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So, you want to be a professional blogger? But what exactly do you need to do to make money from this? This week we take a deeper look at how to start generating revenue from your blog. Whether you have a fledgling WordPress blog or are a well seasoned blogger with an entire community built up, there are a number of avenues you can go down. But which is best? And how do you actually make it all happen?
- There are always some growing pains as every new blog strives to get its feet off the ground, not least of which is trying to generate revenue. We start off this week by taking a closer look at the stages of development a site goes through as it matures.
- Joost gives an insight into the journey of his own site, Yoast.com, and gets down to the nitty gritty of what worked for him and what didn’t.
- Joost lifts the lid on Google AdSense, and explains its pros and cons.
- Affiliate marketing; we explain the importance of having both high readership and the trust of those readers. We recommend taking a look at PepperJamNetwork and Commission Junction.
- We explore other avenues within traditional banner advertising, including some surprising and very neat little hints and tips!
- The value of the personal brand: In the long haul, this could be the most beneficial thing you do. We explain the how and the why. Joost tells us how his blog has lead to consultancy work for some top customers.
- Frederick talks through the benefits of monetising old blog content by selling it as an eBook. Producing products that can be ‘built’ once and sold multiple times has huge benefits.
- The importance of scarcity!
- Who you take advertising from is important – if they are ads for less than respectable services or products it could be incredibly detrimental to your personal brand and the reputation of your blog. There is no escaping accountability, and especially not on the web!
- Why you should tread carefully when asking your readers for money.
The bottom line? Make money, but always keep your readers in mind!
Some useful links:
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I don’t want to use Google Adsense on my blog because I think it will interfere with the quality of my content
I understand it comes down to a personal decision and preference, but I think Adsense works very well in certain sites. If you blend them into the site, they shouldn’t interfere with your content either.
Adsense won’t interfere with your content unless you use it improperly. Adsense works well on my site, just don’t expect to get rich from it
What what do you recommend other than Adsense to create a revenue for my blog?
thanks
vb
Pingback: Tweets that mention How To Monetize Your Blog - The WordPress Podcast -- Topsy.com
Pingback: Tweets that mention How To Monetize Your Blog - The WordPress Podcast -- Topsy.com
My 5 Cents referring to monetizing your blog:
First of all, don’t think about monetizing your site! Build a site with obsession and create enthusiasm and a loyal community for your topics.
Ask questions, let your audience suggest, what to write about and which content to deliver. Use polls to let your visitors decide, what they want to read next.
Answer every single comment in a friendly and patient way. Find a tone, that fits to your target groups.
Offer advice around your very topics (the more niche the better), try to do it with videos. YouTube is a great bridge to more and more visitors for your site.
And now from theory to practice with the example of my site nadelspiel.com
I am a trainer and author on webdesign, html and css. So one day in summer 2008, while preparing for another seminar, I wondered once again, what’s the hype about YouTube. I just didn’t get it, while millions and millions of people worldwide seemed to. So I uploaded a video “How to cast on knitting” – and forgot all about for some weeks.
When I looked at it a few weeks later (preparing the next seminar), the numbers left me stunned. That made me really curious, now I needed to know more about.
Took a domain name, installed wordpress and started to write about knitting, but more important started to upload knitting vids on a regular basis. Always meant the site as a sandbox for “community building”, seo and such topics I teach.
Two years (and 400 videos with almost 8 mio video-views) later, this site makes a respectable income. How so?
The site is ad-free (I hate ads on a website), the videos aren’t. YouTube offered a channel-partnership and inserts ads in my videos. I can live with ads in my videos and the AdSense income from it really surprised me.
I had so many requests for my videos on DVD, that I print and sell DVDs with video collections. I sell knitting and crocheting instructions as PDF and meantime I sell yarn, as I was asked for it every day.
You can buy a membership (24,90 Euro) for a year with 3 benefits: 1 DVD for free, every PDF instruction for free and 5% discount in my (ecwid) shop.
My resume: Be creative with what to sell and why. In my case I didn’t spend a thought on monetizing, my users decided and requested that and what I should sell. BTW – meantime 150,000 unique monthly visitors with 2,5 mio pageviews. I will start an English version soon, as my visitors from english speaking countries grow continuously.
Good luck! And Joost, I love your WP SEO – by far the best SEO plugin and I really tested every single one. BTW, my PayPal account was locked since I installed the plugin, it was unlocked today and I will send you an appreciation for your work tonite.
Kind regards from Austria,
eliZZZa
you train (cool) …. I am a new auto blogger …. whats this about YouTube offering “channel-partnership” …. inserting Ads (Adsense) in their YouTube videos …. where can I get more information this??? ….. I LOVE YOUR TECHNIQUE … smiles ….
I am new to this blog. My site is only a little over a month old, though I have owned the URL almost two years. I completely agree that focusing on trying to monetize the site before developing a lot of great content and high traffic will just be a disappointment. But if we focus on the audience’s needs and desires, developing fresh content on a regular basis, and develop our “brands,” the traffic will eventually begin to increase, and so will the money. Thinking about the money first is exactly backward. Another thing I have been doing is avoiding the urge to put something out there every single day just because it is a new day. I should also, in my opinion, be more concerned with quality than quantity of output. If it takes two or three days to publish a post on my blog but it is really good, that is way more important than just publishing a bunch of junk every single day.
What is wrong with going back to older blog posts and revising them to make them better? I’m a big fan of revising my essays to death in order to make them better. If one day’s post is almost ready, I can click, “Publish,” knowing I have the ability to edit it the next day or next week.
Richard, I totally agree with your opinion!
I have to say that monetizing your blog is not a problem… If you write quality and unique content on your blogs, adding adsense can be a bonus not a set back. I run several very successful blogs and all of them have adsense on them and it works a treat, but you must write quality content. Scraping the bottom of the internet barrel will simply not do. Write your own content – don’t copy and paste and adsense can make you some serious cash!
Being a poker affiliate is much harder to market because of restrictions. You’ll have to find gambling directories to promote your site and non restricted search engines. Since Google AdSense doesn’t work with gambling sites I use CBEngine and CBproAds. They look like Google Adsense but it’s more revelant to your content. Both are intergrated with Click Bank. From what I read is you can make six figure income being a poker affiliate but it’s a lot of work and you’ll have to be patient.
thank you for useful information about adsense.it will help me to earn some extra money with adsense
hi to all,
I’am also new in this blog. It is sad to say that I’am really not good in site builder or web designing. But I’ve got a code to put chat box on my site but it’s not working I don’t know what I’m going to do. Anyone can advice me for my problem? And also I don’t know how can I work it out my AdSense but I’ve already make an account but I don’t know how to connect it to my site. Please help me. Well for those people willing to help thank you very much and God bless you all. :D HUGS & KISSES :D
I just started a new blog last week (first post date is Feb.12) and my plan for this blog is nothing but monetized it using Adsense and affiliate marketing.
I’m managing 10 blogs already and I’ve seen the fruits of it.
@Lilszey, kindly email me at commonhomeremedies@gmail.com so I can take a look at your URL and perhaps be able to help you in your problem.
i love your good work but problem is how to make money
Thanks for the good post, it helped me a lot :)
Adsense can be good only if you have very high traffic, if not stick to affiliate marketing.
I’m new to the blog world, I understand how to monetize, but, how do I get traffic to my site! having a hard time getting the traffic and don’t know what to do… how many articles do you need to have on a blog that is strictly for affilliate marketing and “create it and leave it” to see what it does? I want to create many niche blogs but I’m confused as to whether you need to constantly be adding to them or can you just put a handful of articles and let it go.
Interesting tips, but as with most of the content I read about monetizing your blog, its vague and doesn’t exactly give the insight needed for those of us who are confused and overwhelmed.
Would really appreciate resources that actually say: This sources of ad revenue is better that Google adsense because….
also, what “affiliates” are you referring to. Specifics?
i just got banned from adsense because i use the code for my autoblog. what is the best Adsense alternatif for autoblog ? Thanks
I am another that does not know where to start. And finding the time is another issue. So, BloggingLive.com is up for sale. Watches are my business and I have just been sitting on this domain since 2005. If somone here would like to monetize it I would entertain any real offers. Thank you.
Why would anyone want to be a “Professional Blogger?”
That’s the real question for this thread.
Can you imagine, just yapping on the computer all day every day.
ouch
It’s similar to what you just did (write content online), except that professional bloggers get paid.
I guess it depends what market you are in whether blogging is suitable to attract thousands of visitors.
Thanx dude for information….