Making Money on your Blog!

Today I wanted to discuss some various options for ways to make money on your blog.

1. Ad Sense by Google. If you are on blogger there is a widget called ad sense. This is a "we pay you for click through" type thing. They review your blog and must approve you, so no naughty naughty things on there, and then you can have the widget (or multiple) that they will stream relevant ads to these widgets. You can also have more than one. 


2. Other stream widgets. There are other providers that do the same thing. Here is the Top Networks of those providers. 


3. Selling Sponsorships. In this aspect I am referring to actual sponsorships that you write a post that is an advertisement and then list that the ad is sponsored by Company XYZ. Some people don't like these as they want to see what you have to say, not what your trying to sell people. This could result in loss of viewers if you do it too much. 


4. Selling Blog Sponsorships. This one is when other bloggers pay you to be advertised on your site. Such as the way Lucky Pups does their sponsorships on a monthly basis. You can set your own pricing and you post about the sponsors through the month. This can also be people like Etsy stores, Cafe Press or Zazzle designers, or anyone that is willing to pay the fee. However be very careful to judge if you want that type of person advertising on your site. If your viewers click through to view your sponsors and find adult content when they wanted new dog bowls you might get people offended, fired (if they view at work) and loose viewers.  You should always tell people that you reserve the right to refuse advertising.


5. There can also be different types of ads. 
1. Text ads - "Check out my good friends over at Company/Blog ABC" and insert a link to go view them
2. Graphic ads - Use a button with an embedded link to send viewers to the desired location
3. Banner ads - These are graphic ads that are generally larger, and can have more than one link in them sometimes. 


6. Selling your Services. This is something that you can do by sometimes guest posting for a fee or freelance writing for other publications. There are other ways to sell writing services, but as I am not a writer and haven't done this I don't know that I would be any good at suggesting options. 

Now not all of these methods will be highly lucrative, but the more you post, the more followers you get, the more you work your blog, the more likely you are to make more money.

Keep in mind, if you post controversial things or if you are amusingly irreverent it is highly likely that there will be people that do not want to advertise on your blog, or that you will get turned down by an ad service. This is not a personal affront to you, but just means you can try other avenues for funding.

Good luck out there!