There are many ways to turn your blog into a passive income generator. The top three most popular methods are: Affiliate Marketing, Advertising, and Sponsored Content. You can start making money blogging pretty efficiently with these tools.
It’s best to choose one revenue stream to start, then once you feel it’s steadily implemented into your blog, you can start to try another. If you try and take on multiple revenue streams at the same time, it can quickly become overwhelming.
Affiliate Marketing
The simplest way to think about Affiliate Marketing, is that you are earning a commission on referrals of sales for a specific product or service.
It’s best (or even crucial) that the product or service you are promoting is relevant to your niche audience. If you begin choosing products to promote, just because they have a promise of high return, you will quickly lose some of your visitors as it will be clear that you are not being genuine.
So, how can you find affiliate products to promote? The simplest way is to join an Affiliate Network. The top two recommended Affiliate Marketing platforms are: Amazon Associates and ClickBank. Amazon Associates is geared more toward physical products (think anything you would shop for on Amazon.ca) and ClickBank is for promoting virtual products (such as software, e-learning etc.).
Once you’ve chosen an Affiliate Network, you need to select specific products to promote, and begin writing valuable content surrounding those products. One great way to create valuable content, is to look for a problem faced by your niche audience, and write an informative article about how this product solves the problem.
Google AdSense
The simplest standard way to create revenue from your blog or website, is by displaying paid advertisements throughout your pages and posts. Google AdSense makes it very simple – you place a snippet of code on your blog where you want the ad to display, and they sell the ads for you.
Google AdSense is easily the most popular ad network out there. If you have content on your blog, you’ll likely get approved. If your blog is not approved on the first try, Google does a great job at telling you exactly what the issue is, so you can rectify it and re-apply.
Ads offered by Google AdSense include: text, images, rich media, video, animated images and AdSense for search. The variety makes it very easy to incorporate ads however you want.
Make sure not to drown out your content using ads, as that can be very frustrating for your readers. Also keep in mind, that while ad revenue can be quite fruitful, you are driving your viewers away from your website and content
Sponsored Blog Posts
If your blog has built up some traffic already, you can make money blogging by selling sponsored blog posts.
As you gain popularity among your niche, businesses may start to contact you asking you to review their relevant products in the form of a blog post. By doing this, you will be recommending the product to your audience. In return, the business would typically make a one-time payment to you.
This is very similar to influencer marketing like you may see on social media. You are the influencer, and your readers are valuable!
I do not recommend trying this route until you have a consistent following! If you don’t have website visitors yet, why should someone pay you to post about their product or service? They won’t.
Once you’ve accumulated some traffic, companies may start reaching out to you! But it’s very common practice for you to reach out to them, too. Think about companies who would have an interest in your audience, and reach out to them! Pitch them a spot on your blog, and let them know the value you can provide to them.
Summary
There are so many ways to make money blogging. Especially if you’re not focusing on your blog in lieu of a full-time job, it’s crucial to start with your content first. Get your basics up and running, and some valuable content live.
Any attempts at monetizing your blog are bound to fail, if you do not have quality content. Be patient with yourself as you grow!
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