Starting a blog is a great way to explore your sense of creativity, or to build your personal brand, but it can also be a moneymaking opportunity. There are many ways you can start making money with your blog. While not every method will work for you, there’s bound to be at least one strategy that will bring in the cash.
Email Marketing
This is one of the easiest ways to make money with your blog and, other than your time investment, it doesn’t cost you a thing. You begin by creating a weekly, or bi-weekly, newsletter and asking your readers to subscribe. While some may be reluctant, you can entice them by offering a free gift. Once you have subscribers, you have a captive audience and you can pitch your products, or services, to them. Of course, your newsletters will have to include engaging and entertaining content to keep your followers subscribed. You can include helpful tips related to your business, excerpts from your blog posts, and share specials you’re offering.
Affiliate Marketing
This strategy involves signing up for an affiliate marketing program with online retailers, such as Amazon. Once you sign up, you’ll be able to share ads on your website and each ad will be linked with your affiliate ID. As a user clicks the link and buys the product, you’ll receive a percentage of that sale. It’s wise to advertise products related to your area of business, or to the topics of your blog. This will keep your followers from feeling as though you’re just trying to sell to them.
Link to Commercial Advertisers
There are now many options for businesses to request ad space on blogs and websites. The ClickFunnels method is one such service that connects advertisers with blog owners, allowing the more introverted bloggers to participate without actually having to negotiate with businesses. Typically, you simply add an HTML code to your blog and the service will rotate banners for various advertising businesses. You will receive pay based on either a CPC (cost per click) system or a CPM (cost per impression) system. In the CPC format, you’ll receive a payment each time someone clicks an ad, while a CPM system offers you pay for each 1,000 page views.
Sell Ad Space Privately
On the upside, this option allows you to set your own price and method of payment, but it also requires you to negotiate with advertisers. They may want to know how many page views your blog gets on average, so be prepared to supply this information. Other than posting ad banners on your blog, you can offer sponsored blog posts, which include a small “this post is sponsored by…” clause. Alternatively, you can also offer to post a positive review of the advertiser’s product or service. Again, it’s important to stay with advertisers within your field of interest.
Offer Premium Content
This option will apply to bloggers, who have valuable content to share. Essentially, you set up a paywall that requires users to pay a subscription fee to access premium content. Of course, you’ll have to offer something of value in the premium area to make a membership worthwhile. There are many online services that can make setting up your pay wall easier and quick, even if you don’t have the technical skills.
Host Premium Webinars
First, it should be noted that the “free” webinars you’ve seen advertised on social media don’t really come at no cost. In order to attend the webinar, users supply contact information, usually an email address, and this helps the webinar host to generate sales leads. Alternatively, you can host a paid webinar, but you’ll have to offer an intriguing topic and deliver something of value to attendees. Anytime you ask users to pay for content, you have to be prepared to give them something worth their money. Otherwise, you may earn a bad reputation that can hurt the success of your blog.
Blogging can be a great way to earn passive income, but you have to be willing to run it like a business. Building your brand is essential, because, without followers, you’re unlikely to attract any advertisers. If you have a talent for appealing to a large following and offer engaging content regularly, you may have all it takes to start making money with your blog.
