Make the Most Out of Your Blog

I have always loved writing, and so when blogging was "invented", I was glad because it became a medium for us "wannabe writers" to practice our craft. Personally, I started blogging just for the sole purpose of writing, of putting my thoughts into words, and most especially, as a form of therapy. Keeping a journal was one of the suggestions my psychiatrist told me to do, so I can keep up with my thoughts.

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But there's more to blogging than just something you write your thoughts on. It is also a very powerful tool used for online marketing. And you can also monetize your blog,so it can compensate your expenses in running a site if you run your blog in your own domain. Or if you are using a free blogger site, then won't the extra cash be a nice incentive? You earn while doing the thing you love to do.

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How do you monetize your blog? Here, I wrote down the ways on how to monetize your blog in ways that I have tried.


1. Run ads on your blog. If you have good traffic and a very nice following, you can opt to run ads. Start with your friends who owns businesses. You could run some of it as an exchange deal initially, and then start charging at a minimal price. As you work on getting more traffic and followers, you can start asking for a standard price for your space.

2. Join affiliate programs. There are plenty of affiliate programs available on the internet. You do not need to pay for joining affiliate programs. Just think of it this way, if you need to pay for joining affiliate programs, that would be contrary to what you are intending to do, that is, to earn with the least expenses. By running their ads, you earn a commission for every sign-up or purchase done by clicking through the ads in your blog.

Here are some affiliate programs that you may want to try out.

Mommerce - Mommerce is an affiliate program that has plenty of merchants to choose from. Their merchants includes Starbucks, Walmart, Nordstrom, Avon, Pandora, among the more popular once. What's good with this program is that you only need to approved once and you get to choose which program you want to join. Every merchant offer different commission. You just have to choose which program suits your blog.You can sign-up for Mommerce here.  Mommerce also offers referral programs.

http://network.mommerce.com/signup/2699

                   

 Shareasale - Shareasale is another affiliate program. Most of their programs are discounted or sale items. Note however, that you have to apply for each merchant. Each merchant have different criteria for approving your application. An approved application for one merchant does not mean an approval on another. Choose which programs you would like to join.

                     

   Amazon- You can be an associate and earn in two ways, run ads and set up your shop. This by far, is my favorite. Setting up an A-shop, you get to choose which products from Amazon you can sell on your shop. You can either use widgets (which they have plenty to choose from) or set it up in a separate page. There are also widgets for mp3's with sample songs for your readers to listen to. You may need to read how the commissions are calculated. You can set up your Amazon Affiliation here.

                 

  Lazada - Lazada Affiliate Program works the same way as Amazon. The only thing is that you may have to wait for 3-5 business days for your approval. You might also be surprised that even though you applied for Lazada Philippines, the approval comes from Lazada Indonesia.The best part though is when you get approved, you can join in all their campaigns, including those of Lazada Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. So all in all, you get to join in 5 affiliate programs with one application. You just need to activate or join in the program.

                 

 Adsense - Adsense is Google's advertising program. It is different from Adwords though, which is a bit more complicated to use. Adsense is as simple as embedding html codes available for you, into your blog. The system automatically generate the ads that would be shown in your website by getting relevant keywords from your site. The only downside to this is that it may take awhile for the approval, based on my personal experience.

                 

Nuffnang - This is not only an affiliate site, but they also have contests and giveaways sponsored by their merchants. You can also get invites to exclusive events. Also, there are scheduled blogger get-togethers which could also help your network, not just online but also in person. Nuffnang is also features bloggers and you can try your luck to be chosen as Blogger of the Month.

               

3. Sell Products - If you have products to sell, you can do in your blog. Create great content with your product that you can share on your blog.

4. Get Paid for your Posts- This is called Paid Post. You can write product reviews or even press releases. PayPerPost and ReviewMe are popular options.

Sign up for PayPerPost :

 

5. Memberhip Programs - If you are confident about the content of your blog, you can set up a membership program, either free or paid. You can start at free with limited content to share to your members. Build your way up to selling paid membership/subscription. Just make sure though that people will get what they paid for. Great and unique content is the key.

These are just a few of the ways you can monetize your blog. There is nothing wrong with earning a few bucks to cover up for your website maintenance. Who knows your blog just might bring in more cash than you expected.

Keep the faith,