Today we will start to cover one of my favorite things about blogging. Making money!
Yes, I just said one of my favorite things was to make money. I'm not going to lie I love writing, and I have a passion for it but passion doesn't pay my host, put food on the table, and clothes on my kids every few month (cause they are growing like weeds!)
So I broke the money making section down into 3 emails, Ads and Affiliates, Sponsored Content, and selling your own products. These topics cover pretty much anyway to make money but I'm sure there are some that don't fit into those category titles so remember the possibilities are endless.
Can new bloggers even make money? YES!
Today we are going to cover Ads and Affiliates. Let's start with ads.
Ads
There are soooo many kinds of ads that you can place on your site from the small text link to the spammy pop-ups and full-page ads. The key to really making money with ads it to find the right balance.
CPC Ads
As a new blogger, I suggest starting with Google Adsense. You set up your account create an ad unit and place it on your site then you get paid whenever a reader clicks on it. This is called a CPC ad. These do best inside your posts.
CPM Ads
The next type of ad you can put on your site looks just like the Adsense ads but are run by sites like Media.net and you get paid per view. So say your CPM rate is $6 that means you get paid $6 for every 1000 views to your ad box. Setting up a few of these across your sites can help bring in some good revenue as well. These are great in spots that are seen across all spots on your site. Places like your sidebar and under your header.
Those are the two big difference in ads, there are some that you can place a banner but you only get paid when people buy from that link but to me those are more along the lines of affiliates (see below)
Now you will also need to be testing your ads and which spots earn you the most money and this can be time-consuming, but worth it. Once you reach a benchmark of around 100,000 pageviews a month there are sites like AdThrive, The Blogger Network, and Media Vine that will come in and manage your ads for you. Something to think about down the road.
SO what ad networks are good for bloggers to work with? Here are my top pics but when you head to Google there are tons more!
- Google Adsense
- Media.com
- Amazon CPM Ads
- Blog Her Ads
- Info Links
- Blog Ads
- Pulse Point
- Federated Media
Affiliate Income
Affiliate income is where you earn a % of a sale on a product or a commission for a sign-up. I highly suggest putting affiliate links organically in every post you write. So if you are writing a recipe and talk about a certain pan, link to it on Amazon. When I am writing a post on a big city that has a CityPASS I will always use my CityPASS link.
To get an idea of a post with affiliates links that do pretty well for me you can view my 14 Ways to Save on Wedding Invites Post.
To get the details on affiliate income and my top affiliates sites to join check out my 8 Affiliates You Need to Join the Make Money Blogging Post.
Tomorrow we will cover sponsored content.
Suggested Reading: Blogging: Blogging Success: 10 Proven Steps to Starting a Blog and Making Money
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