Blog monetization is one of the most discussed topics in the online world.
After all who wouldn’t want to make some money while blogging in their free-time. And if you are ready to work from home, then you need to be prepared to treat your website like a business.
Do you know what the first step to the whole monetization process is? To have a plan!
If you are into blogging, you can make a living from it. And you can actually earn good money. The only thing you probably need are some hints to get you started.
The topic of this post?
Blog monetization tips!
In this article I cover what are the most important steps that you need to know when planning to make money online.
1. Get Into Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is whenever you promote some sort of product or a service and in exchange you are paid a percentage of its price once you make a sale.
To make it work you either sign-up for one of the services I overviewed below and then look for a product, or you directly browse a product’s website and look for a page for affiliates.
Whichever method you choose, once you are done, you are given a special link, which you place within an article or use in the form of a banner.
As of now there are a few big, trustworthy affiliate networks that are worth the time.
I suggest and I’m using ShareASale, which is one of the biggest affiliate marketplace for digital products. It offers a huge variety of stuff to promote, ranging from all kinds of software, tools and plugins to eBooks, guides and tutorials on a huge variety of topics.
When you complete your registration, you set up your search parameters and start looking for something that suits your niche and topics.
If you have a product in mind, the simplest thing you could do is to go to that product’s official page and look for “Affiliates Sign-Up”, “Affiliate Login”, “Affiliate Program” or something like that. Once you find a link, click on it to sign-up for the respective program.
NOTE: you should only promote products you have actually tried, tested and that you find helpful.
2. Write In-Depth Product Reviews
Okay, now let’s assume you’ve chosen the product you are going to promote. Now what do you do? How do you actually promote it?
The first thing you can probably think of is including a banner image in your sidebar. And with every affiliate program, come a ton of horizontal, vertical, small and big banners.
But are banners really effective?
Unfortunately not as much as we’d like to.
Now that advertisements are the main way for pretty much all sites on the internet to monetize their presence, visitors are developing the so-called ad-blindness – since they’ve seen similar banners and ad placements all over the web, they have learned to ignore them.
So if you really want to make money blogging, you should embrace the alternative – product reviews.
- Unlike a banner on the sidebar, writing a thorough review of the product out of which you’d like to earn some commissions is a sure-fire way to prove you’ve actually tried it.
- Unlike a banner product reviews are useful for the visitors, since they consist of how-to guides, descriptions of how it all works and an opinion.
- And unlike a banner, a product review is a blog post, which can rank in the search engines and which people can share on the social networks.
So what should a review post consist of?
Here’s a list of the more important components:
- Overview of the product’s features
- Why the product is useful
- The things you don’t like
- A lot of images to supplement your writing
- An offer if possible
- A call to action at the end
3. Make Sure to Create a Rolodex
A rolodex is a static page where you include various affiliate links to products you are using along with a short description to each of the listed products.
My rolodex page can be found under the “Resources” link in the menu below the header.
Of course the idea is to get as much of the blog’s visitors to find their way to the rolodex.
If you didn’t check the page I linked to above, here are the main elements you need to include:
- A short introduction – it needs to be short so that you don’t bore people before they reach the essence.
- Disclosure – it’s best if you notify people that you have actually included affiliate links. Make sure to point out that isn’t going to cost them extra.
- The product’s logo – best would be to make all the same size (e.g. 125 x 125). You should also place an affiliate link for those who decide to hover over the logo.
- Description – why you are using it, how it compares to similar products and if you’ve written a review post, make sure to link to it as well.
- Button-like links – Using a button makes the links look more obvious. That way people instantly know they should click. With Genesis Framework it’s simple to add those kind of buttons. It looks something like this:
Basically the rolodex in terms becomes one of your biggest blog monetization assets, so as I mentioned, it’s worth promoting it within your blog as much as possible.
Final Words
I really hope you enjoyed the advice I shared in the previous paragraphs and if so, please take a minute to share the post with your friends!
They might happen to find it useful too.
Now I’d like to hear your thoughts!
What are your favorite blog monetization techniques?
Let me hear what you think, thanks!
Good post. I guess the internet is all about making money through affiliate marketing. You see something that is good, you recommend it and you earn a commission. Lol!
I wish making money online was so easy, Emmanuel! 😉
Great Post . Well personally I think Affiliate is the best way to start monetizing your blog. However adsese could be a good option but its highly sensitive and you can’t only rely on one thing. finally happy new year, have a good one
Happy New Year too, Ashish.
I think that affiliate marketing is a good monetization method, but it’s kinda hard to make good money from it, unless you have an authority site (or a well established niche blog).
I find sponsored posts and selling ads very effective, on most of my online properties.
Hi Erik,
I make money with all these methods and I can tell you Affiliate Marketing is the master.
I’m yet to create a rolodex for my blog but it’s one of the things I recommend in my book on Affiliate Marketing.
Thanks for sharing these tips.
Happy New Year man
Hi Enstine,
I know you’re doing very good with affiliate marketing.
And you wrote a great eBook, congratulations.
Thanks for visiting, my friend.
Wishing you all the best for this 2016. 🙂
Hello Sir,
I think blog monetization is a critical steps because it’s total depend on you what type audience you target on your blog like some blogger main target is affiliate marketing that’s why these type blogger didn’t target Adsense type audience.. but before every type monetization every one need great community relationship because this will direct impact your goals..
Regards
Mohd Arif
Wise words, Mohd.
And I agree with you, it really depends on each case, but the most traffic and community built you get, the more are the chances to successfully monetize your site.
Glad to see you, have a good week. 🙂
Hello Admin, That’s Great Tips for Blog Monetization, but my blog already monetization. Your Monetization and Affiliate Marketing Tips very helpful and you have explained very well in this article. Thanks For Sharing and Happy New Year.
Good to hear you are already working on the monetization of your property, Asif.
Good luck with that!
i am a blogger from a year i have read the article then write relevant content over the blog but one think would not know by me that how to improve its value on the moz.
That would be possible building links (must be done the right way).
Everything is explained in this awesome post:
http://nopassiveincome.com/how-to-build-links-for-niche-sites/
Hope it helps, Sagar.
Informative article!
I guess Clickbank is far better than ShareASale.
Your idea on writing in-depth reviews and creating a rolodex seems really promising. I will surely try to use it on my website
Hi Sarah,
why do you like more Clickbank than ShareASale?
It would be nice if you could elaborate, according to your experience.
Hi Erik,
Very resourceful article! 🙂 Affiliate Marketing and Product reviews go hand in hand and are very useful. Was not aware about the Rolodex. Thank you for enlightening with your knowledge. Will surely try these out and let you know my progress.
Regards,
Nikhil
Hi Nikhil,
good to hear you learned something new about blog monetization from this post.
Be sure to add it to your site!
When I started my career as a blogger I used to think that Adsense is the best monetization method out there but soon I realized that affiliate marketing is the right way to monetize a blog.
You buy a product, you yourself use it and write a genuine review. It gives you a feeling of helping others the right way.
Affiliate marketing can be an effective way to monetize your site.
But you must follow a series of important steps to succeed.
Thanks for commenting, Tauseef.
Blog monetization is always been the most talked topic in this tech blogging world.
Well its a quite good article …very well written and have all the details that shhould be mentioned regarding to this topic ….keep it up!!!
It is a pleasure for me that i have been to this article. this is very informative in nature as its level of knowledge used in this article is a very important factor for
Thank you, Adam.
I personally succeed in affiliate marketing and I love it compared to CPC monetization. Only true blogger can succeed in affiliate marketing by generating leads and sales over CPC monetization. As you’ve said banners aren’t a good option to go with, but links inside content perform really well!
Are you making good money with affiliate marketing, Tamil?
Thanks erik to sharing a great post with us. I think Affiliate is the best way to start monetizing your blog. and also thankful to provide information about rolodex.
Which plugin are you using for affiliate marketing in your blog, Narinder?
i found these tips really very helpful as i am a beginner right now i think these tips will work good for me .. thanks for the precious words mate
Affiliate marketing is a good way other than google adsense to earn money. Every company makes affiliates and pay them to increase traffic and convert them in sales.
Good information shared . Thanks @ Erik
For me,
Affiliate marking with Adsense works better.
I never heard of Rolodex, now I will do some research on it and test on my website.
Thanks for sharing nice article about blog monetization.
I think for blog monetization you should apply all thinks like good ad network, Affiliate marking
and also CPA.
Everybody in this world is looking for money… be it by hook or crook… thanks for such an awesome info mate… will try all these and come back with results
Hi Erik,
Amazing tips about blog monetization. It is very helpful for me because I have recently started affiliate marketing.
Thanks for sharing
Keep Posting!
Thanks, Erik,
I was searching about website monetization procedure and your post really helps me.
Hi, thanks for such an informative post. You have mentioned the interested ways to monetize the blogs, I will apply them. Keep posting!
Hello Erik,
I am a new blogger I have to learn so many things about it as a blogger and I believe Affiliate marketing is the best way to monetize our blog. Thank you for this helpful tips.