Ultimate Wealth

Whether you’ve got a blog, or you’re thinking about
creating one, you want to know how a blog can make you
money.

Your blog can be monetized in dozens of ways, depending on
the industry or profession you’re in. For example, let’s
say you’re a marketing consultant. A blog will help you to
build your reputation online and offline, and will bring
you clients who will find you via the search engines: blogs
get indexed very quickly, and it’s easy to optimize a blog
for great search engine rankings.

A blog can also be a launch-pad for an online business:
your blog can do complete duty as both your Web site, and
as an online store. You can even begin a blogging business,
as a blog-entrepreneur.

In this article however, let’s focus on five ways in which
you can directly monetize your blog.

=> Method One: Sell products from your blog

Your blog is the perfect way to sell products, whether
they’re physical products, or digital ones. If you’ve got
an offline business — you sell flowers, cookies, or
fashion — your blog can help you to attract visitors, and
you can sell, directly on your blog.

You can also sell digital products. If you’ve written an
ebook or created an online course, a blog can help to
spread the news of your product across the Internet, and
you will get buyers from around the globe, buyers who you
would have no other way of reaching.

If you haven’t got any products, you can create them. Just
go to CafePress at http://www.cafepress.com/ and develop a
range of your own products to sell on your blog.

You can also sell products from MeCommerce at
http://mecommerce.goodstorm.com/

=> Method Two: Sell advertising space

If you haven’t heard of Google AdSense at
https://www.google.com/adsense/ you’ve seen AdSense ads on
the results pages of every search you’ve ever done at
Google. The AdSense ads are the little “sponsored links”
ads that you can see on the right side of the search
results page.

Depending on the topic of your blog, you can make a
lucrative income just from running AdSense ads alone.
However, there are many other text link advertising options
– just do a search for “text ads” on any search engine.

=> Method Three: Get freelance gigs

Your blog is an easy way to get freelance jobs, whether as
a moonlighter, or as a full-time freelancer. You can also
use your blog as a resume-on-steroids when you’re
job-hunting.

If you enjoy blogging, you can even become a
blogger-for-hire: there’s a huge demand for bloggers who
are willing to blog for others.

=> Method Four: Sell affiliate products

Many bloggers sell affiliate products on their blog. There
are many affiliate networks that you can join to find
affiliate products to sell. Two of the best known are
Commission Junction at http://www.cj.com/ and SHAREASALE at
http://www.shareasale.com/

=> Method Five: Ask your readers to sponsor your blog

If you’re providing valuable information, you can give your
readers the option of sponsoring your blog. The concept of
“donation-ware” is popular in software circles: many
software developers asks users to sponsor their software.

PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/ provides links and
buttons you can add to your blog so that your readers can
sponsor your blogging.

Another way to use the power of sponsoring is to approach
companies to sponsor your blog. They pay you a set fee,
either monthly or yearly, for the privilege of sponsoring
you — you add a “Sponsored by Company X” text or image
link to your blog.

So there you have it. Five methods you can use FAST to
monetize your blog. Blogging is developing so quickly, that
you’ll find dozens of other ways, as you get into the
blogging process. When you’re passionate about blogging,
you will find companies and people who are willing to help
you to make money from your passion.

—————————————————-
Angela Booth is a copywriter and veteran career blogger.
Her new ebook, Blogging For Dollars, helps you develop a
lucrative blogging career, and gets you started as a
blogging entrepreneur. The ebook will be available from
August 2006. Read the book’s blog at
http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/