Making Money With Your Blogs
In today’s economy, many people are looking for ways to make extra money. There are people who want to make a career change. There are also people who are just looking for some extra spending money. The most extreme example is the person who has lost their job. Blogging can help in all of these situations.
There are different ways that bloggers can make money from blogging. They include advertising, RSS advertising, sponsorship, affiliate programs, digital assets, blogging networks, business blogging, non business blogging, merchandise sales and blog flipping.
Advertising programs have several models. Examples are text link ads and Google adsense. This is a revenue source that comes from advertiser based revenue sharing. There are different methods that are used for compensation. The main three are CPA or cost per action, CPC cost per click or CPM cost per mille. CPA is an online pricing model that where the advertiser pays for each specific action or sale. CPC is a model that websites use when the advertiser pays the host based on the number of times the ad is clicked. This is usually used when advertisers bid on keywords for search engines. CPM is when the publisher makes the ad available on the website. The amount of compensation paid is based on the number of times that a page is viewed that contains the advertising.
RSS Advertising is advertising embedded in RSS feeds. This is an area that is just getting started but seems to be growing. The thing that is attractive is the growth in RSS feeds. People today want information on the go and just in time RSS feeds fills that niche.
Sponsorship of blogs by advertisers is another revenue source. Advertisers pay the content artist in return writing posts reviewing or discussing the advertiser’s service or product. These programs are also known as sponsored conversations. There is another program that has begun to start appearing called “adopt a blog”. This is a program where content artists take over and manage abandoned blogs. The sponsor covers the cost of maintaining the blog while the content artist keeps up with the labor and day to day maintenance.
Affiliate programs are a program where a business provides rewards or compensation for visitors, customers or referrals that are brought to the business by the affiliates’ marketing efforts. The four core players in the industry. The merchant, the network, the publisher and the customer are the main four core players. Examples of the larger affiliate programs are Amazon, Linkshare, and Clickbank.
Digital assets are a popular method of revenue generation. Digital assets are things like the sales of books, courses and tele-seminars. These can be based on any number of topics and media sources. There are also several different methods of distribution that are available. This is a revenue stream that looks like it will continue to increase in the future.
Blog networking opportunities has begun to show a rise in popularity over the past several years. This is where content artists earn an income by blogging or writing for and with other content artists. The payment models are as varied as the topics and the networks. It may be difficult to start writing for one of the larger blogging networks but there are plenty of smaller networks that are looking for writers or content artists. Writing for a network has advantages in the areas of promotion, administration, reduced cost and SEO as well.
Non blogging writing opportunities are becoming more and more available. Magazines, newspapers and non blog websites are looking to use bloggers for their writing needs. This is usually an example of someone with a mature blog that someone has seen and liked their work. Some content artists have also published books.
Businesses are seeing the need for internal staff to manage their blogging needs. This is sometimes also done by outside consultants. These consultants will manage several blogs for different companies.
Flipping properties in real estate is well known. Flipping blogs works on the same principle. Content artists spend the time to take a distressed property, blog, or build a new one from scratch. They will then have to developed and nurtured blogs to a point where they have grown in page rank and value. They have been approached to sell the blog. This also happens when someone has a group of blogs that are tied together in some way and are sold as a package.
Merchandise sales provide income generation. Content artists sell t-shirts, cups, etc to make a few extra dollars. These products can be branded to your site or to promote your favorite team or hobby.
There are other ways that are becoming available every day. The true content artist is going to be aware of these opportunities and integrate as many as possible into their blog as possible.The true content artists should work to stay abreast of these opportunities.
Discussions about making money with blogs is something that Mark Talbot has been involved in for several years. He has operated in internet businesses for over 10 years at different levels.