My Tips for Making Money via Blogs

I see a lot of posts asking how to make money from blogging, so I thought I'd share my main income sources on the various blogs that I run. I won't supply specific figures (as I don't know them off the top of my head) but the list is in order of profitability. I don't think blogging is an easy way to make money online but it can be enjoyable (the majority of these sources would work with other types of sites).

1. Google Adsense - This is the most profitable source for me at the moment. I don't believe in "tricking" visitors by over blending the ads but certainly blend the ads to the site.
   
2. Affiliate Programs - I mainly use www.cj.com which has 1000s of different affiliate programs. When there is one I see a supplier whose products I think I'll write about in the future, I'll code a quick and dirty plug-in to convert all relevant links into affiliate links so at sometime in the future I'll get paid for no additional work (other affiliate programs you can use in the same way are Amazon, Ebay, Affiliate Future, Affiliate Window, Azoogle, this list could go on and on).
   
3. Private Advertising and Link Sales - This takes a bit more work but dealing direct avoids any other commission charges. I often get advertisers by posting on DP and direct contact.
   
4. www.Blogads.com - This is another setup and forget. I keep my prices relatively low so that I fill the available space, I'll probably increase for the Christmas Season.
   
5. www.chitika.com - When this first came out I was doing really well with it but the CPC and CTR has decreased over the last few months. If you've got the space it could be worth giving it a try.
   
6. www.kontera.com - This is those double underlines advert links. I'm trialling it at the moment on a small subset of my visitors. It's another one that takes zero work but I feel it could annoy regular visitors so still not sure whether to go full scale with it

I'm planning on experimenting with automated link sales and monetising my feeds in the future so will post again with those results. I'd be interested to hear any other revenue generating ideas other people have especially for bloggers.

 

This is a good list indeed, i am glad you remembered me of Blogads. I think Intellitext and Text Link Ads could be added too. I used Kontera, but the bad thing is, you can not use it with AdSense on the same page.

 

thanks for the infos dude -

 

This is a good list. but for cj to work, you need to have a regular amount of traffic. I never knew CJ would close your account if no sale is made in 6 months. I signed up with CJ for my new site.. and after 6 months, they deleted my account

So you need to build traffic first to be able to get any profit from the above mentioned money making ways.

 

I had Chitika on my blog for a few months, made a grand total of $0.17

I promptly removed it and opted to run adsense instead

 

If you don't make a sale in 6 months you need to be generating more traffic or it's the wrong affiliate program for your site.

My Chitika income is no where near my Adsense but as an addition it's okay, I'd never use it as an alternetive though (unless I found a site or subject that it was more profitable on).

 

Thanks for sharing your tips. Could you please explain how you do this?
"I'll code a quick and dirty plug-in to convert all relevant links into affiliate links so at sometime in the future I'll get paid for no additional work".

How much did you put the price tag for BlogAds?

Thanks.

 

out of all those i 've only use Adsense. Does any of the 6 program conflict with other?(like break the TOS of one program to have both on same page)

 

I wrote a plugin that does a search and replace of URLs. It's not one I can really release as you need an affiliate account for each merchant and the URLs can be pretty different. A simple one would look like:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Change appropriate URLs to affiliate URLs use our account
Description: This changes any external supported URLs  to be affiliate links
*/

function st_GadgetBoxAff($aText)
{
	$aText = str_replace('http://www.gadget-box.com/product_info.php?', 'http://www.gadget-box.com/product_info.php?ref=7&', $aText);
	return($aText);
}

add_filter('the_content', 'st_GadgetBoxAff', 4);
?>

PHP:

This will convert http://www.gadget-box.com/product_info.php?cPath=148&products_id=4059 to be a nice affiliate link of http://www.gadget-box.com/product_info.php?ref=7&cPath=148&products_id=4059

With other more complicated ones you need to use preg-replace.

$25 per week per ad (I think). BlogAds has just changed their backend so I can't see accurate stats at the moment.

 

Kontera possibly conflicts with Adsense, some people say yes, some no, I'm waiting for an official response off Google.

You must also make sure that Chitika is in non-contextual mode.

 

Adsense is the best! though chitika is not paying me but i am using it as alternate on main page and using a big rectangle on single post page (wp)

 

I wasn't impressed with BlogAds.

There's also www.text-link-ads.com and www.adbrite.com that you can use to monitise your blog.

 

Good post.. I will take note on that.. thanks

 

good list of important and usefull tips for gaining money over the internet using the webblogs ! thanks for sharing !

 

Thanks dct for your sharing info......

 

Thanks for the info. I am checking out blogads.

Regards,

Col

 

dct, where can i find your blog?

 

My main one is below my username, www.coolest-gadgets.com

 

for me broadly speaking, monetizing your blog can be broken up into 3 categories:
1) developing and marketing your own product (can be an ebook, videos, service, etc)
2) web advertising
3) affiliate marketing

1) is fairly self explanatory.
2) web ads: can be further broken down into:
contextual (eg. your content is studied and targeted advertising is served up. google adsense is an example of this). other forms of advertising like crisp ads tend to be less contextual.
3) affiliate marketing: 2 forms:
a) via affiliate networks: clickbank, commission junction, share a sale, link share, etc. you get a variable referral fee, between 5% - 95% of the transaction value. most tend to be in the 40-60% range. Mike Filasmie's Butterfly Marketing is going at 70% commission at clickbank.
b) direct affiliate program: you can see these located at the websites themselves: examples include amazon associates and web hosting companies.

There are also private label / OEM providers like AIMS labs for private-labelled vitamins.

A new trend is for pay per post, where bloggers are paid to post on specific topics. check out http://payperpost.com/.

i did the math and 1 affiliate marketing transaction is equal to about 1,000 - 2,000 adsense clickthroughs.

so i've been doing affiliate marketing so far.
i like affiliate marketing more too, because i'm quite engaged with the product.
i evaluate it's strengths and weaknesses, marketing positioning and angle and craft a marketing campaign.
takes more effort, but the rewards are pretty attractive.
one recent successful campaign was for secretblogweapon.com. (a newly launched blogging product)
i was top affiliate for Aug 06, and if everything's in order, should be top affiliate for Sep too!

adsense for me, is more a 'fire and forget' type of income stream.

i think the most important thing is to have fun, however you choose to monetize your blog.

my latest project is to build my list, and if you'd like a free book (a print edition mailed to your home or office free of charge), check out: http://www.whoisandrewwee.com/101/e...arketing-giveway-including-robert-allen-book/

 

Very good list, I just signed up for blogads.com