How Bloggers Make Money

There are numerous ways that a well written blog that attracts a lot of readers (traffic) can make money. The key to attracting readers is generating well written, informative, original posts on a regular basis. So new bloggers really need to concentrate on generating content. But once you have had your blog up and running for a while, you can start to explore various methods of generating revenue.

Although there are numerous methods for generating revenue, these are extremely popular:

Advertising Programs - Almost all web pages have some type of adverting now and blogs are no exception. The most well known contextual ad program is Google Adsense. Since Google owns Blogger as well as Adsense, it is extremely easy to integrate Google Adsense ads into a blog hosted on Blogger. Other popular ad programs are DoubleClickTribal Fusion, Clicksor, Adgenta, Azoogle Ads, Peak Click, AVN and Kanoodle (to name but a few). But you don't want to clutter up your blog with too many ads and risk driving off readers because your blog looks like it exists only to make money. So start out with just Google Adsense and see how it goes.

Affiliate Programs - These are programs which pay you for referring your blog readers to other sites where they purchase goods or services. Usually you are paid a commission on what the customers buy by following the links displayed on your web site to the affiliate's site. One of the largest programs (and easiest to join and manage) is Amazon Associates (from Amazon.com). Other large affiliate programs such as Commission Junction, Linkshare and Clickbank provide you with opportunities to direct customers to a wide variety of merchants. But there are many other smaller affiliate programs which you can use on your site. Affiliate programs are often used in conjunction with specific posts. For instance, if you are running a blog that reviews new digital equipment and you create a post about a new digital camera, you may want to provide a link through the Amazon Associates program to allow your readers to buy the cameras at Amazon.com.

Paid to Blog Programs - People with products and services to sell have discovered that bloggers are more than willing to write posts about their companies in return for compensation. PayPerPost is the grandaddy of all the paid blogging services. Other sites that pay you to blog are PayU2Blog, Blogitive, Blogsvertise, LoudLaunch, V7N, and Smorty. You need to have an established blog site (usually at least 90 days old) with a minimum number of posts to have your blog approved for posting opportunities. After it is approved, you are presented with opportunities and given guidelines for writing posts about products or services. Compensation ranges from $5 for simple 100 to 150 word posts up to hundreds of dollars for posts that include originally produced video. Many of the higher dollar opportunities require you to have a certain Google page rank to participate, but there are many $5 to $20 opportunities for sites without a high page rank.

Please click the button to join PayPerPost as my affiliate.

Donations - Readers appreciate a well written blog and some readers will show their appreciation by making a donation to support your blog. Paypal tip jars or donation buttons make it quick and easy for loyal readers to give you a couple of their hard earned dollars.

Sponsored Ads - In addition to advertising programs such as Google Adsense, many companies are paying bloggers to directly advertise on their sites (usually through buttons or banners). Although this is not something that usually happens to beginning bloggers, it is a goal to aim for when your blog garners a respectable amount of traffic (visitors) and a decent Google page rank.

Although there are many other ways bloggers can make money, these ideas should keep beginning bloggers busy for a while.