January 25

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Top Tips for Monetizing Your Blog in 2016

By Mike Brown

January 25, 2016

monetization, money

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Let me guess – you’ve always dreamed of blogging for money, but you’re not quite sure how to make it a reality.

Fortunately, earning money from a blog isn’t nearly as difficult as many people think it is.

Once you’ve chosen the best place to host your blog you can move on to more important matters like making money.

Through things like affiliate programs, social media, and sponsorships, you can monetize your blog effectively and fulfill your lifelong dream of being a bread-winning blogger.

Here’s what you need to know to get started!

What Is Monetization?

Blog monetization is essentially the process of setting up your blog so that it earns income. This is how bloggers make a living off of their writing, and the process takes many different forms.

Want to learn how to start a blog? Check out my step-by-step tutorial.

The type(s) of monetization you employ will depend largely upon the topic of your blog, your target audience, and the financial goals you want to achieve.

Five Top Monetization Strategies for 2016 and Beyond

Here are the most common methods that I recommend for monetizing your blog. First…

Sign Up for Google AdSense

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Google AdSense is one of the best and most effective blog monetization platforms. AdSense works by allowing bloggers and website owners to display relevant Google ads on a selected portion of their sites.

In order to enroll in AdSense, you’ll need to sign up for an AdSense account, get approved (Google will visit your site to ensure that it adheres to AdSense guidelines), and then install the provided AdSense code on your blog.

Once you’ve been approved and the code has been installed, Google will begin to display relevant ads on your website, and you will be paid each time someone clicks on an ad.

AdSense is one of the most popular monetization strategies for beginning bloggers, because it’s simple, straightforward, and scalable, meaning that your AdSense revenue will grow as your blog grows. To learn more about how AdSense works, check out the Google page here.

Participate in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an effective way to earn passive income from your blog. When you engage in affiliate marketing, you partner with an external company and make money when someone makes a purchase from that company. For example, one of the largest affiliate programs is Amazon Associates.

When bloggers become Amazon associates, they mention books, products, or goods available on Amazon in their blogs. If one of their readers clicks on a link, and purchases the book or product in question from Amazon, the writer makes money.

Affiliate programs are effective because as a blogger builds authority and gains an audience, readers are interested in purchasing the products and services a writer mentions. This benefits the writer, the readers, and the affiliate company all at once.

If becoming an affiliate marketer sounds like something you want to get involved with I high recommend building your website with something like WordPress. One of the best things about using WordPress is it’s free open source software and you can host your site with the web hosting provider of your choice. I have several web hosting top ten comparisons you can take a look at including some for our Canadian neighbors.

Build a Subscriber List

While it may not be immediately obvious to the beginning blogger, one of the very best ways to monetize your blog is to build an email subscriber list.

Email subscribers submit their email addresses to you via an embedded opt-in box. As your email subscriber list grows, you build a base of interested customers you can send relevant email marketing content (like newsletters and announcements).

You can easily install an opt-in box on your blog using a service like MailChimp, which offers embedded forms that connect directly to intuitive email automation services.

Keep in mind that building an email list doesn’t actually make money for you; it simply helps you grow your customer base and collect qualified leads for later marketing. To build your email list as much as possible, follow these tips:

  • Grow your blog traffic. The easiest way to boost your blog traffic is to write. By posting new content on a regular basis, you give readers something to look forward to and provide Google with more pages to index, which makes your blog easier to find online. Once you’ve established a regular writing schedule, comment on other people’s blogs, get involved in a question-and-answer community like Quora, and offer to guest post on other blogs. The more people visit your blog, the more email subscriptions you’ll get — it’s that simple!
  • Offer a goodie. To build your email subscriber list quickly, consider offering a free gift. Digital content like a newsletter or eBook generally works well for this. People want value in exchange for their personal information, and offering them relevant content right off the bat is one of the best ways to get them to subscribe to your list.
  • Use a great CTA. A call-to-action (CTA) is the part of your blog that explains why, exactly, people should sign up for your email list. What are they going to get if they enter their email addresses? What do you offer that other people don’t?

Offer a Service

A blog is a fantastic platform for offering your services. Whether you specialize in coaching services or copywriting, you can easily advertise and sell these things through your blog platform.

If that’s not appealing to you, consider selling membership-based content or livestream webinars.

Write Product Reviews

One monetization strategy many people overlook is product reviews. As a blogger gains followers and traffic, niche-specific brands will begin to take notice and ask bloggers to review their products.

For example, if you write a photography blog, Canon may approach you to review one of its new lenses. You would use the lens and review it on your site. This would drive sales back to Canon, and you would be paid for the review. Simple, straightforward, and mutually rewarding, this is a fantastic option for bloggers with a loyal reader base and a strong niche authority.

Publish Superior Content

One of the many ways top-earning bloggers make money from their blogs is simply to write superior content. Readers crave high-quality, relevant, niche-specific content, and bloggers who can deliver this will eventually become in demand for things like paid guest posts.

Blogging is a great way to earn money
In Conclusion Blogging Is A Great Way To Earn Money.

The upside to this (aside from the obvious benefit of making money) is that the more you write, the more authoritative you become, and the more people want to read your content, advertise their products on your site, and pay you for promotions. It’s a profitable circle you can easily access by becoming a strong blogger.

Conclusion

While there are literally dozens of ways to monetize your blog, these five tips are perfect for beginners just starting out with monetization.

By focusing on things like getting involved in Google AdSense, participating in affiliate programs, building a subscriber list, selling products or services, and writing top-tier content, you can quickly create a profitable blog from scratch that you can then promote even more.

To learn more about building an outstanding blog or mastering WordPress, enroll in my exclusive e-learning course, WordPress Academy, today.

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