5 Tips to Get Your Blog Earning

I receive many questions regarding making money with a blog. Since any money I have made on the site goes towards keeping it running I decided to hand this question over to a pro, Homemaker Barbi.

The following is a guest post by Danelle Ice, a problogger who is the founder and editor of HomemakerBarbi.com. Homemaker Barbi is an online Home & How-To magazine with printable checklists and other free resources. Their new Mommy Tech Department has great tips for bloggers. If you like this article, please subscribe to Homemaker Barbi for free.

5 Tips to Get Your Blog Earning

Running a blog can be very time consuming.  However, blogging isn’t the only thing that we do; many of us also have spouses, children, day jobs, volunteer commitments and other responsibilities.  Time is valuable, which is why more and more bloggers want to know how they can make money from their blogs.  This question doesn’t surprise me, because I frequently end up at cool blogs with useful content that have no way of making money, which means they earn exactly $0 for the author.  That just doesn’t make sense!

How much money you make from your blog will be directly in proportion to how much time, effort, and hard work you want to put in.  Not everyone will become a problogger and earn enough from their blog to quit their day job, but everyone should be able to make a modest side income using these 5 easy tips on how to get your blog earning for you.

1.  Show advertising from ad networks.
An easy way to start monetizing your blog is to show ads from ad networks.  There are many ad networks to choose from, but the ones that consistently get the highest feedback are Google AdSense and BlogHer Ads.

To new bloggers I recommend AdSense because it’s easy to set up and install on your blog.  How do you make money from showing ads?  Your readers will see ads on your page when they visit.  If they like an ad, they’ll click on it to see more about what’s being advertised.  Clicks on ads = money.  Google tracks your earnings, and once you have made $100, they send you a check or deposit it in to your PayPal account.

2.  Use affiliate links to make money on products you blog about.
Another way to make money from your blog is to place affiliate links in your post that will help a company sell whatever you’re blogging about.  For example: if you write a post about how much you love the DVD, The Secret,  link the title of the movie to the page on Amazon.com that sells it.  Anytime someone clicks your special link and buys a product from it, you earn a small commission on the amount of the sale.  You might make a little money off of something you were going to write about anyway!

My favorite affiliate program is Amazon.com, once again, because it’s very easy to get started with.  It’s free to join and you can link to any product or page on Amazon.  In their dashboard you can see how many people have clicked your links, how many orders have been placed, and how much money you have made on commissions.

3.  Ask for donations with a PayPal donation button.
You may have visited a blog before where you saw a button that said “donate”, “buy me a cup of coffee”, “leave me a tip”, or something similar.  Although the presentation is different, all of these are asking the reader to take the same action: to donate money to the person/website.  If people find your blog helpful, they might be happy to contribute, but if you don’t make a way available for them to donate, they probably won’t seek one out.  Set up a donation button at PayPal.

4.  Advertise products you sell or services you offer.
One neglected way of making money from your blog is that of selling your other products and services.  This may fall under the “isn’t that obvious?” category, but you’d be surprised how many people do not let their readers know the ways they make money!

Let’s assume that your readers trust you, like your content, and relate to the material you’re presenting.  Doesn’t it make sense that those readers would be likely to purchase other things you’ve created?  I’d say so!  Just like we talked about in the donations section, make it obvious and easy for readers to help support you in all of your ventures.

Here are a few examples:
•    If you have an Etsy store, link to it.
•    If you wrote an e-book, tell people about it and give them a link so they can buy it.
•    If you offer professional organizing as a service, share your prices and a way for readers to contact you.

5.  Do product reviews.
This is probably one of the most fun ways to make your blog earn, even though you won’t be making money directly.  Most companies will send you their product and ask you to test it out and give your honest opinion in a blog post.  In most cases, you get to keep the product for yourself!  I love doing product reviews, not only because I get to keep the items for free, but also because I get to try brand – name products that I usually wouldn’t buy because of their prices.

How do you get started doing product reviews?  A few sentences in your sidebar letting companies know that you are open to doing product reviews and an e-mail address where they can contact you is enough to get you started.

What to do next?
Now that you have read about different ways to make money from your blog, think about which of these tips would be a good fit with your site.  You can try one or two methods out to start, or go wild and try them all of once!  Pay attention to which ones are working and which ones aren’t.  You may need to make adjustments along the way, and don’t be afraid to get rid of a money-making method that isn’t working for you.  Keep in mind that making money with your blog is not something that will happen overnight.  Income, like building your blog, is slow and gradual, so keep focused on writing stellar content and the money will build over time.