Selling advertising space on your blog provides you, the blog owner, with another possible blog monetization technique with which to realize maximized income from the virtual real estate of your blog.

Getting Started

Getting ready for the sale of advertising space on a blog is a long-term project. As with many other forms of promotion, the maturity of the blog, the traffic it generates, its visibility in your selected niche, PR value, and your own reputation all play a role in being able to use this technique effectively.

When people choose to invest their advertising dollars, they will generally look for a method that gives them the best potential return on their investment.

Purchasing advertising randomly on content sites that provide little traffic and exposure to their ads would not qualify as a sound investment of their advertising dollars. So, how then do you, the blog owner, prepare your blog to be an enticing venue on which they will feel confident in spending those dollars?

Blog monetization of this type requires a marketing plan and the big “C” – commitment. Potential advertisers will look at the age and maintenance of the blog to determine if it will be long lived. There is no point in investing in something that is here today and gone tomorrow. All aspects of your blog promotion will come into play.

Increase Your Blog’s Visibility

In order to increase your blog’s visibility, you need to move beyond the borders that its virtual real estate represents and visit other blogs that are relevant to your niche and that you find appealing.

Get involved with the conversations on those blogs by posting comments. Comment on forums as well that are within your area of interest. Along the way, people with like interests will begin to stand out. Keep them in mind..

Article Marketing

Use your article marketing efforts to increase blog traffic and also build your own credibility amongst readers in your area of interest. Never forget to include basic SEO techniques in these articles in order to catch the eye of the search engines and increase the ranking of your articles.

Keywords and phrases, eye-catching headlines and articles written to catch the eye of Internet skimmers will increase the effectiveness of your articles.

Prepare Your Blog For Advertising

In order for you to host an ad for someone on your blog, you will first need to prepare your blog for advertising and create ad slots. You have probably seen this done on other blogs where an advertising block is shown with words indicating that this space is available to be rented for ads.

Ensure that the way these advertisements are situated on your blog will not detract from its overall quality and look. The space you designate will also play a decisive role in the types and sizes of banners you will be able to host for advertisers.

Another consideration will be that of making a decision on how much flash you will allow and possibly even the colors you will allow an advertiser to use. Too much flash may turn off your readers and clashing colors may make an ad stand out, but also seriously detract from the overall look of your blog.

Get Advertisers For Your Blog

When first getting started with this form of blog monetization, it may be a bit difficult to get advertisers for your blog. You may want to consider a banner exchange with sites that complement what is offered on your blog. You do not want to host ads that are in direct competition with you. A banner exchange will provide both sites with increased exposure to new audiences.

The number one method, which will help you to get advertisers for your blog, will be traffic generation. As people visit your blog, they will become aware of the advertising space that you have made available and they will purchase that advertising space from you if the pricing and nature of your blog suit their own advertising strategy.

Once your blog becomes a force to be reckoned with, you will be in a position to charge advertisers for hosting their ads. You will need to decide on a pricing structure for ad placement. Pricing is usually determined by the placement of the ads, whether they appear above or below the fold.

Always remember that you have the last say in which ads will be accepted. Once again, you will want to choose ads that are not in direct competition with you, as well as ones that blend well with your blog’s look and topic.

Selling advertising space on your blog takes effort on your part. It is a form of blog monetization that works best for blogs that have gained long-term popularity, stable readerships and where the blog owner has taken the time to build a credible reputation in the niche that is represented.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

The ability to get paid to write reviews becomes an option once you have demonstrated your expertise in a given area and developed a following.

In a nutshell, once you have done the hard work of becoming recognized and paid your dues. When your expertise is presented in high traffic formats, catching the eye of companies who use paid reviews as part of their promotion strategy, becomes easier.

Getting Started

The first step required to break into the field of paid reviews is to see that your blog is registered with the search engines and review sites. This makes review sites aware of your interest in working with them and provides them with the opportunity to check you out. As a representative of their product, they will want to ensure that you are legitimate.

Product reviews are being written everyday on almost every product imaginable, such as electronics, cell phones, sports equipment, and the list goes on. Reviews are also frequently written for the entertainment industry. You may want to write a movie or book review. Keep the reviews you choose to do about products that you have an interest in and that fit with the content and audience of your blog.

A couple of sites where you might sign for the opportunity to get paid to write reviews are: Reviewstream.com and Ciao.com. Typically, if one of your reviews is accepted, you will be paid a flat rate for it, and possibly an additional amount if the people who read your reviews mark it as having been helpful to them.

Guest blogging is yet another method of getting your reviews seen and talked about. Your site link will be included in your guest post, which in turn, encourages traffic back to your blog. Guest blogging, particularly on blogs with a higher profile than your own blog, help you to get noticed by those companies that are interested in your area of expertise.

Having your own unique domain name will be a worthwhile investment for this type of blog monetization. If you have been using a free service, you may want to look at either upgrading or moving your blog to another hosting platform with its own domain name.

The downside of moving away from a free hosting service is that you will lose any investment in traffic building you have done up to that point as that traffic will be tied to the name or domain that was previously used. Certainly something to think about carefully if you are just starting out. Is the use of a free service going to be worth the sacrifice later on.

A further consideration, should you decide to move to a different hosting platform is whether you will be using WordPress for your blog. If so, choosing a WordPress friendly blog hosting provider will greatly enhance your ability to enjoy working in WordPress. Click here for our reviews of the TOP 3 WordPress hosting providers.

Choosing What To Do

There is more than one way to write paid reviews. Some companies will pay you per review that you post on your blog. Some things you will want to consider before going with this method are:

The number of reviews required to earn enough to make it worthwhile, and
The quality of the reviews you are being asked to post

You don’t want to turn the blog you have worked so hard in building up into a “post-for-hire” blog. You most certainly do not want to be posting trash that will lower the blog’s value and quality. A simpler method of choice may be to choose companies that allow you to submit your review to them for publishing and that include a link back to your blog.

Sites like Amazon and eBay often allow readers to post reviews on the different products that they offer. These reviews help the readers of those sites to make more informed choices when purchasing and once again, can give you added exposure for you as a writer and also to your blog.

You may also choose to write reviews on affiliate products that you represent, or on any product or product creator that is relevant to your blog and target audience. These reviews can help you to hi-light the pros and cons of products you represent for your readers.

Keep in mind at all times the FTC regulations that came into effect on December 1, 2009. You must be open and up front with your readers when writing reviews of any nature and disclose what’s in it for you if they take action as a result of one of the reviews that you have written.

This requirement has caused a fair bit of concern on the part of those writing reviews. Its intent is to give greater credibility to reviews that people are counting on to help make a purchasing decision. In the long run, this will help, rather than hinder your efforts.

The Downside of Paid Reviews

As one person once said, just because you are able to do something, does not mean it is a good idea for you to do it. The same type of thinking needs to be applied when considering whether or not you want to monetize by writing paid reviews.

Many search engines frown on the concept of paid reviews, especially Google. As with all that you do to increase the revenue from your blog, you need to consider the impact those choices will have over all.

If you depend heavily on being in Google’s good books for other areas of monetization, paid reviews may be a poor choice for you. For a more in-depth look at why you may want to avoid using paid reviews, visit John Lockwood’s article, Should You Write a Paid Review? Ask Yourself These Six Questions

The opportunity to get paid to write reviews on your blog opens up a new income opportunity for you and you only need an opinion on the subject matter to make it happen.

Take into consideration the different types of review writing open to you, and decide if this income source is a good fit for you and your blog. If so, ensure your blog is positioned to take the best advantage of this income stream, and comply with all FTC regulations in regards to transparency and disclosure to get the most out of this area of blog monetization.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

In addition to their search engine capabilities, they have also developed a number of tools that advertisers can use to create income streams. “Google Adsense,” is one of their tools used for generating adsense revenue on blogs.

Google Adsense provides you with a method of earning income through indirect advertising. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the concept of directly advertising their own products or the products they are affiliated with. So, Google’s Adsense makes it easier for you, the blog owner to add this blog monetization technique to your blog, even if you have little or no advertising skills or background.

The Ins and Outs

To get started generating adsense revenue with Google Adsense, you will need to be signed up with a Google account. You only need one free account to get started and it is generally tied to the Gmail account that you use for your business. As only one account is used no matter how many businesses you work with, ensure you use one that is generically available for all.

Once your Google account is in place, the next step would be to register your blog or website with Google so that it is indexed. Generally, Google will require you to add a bit of code on the site that acts as proof of your ownership. This allows Google to assign you an ID that will be used to identify clicks that originate from your sites.

Indexing tells the search engine what your site is all about. The ID helps Google to know who to pay when people click on ads shown on your blog. Because this ID is unique to you and your business, it will be incorporated into any coding you make use of.

The next step would be to create the ads using the Google Adsense interface that you would like to incorporate into your blog. Ads can be set up in a variety of styles, sizes and colors to allow you to get the best fit for the area they will show.

Google Adsense is a popular method of blog monetization as it is designed to work with the content that has been posted. The Ad “senses” the topic being written about and searches through its database to find the ads that are most relevant to that topic. It is up to you, the blog owner, to place these ads where they will get noticed without annoying your readers. All good things can be overdone.

It is important that you read and familiarize yourself with the policies and conditions Google sets out for this or any other Google program you wish to participate in. While signing up is a relatively simple process, failure to follow what Google expects may result in termination of your account, which in turn could impact any other areas of Google’s services that you might be using.

One of the main benefits of using Google Adsense is that you do not have to baby sit these ads. Because of their topic “sensing” abilities, the ads will change to adapt to the content of each individual blog post, leaving you free to do what you do best, create more content. And, when you are ready to increase your monetizing efforts and move on to areas such as Adwords, you will already have your account created in Google.

Use It For All Your Blogs

As mentioned above, your business only requires a single account with Google to get started. This one account is used for all of your businesses and blogs, which means that you are able to set up Adsense ads on all of your blogs and customize each ad accordingly. The tools provided by Google allow you to keep track of any income generated by any sites your Adsense code has been set up on.

Using Google Adsense to develop another income stream from your blog is not going to make you rich. However, it may generate a few cents, or even a few dollars a day, which over time, certainly adds up. Most individuals that earn more significant amounts from Adsense have a large number of blogs or web pages set up all over the Internet. The bottom line is that if it is not set up, it most definitely will not be adding income to your bottom line.

If you are not the advertising type, or do not have the time, knowledge or even interest in setting up advertising campaigns on your blog, Google Adsense provides you with a means of generating adsense revenue that is simple to use, set and forget.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

Everywhere you look on the Internet today, people are creating informational products to help meet the ravenous demand for information.

This is, after all, why people turn to the Internet in the first place. Share your expertise and put it to use by creating informational products that allow your readers to find what they are looking for all in one place, your blog.

Now it may seem a bit of a stretch to you at first, after all you haven’t been thinking of your blog as a source of inspiration for an informational product. But instead of asking, “why my blog,” try asking instead, “why not?” Think of all the time that you spend writing on your specific topic for your readers and why those readers keep coming back. In a nutshell, they return because of:

• Your Voice, and
• Your Knowledge

Informational products created by you are an opportunity for readers to obtain more of both.

All right, so now that you are beginning to see how this strategy might benefit you and your readers, you might be asking just what kind of informational products you might create? Let’s take a look at a few ways you might consider.

Create Special Reports

Special reports are a less direct method of blog monetization. Generally they are a short, informational piece written to address a specific concern or question readers might have. These reports are generally given away as a freebie to add value to the sale of another product or as an enticement for readers to opt-in to your autoresponder email list. Their presence on your email list allows you to continue your relationship building efforts and inform them of new product additions they may be interested in.

Create special reports for giveaways that are between 5 and 20 pages in length. Longer reports can be sold, however, if you are going longer than 20 pages, it may be better to look at turning the report into an eBook.

These reports may be a simple compilation of past posts you have made, or they may introduce new concepts to your readers, or they may be even be designed to address and expand upon problem solving of a specific nature.

Write Your Own eBook

Most of us have at some point or another purchased or downloaded an eBook. These digital books are easily downloaded to your computer where they can be read at your leisure. As they are digital products, they won’t be taking up space on your bookshelves or coffee table and if a hard copy is preferable, they are easily printed out.

Blog posts, due to their length, are generally only able to touch the surface of topics your readers want to know more about. When you write your own eBook, you have an opportunity to provide explanations that are of greater depth. Because they are written by you, in your voice, and only available on your blog, they also provide the reader with a semblance of exclusivity.

Other Informational Products

People have many different learning styles. It is said that 73% of people learn visually and that it may take 6 or more exposures to information before it can be internalized and acted upon. These facts provide you with additional opportunities for product creation.

For your readers that are on the go and learn best using an audio format, you may want to consider recording your voice as you read through the material you wish to present. Other formats that can be looked at are the creation of workbooks, video presentations, e-courses, webinars and the like.

One of the main advantages of working with digital products is that once created, they have little additional overhead other than the storage of the file on your server.

You will, of course, want to ensure that you have setup your shopping cart to handle sales, as well as some method of addressing customer service issues. This may be as simple as providing a link to Paypal or Clickbank and listing your support email address.

So you see, the ability to blog your way to profit with informational products is right at your fingertips. Take a good look at your blog and see what you might come up with in the way of an informational product with which to create income streams for blog monetization and that satisfy your reader’s appetite for knowledge.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

If someone has a service or product that they are marketing online, they will often create an affiliate program to help them with their promotions and sales.

Quality affiliate programs provide a win-win situation for both sides. When a product sells, both the product owner and the affiliate make money.

Affiliate programs work well in conjunction with online marketing blogs. Sources of affiliate programs range from structured programs such as those found in Clickbank, Amazon and Commission Junction to independent affiliate programs run by the individual sellers.

Many retail stores also offer affiliate programs. They may not be as obvious at first as these programs may be referred to by other names such as partner or associate programs, but they still provide you with the option of monetizing with affiliate programs.

There are a variety of types of affiliate programs that can be looked at. Basically though, most are variations of the pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-lead (CPA or PPL) or pay-per-sale formats. Products, services and their respective price ranges that are available through these programs come in a multitude of variations.

Finding A Suitable Affiliate Program

All affiliate programs are not created equal, therefore it is important that you take a bit of time finding a suitable affiliate program for you, your blog and your targeted niche audience.

It is important to be clear on the structure behind any affiliate program you are thinking of joining as there will be differences in many areas such as the proposed payment structure, affiliate support materials and terms and conditions affiliates are expected to comply with. Before agreeing to become an affiliate, be sure to thoroughly investigate what will be expected of you and under what conditions you will receive payment for your efforts.

Your first consideration in choosing good affiliate programs will be their ability to meet the interests and focus of your blog’s audience. There is absolutely no point in trying to push a hair-restoring product on a blog that is dedicated training dogs to sit, stay or fetch. Unless of course it is used with humor to restore the hair owners may have torn out due to misbehaving pets. I guess you could be seen as taking care of both problems. Realistically though, this type of affiliate program would not be a good fit for the needs of your niche audience.

Since you are joining the program to enhance your blog monetization efforts, it probably goes without saying that you should thoroughly investigate the commission structure setup for the program you are considering.

If you are going to invest time, effort and even money into promoting a product, it had better be worth it. Do not assume that a sale means an instant payment being sent to you. Many places, such as Clickbank, require that a certain level of sales be reached before they will cut you a check.

Payments may be withheld for 30 or 60 days, or even longer depending on the money back guarantee being offered with the product, and each product vendor will determine what percentage of the product sale they are willing to pay their affiliates.

Some product vendors will offer a straight commission on the original sale, while other vendors may include the opportunity to make additional revenue should the customer purchase additional products as a result of your referral. As you can see, it pays to read the fine print.

Wherever possible, try the product before promoting it. Remember that your readers will hold you accountable for products that you recommend to them. Using the product yourself will enable you to give honest feedback in regards to the benefits gained from its use.

If you are unable to try the product out, take the time to investigate it as thoroughly as is possible. Part of choosing good affiliate programs will be look ing for both positive and negative reviews online and ask for feedback on the program or product before introducing it on your blog. It is your reputation that is on the line, so stick with products that you like and believe in and that are also relevant to fulfilling the needs of your niche.

Check Out Affiliate Directories

Affiliate directories or CPA networks as they are also known, are another source of programs that you may find profitable to promote. These networks are like a marketplace where merchants gather and list their affiliate opportunities.

Becoming accepted on a CPA network is a little more difficult than it is with sites such as Clickbank. Many newcomers to online marketing have their applications turned down until they have shown a significant level of skill in their marketing efforts.

Your blog or website may have to meet certain criteria in regards to its longevity on the Internet, its PR ranking and the amount of traffic it attracts. Even if you are rejected, don’t give up on pursuing this profitable resource. Focus your blog building efforts and enhancement of your own marketing skills to meet the criteria of entry.

Monetizing with affiliate programs provides you with a wide variety of opportunities from which to choose. Many can be signed up for and put to work for you in minutes. Other programs have more stringent requirements for entry, but are worth pursuing as they provide additional profit producing opportunities.

Focus on choosing good affiliate programs with quality products and services that are of value to your targeted niche to gain the most profit producing potential from your blog monetization efforts.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

If the big C – commitment repels you, blogging may not be the best avenue for you. A significant investment of time and content is required to grow a successful blog that readers will return to over and over again. If you are just in it for the money, your readership will sense it.

However, if your blog is centered on a subject that you are passionate about and you love to share with others, they will also sense this about you and your blog. Once your own blog is up and growing, the blogging skills you used for it’s benefit may be used in other areas as well to increase your bottom line.

Let’s look at a couple of ways of doing that:

Become A Guest Blogger

So, just what is a guest blogger? When your become a guest blogger you will be creating blog posts for another person’s blog as a guest. You will be using your blogging skills and your popularity as a blogger can be put to good use creating blog posts as a guest where you are most likely to be allowed to include an author’s box with a link back to your own site. These links in turn give you added attention and traffic while filling a need for the blog owner.

As you have developed your online business, you’ve come in contact with others who become business contacts in the niche you represent or related niches. Many of these business contacts will have blogs as well and as blog owners, they may be open to content from guest bloggers, particularly if they have come to know and respect you. Offer to do a guest blog for them.

Take care when accepting invitations to become a guest blogger that you do not over commit your available time. You do not want to spend so much time on this that your own blog is neglected as a result.

Blogging Jobs

As has been said many times before, content creation is one of the biggest jobs associated with blogging. Busy bloggers are constantly looking for new ways to create that content. Super bloggers often find they need help if they are to manage content over several sites. This is where you come in.

If you have a keen interest in learning about new things as well as the time and ability to produce quality content for blogs, your skills can be put to good use as a paid blogger. Paid blogging allows you to stretch and strengthen your blogging muscles while opening up a world of new information to learn. Imagine being paid to learn. And, if you are not writing anonymously and allowed to use a resource or authors box, don’t forget to include your link back to your own blog.

Blogging jobs can be found by simply typing “blogging jobs” into a search engine. The search results returned will give you a variety of avenues to check out where people are looking for help with their blogs. A couple of places you might want to check out to begin with are:

• Problogger.com
• BloggerJobs.biz
• Jobster.com

Finding quality blogging jobs can help you to increase your blogging skills, bring additional traffic to your own blog, and put a little cash in your pocket.

As you can see, there are different blog monetization methods available to you. Using your blogging skills to earn an income while helping out other bloggers in need is one of those monetization methods that creates a win-win situation for all involved.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com

It goes without saying that the biggest part of maintaining a blog is writing. It is by definition, an online journal. But overtime, blogging has evolved from a place that acts as an online diary, to one that provides a platform with which you are able to publicly share information on various subjects that you are interested in.

Every post that you make on your blog is a new article of information for visitors to see and appreciate. The problem is, if no traffic is arriving on your blog, who is going to see all this amazing material except you and the relatives you’ve coaxed into visiting?

Use Article Marketing To Create Traffic For Your Blog

You are not about to entice anyone to visit your blog if you remain in your little mouse hole and do not get out there where people are able to find you. You need to get your name and the name of your blog out in the open. One way of doing this is through article marketing.

Article marketing occurs when you create articles and submit them to online article directories where they can be found. Once people are able to find your articles, they are more likely to visit your blog to find out more about you and your topic.

This will create traffic for your blog. If they are sufficiently impressed with your writing, they may even publish some of your articles on their own sites, which in turn, gives you even greater exposure.

Article Marketing Can Be Used:

• To create traffic for your blog or website
• To build credibility and visibility within your niche
• To advertise products that you are offering
• To build your brand

When you share your expert knowledge in articles, you let others know what you are able to do for them. Take some time out to join up with several article marketing directories like EzineArticles.com.

Each article directory will have different rules that apply to the articles they will accept, so be sure to take the time to become familiar with those rules, otherwise your articles may be rejected. Readers that find your published work on article directories are more likely to view your material as having value which in turn gives you added credibility with them.

Ok, your signed up, now what will you submit? If you have a blog that has been up and running for a while, you have a goldmine of content from which to draw.

Open up some of your archived content, change the way it is written around a little, check it for keywords and keyword phrases you want to be known for, jazz up the title a bit and there you have it, new article content ready for submission to an article directory.

If you tend to be a little long winded in your posts, a condition I personally plead guilty to, consider breaking them up into more that one article that are shorter in length. By tweaking what you have already written, it is possible to create two or even three articles depending on the length requirement of the article directory you are submitting to.

Do not forget the SEO factor. Search engines love to visit and index article directories. When you optimize your article content for the search engines, your page rankings will increase for the keywords being targeted and more traffic will be sent to view your article. The more people that read your article, the more that have the opportunity to click on your link and visit your blog.

As you are already in the swing of things and writing anyway, why not create more than one version of the article so that multiple versions can be submitted to several article directories? Every article submitted offers an additional opportunity for people to view your content and visit your blog. Once they start arriving at your blog, it is up to you to keep them coming back with even more great content and offerings.

Article marketing is one of the corner stones of blog monetization. When you use articles to drive traffic to your blog, you create traffic for your blog that is already somewhat familiar with and interested in the niche your blog represents. In addition, published articles increase your credibility in the minds of the reader helping them to be more open to the information and offers they will find when they visit.

To Your Success,

SherryD
http://www.wbobr.com