Make Money Blogging

Do you want to make money blogging? If you do – you’re not alone. More and more bloggers are finding that blogging is a profitable medium. Whether it be to earn a few extra dollars a week to feed their coffee habit, or making enough money to stop them having to get a part time job to get through college, or whether they’ve got it to a point where they are able to make a full time living from their blogging – there are tens of thousands of bloggers making money from blogging.
In this page I want to share some information for beginners on making money from their blogs.
I will start by sharing my own top Money Making Methods (updated regularly) but below that point you to some great resources and teaching on how to increase your income from blogging.
What follows is a quick summary of my main income streams from blogging. Before you read it though – keep in mind that every blog is unique in how it can make money. Some of the following income streams will work on some blogs a lot better than others – the key is to experiment with as many as possible and see what works best for you.
The following income streams (from a number of blogs) have helped me to earn a six figure income each year for the last three years from blogging. I’ve ranked them from highest to lowest.
I hope you find it useful to see the mix and variety of ways that I earn a living from blogging.

1. AdSense

Despite not using it here at ProBlogger any more (here’s why) I continue to use AdSense with amazing effect on my other blogs. I have them all set to show image and text based ads and find that 250×300 pixel ads work best (usually with a blended design). I don’t have much luck with their ‘referrals’ program but their normal ads work a treat and continue to be the biggest earner for me.

2. Chitika

Chitka continues to be a great performer for me on my blogs. They work best on product related blogs although their recent announcement of their Premium ad unit is exciting as they now offer ads with a non product focus that I’m hearing great conversions on (I have one reader who is getting $28 CPM on this ad unit).Chitika offers a range of ad units that I experiment with. I find their eMiniMalls work best and that Related Product Units are also good. Their Shoplincs product isn’t performing as well as it once did for me – mainly because I’ve been promoting it less and have driven less traffic to it. Over the time I’ve been using Chitika they’ve now earned me over a quarter of a million dollars – I can’t recommend them enough!

3. Private Ad Sales/Sponsorships

4. Amazon Associates

Amazon’s affiliate program has been one of my big movers in the last 12 months. I used to make a few odd dollars from it – however in recent times it has become a significant earner for me (as I’ve shared previously). This quarter it grew even more than previously as a result of continued growth of DPS where I recommend books, software and cameras.

5. Miscellaneous Affiliate Programs

I run a variety of affiliate programs on my blogs – most of which bring in smaller amounts of money that don’t really justify a category of their own. These include – - Digital Photography Secrets (a camera technique series), Pro Photo Secrets (a great photoshop product) , Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program (about to open the doors again), SEO Book (Aaron’s legendary resource) and the excellent Teaching Sells course (which just continues to grow in what it offers to it’s members in terms of content).
The great thing about many of these programs is that they are of such high quality that they sell themselves and I am being emailed from readers who sign up to them thanking me for the recommendation!

6. Shopzilla

Shopzilla has really impressed me with how it’s performed over the last few weeks. It’s actually doing well enough to debut in this list at #6. The ads are similar to Chitika but the click values have been higher for me to this point. They don’t offer quite as many options as Chitika does in terms of types of ads but for a new ad network there’s definitely promising signs. I’m looking forward to seeing how they continue to develop!

7. ProBlogger Job Boards

The job boards here at ProBlogger continue to grow each month in the number of advertisements that are being bought. This enabled me to invest most of the money that they’d earned a while back into getting a new back end for the boards and to redesign them. It hit me today that the boards are now bringing in around $1000 a month in revenue which is pretty nice considering that they are so low maintenance to run. They also offer a service to readers and add value to the overall blog.
The only problem that I face with the job boards is that there are so many bloggers looking for work that the demand for jobs far exceeds the supply. On the good side of things is that advertisers are reporting getting amazing quality of applications.

8. WidgetBucks

Another newcomer to this list is WidgetBucks – another ad network that ProBlogger readers will be familiar with.
WidgetBucks is similar to Chitika and Shopzilla in many respects and works well on product related sites. It does best on sites with US traffic (the reason I’ve not used it as much as I get a lot of international traffic) so if you have a product related site with a US audience it’d be a no brainer to try out WidgetBucks. I’m hoping they’ll continue to expand their offerings in terms of ad types and visitor location.
Disclaimer – WidgetBucks are an advertiser on ProBlogger

9. Miscellaneous Advertising Programs

I also play with a number of other ad networks. Some I run as tests to see if I should review them here – and some are just advertising that run in the background on some of my smaller blogs. These include ShoppingAds, Feedburner RSS ads, Vizu (a poll advertising system), Kontera and Bidvertiser. Together these don’t add up to major earnings for me – not because they are not good, but because I don’t use them heavily (a blog can only run so many ads on it).
I think that that covers most of it although it’s worth mentioning that last time I did this list I also included TextLinkAds which used to be every bloggers favorite way to make money blogging by selling text links. I’ve stopped using them due to Google cracking down on them but it’s worth noting that many bloggers still use them successfully – I advise to proceed with caution. Disclaimer – TLA are an advertiser on ProBlogger

Useful Resources for Bloggers Wanting to Make Money Blogging

A lot has been written on the topic of making money online from blogs. There is a lot of wonderful information out there – but also a lot of hype and sometimes dangerous information.
Below are a number of articles that I’ve written exploring some of the different ways that bloggers make money.
Tips from ProBloger

What To Include In Your Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Creating a "buzz" around products, services, businesses or events is a requirement from all clients. There is no social media marketing wand that someone will wave and target audience will automatically start coming to your site. And what works for one brand may not work for another.


The process of creating buzz doesn't start from creating a Blog or creating a video, it's a social media strategy that encompasses social media and word-of-mouth marketing. We have compiled a list of social media tools that companies use to build their social media marketing mixes.

1. Blogs

Blogs have become a great tool for social media marketing. That is first because, if optimised correctly, it can be used to drive traffic to a website. A good blog will help in creating internal links, fresh content, active community or non-search engine traffic.

Examples of popular blogs where you can create your account are: Wordpress, Blog.com, Bloggers.com, Typepad etc.

2. Microblogging

Just as blogs, microbloggs offer huge opportunities for business promotion. That is both through content consistency and good optimisation. Few of the most used are: Posterous or Twitter.

3. Online video

The importance of online videos has rapidly increased during the last years. To read more on this topic, have a look at our blog on the Growing importance of online video. Popular video sharing websites are: YouTube and Vimeo.


4. Photosharing

Social media is all about sharing! Therefore, there are numerous platforms that allow photo sharing with your friends. Some of them are: Flickr, Memeo, and Photobucket.

5. Podcasting

Podcasting is part of the new media tools that are offered to both promote your brand or your products/services. Check out Blip or RadioPodcast here.

6. Presentation sharing

Another great way to put your brand's name in the spotlight is by offering presentations on topics of interest for your audience on presentations sharing websites. They are increasingly gaining in popularity nowadays. Some of them are: SlideShare, MyPlick, Scribd, AuthorSTREAM, or Myplick.

7. Social networks: applications, fan pages, groups, and personalities

Social networks are the place to present, promote yourself as well as to keep in touch with your targeted audience. You can read a list of most popular on our blog on Top social media network sites!

8. Crowd sourcing / Voting

Crowdsourcing is an effective model because it can be used for developing programs, marketing efforts, research, and education. For example Dell has used Crowdsourcing as a distributed problem-solving and production model and has reduced costs and increased their efficiency. Also look at the challenge for fNIH http://omopcup.orwik.com/ here to see crowd sourcing campaign.

9. Bookmarking/Tagging

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Examples of popular social bookmarking websites: Delicious, Digg, Diigo, Fark, Mixx, MyBlogLog, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz.

10. Discussion boards and forums

Online forums are a great way to market your products/ services and interact with other professionals or your audience. Engaging your audience in your niche forum can bring high value to your site and brand too.

11. Content aggregation

Content aggregation offers you the chance to bring all news and feeds around your online communities accounts in one place. Some say this is the future of social media. Emerging content aggregation websites: Bloglines, FriendFeed, Lifestream.fm, Lijit.

12. Brand monitoring

Social media is also offering a variety of tools that help businesses understand the positioning of their brand. Popular examples are: Buzzlogic, Radian6 or Reputation Defender.

13. Ratings and reviews

The best way to find out where your website stands or how your brand is perceived by others is through ratings and reviews. See Yelp, Getsatisfaction.

14. Widgets

For those who are trying to promote their own brands, they can create their personalise badges using interesting widgets on Facebook, Twitter and other networks or simply use WidgetBox or Spring Widgets.

15. Wikis

Wikis are our online encyclopaedia. A short list of wikis: Wikipedia, Citizendium, Aboutus, Pbwiki, or Wetpaint.

Along with all the new ways of publishing your content on networking sites, it is important to publish your articles on publishing sites like Ezinearticles, eHow, Google Docs, IdeaMarketers, Yahoo Articles Group and submit your press release on important specialised sites like i-Newswire, PR.com, PressReleasePoint, PRLog.org.

Social Media Marketing can be very confusing at times. There are lots of networks and channels to choose from, creating presence on all the channels is very time consuming and randomly choosing any network is not a good social media strategy. Companies are struggling to understand what social media marketing mix they should use to make their brand successful in the online world.

We suggest it is important to identify which channels are suitable for your business depending on your target audience. Businesses must plan a step by step online marketing strategy and brainstorm ideas with their online marketing agency that will work for their products/service.

About the Author: Laura Wimble - SysComm International provides focused Internet marketing services including fully managed and highly successful Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing, AuthorSTREAM, Press Release Point, Social Media Strategy, Vimeo.

Generate Traffic

Seven Inexpensive Ways to Generate Traffic to Make Money Online

There are multiple ways to get traffic to your website for very little cost that can make you money online.
If you just got a small proportion of those visitors to convert to leads or sales, that has cost you nothing but your time.
There are two hard facts of any internet business that you cannot escape.
To make money online, you need to generate traffic to your website and second, you need to convert that traffic into buyers.
You might try to do this directly by sending them to a sales page or you may do it indirectly by sending them to an opt-in page to capture their details or to your information site or blog.
First, you should focus on identifying your killer keywords – the ones that attract the right kind of people into you business.
With a good match between what people are searching for and what you are offering, the actual traffic you generate will be more highly targeted and predisposed to your offer and so more likely to convert into buyers.
If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income.
BUT, it doesn’t take thousands to generate website traffic to your site.
While there are ways to jumpstart your traffic flows, the holy grail is knowing how to generate low cost website traffic without having to run up a huge daily advertising bill.
Here I present to you my top 7 strategies to generate low cost website traffic that could help make money online for you.

1. Link exchanges

This is a well known and proven strategy. It’s rare these days to see a website without a link to another site.
Many business owners are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more visibility for their sites.
The more you create back links to your website from other pages, the more the traffic you’ll see coming as you’ll start to rank higher.
If you’re exchanging links with other sites, it’s important that the link is relevant. This usually means it is in the same niche or a relate niche as your own site.
This strategy pleases humans as much as it keeps the search engines happy.
Exchanging links with authority sites or sites with high page ranks will also increase your traffic even more significantly, as it will boost your rankings in search engine listings.
This is known as SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.

2. Article Marketing

There are many electronic magazines (called ezines) and online newsletters around on the internet which provide free space for you to submit articles.
If you want to keep your costs low, you can write the articles yourself. But you can save time, by using the many freelance writers who are willing to create articles on your best converting keywords or keyword phrases. The fees are much smaller than you might think.
Write articles that complement your website, product, business or other offer. Write on topics that you have expertise on so you develop your knowledge researching around the subject and can come across as an authority.
Write articles that produce tips and guidance on the subject or your niche. Looking at existing content on your chosen niche will help you find gaps so less competition and your article will rank more highly for those keywords.
At the end of the article submission process, you can insert a “resource box”. It’s here that can say something about yourself or your business and provide your visitors with a link to your site if they want to find out more.
If they do go there, they are already impressed and predisposed to your offer, wouldn’t you say?
Once you have your article accepted in your primary article directory, you can also send variations to other article directories.
There is a lot of free article submission software available to automate the process and if you are doing a lot of article marketing, a great paid service I personally use is SubmitYourArticles.

3. Video marketing

Video marketing can send literally thousands Of visitors to your primary business. It really is the social medium of the moment. Just look at the popularity of YouTube! 5-10 minutes is all you need to get your point across.
You can either use a camcorder to video your own talking head or create a footage around your product or offer and add the audio later.
If you’re not yet confident on camera, you can also create a series of photos and powerpoint slides and record an audio commentary around that.
Don’t forget to add your website URL as a running title along the top.
Once you have a few videos made, you then need to drive traffic to them. The best way is to submit them to video sites. The most popular are youtube.com, metacafe.com and dailymotion.com.
To really maximise exposure and get the most traffic back to you website, you can use video submission tools. There’s a free video submission service, TubeMogul. An even better tool is a paid service I use is Traffic Geyser.
Once you’re registered on the main video sites, this submitter tool will automatically submit your video to a whole host of video sites for you, resulting in tonnes of free traffic to your website.

4. Forum marketing

This is completely free – it only requires an input of your time. Do some initial sculking around to identify the kinds of problems people have in this niche.
Once you feel you understand the community, you can start to feedback a comment, start a post, here and there, using your knowledge and expertise.
You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.
With every post, you can add a link to your site. But remember first to give value, not just blatantly advertise your site.
As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

5. Twitter marketing

Twitter and blogging go hand in hand. They help you build your authority and social networks within your niche.
Twitter has totally transformed the way that people communicate online and since it’s free, it really should be an indispensable part of your overall marketing strategy and link to your blog.
Twitter is free to join and you can get set up with an account in a matter of just a few minutes.
Twitter has proven itself to be incredibly addictive and, for business owners, very valuable too.
Technology such as Twitter has the potential to give us more than just an opportunity to tell others what happened in our day. We can use it to reach more people in a meaningful way.
Imagine if you had cost-efficient and fast marketing tools that met existing customers where they are and that also helped you acquire new customers.
Imagine if you had the power to build a network of like-minded peers, a community of shared ideas and creativity.

6. Blog marketing

You blog should therefore be one of the main hubs for your business. It’s all about YOU Inc.
As your name gets passed around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list and RSS subscribe feed for people who regularly visit your site.
People buy from people they know, like and trust. A blog is like dating – you wouldn’t propose on the first date so why shove your sales pitch down a new visitors throat.
You can point your articles, videos, forum posts and social media activities all through your blog.
This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a blog but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many many sources of ideas and inspiration for your blog, which come from your day to day activities and your own personal development.

7. Facebook marketing

Social networking has always been a main part of many internet marketers strategy. But most don’t use it effectively at all. They flood the likes of Facebook and Myspace with offers and promotions. This won’t work.
If you want to use social tools like Facebook to generate traffic to your website, you first have to identify the right groups and then invest something of yourself.
You need to be prepared to make a personal connection with other folks in the community. This kind of media thrives on authentic networking.
Posting up useful content on social networks will get you some awesome rankings on Google. The search engines seem to put a premium on sites like Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Squidoo and Hubpages.
In all these free or low cost traffic generation methods, it’s all about giving value to your niche community.
Leads generated in this way will be far more valuable as leads back to you – interested, highly targeted, committed and profitable.
By Jay Allyson in Website Traffic