So, you’ve just started your blogging journey and want to capitalize on your interests. And even if your website or blog exists only in dreams or theory yet, remember that it’s never too late to begin earning an income through one. Besides, it’d be a shame to waste the several opportunities that today’s digital landscape provides for monetizing your blog.
The following article will mention some tried-and-tested digital content monetization strategies and online revenue models you can employ for your blog.
But before moving ahead, let’s understand monetization first. In essence, monetization refers to generating revenues from your website. For instance, if your blog’s online content is a source of your monthly income, that’s monetization.
Ready to start making money off you’re awesome content? There are countless ways you can go about it, including:
Through Advertisements
It’s a common misconception that integrating pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements on your site is your surest shot to monetize your blog. In reality, you’ll only be getting paid in peanuts if you fail to drive a considerable amount of traffic, such as ten or twenty thousand visitors a day. Only when you cross the ten thousand visitor benchmark will you start to earn valuable returns and revenues.
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Instead of taking the usual PPC route, consider negotiating direct agreements with advertisers and using display ads. In most cases, you can probably agree on a more rewarding and competitive income relative to the one you generate from PPC ads. The only condition here is that the ads have to stay relevant to your blogging niche and industry.
Through Affiliate Marketing
What is affiliate marketing? In simple terms, it refers to featuring another brand’s product or service link in your website’s content. Imagine a visitor clicks the link on your site and goes to the affiliated website. In the case they go ahead and purchase what you’ve endorsed, you’ll receive a sales cut as your commission. In other words, that’s what link building in SEO revolves around.
Affiliated marketing can be an excellent revenue model for blogs that write product recommendations for their audience. Content involving lifestyle, how-tos, DIYs, and other informational topics is proven to promote affiliate products.
For instance, if you manage a tech and gaming blog. Then, you can sell affiliate tech gadgets, PC components, and trending videogames. You know only gaming and tech enthusiasts will be frequenting your site, and they’re interested in such products. These kinds of sales through affiliate marketing can provide you with a hassle-free and uninterrupted stream of income.
Through Email Marketing
By far, one of the most common models for earning money from your online content is through email marketing. How to get started? By developing your mailing list. Afterward, you’re free to pursue any desired goal, such as generating higher leads or promoting recent blog posts. To set the necessary systems in place for email marketing, you can employ any free email marketing services available.
Focus on creating a sustained, strong bond with your audience. Consequently, you can earn a substantial income using direct email marketing, whether of your product offerings or an affiliate’s products. Even if you get a marginal amount of monthly subscriptions, you can still earn at least $1 per subscriber.
Through Virtual Summits
Don’t be overwhelmed by the term virtual summits. These summits are your ordinary virtual conferences and webinars that many companies use. In recent times, bloggers have been utilizing these summits’ power to generate higher leads and build a reputation. Suppose you’re struggling with developing a sizeable mailing list. In that scenario, you can arrange a free webinar and talk about engaging and relevant topics for your audience. When they sign up using their mail, you kill two birds with one stone.
Are you looking to improve your reader engagement? Virtual summits can also come in handy in that regard. What’s more, these events can also act as platforms for promoting products affiliated with your website or blog.
Through Product Offerings
Many online content creators, including bloggers, may also launch their eCommerce websites and start offering products as an online store to earn money off their blogs. These products can be either digital or physical, depending on the nature of the blog. For example, suppose you run a wedding photography blog. In that case, you can sell your company’s merchandise like pins or caps carrying your logo. Or, you can sell a digital handbook to the best places for destination weddings.
Before you set up your shop, you need to devise a system for making and accepting payments. Additionally, dealing in physical products may necessitate figuring out shipping costs, inventory, import duties, and taxes. On the other hand, since you can deliver digital merchandise electronically, it presents fewer logistical issues.
Through Coaching
You can also monetize your blog by partnering with training services and offering online courses or coaching on your site. As unconventional as it may be, you can earn a considerable income from the fee payments for said coaching and online course packages. Since online courses generally comprise self-guided study materials, ebooks, and video tutorials, your readers can learn quickly and conveniently. And by observing how your audience progresses through specific courses, you can get an idea about their interests in other offered courses.
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Creating and organizing an online curriculum is a time-intensive task, sometimes exhausting several business resources. Therefore, reader engagement is crucial for it to work. Another viable option for boosting online income is offering live video coaching or classes and receiving remuneration for the services.
You can consider offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) or cater to more individual coaching needs. In either case, be sure to develop consistent communication with your students, such as through email.
Through Sponsorship
Sponsorship is a widespread phenomenon in blogging, and it mainly consists of sponsored posts. Typically, outside parties commission these posts/articles to promote their products or services on your site. Suppose you run a compelling blog for mortgage brokers. In this case, a broker can request you to write sponsored content detailing their services along with a review. For the most part, the motive for these posts is promotion. They work to create awareness about other businesses among your audience.
Surprisingly, there’s no set fee for such sponsorship, and you’ll have to negotiate the payment terms with the company you’re promoting. Nevertheless, blogs with high domain authority and more traffic stand a better chance to negotiate favorable terms.
In Short
Now that you’re aware of all the ways to monetize your blog, you can lay some of your financial troubles to rest. Some of these ways include advertisements, affiliate marketing, virtual summits, and sponsorship.
To supplement the strategies mentioned above, you first need to focus on attracting and retaining a loyal customer base. Deliver quality content and market wisely, and in no time, you’ll be among the many bloggers running successful business enterprises.