There are many techniques that you can use to make more money from your blog. If your only means of monetizing your blog is CPM advertising — such as Google AdSense — chances are you’re selling yourself short. A select few blogs, typically high-traffic blogs in particular niches, can earn a comfortable living from CPM advertising, most cannot. There’s a reason why it has earned the moniker “webmaster welfare.” It might pay the hosting bills, but chances are it doesn’t go much further than that. If you want to boost your blog’s income, you’ll need to try something different.
How to Make More Money Techniques
There are a few ways to go about earning more money from your blog. Each comes with its own sets of ups and downs. Additionally, not all options make sense for all blogs. Depending on what type of blog you run, you’ll get by best with a different combination of monetization techniques.
Direct Sales
Works best for: Any kind of blog can create a product and sell it on-site. Information products, such as ebooks, work the best, since they require the least amount of overhead. Selling physical products is possible, too, thanks to expanding means of manufacturing and shipping.
Why it works: It’s the most profitable method of website monetization. A single sale can reward the seller with profits that equal days upon days of CPM advertising rates. Even better, direct sales can be combined with CPM advertising to bring in even more money.
Why it doesn’t: Plenty of effort goes into researching and creating a product, whether information or physical. Selling a product also takes focused time and effort — your product isn’t going to sell itself, in other words. It requires great investment and a fair amount of risk, which simply won’t appeal to some people.
Best implementation: Creating a well-organize and thoroughly researched ebook is the best way for a blogger to enter the marketplace. While there are thousands of ebooks already on the market, a quality product, properly marketed, will still sell well. While other products might sell for more money, they typically involve more on the back end. That is, they might not generate the same level of profits, since they include additional costs such as manufacturing and shipping. A well-crafted ebook, though, can provide a greater level of income than CPM advertising alone.
Affiliate Sales
Works best for: New blogs that lack focus can seamlessly implement affiliate sales (though they might have trouble finding lucrative programs). Blogs that exist to provide information can also implement affiliate sales.
Why it works: If your blog already provides reviews and other information about certain products and services, adding a link so that readers can buy them is a simple process. Affiliate sales also have far more potential than CPM advertising. In order to make a dollar through CPM, a blog needs at least a thousand page views — and in instances of lower traffic blogs, it can require many more than that. With a decent conversion rate, affiliate sales stand to earn a blogger more per visitor on average.
Why it doesn’t: Not all blogs are equipped to handle affiliate sales. One of my blogs exists for entertainment purposes, and it’s no surprise that we don’t convert well on affiliate links. That’s because affiliate sales still require a degree of salesmanship. It’s tough to sell and entertain at the same time. Any blogs with an aim to entertain likely won’t do well by placing affiliate links throughout their site.
Best implementation: Affiliate sales can be highly complex, but the payoff can be astronomical. It’s best, then, to study what others in similar niches are doing. Web research can provide some information on this, but any serious affiliate needs to find some cheap tickets and fly out to one of the many annual conventions such as Affiliate Summit or PubCon. That requires some more overhead, but these conferences wouldn’t exist if people didn’t find a good return on investment from them.
Ad Sponsorships
Works best for: Entertainment blogs will do well to find an exclusive sponsor. Essentially, any blog not equipped for affiliate sales will likely do well to search out a corporate advertising sponsor.
Why it works: Look at your average blog. It’s probably littered with ads. Maybe it refreshes constantly, in order to pump up the page views. It’s no wonder that many advertisers find these blogs unattractive places to advertise their services. By seeking out one sponsor for your blog, you’re offering them exclusive placement. Combined with a clean blog layout, it can be a much more agreeable place for them to spend their advertising dollars.
Why it doesn’t: Many companies are still reluctant to advertise on the web. If your blog doesn’t meet a certain traffic threshold, it might be impossible to find a company to pay a reasonable rate for exclusive sponsorship. Also, sponsorships typically require the site place a logo in its banner. Site owners might not be keen on this arrangement.
Best implementation: Hunt around for blogs that have similar traffic levels to yours. Note what types of companies advertise on them (and, of course, which ones advertise on your blogs). Then it’s time to hit the phone lines. Research these companies a little and find out where you can call for advertising inquiries. It will take a little convincing, but it should be clear that a clean sponsorship on a single niche blog can work better than willy nilly ad spots on multiple websites of varying natures.
If you’re not happy with the payouts you’re getting from Google AdSense and other CPM advertising programs, it’s time to change the game. There are many ways you can earn money with your blog that don’t require you to go on webmaster welfare. Some of these programs can even combine with CPM advertising, so you might be able to pay your bills with one and reap the full benefits of the others. Whichever method you choose, make sure to do something. If you’re only using CPM advertising, you are leaving money on the table.