For many, writing a blog is common. And for some, it is all about passion. Writing a blog does involve knowledge, ideas, a dedicated niche, and a fine mentality to convey things to the readers. But like every other thing, everything does come with a price. And the price for writing a blog is what you call monetizing the blog.
Passion is not everything that drives you to write a blog unless you get the income. Most people write blogs as a means to make ends meet. And for many, it is the additional income that helps them. Hence, monetizing is necessary. But to monetize the blog, you need to learn special skills and tricks for a productive outcome.
Here, we will provide you with the perfect methods to monetize your blog effectively. Generally, you can earn from writing blogs through three different methods.
- Selling a Product or Service
The primary and most productive method to make on the web is to sell a product or service. It is just like an online marketing methodology where you promote a product to sell it. Your blog can be a center stage to give brands and sellers the platform to market their products. And you can earn from both ends in such a way.
- Writing a Gated Content
Content can be anything from a newspaper column, an article, and a blog. Whereas gated content is content that requires one to fill out a form before accessing it. A common example of gated content is an academic article that lets you read the first page. But it requires you to fill out a form or registration to read the full content.
- Promoting Brands
Similar to promoting or selling a product, promoting brands is about selling the entire range of products. Promoting brands brings more revenue but also requires your blog to stand out in the market. Hence, your blog promoting a brand is a fine way to monetize your writing.
Blog Monetizing Methods
Whether you are a beginner or some in-between an amateur and a regular blog writer, monetizing a blog can be somewhat tricky and difficult. To ensure you begin from the right path, we have shortlisted 7 key, simple, and beneficial methods to monetize your blog.
1. Displaying of Online Ads
The simplest yet most productive method of earning through blogging is using the advertisement technique. Advertisement is a critical method of promoting something and earning, either directly through your end or by being a second party. Moving forward, you can use your blog to run advertisements from third parties by displaying them on your blog page. You may have seen banner ads and web banners on different pages of a website when you visit them. Being a blogger, you can earn through them when someone simply clicks on these ads. In short, you can earn for every click on an ad on your blog page.
To do this, you need minimal effort. You simply have to set up an account with an online advertisement platform and link it to your website. Moreover, it is not all about just setting up an advertisement. You also need the ads to be relevant. In simple, the advertisement that your blog page displays must be by the blog you are providing to the reader. For example, if your blog is about health and fitness, the advertisements cannot be other than health and fitness. It is because a person reading your blog is concerned about health and fitness and has no interest in clicking on ads related to something else. If there are no relevant ads, there will be no clicks, and hence no revenue will be generated.
Google AdSense is a helpful tool when deciding which ads will run on your blog. Through this, you can choose different categories that perfectly fit your blog page. Moreover, you can also design the ads to ensure that they match the overall design of your blog page.
2. Donations
Another successful method you can use to earn through your blog is by adding donation access. The purpose of adding donations is to encourage your readers to support your effort. Whenever you write a blog passionately, the need must always be to educate your readers. For this, you tend to research your topic, and your in-depth analysis, and always do something different to make your blog different. Hence, if you add a donation section at the end of your blog, it will not harm you in any way.
Many websites use donation sections to encourage readers to share for different causes. These can be for NGOs and other public services. Your blog page is about you promoting your effort and offering the readers a chance to show you the appreciation you deserve. Also, you can go a step ahead and ask for donations. This is a critical step that needs to be worked upon cautiously. You can ask for a donation through a catchy tagline that portrays the hard work you have faced. It is also to show your readers that you have provided valuable content to them. And that you will provide them more in the future.
The simple principle behind donations is that it is a token of appreciation to you from your readers regarding the efforts you have put in. However, a good practice is to not ask for donations if you already charge them for accessing your full content.
3. Freelance Writing
Often, your blogging page or website is not giving fruitful results and you are not earning a decent amount. For this, it is not a good idea to change your plan to alter the method you publish your blogs for your readers. Freelancing is a popular earning source for many people around the world. And writing blogs is also a popular thing to earn through the freelancing network. By becoming a freelance writer, you can sell your blog writing and expertise to different online reading platforms in the world.
In essence, all you need to do is search for different freelance advertisement sections to look for work. You can also advertise services on your blog website to ensure readers can find you for their personalized blog writing topics. It is a fine tool in the modern age to work in different environments and freelancing is a popular tool and method to work likewise.
Another good method to ensure that your freelancing jump is higher than you expect, you link your freelancing skill to your blog page. You must not miss to provide a link to your blogs in your freelance content to ensure your blog outreach also exceeds.
4. Sell Your e-Books
A blog is a narrow take on a topic whereas an e-book is a broader picture through that narrow tunnel. This can be the best explanation of what is the primary difference between an e-Book and a blog. Let us take an example that you love to write about tourism and travel. In your blog, all you can cover is a set of topics in a limited word count and covering different angles in a summarized fashion. In contrast, you can use an e-book of the same topic to elaborate on the same niche.
Your blog can be about travel and tourism and your e-Book can be a link to the top tourist destinations in the world. E-book writing techniques vary a lot and can include different sets of information for the readers. You can use the platform to share personal experiences and knowledge to engage your readers to read more. Another fine thing to help your readers is to teach them something new through your e-book.
In short, an e-book is something you create for once and sell it forever. Hence, it must be outstanding and perfect to withstand the already populated community of bloggers and writers.
5. Affiliate Marketing
Somewhat similar to displaying and running ads on your webpage, affiliate marketing is also advertising. This advertising is through a partnership with a brand. In this type of blog monetizing method, you will partner with a brand to promote their products and earn a profit at each sale of the product. In most cases, it is a win-win situation for both parties since both the blogger and the brand carry the same objective i.e. selling more to earn more. When all things coincide, it gives you the perfect blend of happy earnings.
An even more productive outcome happens when both parties have the same interest. For example, if your expertise lies in sporting blogs, you can promote sporting products the most. You can use your knowledge of the sporting background to provide a sound base for your reader to try and purchase the product that you are trying to promote.
6. Paid Membership
You cannot gain if you do not offer more to your blog. Yes, you read that right. You have to give your blog the effort you put into writing it than anything else. For this, you can try several other methods to monetize your blog and earn more over a longer time.
If you consider your blog to be worthy of reading, you know how passionate you are about it. However, this passion needs to be consistent in providing your readers a unique and superb content every other day. With this, you will find constant users and more traffic on your webpage. A good way to earn through this constant traffic is by offering paid membership to users.
If your content is productive, you will come to know that most people will like to subscribe to one of your membership programs to find more, new, and upcoming content at the earliest from you. For this, you can create different pricing plans from monthly to yearly and offer different packages in each plan. A good trick to keep the readers enthralled or pursued to read your content, try to offer them a few free glimpses of what to expect in full content.
7. Create Online Courses
A good person is the one that teaches others what they know. And there is a huge marketplace to fill by offering readers a great outcome for their read. You can convert your writing knowledge, skills, and practices into short videos to engage readers to become your viewers. Videos are a great way to help people engage in different activities and pay more attention.
You can monetize your videos similarly to a membership plan. You can post short and simple lectures for free whereas for in-depth knowledge, you can offer them plans. It is like charging the readers and viewers for premium content that you tend to offer. Always look to offer what is not free on the internet to access. For example, to tempt the viewers to pay more for your premium content, you might try to offer a complex tutorial for a problem that is not easily available.
When Should You Focus on Monetizing Your Blog
Writing a blog is one aspect whereas monetizing it is another one. In essence, most blog writers fail to make an impact since they do not answer simple questions regarding monetization. Monetization of your blog is essential to earn from your hard work and the effort that you put in. However, it is not always feasible to jump into the monetization queue early on, especially when you cannot find an answer to the following questions.
- How big is your audience?
Most people do not realize their audience and tend to go for monetization methods. To monetize your blog and effectively earn from it, you need to have an established and regular audience. For this, your primary focus must be on generating quality content and understanding the traffic your webpage is gaining. If it is high, you can go for monetization.
- What kind of content are you creating?
It is not about a good niche that you might think will earn you a good sum on your blogs. But it is the quality read that your blog is offering. Often, a blog niche is trendy but the content inside is not something that amazes the readers. Hence, this considerably reduces your web traffic and does not generate enough viewership for your content.
- What are your goals?
People who are beginners or amateurs cannot signify their goals during the early stages of blog writing. Their primary focus is often on earning straightaway from their blogs. And this leads to most of them leaving the blogging world. This is because there are minimal chances of earning early on in blog content. Hence, the focus must be on establishing a higher audience by constantly providing top-quality content and then monetizing it later.
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