Do you blog and want to earn money for doing it?

In preparation for an advanced blogging class that I teach, I read a couple e-books written by people who, through trial and error, now make money from their blogs. The books are How to Make Money Blogging by Bob Lotich and How to Make Money from Blogging by Liam Price.

I’m going to share some of their strategies and tools, but I want you to know that both authors emphasized that it takes a long time before you start to see real income. That’s because you need to spend time building a following. (How to build your following is a topic for another post.)

Direct sales

I do think the best way to make money off your blog is by using it to sell your products that you’ve created (like books or E-books or guides or software or CDs or DVDS) or your services (counseling, writing and editing, etc.). You’re using your blog to share your expertise. I’ve successfully used a blog to sell my books Sutter’s Sodas Satisfy: A Memoir of 90 Years of Sutter Drug Co. Click here to read that blog.

Be a brand spokesperson or ambassador

A lot of companies that make products, such as food items or clothing or electronics, are looking for people to blog about them. The companies provide you with the products for free, and then you also receive money for blogging. In the interest of ethics, please make sure that you disclose you are being paid but that your opinion of the product is your own (assuming that’s the deal). A Rochester-area blogger who does this quite well is Melissa Rosario Bailey, who blogs at Hungry Food Love, and uses food products in her recipes.

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a free way for you to run ads on your blog. You choose the type of ads you want, such as display ads or text ads. You copy and paste a piece of code onto your site where you want the ads to appear. Advertisers bid for your ad space in a real-time auction. You get paid for ads being seen or clicked on. This is called CPC or cost per click. You get money from Google when you reach a certain payment threshold that you’ve set. You have to apply for this program, and it’s not really known how Google decides whom to accept. Your chances are better of course if you already have considerable traffic to your blog.

BidVertiser, Infolinks and Revenue Hits are other options, and there are more. These probably have a lower acceptance threshold than getting into Google AdSense.

Affiliate links

Having affiliate links on your blog means that you recommend training programs, services, or products. When someone buys that program or service through the affiliate link, you earn a commission. There’s no additional cost to the consumer. It’s best to offer products you use or have used, or that are developed by people you know and trust. This also gives you an opportunity to bring to your readers information on programs, etc., of which they may not have heard.

Here’s a good post from Problogger on affiliate marketing on your blog.

BuySellAds.com

Your blog needs to be getting at least 50,000 impressions a month to qualify for BuySellAds.com, which connects advertisers to you as a publisher.

What’s your best option?

While there are many ways to make money from your blog, I think most businesses are using their blogs to show their expertise and credibility, which can lead to sales of products or services. Still, it’s worth exploring these other options to bring in additional income.

Have you made money from your blog? I’d like to hear about it.