Setting a Plan to Make Money Blogging

The idea that most people have is to make money blogging, despite what many of you'll say about just being online to have a bit of find by letting other people know your thoughts and feelings, after all, there's a number of social media sites you can use to do that. So what's your strategy?

In this article we're going to have a look at a few of the crucial things to think about when planning your strategy in order to make money blogging.

What ways can you use to make money blogging?

First off you have to think about what you're going to be writing about as some topics, or niches, lend themselves more to some of the blog monetization methods that are about.

For instance, if you have a blog that has health as a broad topic you're going to have more opportunities to find affiliate products to use in conjunction with it. If you narrow that health niche down to something like 'weight loss for the over 30's' you'll tend to find that you get a tighter match between your blog posts and the AdSense ads being displayed.

If, however, you go to niche you may find that none of the main blog monetization methods are an option, and you have to create your own product in order to make money blogging.

What you want to write about is going to be vital to how you go about trying to make money blogging. Here are a few of the most common blog monetization methods, and a couple you may not know about.

Google AdSense: most people know about this method. While still popular, mostly due to the fact that it's so easy to setup and forget about, this method isn't as effective for most people as it once was.

People seem to have developed an 'ad blindness' when it comes to the usual places that you'd place your Google AdSense ads, so they aren't showing the same sort of returns as they were in the early to mid 'naughty's.

Still, making sure that any fresh content you add is very keyword orientated may make the ads more relevant and clickable, and with them being so easy to install, and see as having fresh content that's keyword orientated is a must, there's really nothing to lose by using it as one of your blog monetization methods.

Using contextual ads: this is a slightly less obtrusive method that may work better for you. The contextual ads look like normal hyperlinks in your blog post, but, they actually show ads as the reader passes the mouse over them.

This is great if it links a relevant ad to something that the reader is looking at, at that moment; the fresher it is in the mind the more likely they are to click through.

Using CPA offers: this method lets you get paid for people passing on a certain amount of personal information in exchange for a free gift or product. The amount you get paid is linked to the amount of information they have to giveaway i.e. you get far less for someone passing on a zip code than you do if they complete a survey.

One thing that can stop this from being the 'make money blogging' strategy of choice for many people is the fact that some of the CPA networks can be difficult to get approved to join.

Monetize your blog by becoming an affiliate and promoting other people's products. There are almost as many minuses about doing affiliate marketing as there are pluses - but only almost.

The biggest pluses about affiliate marketing are that you have a product in place to promote, the affiliate networks are nowhere near as difficult to be accepted into as the CPA networks, there's no fulfilment problems for you to worry about, and you don't have to deal with customers.

The big draw backs if you want to make money blogging and choose affiliate marketing are; the fact that you don't make 100% commission on the sales; the product could disappear at anytime, leaving you to look for another to promote; the fact that you aren't growing a buyers list; and you may have hundreds of other people to compete against to make your commission.

Create and sell your own product: this is possibly the only option if you decide to go for an obscure niche, but it has many benefits.

Unlike affiliate marketing you can be growing a list of buyers so that you can contact them when your next product is available, and you can keep all of the profits. You may decide to put it on one of the affiliate networks and have other people sell it.

What's the downside to creating your own product? You have to either spend the time, or the money, to get it developed. It may not be successful. If you join an affiliate network to sell it you'll be paying out up to 75% in commission per sale, but, just think of it this way, you aren't having to make those sales, and probably never would have sold to those people, so you're actually making a minimum of 25% because of those affiliates.

Make money blogging by getting people to download files. Ok, that sounds like it's going to be a scam of some type but, there are a number of (legitimate) file sharing sites where you'll be paid when people download from them. So, if you have a free product to give away you can put it on one of these sites and make money giving it away.

Using shortened URLs to make money blogging. There a number of companies that let you shorten long URL's, and they are especially good where you have a limited space to send a message e.g. Twitter, and some have come up with an interesting new idea.

Some of the places will show an ad before sending the people off to the site you're redirecting them to in the shortened URL. They don't have to sign up for anything in order for you to get paid, and they can press a button to move quickly past the advert.

One thing you could try is to send people, via the shortened URL, to the place where they're going to download your free gift. They get something for nothing and you get paid in two ways.

And there we have it, just a few ways for you to make money blogging.

Start with a plan of what you're going to be providing fresh content on, and then see what blog monetization methods are open to you. Remember, the wider the niche the more options you have open to you, but the tighter the niche the more targeted the buyers are likely to be.

So there you are there are always options available to make money blogging.

Do you have what it takes to be a sucessful Blogger?