How to Make Money Using Blogging

I think this is the reason many people blog: to make money. I have to admit that this is not the only reason for starting a blog but if this is the case with you here is what I think of it and what I consider to be some of the most important things you need or have to do in order to succeed. I don't think it makes any difference if it is a business blog or a personal blog turned into a business - the same rules apply. The differences consist in the way you blog - the way you write your articles - but as far as the monetization goes I think we can find a core of rules that can be applied to both.

Here are some ways you can monetize your blog:

1. Display ads for niche related companies (you can be paid per month or per clicks or per number of impressions)

2. Run AdSense from Google (you receive a dollar amount when someone clicks the ad displayed on your blog - what the ads display is related to your content)

3. Affiliate links (there are many affiliate programs out there and each one offer different commissions; find one that is related to your niche, check if you like the commission and register; you'll get pay if someone will follow a link on your blog and actually buy a product; you can find affiliate programs everywhere: almost any big e-commerce website offers such a program )

4. Sell a product (here I'm talking about something you produced. Your product can be from an e-book to video tutorials, or both. It doesn't matter what your niche is there are always people willing to pay to learn some secretes about that niche or just some tips, advices, case studies, tutorials and so on )

5. Sell services (this is another great way to monetize your blog. The problem is trust and type. Here is what I mean by that. People will not just take your word that you're good at something. And here you have two choices: either you build that trust in time by writing good articles or you create an e-book or some videos that you give away for free so that people see what you can do. The other problem is related to the fact that many services are 1on1 type. This means that you have to customize or adapt your service to each client - this means more work. So, unless you can automate this, you need to establish a fair price. The more customize a service becomes the higher the price)

What do you need in order to benefit from all the above monetization methods of your blog:

1. A well build blog - by that I'm not talking about quality content - we passed that - we already have great quality content. I'm talking about a search engine friendly blog that displays correct titles and description metatags for each article and have proper URLs.

2. Traffic - lots of traffic. Especially organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines). With no traffic you can't make money. This is a crucial component of a strong foundation - it's a big one. This is why you'll need a good list of keywords to target and some guidelines of how to use them in your articles.

3. A clear graphic theme - use a theme that is simple and with actual design. It's important to have a blog that looks like 2009 not like the 90s. If you have to, spend some money on a premium theme.

4. Create multiple traffic streams - as I said, organic traffic is the best. But you can get traffic to your website from all kind of other sources:
a. AdWords from Google
b. Video marketing on YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler - use TubeMogul to upload on all video sharing websites at once
c. Use Twitter to build trust, relations and brand awareness
d. Use FaceBook pages
e. Use social bookmarking on websites that promote your niche (you can see this by searching these websites for high bookmarks)

5. Build Authority - this leads to trust and to branding. If people start searching for your brand name to get to your website you are on the right track

6. A well thought domain - here I'm talking about the domain name and type. A .com domain can "speak" to the world but a country based domain will only address the people from that country

My advice is to use multiple monetization methods. This way you are protected if one method fails or has a poor month. Also build multiple traffic streams. You never know when a search engine decides to change something and you're no longer on first page.

Let me know what your opinion is. Maybe you have suggestions on different ways to monetize or other important factors you need.