04-Apr-2007
Make Money With Free Blogs - Part 3
| Part 1 We talked mainly about Blog Content and retaining visitors with a few extras thrown in. Part 2 The primary subject was about getting visitors to your blog. So far, therefore, we have the formula: Post content of value > Attract visitors > Keep visitors on your blog > Make them want to return Now it’s time to actually Make Money and Monetise your Blog. So where do you start? The most popular ways are: 1. Affiliate Programs 2. Shops 3. Advertisements 4. Sponsored Posts 5. Tips 6. Own products Lets look at these in a little more detail: 1. Affiliate Programs. There are a host of affiliate programs whereby a blogger can earn money by promoting all sorts of products and services. Payment for doing this is usually as (a) a percentage of the sale, (b) a flat fee or (c) per click. Affiliate schemes vary in the ways by which you can make money. It all sounds very easy. You simply put their ads or information on your blog, maybe mention them on forums and do whatever else you can think of to get some clicks and/or sales. There are hundreds and hundreds of websites wanting affiliates. The problem can sometimes be as to where to actually start looking. One solution is to join the likes of Commission Junction, TradeDoubler or ClickBank who are each associated with hundreds of affiliate programs. You pick out the programs that interest you and any commissions you make will be paid via CJ, TradeDoubler or ClickBank. This cuts out dealing with lots of different individual affiliate schemes. Affiliate programs are successful because your visitors are already interested in the subject matter (otherwise he or she would not be browsing your blog) and so will be drawn to the products shown. This is, of course, providing that you match the affiliate programs you join with the subject matter of your blog. For lists of individual affiliate programs, in categories, try: AffiliateGuide or Affiliate Scout or do a Search.  As you will have seen from my Money Making Weekly Reports I have made money with the likes of the FriendFinderGroup and with Personal Ads. I also did well with Commission Junction initially.There is one aspect of affiliate marketing that many bloggers overlook. This is that you can sometimes also refer others to the program and, in doing so, make money on the sales that these introductions achieve. The commission isn't huge, normally 5% or 10%, but it all adds up, especially if you can refer several people. Other reading: Money Making Test: Friend Finder Group Money Making With Personal Ads 2. Shops. Do you fancy having you own shop or store on the Internet and all for free? All you need to do is to get visitors to your shop - perhaps by promoting this on your blog. It is all easier said than done - getting the traffic, that is - but it can be achieved. Setting up a shop is quite straightforward and is really simply an extension of being an affiliate. The companies concerned, who offer the service, do virtually everything for you. There is no need to have any knowledge of HTML as the website layouts, for your shop, are all ready set up. You normally have a choice of goods with which to stock your shop. Again this is all for free and costs nothing to set up. A few companies who offer to set you up with a free shop or store include: Amazon: with their aStore. Zlio: big range of products. SexToySex: adult products (over 18’s only). cafepress: t-shirts, posters, mugs, bumper stickers eCrater: all sorts of products. DIY Dating: worldwide dating The above are purely examples. There are dozens of other places that will set you up with a free shop - seek and you will find! One point I would add is that you will find some websites who may request payment for setting up a shop. Personally I wouldn't go down this route unless (a) you have good recommendations that this is a genuine offer and (b) you are sure you can produce sufficient traffic to make it viable. Before parting with any money get experience with the freebie shops. 3. Advertisements Unless you have been blogging blindfolded you will have seen adverts in various formats on blogs. The most seen are probably Google AdSense whereby bloggers are paid varying amounts per click. The only slight drawback, for the smaller blogger, is that it is necessary to accumulate $100 of earnings before you actually receive payment. I suggest that prior to adding AdSense on your blog you read the Terms & Conditions and also their Progam Policies. Don’t ignore these otherwise any earnings accrued might be in jeopardy. You must not, for instance, use Hit Exchanges such as Blog Explosion, Blog Mad etc. to drive traffic to your blog.  Obey the rules and also read up on Optimization Tips to get the best return out of your ads. The diagram shows, what AdSense considers to be, the best placement for your ads - the darker the colour the better the position - in theory anyway. There’s loads of info on their website to help you make AdSense a success.There are also numerous other places that will set you up with ads on your blog. Other sites that will help you make money from adspace include: AdBrite Oxado Bidvertiser Clicksor ExoClick Note: If you are thinking of using other advertising alongside AdSense, on your blog, make sure that this is compatible with their rules. For example AdSense write: 'We do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site.' 4. Sponsored Posts Once your blog is established you can make money by writing sponsored posts. For doing this you get paid a fee for writing the post, on a set topic, and publishing this on your blog. The post must normally remain on your blog for at least 30 days - though terms vary. Websites offering money for writing sponsored posts include: PayPerPost (which I have used) Blogitive Review Me LoudLaunch I have found PayPerPost to be easy to use and they have always paid me on time to date. Other reading: Build Traffic By Other Bloggers Reviewing Your Posts! 5. Donations & Tips Yes, it is possible that, if you provide some interesting information, visitors to your blog may leave you a donation or tip. There is one famous example of this - Jason Kottke. The story goes that in the early part of 2005 he decided to quit his employment to take up being a professional blogger for one year. His blog doesn't offer any form of service or product, and there is no advertising on the blog. His income, I'm told, is purely from donations. In February of 2006 Jason revealed that roughly 1450 micropatrons had donated over US$39,900 over the course of his one year experiment. This is an exceptional example. Jason was already a well established blogger prior to requesting donations. However even a few tips might just come in handy. You don’t get if you don’t ask. PayPal offer proper donation buttons and make it easy for visitors to donate or leave a tip. I always run a couple of these buttons on my own blog. 6. Your Own Products Now this is something I haven’t done myself as yet. I feel you need to be reasonably established and with good traffic before venturing down this path. It is, however, the method used by many big hitters. Products such as eZines and information are probably the easiest route. Whatever you sell, providing your products match your visitors profile, you could be on to a winner. With cafepress you can have your own range of t-shirts, posters, mugs and bumper stickers and they do all of the work. Own products could be the future for bloggers. That is Part 3 completed. So we have now added to our formula: Post content of value > Attract visitors > Keep visitors on your blog > Make them want to return> Monetise your blog ... The circle is complete but it never ends because, once you Monetise your blog, you are back to > Posting content of value ... and so on. Good luck, Mike. Go to: Make Money With Free Blogs Part 1 Make Money With Free Blogs Part 2  Subscribe to Mike's Money Making Mission Subscribe to Mike's Money Making Mission by Email  Labels: AdSense, Affiliates, Amazon, Commission Junction, DIY Dating, eZine Articles, Free Blogs, Jason Kottke, Mikes, Money, money making, PayPerPost, Review Me, traffic, Zlio |
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Great Article Mike, very informative. Don't forget people can also visit my up and coming site for info about affiliate programs (affiliatescamguide.com).
I'm still interested in a link exchange?
Keep up the good work,
Matt
Useful collection of resources Mike. I don't think I've come across Loud Launch before, so I'd be obliged if you could shed some more light on it. What sort of offers, length of post and typical payments? If you don't want to publish on here please tip me off by email. Cheers.
Mike! Just thought I should tell you that you rank no1 in the Google blogserach for the keyword 'affiliate programs'!
Congratulations!
Mattjones@affiliatescamguide.com
Mike,
Thanks for the information. Yes, it is true it does take time to create a worth while blog. I have started some of these programs you mentioned and I had no idea there were so many to chose from. Maybe you can create a blog entry on which ones have been the easiest to make money with or at least with your experience which program is user friendly?
Mike,
I am also interested in exchanging links.
Vause
www.usactivedutymilitary.blogspot.com
hey.. tnx for dropping by my blog... wow.. your blog contains useful tips that could help blog newbies like me learn things in the blogging world.. tnx!
Hey this is good info :) Triple thumbs up!
Thanks all for your comments. I'll get round to visiting your blogs. I really do appreciate your time in leaving a few words.
Mike.
Hi Mike,
I have been reading your posts and thought you may be interested in the startup I am with called Bravisa.
Bravisa - http://www.bravisa.com - is a new online tool for people to earn money by selling a wide range of products without having to buy, stock, ship, or service those products. Simply pick or design products you like, markup from wholesale prices to set your selling prices, and link the products to your blog.
Bravisa takes care of order fulfillment, payment processing, and customer service. You earn money from every sale without spending anything.
Please try Bravisa and let me know if you find this to be useful.
Thanks!
-Balaji.
Hi Mike,
Excellent article, there's a few tips in there that the 'Gurus' would create an ebook around and flog for a few quid on ebay!
One thing missing I thought was approaching sites that you like, or perhaps the lesser known sites and seeing if they'll cut an affiliate deal with you in return for promoting their product.
A few searches prefixed with 'affiliate' and your chosen niche in the various search engines can sometimes unearth a little gem or two.
There's one great UK affiliate program - How 2 Become, that I've added to the fold using this method.
On average it makes me around £300 per month in commission cheques. I'd never known about it without performing a few searches as it's not listed on the major affiliate farm networks, so it does pay to do a little research.
Anyway, great post and I've bookmarked your blog for future reference.
well,thinks for you info
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