How to Quickly Make Money from Your Blog

When you’re regularly updating your blog with fresh posts and start getting good traffic on it, it’s time to hit the jackpot.

By Rakesh Raman

If you ask people in a survey if they want to make money by creating a blog (short for weblog), in all probability all the respondents will say “yes.” And why not!

There is a greater chance that those who are standing around them and never covered in the survey would also like to make hay. That’s the power of money. Money attracts all – kings and beggars alike. So, as a blogger you’re no exception.

But blog writing is not a walk in the park. It’s an art wrapped in a science skin – a kinda scientific art. Although language is important for any kind of writing, your language skills alone can’t make you a good writer. It’s like every language expert can’t be a songwriter.

But instead of taking this mundane discussion too far, let’s assume you can write on a subject – say, culture, films, sports, fashion, technology, politics, etc. Now the next step for you will be to start writing regularly on topics in which your audience is interested.

Blog Creation

When you have about a dozen articles written for your blog in a short period of time (for the articles shouldn’t smell stale; they should be fresh), it’s time to create a blog – your own blog.

You’ll be tempted to create your blog under a shared service such as Blogspot or WordPress. But for heaven’s sake, never do that. If you’re seriously interested in making money from your blog, you also should look serious.

Instead of your domain name like yourname.wordpress.com, you must have an exclusive Web address like www.yourname.com. Obviously, you’d never like to travel by a shared auto-rickshaw, when you want to target your blog buyers who maintain top-notch sedans. Didn’t get it? Never mind. It was just a weird example.

Use a sexy design for your blog which should also be optimized for mobile devices along with the Web. Technically, this is called Responsive Web Design. Now assuming that your blog is ready, you need to promote it by using various promotional means such as social media messaging, e-mail, etc.

Blog Promotion

You should leave no stone unturned to let others know about your blog. Use even birthday and marriage parties that you attend to inform all relatives and friends about your new-found passion – that you’re now a blogger. Word-of-mouth marketing is still very popular even in this digital age. Believe me.

Initially, you may be the sole visitor to your blog and you’ll see it over a dozen times a day. But never feel disheartened. This is life. Ups and downs are parts of life. If today your blog is down, tomorrow it will come up with your perseverance.

When you’re regularly updating your blog with fresh posts (blog is a collection of blog posts) and start getting good traffic on it, it’s time to hit the jackpot. You can see the traffic on your site by using these Web tools.

But don’t assume that advertisers are elbowing their way to get an entry into your blog. There are, however, various avenues that you can explore to target advertisers’ money.

Note: Corporate blogs are different from individual blogs. Companies create corporate blogs mostly as part of their corporate or brand websites to market their products and services. If you want corporate blog creation and management services for your company, you can check out our Advanced Digital Marketing Services.

Blog Monetization

The simplest route is Google. Yes, most blog publishers like you use Google AdSense service to display ads on their blogs. These online ads use CPC (cost per click) pricing model. That means, when a reader on your blog clicks an ad, Google gets money from the advertiser and shares it with you.

There are unscrupulous ways to make money from such CPC ads, as some bloggers ask their friends and relatives at other places to click ads on their blogs. But never do this kind of cheating. God (if He or She exists) is watching you. You’ll have to answer for your misdeeds to Google – if not God. Hope you understand.

Now the trouble with Google AdSense is that Google keeps the cream of ad revenues and throws peanuts at you as your share. You’ll soon be fed up with Google AdSense.

Then the next option is to use the CPM (cost per mille) or CPI (cost per impression) ad pricing model, which pays you for every 1,000 ad impressions on your site or blog. Here clicks won’t bring you money. But your earnings will be directly proportional to the pageviews on your site.

This model is quite popular these days. Hundreds of ad networks, which connect advertisers with publishers, offer CPM ads. For example, you can try AOL Advertising for publishers / bloggers. You also can search ‘cpm ad networks’ on Google search engine to select the best one for your needs.

That’s not all. There is another difficult but lucrative advertising model called CPO (cost per order) or CPA (cost per acquisition), which pays you when an item is sold for the ad network or the advertiser.

Amazon is among the leading global companies that offer such ads to content site owners or bloggers. They pay you a percentage of the item price when a buyer is directed by your site to buy an item. That means, you’ll not get any money by simply displaying the ads on your site. Rather, you’ll be paid only when sales transaction happens.

The Way Forward

These are some of the ways that you can use to make money from your site. Site or website is a more respectable term than a blog because site means your exclusive site which is not on a shared blogging service. You can, however, use any term as per your preference. You also can use a combination of options to optimize your revenues.

The business models described above are for small sites managed by a single person or a single-digit workforce. If you’re running a big content property or a news site, you can get direct ads from advertisers while removing ad networks from the deal. Those direct ads are highly lucrative for digital or online publishers.

Now you can begin it with the options given above. If stuck, you can always count on me. After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed.

By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of RMN Company