To help us get started and rolling along on the blog post content flow, I’ve decided to reprint (and update as needed) a number of my old-but-the-info-and-tips-are-still-good posts on Wordpreneur. Hope you find them useful!
In the first installment of this guide, we pretty much just went through the basic start-up and operations formula for editors — not necessarily writers — to get into the online publishing game on a blog platform.
As promised, now we get into the good old “how to bring money in” part of it.
Comprehensive? I sure hope not; I’d like to think that we as an industry are just scratching the surface as far as making money from publishing online goes. Nor am I breaking any new ground here. Others online (and many of them) have presented all this information already, often grouped together, in one form or another.
But I’ll also be adding something towards the end of this post that we don’t usually see in these “how to monetize your blog” articles, something I’m sure at least a few of you editors will likely find appealing. [NOTE: This installment got too long, so I'm breaking it up into two parts... the second part should appear tomorrow!]
Ready? Onwards…
As you probably already know, the easiest way to begin trying to monetize the traffic that your site brings in is Google AdSense. There’s no shortage of information, how-to’s and tips out there to get you going.
Briefly, AdSense is an advertising network. Advertisers rely on Google to post their ads on sites with content related to what they’re advertising; if anyone clicks on an ad, both the site (you) and Google get paid by the advertiser for that click. No click, no pay.
Simple. Especially for you, the publisher, since you essentially and predominantly just worry about your content.
There are other advertising networks besides Google AdSense, maybe worth looking into after trying and learning what you can from AdSense.
Then there are affiliate programs, which have been around far longer than AdSense. There are many different ways to get paid through affiliate programs — from pay per click (PPC) like AdSense to pay per lead (PPL) and more, but most common and usually most lucrative is pay per sale (PPS) where you receive an actual commission when a sale is made.
Normally, in none of these affiliate marketing cases do you actually physically ”sell” and take orders for anything… instead, your site’s visitors “clickthrough” you to get to the merchant site. Technical wizardry “tracks” these visits and keeps them tied to you, so if a purchase is made (usually within a time “window,” like 30 days or so), you get the commission.
One of the oldest examples of a viable affiliate program to try is Amazon Associates. They don’t pay the largest commissions, but you don’t have to sweat trying to convince anyone to buy from them either. There are also a number of huge affiliate networks around, where you can pick and choose merchants and products to promote. Besides that, one other huge benefit of these networks is that you don’t have to worry about getting paid, no matter how many member merchants you promote; the networks handle all that ho hum stuff for you.
Four (4) tried-and-tested networks for you to check out and start out with are:
- Commission Junction
- LinkShare
- Shareasale
- ClickBank (for ebooks and other downloadable products)
A number of companies run their very own affiliate programs (which is actually how it used to be in the early days), but you’ll not only have to find each of these independent merchants and apply directly to each’s program, getting paid is a slightly riskier proposition. But taking this direct route can prove to be very lucrative, if you find the right programs.
If you’re just starting out, I suggest that you begin with the affiliate networks first, and then after you’ve gained a bit more experience and knowledge, try working the indies.
What you may have already figured out, however, after reading the above is that to make good money from AdSense and/or affiliate programs, you will need a subtantial amount of traffic. The more the better. There’s no shortage of complaints from bloggers and webmasters whining about the fact that their sites are only bringing in a “trickle” of money from AdSense and affiliate programs. You can pretty much guess why.
Here’s one you usually see on Internet marketing forums, for example: “I’m ready to give up! My blog only generates $5 a day in clicks on Google…” Yup, this guy’s not going to retire from this site. But let’s pretend that he’s actually got some business sense and also makes a few affiliate sales here and there each month (just for the sake of argument, let’s say a lowly $1 a day in aff commissions) on top of the Google clicks.
OK, that’s ($5+$1)*30 or $180 a month or thereabouts. Woohoo! Yeah, no question a “trickle” when you compare it to some of the numbers being reported out there by other online publishers.
But remember: You’re not generating fresh content, Mr. or Ms. Editor. Which begs the question, how much time are you actually spending each week at it? Let’s say 2 hours weekly, or 8-10 hours a month, getting and posting new content to the site. That means for this particular “activity,” you’re actually getting paid $18 to $22.50 an hour!
No, not huge by most standards, but guess what? Six bucks a day is conservative, in my experience, for a well-edited, continuously growing site. Do your “editor” duties well and stick to it, in other words, and you’ll see your hourlies move up.
Now, what if you could devote more than just 2 hours a week? Let’s say, you have 10 hours total. No, I probably wouldn’t put more time into this site if I were you… but what’s stopping you from doing four (4) other niche content sites? The formula I outlined previously is not only easy enough, get the right hosting plan (like at Site5) and you probably won’t need to spend more money for hosting each extra site you publish.
Do the math and see how much total you’ll actually be pulling in, doing something you like (editing and publishing). And by all accounts, this is all still very very part-time. No, you certainly haven’t hit the jackpot… but you’re now possibly in “making a living” territory.
Starting to look interesting, doesn’t it?
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December 23rd, 2009 → 11:59 am @ Teachpreneur