More Money With WordPress

Filed in Marketing Guides by on June 16, 2014

If you’re like most bloggers you want to make money with your blog.  The good news is you can.  It’s possible to earn a couple hundred dollars a month, some even replace their job income.

Truth be told it’s unlikely you’ll earn a fulltime income overnight; heck you probably won’t do it next month.  But, if you treat monetizing your blog like eating an elephant, one bite at a time, you can reach your income goals rather quickly.

There are two general ways to make money with your blog; through your blog or because of your blog.   You can blog by taking paid advertisements or selling products and services.  You can make money because of your blog by being hired for writing assignments, speaking engagements, or you might be given a new job.

This report will show you many different ways to make money with your blog.  Pick a couple, mix and match, and you’ll be making money in no time.

Advertising  

One of the most lucrative ways to monetize your blog is by selling advertising space.  Selling your own ad space gives you the advantage of setting your own rates and cutting out the middleman (which puts more money in your pocket.)

Before you rush out selling advertising there are a couple things to consider; first you must have a large audience in order to get qualified advertisers.  Second, it takes time to manage sales, payments, ad design, placement etc.

If you aren’t an experienced online marketer and blogger you will save a lot of time and money by using one of the many advertising services available to monetize your blog.   For a small share of your commission an advertising service will take on the administrative headaches and marketing woes so you can concentrate on blogging and making money.

There are several types of ads available for you to put on your blog.  The most common are pay per post, pay per click (PPC), cost per impression (CPM), and text-link ads.

Pay Per Post

We love to give our opinions, don’t we?  And, just as true, we rely on other people’s opinions to give us insight when deciding on which big screen T.V. to buy or who we have work on our car.

Twitter reported that 34% of bloggers post opinions about products, brands and services. The principle idea of pay per post is to bring something very popular to something highly sought after and make a win/win situation.

Pay per post is an advertising program that works by bringing advertisers and bloggers together.  The advertiser pays the blogger to write reviews about their services or products and post those reviews to the bloggers site.  The blogger gets paid for the review and the advertiser gets another promotion for their product, as well as a link to their website.

You write the review in your own tone. Constructive criticism is encouraged, but rude or hateful reviews will usually be declined.  Pay per post sites or services give writers and advertisers a meeting place.  They give them a place to come together and negotiate.

After the advertisers and writers agree to terms, payment is made by the advertiser to the pay per post site.  The advertiser gets their review and the blogger gets paid (by the pay per post service).  The pay per post service collects a cut of the earnings for their efforts.

Payments range from as little as $2, to as much as a $1000.  $1000 is a pretty good ‘extra’ income, wouldn’t you say?

5 Top Pay per Post Sites

Sponsored Reviews works in two ways, you can create a profile of your blog to attract advertisers or you can search for advertisers and bid on jobs.  The ability to find your own customers is a favorite feature for many bloggers who go to Sponsored Reviews.

Sponsored Reviews pays publishers with PayPal every two weeks, and they are always on time with the payments. Some blog owners don’t like that you are required to keep the review on your site forever.  Truth be told they should be glad to have the extra content.

One other distraction for some bloggers is that in order to land any jobs worth doing you will need at least a page rank of 3 on your blog.

Blogsvertise has been in business since 2006. Blogvertise declares their payment rate for new blogs/accounts is $4 – $25 per entry.  Most fall in the range of $ 5-$15.  They say that payout rates vary and are often based on the popularity (i.e. traffic) of the blog.  Traffic is measured by an independent third party.

Payout, which can be made through PayPal, comes 30 days after your assigned task has been approved.

In my research I only found one person who claimed they were dissatisfied with Blogsvertise.  The complaint was that each time they called support they had to talk to a different person.  Compounding that frustration was that several times the answers conflicted with an earlier conversation.

LinkWorth products include text link ads, paid blog reviews, in-text links, in-content pay per click ads, rotating text ads, hosted content pages, article submission, directory submission and many more.

Bloggers who use LinkWorth for paid blog review say they like how easy it is to register and get their blogs accepted.  Another plus that many like is the no minimum earnings for payment.  In other words even if you only earned $5.oo this month you will be paid that …………$5.00.

The most common complaint against LinkWorth is that the many advertising opportunities it offers can make navigating around the site difficult and confusing.

ReviewMe pay a minimum of $20 and up to $200 for writing a review.  The rules say that blog posts should be a minimum of 200 words, but the average accepted review is 300 words.

One big plus for ReviewMe is that you are not obligated to write a positive opinion.  You will still get paid for the review if it’s negative. The most common complaint is that at first it is hard to get your blog accepted.  But, they give you some great advice on how to improve your blog to get it approved.

ReviewMe will share a whopping 50% of your earnings; however they do pay a minimum $20 which is better than most other services.

SocialSpark claims, “Our mission is to empower everyone to value and exchange content, creativity and influence.”  SocialSpark pays by a “point” system, which at first may draw concern.  But the conversion is $10-$60 for a 300 word blog post.  You’re paid your points 30 days after your review is accepted. You can then convert your points directly in to cash and receive payment via PayPal.

The only complaint I saw was that IZEA is very particular.  There is a certain code that must be placed in the post that is sometimes confusing to configure.  However, IZEA support will help you get it right.

3 More Pay-Per-Post Sites
Payperpost
SponsoredReviews
Helium

Pay Per Click

Pay per Click (PPC), sometimes referred to as Cost per Click, is an Internet advertising system where advertisers pay blog or website owners for “leads.”  A product owner or service provider will have an advertisement that promotes their goods.  A blogger puts a copy of that ad, or a link to it, on their blog.  When a visitor to the blog clicks on the advertisement the blogger gets paid by the product owner or service.  Payment is made regardless of whether a sale is made or not.

Tracking clicks and ensuring there is no click fraud takes some pretty sophisticated software, which makes running an individual pay per click operation a bit advanced for the normal blogger.  However, there are PPC providers who make this model of monetization possible for mere mortal bloggers.

PPC Providers for Publishers

Google Adsense got its start in the late 1990s.  It actually started as only a search engine.  It was such a good search engine that it became the primary search engine on the internet.  Since searches were free Google developed AdWords.  AdWords is the system that produces the advertisements in Google’s search results pages.  Advertisers paid Google for prime placement of their ads.

Google saw they could get more ad exposure by letting bloggers and websites display ads.  Adsense was born and blog/site owners were paid an undisclosed percentage of Googles AdWords fees.

As with most good things some not so savory characters started to “game” the Google system and Google went on the offensive.  Many Adsense accounts were closed and the rules tightened. Most bloggers find that their Adsense earnings amount to a nice additional income.  It is rare to earn a job replacing income from Adsense alone.

Chitika charges advertisers to be featured alongside your site’s content. At the end of every month you are paid based on the previous month’s earnings. Payments are sent after your account earns at least $10.00 for PayPal payouts or $50.00 for checks.

Chitika ads are not contextual they are search targeted.  Contextual advertising is a form of targeted advertising in which the content of an ad is in direct correlation to the content of the web page the user is viewing.  Search targeted advertising is a type of advertising where ads are placed to reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, purchase history, or observed behavior. Since Chitika ads are search targeted you must know your readers for optimum click through.

Chitika works only with US and Canada based visitors, so your international traffic is just ignored.  Chitika has variety of ad sizes and formats. They offer a list format where maps or images are automatically displayed alongside the ads. This is a real plus if you have a site that may benefit from location based ads.

Bidvertiser is a pay-per-click advertising network that works a bit different from other pay-per-click programs.  You make money from clicks and conversions.  You get paid for every visitor that clicks on an ad and extra revenue if the click turns into conversion.

Ads look too much like AdSense ads and apparently you are not allowed to run both programs on your website.

Bidvertiser has a good reputation, the people running Bidvertiser work hard to keep the advertisers and the publishers happy. Bidvertiser pays but has one of the lowest payout in this industry but at the same time it is consistent.

Clicksor Inc. is another leading Contextual Advertising  Network (PPC).  You can earn up to 85% revenue share, depending on the performance the advertisers reach from your Web site ad placements.

Payout is every 15 days via check or PayPal.  But, no payments will be issued for any amounts less than $50US. Any publisher payment that is unclaimed 6 months after the issue date will not be compensated”.

Cost per Impression

Cost per impression (CPM) is an internet advertising model that is related to web traffic.  It refers to online marketing campaigns where advertisers pay for ad impressions. An impression refers to an advertisement appearing on your blog. The higher the number of impressions, the more money you make.

For example –  if a blog generates 100,000 page views each month and displays an advertisement with a $2 CPM, it will earn $200 monthly. CPM campaigns pay from 20 cents to 15 dollars per thousand impressions.

Cost per Impression differs from Pay per Click because visitors don’t need to click on the ads for you to get paid.  CPM pays based only on the number of impressions your blog generated.

Popular CPM Providers

Tribal Fusion is a division of the Exponential Group which has headquarters in Emeryville California.

Tribal Fusion has strict criteria for publishers wanting to be accepted into their network.  In addition to requiring your site receive a minimum of 5000 unique visitors per day, it must have an active user base and be updated regularly with highly targeted content.  It has to comply with all spam statutes and have a privacy policy.

Most of the complaints about Tribal Fusion are that the control panel is hard to navigate and their pay is at the lower end of the industry standard. A plus for Tribal Fusion with publishers is the great support offered and the fact they always pay out.

Value Click is a division of ValueClick Incorporated that began performance based advertising in 1998.  There are two ways to earn revenue through ValueClick Media – you can place advertisements on your website or generate leads with the affiliate and co-registration platform.

Many publishers report that the ValueClick dashboard is well organized and very user friendly. The one complaint that I found was that they run ads in spurts depending on time of year and the advertisers. But the quality of the advertisements is superb and the payout is great.

Vibrant Media is a leading advertising network that has over 3000 partners. Vibrant Media’s platform allows publishers to manage the number of links that can be displayed and which keywords are used on an individual, per-page basis.

Some publishers report that their earnings are lower than expected and other contextual networks are paying off better.  Others are impressed with Vibrant Medias enhance hyperlinks, which the company says, “Bring(s) content to life by conveniently delivering relevant previews of videos, articles and information, and allow users to discover more editorial information from words within web content.”

Burst Media  was founded by internet entrepreneurs Jarvis Coffin and David Stein.  One thing that sets Burst Media apart from other CPM providers is their dedicated sales force both in the UK and United States that work with advertising agencies to promote advertising for their website publishers.

Publishers’ blogs must contain original, regularly updated content and content must be in readable English.   The blogs cannot just be portals for other websites and they are required to have specific themes.

Their rates aren’t as high as other sites, but the minimum traffic requirement isn’t high either. Most bloggers report that they are seeing good results from the ad placements.

AdBrite is the largest independent ad exchange, reaching 300 million global unique visitors every month, including more than 150 million in the U.S.  As the publisher you decide which advertisers may advertise on your site. You have the option to manually review and approve or decline every advertiser prior to any ads appearing on your site.

AdBrite gives its publishers 70% of the revenues generated from their ad spaces and keeps 30%.  The minimum payment amount is $5, but you will have to change the $100 minimum in your account settings.

Text Link Ads

Text link ad is a text placed on a website which is hyperlink to some other website page. The advantage of the text link ad method is that it isn’t intrusive. You can sell text links directly through your blog or use networks to automate the process.

Text Link Ad Networks:

Digital Point ad sales are completely market driven with advertisers bidding for ad space (or on keywords). Blog owners can set minimum bids they are willing to accept.

To start making money via Text Link Ads you put a script on your blog, one time (don’t worry they have support to help if you need). When an advertiser buys a link on your site TLA and you split the earnings 50-50. Ads a paid at a flat rate for a 30 day period, which means you don’t have to worry about clicks and all that.

You are paid anywhere from $10-$50 depending on the PR and traffic your site gets. Payments are sent the first day of the month via check, PayPal, Payoneer or Text Link Ads voucher. The one bad thing about the system is that getting advertisers can take some time and the text link widget is left blank until somebody buys links on your site. I wish TLA gave you some way to monetize this space until advertisers come in.

TNX.net allows advertisers to place links on individual pages instead of the entire site, that gives you more opportunities to monetize your blog. If your Google PageRank for the page is above zero, an ad can be placed on it.  TNX.net collects a mere 12.5% commission.  Code installation is easy with their “copy-paste” method.

Ad Networks

Adhitz
Admagnet
Adonion
Adsense
Advertising
Affinity
Bannerconnect
Blogads
Buysellads
Casalemedia
Clicksor
Cpxinteractive
Infolinks
Globaltakeoff
Kanoodle
Komli
Ligit
Luminate
Metanetwork
Miva
Pulse360
Smowtion
Textlinkbrokers
Tyroo
Valueclickmedia
Xtendmedia
Z5x.net
Zedo

RSS Feed Advertising

RSS or feeds are a way for blogs to instantly distribute their content far beyond visitors using browsers. Feeds allow visitors to subscribe to updates that are made to the blog.  The updates are delivered to the visitors automatically via a web portal, news-reader, or email.

You can monetize your blog by including PPC or CPM ads in the footer of your feed.  If you are using the WordPress blogging platform or publishing tool you likely publish a feed automatically.

Feed Management Tools

Feedburner was purchased by Google in 2007. Google AdSense integrates easily with FeedBurner so users can monetize their RSS feeds.

While Feedburner has feed statistics for subscriber trends, clickthroughs, breakdowns of feed readers and email services; the data changes significantly and frequently rendering it unreliable. If accurate data isn’t important to you, FeedBurner is a great tool to create and manage your blog’s feed.

Pheedo’s state-of-the-art RSS ad serving platform enables the delivery and tracking of ads alongside your content, anywhere it goes.  Payments are made via PayPal or Check. Minimum payout is $50 but publisher can request a lower payout by writing in.

Affiliate Marketing

If you don’t want to put ads on your blog, or you are looking for an additional way to monetize your blog, affiliate marketing is a good way to make money. Affiliate marketing generally pays more per sale than you would make per click with other forms of advertising.  But, affiliate marketing requires visitors to both click your affiliate link and purchase the product or service before you to get paid.

Don’t let that dissuade you; affiliate marketing is still very lucrative.

Affiliate marketing opportunities are all over the internet.  Many websites and companies have affiliate programs or you can use affiliate networks.  These networks specialize in connecting companies with publishers (bloggers). It’s a win/win, the company gets a sales team without the human resources nightmare and the blogger gets a way to monetize their blog.

Affiliate Networks

Commission Junction manages one of the largest, most diverse and productive publisher networks in the industry. While the products and services of the merchants are well known and reliable.  Many offers need to be “approved”, which means you apply to the merchant who may reject your blog.  Asking and waiting for approval can be a bother.

The ShareASale Network has over 2,500 merchants to choose from. A unique feature ShareASale offers is affiliate tracking via telephone calls. One big concern of affiliates is losing sale commissions because a referral orders a product or service by telephone on the vendor’s website.  Pay per call eliminates this loss.

ClickBank has tens of thousands of digital products to promote online.  Commissions of up to 75% are paid weekly and direct deposit available. Warning…Before you can collect your first affiliate commission you must make 5 different sales. One sale must be paid with a Visa and one with MasterCard, before you can be paid as an affiliate. To complicate things more debit cards do not count as credit cards.

PayDotCom pays sales commissions of from 5% to 80%.  Merchants, called vendors, offer both physical and digital products. There are over 75,000 products and services to choose from in the marketplace. PayDotCom charges the affiliate (you) $0.50 to $1.50 for each transaction. Another potential drawback is that the vendor pays you.  Be sure to check the payment methods available for each product you promote.

More Affiliate Networks

Affiliatebot
Affiliatefuture
AmpedMedia
Buy.at
Clixgalore
Cpalead
Fluxads
Google Affiliate Network
Linkconnector
Linkshare
Maxbounty
Moreniche
Peerfly
Plimus
Pointclicktrack
Revenueads
Yeahcpa

Individual Affiliate Programs

Many businesses have affiliate programs.   Did you know you can be an Apple Store affiliate?  In fact you can earn up to 2% on Apple products.

Think of your favorite place to shop.  Does it have products that are consistent with your blog?  Look at their website, do they have an affiliate program?  You may have to scroll to the bottom of the page and check the small links to find a link.  Or google the store name + affiliate program .

Amazon is the most recognized retailer on the internet  administers its own affiliate program.  You can find everything from books to diapers on Amazon.  Joining Amazon Associates is free and you can earn up to 15% on everything your blog visitors buy there.   Amazon uses a sliding scale where the more you sell the higher your commission.  For example sell 1 item and your commission is 4% sell 7 and it jumps to 6% on all 7 items.  Hint: Mix some lower cost items in with higher value products to boost your commission point.

Physical Products

You can create merchandise that contains your blogs logo or other graphics, and every time a reader wears it you get some free advertising.

It’s not as hard as it sounds to create merchandise to sell on your blog. There are websites that give you the ability you to create t-Shirts, mouse pads, mugs, hats, and other things that you can personalize any way you wish and sell for a profit.

You don’t need to have a manufacturing plant, shipping facility or order department.  These websites handle orders, payments, and shipping, leaving you to do nothing but design your merchandise and profit.

Goods/Merchandise

At Café Press basic membership is free and even includes a simple online store hosted on Cafepress.  The merchandise you create has a base price and you mark it up to the price you wish and keep the profit. They handle orders, payments, and shipping.  Each item is printed as it’s ordered and shipped directly to the customer.  Most orders are printed and shipped in 24 hours.  You make the design and they take care of the rest.

Spreadshirt is like Café Press.  You can make your own designs, build a free virtual store and direct your readers for ordering.   A disadvantage of Spreadshirt is you only get paid quarterly.

Zazzle is more geared toward individuals rather than people trying to sell their products online.  And, you cannot print on dark apparel.  But, Zazzle gives you the opportunity to make money for your designs in two ways. First you earn a fixed percentage when one of your designs is sold on your product.  And you earn 10% if your design is used (even if it has been modified) by another user.

Self Publishing

If you are writing your own content for your blog you can write a book and publish it.  Three of the top companies that help you self publish are Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.  Amazon and Barnes & Noble are probably pretty well known.  Smashwords is very well known amongst indie (independent) writers.

CreateSpace, another Amazon company, will produce your books, DVD’s, CD’s, videos and MP3’s.  CreateSpace uses the manufacturing-on-demand model, which means your products will be produced as customers order.

You can also make your book available as an eBook on Amazon.com and reach millions of Kindle readers with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). KDP gives you everything you need to become your own publisher today. Once your product is produced the marketing machine of Amazon goes into gear and helps you earn money.

Barnes & Noble has PubIt! that works like Amazon’s CreateSpace. Through PubIt! your digital files are converted to be viewed on Barnes % & Nobles’ tablet the NOOK as well as other computing devices.

Smashwords is the world’s leading eBook distributor.  This free service helps you publish, distribute and sell at eBook retailers including the Apple iBookstore (in 31 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Baker & Taylor, the Diesel eBook Store and EbookEros.  Smashwords gives you access to free, do-it-yourself sales and marketing tools to help you promote your book. You receive 85 percent of the net sales proceeds from your titles (70.5% for affiliate sales), and 60% of the list price for all sales through their major retailers.

Even more self publishing houses: Lulu, Self Publishing, iUniverse, WordClay

Newsletter

If your blog is successful and you have a large reader base, consider making money by adding a newsletter.  Yes it will add a bit more work, but can be very lucrative for you.  Content for your newsletter could be other information about your blogs topic or more in-depth information for a post that was public.

Making money with your newsletter is similar to making money with your blog.  You can sell ad space, use affiliate marketing, promote your own products etc.  Warning: Be sure your newsletter concentrates on good content and not asking for money.  Content is what will get your subscribers and keep those you already have.  It will also win you the right to ask for a sale.

Paid Content

Members Only/Subscription

You could give away part of the content on your blog for free, and charge for access to premium content and exclusive tools.  Your memberships and subscription service does not have to be limited to text only.  You can offer podcasts, video-casts etc.  Any way that you transmit information can be through a member’s only page on your blog.

There are several paid and free plugins for setting up membership areas on your blog.

Sell Your Skills

Your blog is a great way to showcase your skills and make money from them.  Use your blog as an online portfolio.  Post text files, pictures, audio files and video.  As you can see there are many ways to show your customers what you can do for them.

Let’s say that you have a way with words.  You are able to write entertaining informative blog posts.  Show your client by posting entertaining informative posts, there is no better example than a living example.  Then promote your skills with a text ad or graphic in your sidebar or maybe a note under each post, hyperlink the graphic or ad to a page that outlines your services.

Remember to show your customer how your services will benefit them.  Include your pricing structure and contact information. Services and skills you could offer include; guest blogging, consulting, speaking, workshops/seminars, podcasts, video-casts, coaching/mentoring, web design, marketing, SEO, social media .

Coaching/Mentoring

Education is a large industry and it is not limited to brick and mortar.  Many people want more than just information.  These people are willing to pay to have someone or something teach them.

A mentoring or coaching program related to your blogs niche can be very lucrative.  You can coach and teach in a number of different media, from articles to audio and video lessons.

Blog Flipping

There are many people who are poor writers, or don’t want to take the time to write, yet they want their own web real-estate.  You can make money blogging by setting up 10-15 page blogs on a specific niche and sell them.

5 Key components that will give a blog more value:

1) Has the blog made any money?

Of course if you are setting them up in the morning and selling them in the afternoon they won’t show an income.  But, you can work around that by having them optimized for monetization by any of the ways already listed.

2) Is the domain name keyword related? 

If you have the keyword in the domain name it will help search engines see the blog.

3) Does it have good original content? 

There is a lot of banter about duplicate content.  Take the time to write original content so it’s a mute point.  The blog will be more valuable to more potential customers.

4) Is there traffic to it?

Ok, hard to have traffic figures on a new blog but having traffic to the blog will increase the value.

5) Does it have an original or premium theme? 

An original or premium theme that is niche specific will increase the value of the blog.  It will make it unique and stand out from the crowd to be recognized.

Where to sell your blog?

Ebay is a great way to turn blogs into cash.  Get started by following their 3 easy steps here. When you list the blog on eBay you’re charged an insertion fee.  If the blog sells you’re also charged a final value fee.

Flippa  exposes your blog to one of the world’s largest audience of website buyers.  You’ll need to pay a fee, around $50, to list your site there, but your guaranteed that your listing will be exposed to many site buyers.

Warrior Forum is a membership forum.  It costs $35 for a lifetime membership.  It’s $20 to have your blog listed on the front page of the Complete Websites For Sale Forum.  When your listing falls from the first page you can “bump” it back by paying another $20.

Site Point requires you to be a member of their forum, but you can list your blogs for sale for free.  Oh yes, and membership is free also.

Other places to sell your blog:

Tidget
NamePros
DN Forum
Sedo

Donations

It may seem silly; most of the simplest things do, but consider asking for donations to make money from your blog. True this method is not for everyone, but if your blog is informative your readers will not have a problem donating. Not everyone will donate, but those who do will do so from their own free will because they enjoy reading your blog and wish to see it continue.

Setting your blog up for donations:
If you have a PayPal account, you simply insert a button into your blog that users can click to make donations via Pay Pal.

Conclusion

We have looked at 15 different methods you can use to monetize your blog.  In addition you have been introduced to 92 different places you can partner with.  Now it’s time for you to take action. You will not earn one dime only planning … yes, planning is essential to success but you must take action! 


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