How Do You Make Money On Your Blog?

How To Make Money On Your Blog?

Time for a quick reader survey.How Do You Make Money On Your Blog?These have been from companies like BlogAds (AlternateURL
, Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser, Adsense, Chitika Ads ) PayPerPost ( Targeted Blog Advertising With PerformancingAds and Federated Media.

It strikes me that these three models are quite varied - but that they only scratch the surface in the different methods that bloggers are using to make money from their blogs.

So here is my question: How do you monetize your blog?

What ad networks, affiliate programs, review programs etc, do you use?

If you've read any press in the last year, you've probably come to the same conclusion we have: blogs are here to stay. In fact, the number of Internet users already reading blogs and blogging themselves may shock you.

•  One-quarter of all Internet users read blogs - roughly 32 million American adults.
•  9% of all Internet users say they've created a blog.
•  American young adults, classified as ages 18-29, are most actively involved with blogging. 19% have created blogs and 36% read them.
•  18% of Internet users over 50 years of age read blogs.
•  Men and women are represented nearly equally in the blog-reading population.

So the audience is definitely there, but what are they reading? Everything under the sun, from plastic surgery to biking across New Zeeland. Closer to home, blogs track performance marketing strategies and the opinions of a host of online marketing professionals. The point here is that you've got a lot of people reading a great deal of highly-targeted content.

So now it makes sense to ask: can publishers effectively monetize one of the Web's last vestiges of traditionally marketing-free content to reach these tantalizing audiences? Should they? The debate is raging all over the Internet and can be best followed on, well, blogs. Some might call it greedy or sacrilege, but we think blog advertising is a line worth crossing assuming that we, as publishers, can find ways to include contextually relevant affiliate ads that provide value to blog readers. After all, hosting and ISPs don't pay for themselves!

• 1. The first are bloggers who are writing for their friends and family. Given that they already have a trusted relationship, credibility around product recommendations is a non-issue. In a sense, friends and family can reward publishers for learning about new, often niche, products they wouldn't have learned about otherwise.
• 2. The second [group] are people who don't necessarily call themselves bloggers or view themselves as journalists. They are just using the simple tools of blogging to publisher Web sites without having to learn HTML, so they don't have credibility issues around monetizing their blogs either.

So let's assume you fall into the categories above or that you're on board with blogging. Now it's Advertising 101, folks: know your audience and target your ads accordingly.
In other words, one can't simply throw up an apparel advertiser's banner in the middle of a blog about the experiences of a Commission Junction publisher and expect to generate commissions. However, placing a text link for a hosting offer in the space where you describe your costs as a publisher or a placing a $50 off at Yahoo! Search Marketing and when blogging about SEM are both contextually relevant and valuable to readers.

If you're already blogging, chances are there are plenty of Commission Junction advertising programs that match your content and audience. Take the lead of companies like blog search engine Blogdigger, who announced its version of a geo-targeted blog search feature recently, and implement your unique, lucrative take on blogs today!

Affiliate marketing is an online advertising channel in which advertisers (online merchants that sell products or services) pay publishers (independent parties that promote the products or services of an advertiser on their Web site) only for results, such as a visitor making a purchase or filling out a form, rather than paying simply to reach a particular audience. This "pay-for-performance" model is, in essence, the modern version of the "finders'-fee" model, where individuals who introduce new clients to a business are compensated. The difference in the case of affiliate marketing is that advertisers only pay their publishers when the new client introduction results in a sale or a lead, making it a low-risk, high-reward environment for both parties.

How it Works
Advertisers in our network, the CJ Marketplace, populate their ad links in the interface, making them available for placement by publishers. Each link is assigned a commission, such as a fixed amount per lead or a percentage of a resulting sale on the advertiser's Web site. Publishers looking to monetize their traffic apply to join an advertiser's program. Upon acceptance, the publishers select and place the advertiser's links on their Web sites, in their email campaigns or as part of search listings.

When a consumer clicks on a publisher's link, a cookie is set on the visitor's browser that identifies the advertiser, the publisher, and the specific link and payment rates. When the visitor makes an actual purchase online or fills out a form, that transaction is tracked and recorded by Commission Junction. Upon recording the transaction, Commission Junction handles all of the collection and processing required to ensure fair and timely commission payment for the publisher, and all of the administration and verification necessary to ensure quality sales and leads for the advertiser.