Bonnie HarrisIf you have a successful blog – business or otherwise – chances are you’ve considered monetizing to see some financial ROI from your hard work. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to earn from your blog, and there are many options with which you can earn, from affiliate links to advertising networks of all shapes and sizes. The only problem with monetizing your blog in this way is you may find yourself earning pennies at a time, with high minimum cash-out amounts (i.e. you can only get paid when you reach a predetermined threshold, and even $ 10 minimum takes a lot of time when you’re earning $ .01/click). If your traffic is absolutely insane and your readers are extremely engaged with your blog, though, monetizing this way is a viable option. Word of warning, however: don’t monetize to the point where the ads become annoying to your visitors, or you’ll lose them!
There’s another option to earn with your writing and your expertise, and that is writing for a revenue share site. Often this is a much more profitable proposition.
There are a lot of revenue sharing sites that pay pennies per ad click as well, so you have to look around to find the best opportunity for you. But if you have an established blog, there’s a good chance you can write for revenue share for a larger site that guarantees a rate of pay per article or based on traffic. If you’re writing for a major business blog and they’re guaranteeing you a good rate per traffic, a certain amount of traffic is already built-in, so that’s a pretty safe bet. If they also offer a guaranteed payment per post, even better. Furthermore, the big sites are often syndicated on news aggregators and linked to by other significant sites, all of which equals the opportunity for your post to go viral and your traffic-based earnings to soar.
In that type of revenue sharing scenario, your established blog and the reputation it’s earned you goes a long way toward getting your foot in the door. But what do you do if you don’t have knockout traffic on your blog, or you’re having a hard time getting accepted by the major players?
You can dip your toes in the water with revenue share sites that pay per ads just to get a handle on the model and to build your name. Sites like Examiner and HubPages offer a lot of visibility and exposure, and if you write evergreen content (that is, content that stays relevant more or less forever), you can continue to earn in perpetuity. You may also receive a byline or a short bio on those sites, where you can link to your business or your full-time blog. This provides opportunities for interested visitors to click over to your owned properties and learn more about you and what you do.
Such high-profile websites can also help establish your reputation as an expert in a field, if you don’t have name recognition already. Once there’s a good digital footprint to support your claims that you know a lot about your given industry, you can go back to those big guns I talked about above and present a total package – proof that you’re a writer worth taking on board for a great model like guaranteed pay per traffic or flat fees per post.
Before you agree to write for any site, however well known it may be, you should do some homework. Read the fine print – are your earnings capped? What’s the minimum payout amount? Will you earn forever or do you stop earning on a post once it’s X days or months old? Are your earnings based on ad clicks or traffic? How often do they require you to post on their network? (This last question is a biggie. If you’re required to post once every business day, but you’re only making $ 200/month, that’s 20 articles at $ 10/article. If it takes you 2 hours to research and write the article, that’s $ 5/hour. Not really worth it, is it? This is a problem with ad click pay models as well, because you are not guaranteed to earn anything.)
You should also Google the name of the site and see what freelance writers have to say about it. You’ll soon learn which sites are worth it and which sites should be avoided at all costs.
Not sure where to start? Here are some well-known names in revenue sharing, which pay on differing models and fee structures. Use this as a starting point and understand I’m not necessarily endorsing any of them – simply presenting the names for you to get started on your quest.
Good luck!
Are you writing for a revenue share site and earning well? I’d love to hear about your experience. Please leave a comment and share your story!
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