Make Money With A Blog The RIGHT Way!
In the beginning…
Blogging really came to prominence in the early 1990s, primarily as a way for people to share their thoughts in a public manner, in a diary format, with the rest of the web . As is the case today, the lion’s share of these “weblogs” were read only by the individual’s family and friends. However, some of these blogs slowly started to be appreciated by a broader following. As with anything on the Internet, some of these bloggers began to wonder if there could be a way to get paid for their blogging efforts.
Then, upon the scene came Google AdSense. I’m assuming that you’ve heard of Adsense, but if not, it’s a Google product that lets you opt in to have small advertisements placed wherever you choose on your website or blog. Soon after, anyone who wanted to start getting paid to blog was throwing Adsense ads all over their pages.
Some bloggers actually made a bit of cash from this. However, there are some big concerns that I have with using Adsense on a blog.
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People are much more wary of advertisements, though, in today’s highly connected and media saturated world. Click through rates are VERY low, and you need to generate massive amounts of traffic to succeed.
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You have no say over what ads are shown to your subscribers. Do you really want to take a chance on having inappropriate advertisements shown on your portfolio website?
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Ads make a blog look sketchy. They lead your readers to wonder if some spam-bot in Russia is behind your blog.
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Every time a reader does click on an ad, they are being directed away from your blog. Is sending people away really a good strategy?
There are much better ways to make money with a website.
There is the method that seems to be very popular at the moment, which involves creating high quality information products such as e-books, webinars, and web courses. It seems like everyone in the blogosphere is doing it at the moment, and newcomers are seen a little bit as “me-tooers”. It requires a large time commitment, and there is quite a learning curve, but the results can be quite high.
Another method of making money with a blog is to put together a subscription site. This is amazing in that people are actually paying YOU to come to your blog every month. Again, though, there is a large investment of time required, and your readers are going to expect an extremely high value level from you.
In addition, there are times where you can make money with a blog for someone else. In these types of setups, you are usually a so-called company blogger, writing on behalf of a ncorporation on the topics that you are assigned.
All of these have their good points and their drawbacks. However, they are all infinitely more effective than plastering ads all over your precious blog. If you are serious about learning how to make money with a blog, I urge you to look further into each of these possibilities.
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