Here are fifteen ways to monetize your blog. The key fact about each of these points is that they are all actionable (except for the sponsorship one). In other words, you can leave this article after reading and do any of these points right away (except for the sponsorship one, which requires research first). It is up to you which of these methods you choose to monetize your blog, but there is little stopping you from doing almost all of them at the same time.
1. Set up a donations widget i.e. beg!
There are widgets out there that are titled “Donation”. If you are using WordPress, you can easily do this by using a “WordPress donation plugin”. They exist so that viewers can give you their money with no incentive and no reward. As you can imagine, your donations are going to be few and far between, but your blog may provide a viewer with an answer that they repay with a donation.
2 – Install Pay Per Click Advertising on your blog
These are the adverts that pay you if your viewers click on your adverts. They only pay a few cents and they look pretty tacky, but they are a way of monetizing your blog.
3 – Install Cost Per Mile advertising (CPM)
CPM is an online inevitability. Every affiliate advert may not gain clicks but will gain lots of impressions. Sometimes building a brand involves getting your name out there. Companies can easily create adverts that are not very clickable but have a positive effect if they are seen. For example, having an advert that is just your logo and your tagline will be enough to remind the viewer of your company. All they need is an impression of your advert; they do not need to click on it. If you are the webmaster then you can host these types of adverts under a CPM program. You get paid for how many impressions your adverts get, and not for how many clicks they get.
4 – Install Pay Per Action Advertising on your blog
These are adverts that only pay you if there is a sale as a result of your advert. The chances of getting a sale are slim, but the payment for a sale is far larger than payment for just a click. On sale via PPA per quarter may beat all of the payments you get for clicks.
5 – Gain corporate sponsorship for your blog
Finding a sponsor is harder than you think, but is not impossible. How you are going to go about it is up to you. If people knew how to get them then they would not write it on an article, they would do it themselves.
6 – Sell Advertising space on your blog just like a shop window
Create a box or two on each post and offer to sell the space to people who wish to advertise there. Offer to keep the advert there until the blog is decommissioned, or offer a time limit so that you can re-sell the space later.
7 – Install In-Text Ads/rollover text ads
Certain keywords are highlighted in the text and if the mouse pointer rolls over the text they will expand a box with an advert in. The advert must be clicked for you to be paid, but they are a very surreptitious way of installing adverts into your blog.
8 – Install In-Image Ads/rollover image ads
These are adverts that will not run until the user moves his or her mouse pointer over the image. They still have to be clicked for you to be paid, but they are a nice way of hiding the advertising on your website or blog.
9 – Advertise within your blog videos or start a Vlog
Some people install videos into their blogs. There are affiliate advertisers that will happily add an advert at the beginning of your videos and pay you to have it watched. You could even set up a video log and dispense with the text itself.
10 – Direct sell your own goods on your blog (new or secondhand)
You can set up your own little adverts for stuff you want to sell. You may also create blog posts about the things you are selling. For example, you could review a motorbike that you just bought, and at the bottom, you could offer to sell your old motorbike.
11 – Use your blog to compile an Email Marketing/Newsletter email list
If you are good at blogging then you will have people sign up to your RSS feed. If you are really good, you may be able to get them to sign up for your newsletter. If you do then you can use the email list to send out marketing messages, through which you make your money.
12 – Offer to sell your services
Assuming that your blog is good and on a certain niche, you may be able to sell your services as a consequence. For example, if your blog is on Java programming, then at the end of your blog you could offer to solve your readers’ specific Java problems for a fee.
13 – Demand a paid membership for access to your blog
Assuming again that your blog is of very high quality and on a certain niche, you could charge to gain access to your blog. You could sell it like a subscription that people have to renew after a few months. You could advertise your blog on social media and via affiliate advertising to gain new members.
14 – Build your blog so that you can sell it
Build it up with a great design, smashing content, a weighty daily traffic score, and a stunning Google PageRank or Alexa Rank, and then sell it off. It takes time, effort, and cares to create such a blog, and many people do not have the time or skill to do it. So you can sell them their own popular blog that is already set up, running, and effective. If you can gain access to reliable metric numbers to show people then you can set up a bidding system and make some cash.
15 – Sell links from your blog
If your blog is very popular, or it has a good Alexa or Google PageRank then you may be able to sell links from your website. People are always looking to link from high-ranking and popular sites. The problem is that Google does not like people selling links. You can get around this by asking people to contact you if they want to link from you. When they make contact, respond with a price list and method of payment.
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Hi Sonia,
This blog post of yours regarding ways on how to monetize your blog are all possible to do, although earning a decent amount of money can really take time and a lot of effort.
I only have a slight frustration on number 14. Building your blog so that you can sell it is a good way to earn, but in my opinion, most people tend to frown upon this kind of method, because this means that the quality of the blog may be jeopardized if it gets sold to another owner. Well, that would be the new owner’s problem, right? I don’t know if it’s just me, but when there were some sites that I frequently visit and comment on before that suddenly got “flipped” and a new owner will take over – it’s just not the same for me, and so I tend to stop visiting if I find the future posts to be quite boring.
Hello Sonia,
You have shared everything I am looking for. It’s just amazing to know that you can earn money with so many various methods. Some of the methods required high traffic to your blog.
Looking forward to read more guest post from you.
Regards,
Amrik Virdi
Thanks a lot for this great comment!
Hey Sonia. Well put list sis. And great idea to roll out your Guest Post here on iTechCode.
Thank you, Amal =)
Hey Sonia, you have covered almost each and every single way to monetize a blog and make revenue out of it. Personally, paid posts and selling affiliated products, has worked out great for my blogs and I’m making residual income from those sources.
Hi, I’m glad to hear so great words from you!
Just one question – Is donations widget still working?
Hello Sonia
I think all the Options are Genuine and Can certainly Help to Monetize blog and Make Money to the Next level. But Dont you think Selling Links on the Blog Might Decrease Blog Reputation and it May result in Google’s Penalization?
Hello, Ravi. Thanks for commenting here.
If you sell million links to sites with bad reputation, so yes, it can be dangerous!
Hi Sonia,
Thanks for these information, this will going to help me to get more and more earning from my blog.
Thanks again 🙂
You are always welcome!
wow, what a list Sonia, these methods are all the best solution for any blogger, you just can’t go wrong.
But for me personally, the best way is to sell your own product or services, this way you will always know where is your profit coming from.
thanks for sharing 🙂
It’s one of the many ways. Thank you, James
You forgot CPA offers 😀
These are working great for so many bloggers! 🙂
Thank you for addition
Hi Sonia,
Great tips to make money out of a blog. But for that we need the basic thing, i.e., traffic which is willing to spend time on your blog. Pay per click advertising and selling links is the one which is highly in trend these days. Thanks
Thank you for informative comment, Vineet
Nice list to do monetization!
Will implement some of these ideas soon in my blog.
Thanks for writing the useful information Soniya!
Hey Sonia,
You have shared almost every method to monetize a blog and its really great to see many ways that we are using. However I have never been quite a fan of accepting donations on my blog and I hope that I never ever face any situation where I have to ask for donations.
Great post 🙂
Great list and something to keep in my bookmarks should I ever lose my way with my site. Thanks for sharing your ideas 🙂
Hi Sonia! I am interested in monetizing blogs and help other people figure out how to do it on their own pace. That is why I am oblige to ask this question. Is it possible for people to earn money in blogs using free blog platform?
Hi sonia,
Thanks for sharing these 15 ways I was not knowing about many of them.