I thought that it would be fun to put up a free blogging site. I have a beta running at Blogorama.org. Now (a bit late) comes the question of how to monetize this project. I don't want to charge people to host their blogs. In fact, I won't do it. I don't want to run AdSense on other peoples blogs. I want them to run AdSense on their own blogs. If they sign-up for AdSense through me, I will make the small referral fees. That's a start. What are some other good ideas for monetizing free blogs?
OK I'm not much of a pro in these matters, but a simple suggestion. Make it compulsory for every free blog that you give out to have at least 2 links to the man domain (blogorama.org) in their template. I also suggest giving out a press release. Once some awareness about this service is created, there are many bloggers out there who would want to write about a new free blogging platform, multiplying the awareness and giving you more link juice. Result - Better SERPS, Higher PageRank. Once you get that, you can monetize the home page well with text link ads and other types of direct advertisements, which might pay better than adsense. Just my humble opinion
its hard work, but what i did on my site is added a link back to main domain, and a sign-up link on each template. also on the sidebar of each template i added a little refferal banner (firefox etc). however most of the income comes from the adsense i run on the main site (not other ppls blogs, but the main domain one), also create your own personal blog on your blog host, and use affiliate links along with good post and your blog (along with the blog host) will start getting ranked.