Luana Spinetti
Dear blogger,
Hope you know that, with your blog, you are sitting on a goldmine.
Not even news media have as much relevance today as blogs— bloggers are today’s culture influencers, opinion leaders, even authorities, if you like.
Perhaps your blog is not as popular as Jon Morrow‘s or John Chow‘s, but you have something to offer — namely, your content and your loyal readers — that nobody else can replicate without turning into a copycat.
You are unique– and your blog is the means for you to express your uniqueness.
Content, readers, uniqueness — these are the 3 factors advertisers and online investors are after for their campaigns.
This post wants to offer you an overview of the most remunerative forms of blog advertising and money-making strategies that will help you make a living out of your blog– or at least, earn some money on the side.
Because you can– and it’s fun (happy sponsored blogger since 2007, here!).
Advertising
Why should an advertiser want ad space on your blog? There are many ways to answer that question:
- Your blog traffic numbers are huge and advertisers fell for them
- You have loyal readers who get interested in everything you write about
- You are fun, friendly, brilliant and love to collaborate.
All in all, online advertising works best with blogs run by smart owners and that have smart readers. If you and your blog belong to that category, you’re up for a lot of opportunities in the online advertising world.
There are two ways you can get advertising opportunities: direct advertisers and advertising networks.
Direct Advertisers
The nicer way to make money online with your blog is to attract direct advertisers.
‘Direct’ means that an advertiser will contact you via phone or email to let you know they’re interested in buying ad space on your blog, for their client or their own company.
These advertisers can be gems, because they usually pay higher rates than advertising networks– and because there’s potential to build a long-term business relationship with them.
Advertising Networks
Services like Infolinks, Entireweb’s Speedy Ads and Magenet (no aff links) do just that— they act as middlemen to connect you (and your blog) with interested advertisers.
Advertising networks pay less per ad than direct advertisers and run on stricter rules for acceptance of a blog in their marketplace, but you can get a constant flow of opportunities if your blog traffic is consistent.
Paid Sponsorships
Like with standard advertising, you can get paid to sponsor a product, a website or a concept on your blog via sponsored post networks or direct advertising.
Direct advertising works better for this content-based type of sponsorship. One advertiser in the past offered $ 150 for a sponsored post on one of my niche blogs. I accepted the deal and we worked together to make the post great and helpful to my specific readership. The post was indeed well received, and although the advertiser did not update me on the analytics later on, the post is still on my blog and still a part of it– not something I can’t wait to get rid of.
When a sponsored post is carefully crafted and matches the general tone, style and theme of your blog, the post is there to stay for many, many years to come.
You can complement direct advertising with sponsored post networks such as IZEA and Blogsvertise (no aff links).
Sponsored content should always carry a disclosure tag or line informing the reader what they’re reading was requested and paid for.
Banner- or infographics- based sponsorships fall under standard advertising, so you may refer to the previous subsection.
Review Websites
There are websites that pay you to review services, products or other websites.
Examples in this category include SponsoredReviews.com, LinkWorth (no aff links), IZEA and Blogsvertise, which also offer paid sponsorships (see previous subsection).
Like with sponsored content, your review should be honest and should carry a disclosure tag.
Guest Bloggers
You can get paid to publish an author’s guest post on your blog or you can get paid to write for other blogs, such as topics you have no interest or knowledge about. This could be mommandme fashion or anything else.
In the first case, you get paid for promotion, because the guest writer pays you in exchange of placement of a piece of content on your blog, content that gives them exposure and reputation for their personal or company brand.
In the second case, you get paid to write and publish informational content on someone else’s blog. This kind of content is non-promotional, but you can still get exposure from your byline and, if available, a backlink (nofollow or not, it doesn’t matter) to your blog or social media profile.
And if you run a popular blog you no longer wish to maintain…
You have 2 highly remunerative options at your service:
1. Sell Your Blog Domain
You can sell the domain you used for your blog through services like Flippa and DigitalPoint, or you can use your registrar’s marketplace option (Dynadot, NameCheap and GoDaddy (no aff links) have this option).
The higher rankings, reputation and traffic numbers are connected with your domain, the higher amount you can ask from your buyer — even up to $ 5,000.
2. Sell Your Entire Website (Domain + Blog)
If you want to get rid of your entire blog but you don’t want to waste your efforts, you can sell domain and blog together and score up to $ 500,000.
Most website sellers use Flippa or DigitalPoint to find buyers.
What are YOUR strategies to make money online with your blog?
Share your wisdom in the comments! 🙂
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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