Strategies for Making Money on the Web
At this point, even I am getting sick of the bland titles for my articles, titles like how to make money online blogging are boring right? Just to break down my methods a little, I’ll admit to spending time doing keyword research for each post that I write and ultimately I am writing for the search engines and not my subscribers although I’m thrilled to have people following my work…
Recently I have been trying to focus more on link bait and providing real value for the visitors that come to this site looking for information to answer their questions, solve their problems or satisfy their interests…
It’s true that I spend quite a bit of time focusing on anchor text backlinks and search engine optimization when in reality I should be expanding on other ways to make money online, ways that people who don’t own blogs or websites can use to increase their quality of life.
Happily, this post after reading the title again myself is not for your average make money online enthusiasts but rather for my subscribers and visitors that came looking for information and ways to make money online blogging!
The following are the first five ways that come to mind when trying to earn fast cash blogging:
Advertising
Some of my favorite ways and companies that I like to use for advertising include Google Adsense, Kontera ContextLink, ROI Rocket and a handful of others I don’t need to go into at this point…
Something that will change in the coming months is the removal of Google Adsense and the focus of attention on private advertisers that want to access the traffic the site obtains through search engines for their related keywords and activities.
Affiliate Links
Selling affiliate products can be an extremely profitable way to earn cash from blogging. If you notice the sidebar on the top right has tons of 125×125 advertisements, they are there for a reason, I wouldn’t run them if they didn’t make me money!
One of the most effective ways to make money from affiliate links is to incorporate them into product reviews. If you’re readership trusts your opinion and you don’t try to sell them things they don’t need then this can be a great source of revenue and I think you will find that people don’t mind purchasing products through you even though they know you will be getting a small commission.
Consulting
A great way to make a few bucks by blogging is offering consulting services. Your articles will be the bait and will convince your prospects that you are an authority figure on your chosen topic, offer them the ability to access your time and resources in exchange for a fair hourly or contract project rate. This has been a huge source of revenue for me in the past and will continue to be a significant but smaller portion of my revenue in the future.
Paid Reviews
This isn’t something I have done on this website for the simple fact that I am trying to make sure it retains its credibility and high page rank. This method is a little dangerous because of the fact that Google is always watching.
If they find out that you received money for a paid review and you incorporated a do-follow backlink to the advertiser, they will not be happy and the resulting drop in page rank may make the money you received for the review seem like a joke in comparison to the lack of revenue you will experience.
Ghost Writing
If the money is good enough sometimes I’m willing to crank out a few articles for friends if they are in a bind. It’s hard to keep a blog running all the time and keeping the content fresh can be extremely challenging. Bloggers that are making tons of money often depend on their subscribers to keep them living in the manner they are accustomed to and if they need to get away for a while they often call on their blogging friends to give them a boost.
I don’t like this method very much because I prefer to retain the rights to my work so I will usually charge a very large premium for this service beyond my normal charge for consulting. This can be an extremely good source of revenue if you have the ability to follow another writer’s style and produce work that is indistinguishable from their own.
I enjoy taking problems and finding solutions and often times the solutions you may find may be unique enough to market and sell. It is my personal preference to use those solutions to help people and generate revenue from the resulting traffic. There are always going to be people that copy your ideas and generate similar content but as long as they don’t rip you off completely, it’s hard to get mad about it… Personally that will just motivate me to create new material so I can point my finger and laugh trying to watch people try to catch up!
{ 4 comments }
this is a good information! and i agree with you about paid reviews as i am one of them who got a dropped of page rank when i join payperpost especially that time my blog is still free hosted by blogger which is a product of google.. so my hard-earned page rank really dropped which is a total discouragement and regret! lol..
anyway, as for the affiliate links you have mentioned here, any good sites you can suggest for that? i have tried linkworth but find it real confusing to set what’s needed to be set! lol..
Hey Liz,
I’ve tried quite a few affiliate programs and I think it really depends on what you like and would be willing to use.. The most common companies that people usually sign up with include paydotcom and clickbank but many companies have their own managed affiliate programs as well so it really depends… Good luck in your future efforts!
-locke
thanks! i just signed up in paydotcom but waiting for their review.. and i also want to join clickbank but unfortunately they’re not allowing members from Philippines so i can’t join..
anyway, thanks! =)
Thanks for the great info Locke, especially the idea of consulting, which is something I will investigate more. I have also dropped adsense from a couple of my blogs and have started using cpa offers which has more than doubled my income from these 2 blogs. I am also currently testing the new keyword targeted clickbank ads on a niche blog with results so far looking quite promising.
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