How To Monetize Your Blog 2016

In this article I will explain how to earn the maximum from your blog by employing the best blog monetizing techniques.

First lets look at the types of ads:

There are basically 2 kinds of ads PPC(pay per click) and affiliate links. Pay per click ads works just like the name suggests, someone clicks on one, you get paid.

With affiliate links, you refer someone to an affiliate site, if they buy something, you get a percentage. Say you refer someone to a site that gives you 5%. They then buy a $1,000 laptop. That means you get $50. Clearly, you can make much more from affiliate marketing, than from PPC links.

The key to success with affiliate marketing is the quality of your blog traffic. I'll give you an example, one of my blog pages holds the top SERP ranking for "best flash drive" in a Google regional search. People who run that search are looking to buy a flash drive. My blog post reviews the best flash drives and has affiliate links to those products. That page is highly profitable.

As soon as you place any new ads on your blog, some of your readers are going to complain. What these people don't get, is that you put a lot of time and effort into making your blog a valuable resource. It is your right to monetize your blog and turn an honest profit from your work. Most of your readers will understand and those that don't, will eventually accept it.

As you can see from this page I believe in putting down a number of ads. But and this is a big but, the ads need to fit into the style of your blog. You don't want your blog to end up looking like the Frankenstein monster.

The goal of placing ads, is to get your readers to read them and then click on them. To increase the chances of that happening you should place the ads where your readers will notice them. Our Western minds are conditioned to read anything from the top left down to the bottom right. So, if you look at the layout picture, you would expect ads placed in the top left of the Header and Left Column would have the highest CTR(click through rate).

This is true with novice web users. But experienced web users have learned to ignore the Header, Left and Right Columns and to focus on the Content. You will find that I and most other publishers place most of our ads in the Content block, because they receive the most clicks there.

As ad locations go, the Left Column and the Header does better than the Right Column and the Footer is the worst.

I frequently hear the question: How should I monetize my blog, with text or image ads? The good thing about images is that they attract the readers attention. On the other hand there are more advertisers using text ads, so you can make more, than with image ads.

My recommendation is to use both, but use text ads more heavily than picture ones.

Animated ads are better than image ads at attracting attention, but there are fewer advertisers using them.

As with the other elements in monetizing your blog, experiment to find a mix that works for your blog.

If you are going to do business online, you will absolutely need Paypal. It is in the nature of blogging that there are several small incomes and expenses involved. By using Paypal, you will be able to increase your profit, by keeping your costs down. In addition some of the advertisers and affiliates only pay via Paypal, for example Ebay.

Kontera

Kontera isn't really for very small blogs. I don't recommend bothering with it unless you have 10,000 visitors a month. The good thing about Kontera is that it lets you make more money from your posts, without giving up any advertising space.

Their technology reads your posts and turns certain words into ads. The ads are double underlined. If you hover your mouse over an underlined word an ad pops up.

Google Adsense

Adsense is the most widely used PPC service. It dishes out contextual ads, based on your content and it's an easy way to start earning.

Be warned though, Adsense has very strict rules and if you break them, they will ban you.

Adbrite

Adsense won't let you use their ads on blog with certain types of content, like adult and gambling related posts. Also Adsense is a little ban happy. If that happens you need to switch your PPC ads to Adbrite.

FeedBurner

FeedBurner monetizes your RSS feed. If you think about it, everyone that reads your blog through your RSS feed is doing so without paying you. If you have more than 1,000 people reading your RSS feed everyday, you should definitely monetize them with Feedburner.

Review me is how the big bloggers make much of their money. You basically get paid to write a review about something. The blogs with high PR and high traffic can demand huge sums for their reviews and they make thousands each month, for very little work.

More modest blogs can make $50 or so per review.

Have you been thinking about starting your own blog? Find out just how cheap and easy it is in how to make your own blog.

Below I take a look at three of the most widely used affiliates. But because affiliates are so important, to monetizing your blog, I have written an article specifically about the highest paying affiliate programs.

Amazon

Amazon is where the most bloggers start. They aren't great, but they have a huge inventory of stuff, that you can sell and they are good at converting your clicks into sales.

You can see an example, on the right. As with all affiliate marketing, you have to keep the ads relevant to your post's content.

ClickBank

ClickBank is a digital good affiliate. That means they sell items like Ebooks. They are the best affiliate for monetizing your email lists.

Commission Junction

Commission Junction is a broker site, they bring affiliates and publishers together. They are great if you are monetizing some service site, like an insurance blog.