How to Make Money with Your Blog

   Looking for ways to make money with your blog can be frustrating.  Either you don’t have enough traffic or you are not sure what to do.  

Real Ways to Make Money with a Blog.

This post isn’t your average directory of money making tips either, it has summaries for what each element is, how to use it, and where to find resources.  The blog earning tips are also divided into Beginner, Novice, and Problogger based on the differing qualifications and needs of each.

Making money online is mostly about customizing a monetizing formula for your blog.  Depending on your skill level, network, and current traffic levels your blog has a variety of options.  So find your blog’s formula below to maximize your earnings.

Beginner

You know who you are… Low levels of traffic, relatively new blog, little or no internet experience, no design or seo skills, and probably a sense frustration over the lack of earnings.

Some of the options in this section are better then others and matter of fact all of them can be used no matter what level you are currently at.  Novices can use any beginner level monetization methods and Probloggers have the luck of using everything and anything they see fit.

PPC – Pay Per Click is an advertising program in which ads are placed on your blog and you are paid whenever your visitors click on the ads.  It is the most common method bloggers use to make money online.  It involves almost no effort and is so incredibly easy that many blogs have too much advertising on them.   Money is maximized as traffic levels increase.

Resources: Google Adsense Chitika Yahoo! Bidvertiser Adbrite

CPM - Cost Per Thousand (“m” is roman numeral for thousand) is an impression based advertising system.  This means advertisers place ads on your blog and you are paid based on how many times the ad shows up.  This can be profitable for blogs with big traffic, and can start to bring money to even the smallest blogs.  All you need is pageviews to increase this monetization method.

Resources: Value Click Tribal Fusion

Money Widgets -A very simple advertising system is easily integrated into your blog’s sidebar with widget advertising.  Just embed the widget into your sidebar and watch the ads begin.

Resources: The Newsroom WidgetBucks ScratchBack SmartLinks

In-Text Ads – You know what these ads are.  You have probably seen them all over small blogs and websites on the internet.  They are links with double-lines below them.  While sometimes useful for blog owners pockets, they eventually irritate and annoy most readers into leaving the blog and not returning/subscribing.  In-text ads should be used with caution.

Resources: Kontera Vibrant Media

Parked Domains – Have a few domains you are planning on using soon but are not ready to start?  Parked domains serve the purpose as advertisement and traffic redirection.  This is perhaps the easiest way to make money, although in small doses, online.  Just get a domain name and use the very easy parked domain programs.

Resources: Parked Google Parked

Donations – We have probably all seen the little button that says “donate” in someones sidebar.  It is an easy and perhaps out-of-date way to try and earn some revenue. Many programmers use this still, but very little revenue is earned through the donation feature.  For example have you ever donated?  But still it is simple and if you don’t mind the button then go ahead and try.

Resources: Paypal – it really is the only major ‘donate’ resource around!

Affiliate Marketing – Perhaps the most lucrative process for earning money online is by using your blog to recommend useful and relevant products to your readers.  The best examples are seen by the many bloggers linking to different themes, ebooks and other products.  The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you are only marketing the product and not selling it.  Just make sure the product is relevant and not over-used.  

Resources: ClickBank Commission Junction Azoogle Ads Link Share

Text Link Ads – As your blog builds reputation and traffic your posts/pages become great places for links.  Many people will even pay you to put their link on your website or page.  While it has earning potential, be leery of this form of revenue as it may be detrimental to your blog in Google’s algorithm.  So study it out before you make your decision.

Resources: Text-Link-Ads Text-Link-Brokers

Feed Ads – An easy way to increase the advertisement on your blog is by adding them to your rss feeds.  The simplest way is to get Feedburner and set it up for your blog.  Once you have done that then click on the monetize tab and Google Adsense will be added to your feeds in almost one-click!

Resources: Feedburner BidVertiser Pheedo

Paid Surveys and Polls – It is just what it says it is.  You fill out surveys and polls or place them on your blog for others to fill out and earn money.  In doing this option be careful to find survey or poll companies that have credible backgrounds as this is a source for scammers.

Resources: VizuAnswers

Pop-up Ads – These pesky and annoying advertisements may be great for some of your niche blogs or sub-domains.  Not worth putting on blogs you actually want to build a community on, pop-up ads offer decent revenue to blogs looking to exist but not grow significantly.  But be aware that it is annoying to the reader.

Resources: Adbrite Tribal Fusion PayPopup PopupAd Adversal

About AdSense for your blog

Blogger provides a simple way for you to make money with your blog. AdSense is Google's content-targeted advertising program. If you use AdSense, you don't have to select keywords or categories for your ads. Instead, Google's servers determine what your posts are about and display the most relevant ads to your readers. For example, if you blog about baseball, you might see ads for “Major League Baseball memorabilia” next to your post. If you blog about painting, you might see ads for “Art Supplies.”

Blogger requests access to your AdSense account so that we can automatically create and place ad code on your page through our layouts and template tools. As a result of this, you might notice that Blogger is receiving "0%" of your AdSense earnings - this means that you will receive the same amount for clicks or impressions as you would creating the ad code from your AdSense account.

To view any partners that have requested access to your AdSense account, and their associated revenue shares, please log in to your AdSense account, click the Home tab, choose the Account settings sub-tab and go to “3rd-party access.” If you see an "enable access" link next to blogger.com, you must click this link in order to create ads with Blogger tools.

To take full advantage of other AdSense options and settings, such as managing the types of ads that appear on your blog, you can sign in to the AdSense site and have a look around. That's where you can see how much money your ads are earning and manage your account.