You’ve probably heard that it’s a good idea to start blogging, no matter what niche you’re serving. But the question is, how do you make money with your blog? That’s what this article is all about. It will help you monetize your blog in 4 steps.
Step #1 - Know The Options To Monetize Your Blog
The first thing to do is understand all the different monetization options that are available to you. These include:
- Promoting Your Own Offers - This tends to be the best and most profitable option, because it’s both profitable upfront as well as on the backend (since you build a list of proven buyers).
- Promoting Affiliate Offers - Many bloggers promote affiliate offers, which is a great option. You can promote infoproducts until you develop your own. It’s also a great option if you don’t intend to develop your own products (such as if you’re selling physical products).
- Building a List - Some bloggers don’t promote anything on their blog, and instead focus on getting readers onto their mailing list. (From there, they promote their own offers and/or affiliate offers.)
- Selling Ad Space - If you have a highly targeted, well-trafficked blog, then you can sell ads in your content, header, footer, sidebar, etc. For this method it's important to vet all advertisers, ads and offers. That way, your blog doesn’t become associated with anything unsavory.
- Inserting CPA offers - Here’s where you place a CPA (cost per action) offer on your blog, like Google AdSense (which is where you get paid per click). This is a last resort offer, as you can generally make more money using the other methods mentioned above.
- Create a Product Out of Your Blog - Another way to monetize your blog is by taking your best blog posts and turning them into a product. This could be a lead magnet, a core offer, or even a Kindle book. You’ll make money on the front end in direct sales of the book, as well as making money on the backend through offers you include within the product.
Step 2: Select One Primary Method To Monetize Your Blog
Next, select one primary monetization method. For example, you might choose to sell affiliate offers, with the intention of switching to your own offers as you create them.
Step 3: Plan Your Content
Now that you know how you’re going to monetize your blog, you can now plan your content in a way that supports your monetization goals.
For example, if you’re selling affiliate offers, then you’d plan content that includes how-to and tips content (with soft sells embedded), case studies, product reviews and product comparisons.
Another example: if you’re building a list, you’d post a lot of useful content and then point people to your lead page to get your BEST content.
If you think you're going to be struggling to come up with content ideas here are 10 Blog Post Ideas: The Content You Should Post On Your Blog.
Step 4: Test and Tweak
Finally, the last step is to test and tweak everything to maximize response and profits. This includes:
- Testing headlines, calls to action, graphics and other parts of your ads.
- Testing the various components of your lead page.
- Testing which offers you promote.
- Testing placement of ads.
- Testing article topics and headlines.
In other words, test every major component of your blog and ad campaigns to boost response.
If you want to get into a bit more about testing and tracking, check out this article - How to Use Testing and Tracking to Get More Subscribers, Customers and Sales.
Conclusion
The key to monetizing your blog is to choose one main monetization method, and then create content designed to support this method. In other words, don’t haphazardly post content. Instead, every piece of content should be strategically created to help you establish your authority, impress your readers and presell an offer.
So, which of these monetization methods is right for you? Truth is, selling your own products will almost always be more profitable than any other method mentioned. However, you can certainly combine methods, such as selling both your own products and affiliate products. And you can also certainly test out a variety of these methods to see which ones produce the most profits for your particular blog.
