your website, what is the best way to manage this aspect of your website?
For instance the following list of questions comes immediately to mind.
1. How do you find these companies?
2. How do you approach them?
3. How do you and they know that your website visitors would be interested in their products?
4. How do you arrange pricing? Is it on a time basis? Or the number of hits to their ad? Or the number of clicks to their ad? How do you arrange to get paid?
I am curious about how that aspect of the website can be managed.
Cheers,
David
Hi David,
In answer to your questions, to find companies who want to pay to advertise on your site, if your site is popular enough they will likely approach you. Otherwise it’s just a matter of contacting companies relevant to your niche and offering them the opportunity to advertise on your website, and show them your traffic stats. The cost and frequency of charging for the advertising will have to be worked out between you and the advertiser. So long as your website is relevant to the advertiser’s clientele, all will be good.