You have a blog, but now you are wondering how to start monetizing it, right? How to turn those posts into paychecks for yourself, or at the very least cover the cost of running the blog.
We are firm believers in the ability that bloggers have to make fulltime incomes from their blogs. Becky and I are both doing it and we know so many other bloggers who are doing that and more as well. We’re so excited to get you started on your journey to making money blogging.
Often, the easiest place to start, is with ads. Google adsense will take smaller blogs, so that means you have a higher chance of being accepted there than to some of the other ad companies such as adthrive, glam, blogher or the blogger network.
Once you’ve applied and been accepted, you can set up 3 ad codes anywhere on your site. Places like your sidebar, header and even in the bottom of posts tend to do best. Ads displayed above the fold (meaning they are seen without any scrolling on your site) usually yield the best payout, so keep this in mind when placing ads.
Expected income from ads truly depends on your site’s size. As an example, several years ago when I started using adsense I earned around $50-$100 a month for page views averaging around 22,000 a month. It does take a few weeks for your full earning potential through ads to be discovered. Google will crawl your site and figure out what type of ads your readers respond best to, and then show more of those so that you can get more money.
Another nice thing about adsense is your ability to block ads that you do not like. You can block entire sites, or genres of ads if you don’t want something that you feel is inappropriate ever showing up on your site. If you already have adsense, here’s a tutorial to help you boost that ad income even more by adding other ads to your waterfall… Don’t worry we explain it all in the video!
After your ads are implemented, we suggest dabbling in some sponsored posts. While many media companies require a minimum amount of pageviews to apply, there are others that take bloggers of all sizes. Our favorite site to get you started is Izea. While this site also serve larger bloggers they tend to have a fair amount of opportunities for bloggers who are just starting to monetize and still building their platforms.
Sponsored posts provide you with the opportunity to get paid for posting content to your blog. These do not need to be commercials for products, you can write a sponsored posts that fits with the feel of your blog normally so it is fun for readers to interact with, while also earning you money and providing exposure for the brand.
We’ve written extensively about sponsored posts, so you can write the best posts possible and also find more opportunities for your blog.
The third place we suggest going to start earning money blogging is affiliate marketing. If your state or country complies, Amazon associates is a great place to start. Through Amazon you can earn money every time some one clicks on a link to a product on your site. This means everything from a parenting post mentioning (and linking to) pacifiers, to a heartfelt piece about the most recent book you’ve been enjoying can be monetized. It’s a handy way to earn extra money without changing the content of your posts much at all.
You can also become an affiliate and sell books for other bloggers, which can bring in a great income for your site if you find books relevant to your niche.
These are the three things we recommend doing to start monetizing your blog. If you aren’t quite sure you are ready yet, check out this list of things to do before you monetize. Or, if you want to have higher pageviews before you start focusing on the income, you may find this post about doubling your blog’s pageviews helpful!
Hi Paula. I’m very new to blogging and this might be a silly question. But can you explain exactly what linking posts and how to do it?
Thank you
Using adsense seems like an ingenious way to start making money with blogs. I especially like the concept that you have some sense of control over the ad content shown on your blog. It’s a simple thing, but it can be really profitable for doing very little work on your part. Just keep blogging away, and the program will take care of the rest. All the other ways the post mentions are great, but this one seems like it has the least hassle and yields the most results for the amount of work you put into it.