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Blogging is an investment. Besides hours spent crafting posts, there is the cost of hosting, security, domain renewal, and any plugins you use (the right provider can help to reduce the costs associated with these business essentials significantly.) With this in mind, it makes sense to monetize your blog.
As your site begins to grow in popularity and consistently generates views each month, it is no longer a proposition of if but rather how you can take advantage of an existing opportunity for sales.
Blog monetization strategies require extra effort initially, but there are proven strategies used by successful bloggers that you can try out for yourself. Every market is unique, but if your blog has grown in popularity, it must be because you offer helpful, interesting content.
This post will walk you through four proven ways to monetize your blog. But before we get to that, let’s first look at some of the benefits you’ll accrue by monetizing your blog.
Benefits of Monetizing a Blog
With approximately more than 4 billion people connected to the internet globally, there has never been a better time for bloggers to monetize their blogs. If your blog gets a lot of monthly unique visitors, monetizing it will transform it into a nice revenue generation stream. Remember, your website is open 24/7/365 and can bring you income while you sleep.
How to Monetize a Blog
Monetizing your blog is an excellent way of making money, but how is it done? Here is an outline of some tips to transform your blog into a moneymaker:
1. Display Ads
One of the easiest ways to monetize a blog is through display ads. These ads may appear on your pages as pop-ups, native ads, or static displays. The most common payment methods for display ads are pay-per-click (PPC) and pay-per-impression (PPI) models. In a PPI model, you’ll be paid every time a user views an ad, whereas, in a PPC model, users must click on a display ad on your website. Consistency in clicks is the key to getting paid well in PPC models.
To place a display ad, a blogger needs to partner with advertising networks and companies that pair advertisers with websites for web hosts. Your network will pay you for the impressions/clicks and will also determine which ads get displayed on your site. With that in mind, you should choose a reputable network like AdSense.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Another excellent way of earning income passively is by becoming an affiliate marketer. This option provides a great user experience and can be more profitable than advertising. Business Insider estimates that 15% of digital marketing revenue is generated through affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing involves promoting a third-party’s products by mentioning them in your blog’s content. They also place special affiliate links in their posts, which visitors can visit to purchase various products on a third-party’s website.
Blogs are exceptional platforms for affiliate marketing, given the numerous opportunities for affiliate link placement. For instance, you may write a review for a particular product or simply mention a product in a post discussing a broader topic.
An example of an affiliate program is NameSilo’s– you’ll earn a 10% commission on the first order made by a new customer that you refer to our site.
3. Sell Merchandise
Selling merchandise is a great way for loyal readers to promote your brand and support your work. Just like with paid content, merchandise selling allows you to sell physical products on your website through an online store.
Etsy is an ideal platform for selling merchandise. You can use the Sell on Etsy App to update items, manage orders, and respond to your customers on the go.
4. Offer Membership
A membership website refers to one that provides members with access to gated content. Membership blog websites can also offer access to a message board or a community forum for fans to interact with you and discuss your posts.
Offering membership to your readers is more effective than one-time paid content, given that membership costs are recurring. To do this, you’ll need to garner a large following, prove your value with free resources and adjust your content strategy such that it accommodates regular updates of premium content.
Effective Plugins to Monetize WordPress Websites
If you want to make money through WordPress, you need a way to monetize. Here is an outline of WordPress Plugins that can help:
- Product Directory Plugin: These plugins enable users to embed curated listing managers and product catalogs on any post or page. Its features include tag, category, and price filtering, to name a few.
- Ad Changer Management Plugin: With this plugin, you can create targeted campaigns and ad tiers, and track performance to monetize your blog quickly.
- Video Lessons Manager Plugin: This is an excellent e-learning plugin for creating a video-based ad or learning environment on your WordPress blog. If you’ve been looking for a way to sell online courses, like other video courses directly from WordPress, this plugin is the solution.
Put Your Blog to Work
Operating a blog is more than just sharing experiences and thoughts online. It is also an excellent way of generating a decent income. Your blog is a great platform to help you network, reach out to other people, and ultimately make money.
With time, you can garner an impressive readership and use your blog to generate revenue from multiple streams. If you want to take your blog in a better and more profitable direction, the tips outlined above are a great place to start.
Suppose you’re considering starting a blog, or you already have one that is up and running. Follow this list of suggestions to accomplish your blogging aspirations.
Are you looking for a domain for your blog? NameSilo is your go-to provider. Whether you have a portfolio of 1 or 100,000 domains, we make registering and managing them a quick and easy process. Contact us to learn more about our solutions.