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You have finally entered the 'blogosphere' and setup your very own blog. You may have heard that there is a possibility that you can generate some sort of revenue stream from that blog, and are wondering how you can earn some money from your blog. This page will try to show you some of the basics about how you can make money from your blog.
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Monetize your Blog!
Blogging is not only a great way to express your opinions, it is also a great way to generate revenue. The revenue can be used to help you defer the costs of your blog hosting services and or server maintenance costs. The following video will give you a quick view of how you too can make $$$ by blogging. Take a look at the information below after you have viewed the video for some additional tips.
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Introduction
Blogs are a great way to express yourselves and to share your knowledge and opinions related to a topic that you are experienced in. Blogs are also a great way to generate a small amount of revenue to help you pay the cost of blogging. Read on for the do's and dont's of blog based revenue streams. -
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Step 1: Content and Initial Instructions
Your blog is up and running and you have it focused around your area of expertise. The design is good and you seem to be getting a decent amount of traffic that you can track via your favorite analytics platform (Google analytics, woopra, etc). Make sure you post to your blog regularly and that your content is focused...otherwise your traffic will drop and you will be left with a dead site.When you feel you are ready to move to the next level and start earning some revenue from the blog, you may wish to consider hosting advertisiing on your blog. There are a few different resources out there that you can use to host ads and generate revenue from your blog. Three popular programs are:
Step 2: Details of All Three Ad Servers
Google
The process to sign up for Google Adsense is quite simple.
- Simply visit http://google.com/adsense and sign up for a free account with your gmail address (you can use other email, but gmail makes it easier).
- Adsense will then look at your blog and decide if you are worthy of their ads...if approved you will be sent an email with directions.
- Once approved create an ad unit (easy to do on adsense) and add the code to your site.
- Google has clear direction as to how many ad's you are allowed to server and what locations they should be placed in.
- You are able to customize ad units as per the design of your site so they look better placed and more friendly to the visitor.
- Once someone visits your site and clicks through an ad, you will earn revenue.
- Adsense can also be integrated into your feedburner (http://feedburner.google.com) rss feeds, so that you can serve ads to all of your feed subscribers. Feedburner is free and easily integrates to adsense.
Amazon.com
Amazon has a free affiliates program which allows you to assist them in selling products and getting a percentage for each sale.
- Sign up for your free account, customize a widget and add the code to your site.
- Once visitors come to your site they can click on an item you recommend or search for an item and buy it through your affiliate link.
- You get credit for the sale and Amazon pays you via gift cards, direct deposit to your checking acct, and or a check. (Quick Note: charges you $15 to process a check and the minimum payment amount is $100. Direct Deposit is free and the minimum amount is $10. Gift cards are free and there is a $10 minimum.)
Microsoft pubCenter
Microsoft has now also gotten into the game of serving ad's but their program is in limited beta. You can visit the site and sign up for an invitation and start serving ads once approved. The details are similar to those of Adsense, however, Microsoft does not yet provide the ability to integrate ad's in to your RSS feeds.
Step 3: The DO NOT's of Advertising
Advertisers spend a lot of money creating and eventually serving ads on millions of websites. It costs them heavily! You should never click on ads on your own site or those of your friends...even if you find them interesting. This is called 'invalid click activity' and all advertisers will ban/reject you and or your friends from their systems.- Never ever ask your readers to click on ad's so as to help you gain revenue sharing from the ad. This is a big no no....your readers should only click an ad if they like it, not because you have asked them to help you.
- Never place more ad's on your site then the terms and conditions of the advertiser allow for. This is another reason for immediate ban/rejection.
- Never use your publisher ID's for friends websites. You were approved for your site and you are not allowed to share on sites that you do not directly own/control.
- Never offer anyone anything and never solicit anyone for the purpose of increasing your revenue via ad clicks.
- Always report something suspicious to your advertiser so that they do not hold you accountable for the mis-haps of the internet.
Payments
Ad serving sites all have minimums before they begin to send you payments. The reason for this is that their are processing charges involved and thus they usually like to wait until you accumulate a certain amount of revenue. Different amounts are required by different sites therefore you must read the terms and conditions when you sign up.The payment methods are usually by check and or direct deposit into your checking / savings account. Sites will usually make a small deposit (pennies) into your account and then ask you to verify the amounts deposited. Most, if not all, will also mail you a post card with a pin number on it as a form of double verification.
Conclusion
While hosting ads on your blog will not make you rich overnight it may help you defray the costs associated with your blog. Remember, the ad's are only as good as your content...so focus on your blog and make the content rich and usable. Good content will drive traffic and ads will be targeted to that traffic.About this page
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