7 Best Ways To Monetize Your Blog Effectively

How to monetize a blog and start making some real money online?

We all know that there are so many ways to money from blogging, but most of them are outdated and won’t work now.

So I won’t be sharing them here, instead, I’ll give you some real ways to make money from blogging. Let’s get into it.

1. Google AdSense

Hands down, Google AdSense is still the most effective way to monetize a blog. But it can give you decent money once your blog start getting massive traffic.

Let’s say you are getting 1,000 visits a day, you can easily expect 200$ to 300$ a month by leveraging your blog traffic. Place your GA ads wisely to get more clicks. After all, it’s all about more clicks = more money!

Note: If you don’t have Google Adsense account approved, then you can try Infolinks as it is a best Google Adsense alternative.

2. Banner ads

If you are not interested in placing Google AdSense ads on your blog, showing banner ads is the finest way to make more money. Use Buy sell ads services to post your blog details. If your blog is receiving potential traffic, you will get many opportunities from other people to place their ads on your sites. You can contact to some big brands in your niche for direct advertisement. It’s one of the profitable method to earn from blogging.

3. Product reviews

I know few people who are making $100 to $500 just by publishing 2 to 3 product reviews a month on their blogs. Posting product reviews is the effective way to make money from a site. If your website has loyal readership it works like a charm. You can charge $100 to $500 per review depending on your site.

4. Blog services

If you are a beginner and have a passion towards selling your skills, this is definitely for you. You can sell your writing services, logo services, theme creation or plugin generation services on your blogs to make money.

The good thing about this monetization model is, you don’t need huge traffic to make more money. But you do need quality exposure from the RIGHT people to take your services. The more clients you have the more money you can generate each and every month.

5. Affiliate marketing

Want to make money even while you sleep? Affiliate marketing is the right choice for you then. But you do need to have some skills to sell others products on your sites. Remember no one likes to buy stuff from strangers. So according to me if you have an email list of hungry people you can make lots of money from affiliate marketing. Patience is the real key in making more money from affiliate marketing.

• How to make money from Shareasale Affiliate program?
• How to Increase Affiliate Sales Without Increasing Your Traffic?

6. Sell your own products

If nothing works for you to make money online, sell your own products. It can range from selling eBooks, information products, plugins, themes etc. It totally depends on your skills. Figure out where you are good at. Are you a better writer, developer or speaker? Launch your products after analyzing your skills to maximize your revenue.

7. Build an Email List

One of the best ways to make money online is to build an email list.

Email list is the way to go if you want to make decent income from your blogging efforts. Money is in the list. If you are not building an email list, you are definitely losing money on the table. Start building an email list from day one of your blogging career.

If you are wondering how to get more email subscribers, this is for you. We will discuss the effective ways to grow your email list. Let’s dive in.

1. Drive more traffic: No matter how good your offer is, you won’t get more email subscribers without driving quality traffic to your sites. The more traffic you have the faster you can grow your email list, it’s as simple as that. Use guest posts, blog comments, PPC ads etc. to drive more traffic to your blogs or landing pages.
2. Offer a freebie: If you want to quickly build an email list, give away something for free. Online readers don’t sign up to your sites just because you are building a list. They want a reason to subscribe to any newsletter. So find out your target audience and write specific reports or eBooks for them. You can also give away videos, podcasts etc. The tip here is to make sure your freebie is something worth reading.
3. Use a best autoresponder: I use and recommend GetResponse. If you are serious about building an email list, use services like GetResponse, AWeber, Mad Mimi etc. Because email list is a business and every business needs investment. I hope you are getting me.
4. Use landing pages:Blog pages are a big distraction in general. If you want more conversions on your email lists, try using landing pages. Landing pages give less distraction to the users and they often get more conversion rates. You can use the tools like OptimizePress, Thrive Landing Pages etc. to build landing pages.
5. Use effective call to actions: Don’t use the words like “subscribe” “get free updates” etc. on your websites. People are just fed up of seeing them. Use effective call to actions like “Get your freebie now” “download your report” etc. to easily convince your visitors to subscribing to your mailing lists. Be creative while creating call to actions.
6. Use social media sites:Social media is the powerful way to get more email leads. Social media is only growing bigger and bigger. If you are not spending quality time on engaging with others on social media, you are definitely losing many people visiting your sites. Create Facebook fan pages, be active on twitter and get in touch with other people on G+ to grow your network.
7. Pro tip to making money online: Before using any monetization model from above, always be sure to test every model one after the other. Don’t try to monetize your blog using all the methods that you come across online. You won’t make even a penny if you focus on every monetization method.

So what are your thoughts on monetizing a blog or website in 2016 and beyond? What are the proven methods that helped you to make money online? Please share your thoughts in the comments

Thank you to Ankit Singla the source of today's article

Finding A Niche

This is a post a lot of people have asked me to write. So, here goes!

Finding a niche as an aspiring lifestyle designer, digital nomad, web entrepreneur, internet marketer – whatever you want to call yourself – is about as important as remembering to take your skiing equipment on a visit to Switzerland! If you don’t, you won’t get very far.

I’ve been in the ‘real world’ of marketing for 20-years. It’s only over the last 18-months that I have become a huge student of everything internet marketing related, as part of my quest to become a Virtual CEO – leaving me to not only live the life I want to, but continue to grow my brick ‘n mortar business, as well create and launch a huge amount of online business entities as well.

I know what my ‘overall’ niche is. It’s mobile entrepreneurship. However, that’s just the beginning. If I want to create and market successful online products and services, I need to focus on finding a niche, not just once, but over and over again, to be able to create countless business opportunities for myself online.

Lets face it, when you start something new for business (anything!) there is always a lot to take on board. And if you’re like me, you really look at every angle so that when you do launch something it has the absolute best opportunity to succeed. Finding your niche and getting to the point of finding niche market keywords isn’t any different. Trust me.

However, instead of getting bogged down with all the flashing lights of plugins and software you can use and techniques the ‘pros’ promote and make money from, I decide to keep it surprisingly simple. Easy. Quick.

Step #1 – Finding Niche Market Keywords to Work With

This is the really fun part when it comes to finding your niche! You get to play around here, and search for niche ideas, which is super-easy with Google’s External Keyword Tool. This is a free tool that allows you to find out both local and global search volumes for certain keywords, related keywords, as well as the competitiveness of those keywords, too.

For this example, I’ve chosen the keyword ‘how to kiteboard’.

It’s invaluable for the entrepreneur wanting to focus on finding a niche to exploit and make money from!

You’re basically going to want to find keywords that pull in an absolute minimum of 1,000 global searches a month (some people chose this number to be affiliated with local searches, however – its a global economy, right!?), but preferably, twice that amount. You’ll also want to be sure that they are not overly competitive, too.

Out chosen example of ‘how to kiteboard’ has a global monthly search volume of 3,600. Perfect!

Step #2 – Checking Out the Competitiveness of Your Keywords

Click Image for Full-Size Version!

Once you’ve spent some time finding niche market keywords that you want to work with, and subsequently figured out what keyword you’ll focus on, you can then check out how competitive is really is!

Do this simply by going to Google.com and typing in your chosen niche keyword. You then get to see how many other pages get listed in the results for the keyword, along with any PPC competition, too!

You should also spend a bit of time checking out the video and image search results, too – not for any major reason, but its nice to see what other type of ‘competition’, other than the organic results and PPC customers, is out there when finding your niche in general.

Step #3 – Deciding on ‘No’, or ‘GO!’

Based on the results of the competitiveness test you’ll be able to figure out if you are going to move forward with your niche idea.

Here’s the deal – in our chosen example of ‘how to kiteboard’, there were just over 96,000 websites that popped up in a simple Google search on the keyword. Plus – I hit the refresh button 10-times and the only two PPC ad’s for the same keyword were the only two ad’s that were shown on each attempt. Meaning, there is very little ‘paid for’ competition.

This leads me to believe that because the organic competition is low, and there is very little paid advertising on the keyword, in this case, it would be a ‘GO!’, rather than a ‘No’. If there had of been a boat load of PPC ad’s on the sidebar and at the top of the results page, I probably would not have gone forward with this as a potential niche.

Once you’ve decided its a ‘Go!’, select a domain name that fits your keyword perfectly if possible. Also – try and include a few different keywords all within the same keyword. For example, with our keyword ‘how to kiteboard’, we could select and register any of the following:

• howtokiteboard.com (includes our primary keyword and ‘kiteboard’)
• howtostartkiteboarding.com (includes our primary keyword, plus the domain name itself is a keyword, ‘kiteboarding’ and ‘start kiteboarding’)
• howtogetstartedinkiteboarding.com (includes our primary keyword, and lots more!)

Your Domain, Hosting and Developing Your Niche Site

Registering your domain and hosting your site – Once you’re ready to go ahead and register your domain name, seriously consider doing so through BlueHost (be sure to watch my free step-by-step tutorial to setting up your Bluehost account in less than 10-minutes!), as you get your hosting taken care of at a great price and the domain name is on the house! I personally use these guys for pretty much ALL of my websites and blogs.

http://www.chrisducker.com/bloggingtutorial/

One of the really cool features from Bluehost is their one-click WordPress installation. You need know absolutely ZERO coding or programming, it does everything for you!!!

Designing and developing your blog / niche site – When it comes to themes and designing your blog/website, if you want to go big, and get real pro right out of the gate, I suggest you look into the Rainmaker Platform, which is what THIS website is built with. To keep things a little more simple, you can visit WooThemes.

Passion Will KILL Competition – Always!

Here’s the deal… If your chosen niche keyword has a certain amount of competition, more than you would usually be happy with, but you are super passionate about the niche you’re thinking of getting involved in, go for it! In my mind passion will always overcome plain old competition. It’s the passion behind Zappos that’s made them the driving force behind shoe sales online – even though there are a ton of people selling shoes online.

So, I hope my simple 3-Step process to finding a niche has got you all excited and about ready to click over to the Google’s External Keyword Tool to start checking out your own ideas. Remember, finding your niche is just the beginning, however.

Once you’ve done it, and the domain is registered, and your theme is installed – then its time to start creating your content, building your links and kick-starting your email marketing list.

Good luck everyone!

Many thanks to Chris Ducker for this amazing article

How does affiliate marketing work?

In this lesson you are going to learn how affiliate marketing works. You’ll also discover why it’s GREAT to be an affiliate, how much money you can make and how you can get started.

Let’s start with a basic definition of affiliate marketing, it is: 

"An Internet-based system where you (as an affiliate) get paid for referring sales or customers to another business."

It’s a bit like how a real estate agent doesn't own the houses they sell; instead they promote houses on behalf of their clients, and earn a cut of the sale price of any properties sold.

The image below shows a really basic affiliate website, with a banner that promotes the SaleHoo Wholesale Supplier Directory.

When someone, who’s keen to make money on eBay, clicks that banner, they are taken to the merchant’s website below.

The merchant is the person or company that creates and owns the product. Now it’s up to the merchant to work their magic and get that person to buy. If the person does decide to purchase, then the affiliate that sent them to the site earns a commission, which is a percentage of the product’s sale price. Easy, right? 

There are a lot of ways to place these commission-earning links on your website, so you don't even have to know how to make banners. One of the most popular ways to add links is to simply include them in your content. Here's an example of a product suggestion within an article, with a link to the relevant product where it's most useful in the content:

In a similar way, you can write (or have someone else write) content on a topic, and then link to a product that might be useful for the reader. So long as the link you use is an affiliate link, you'll be lined up to earn a commission, and you can learn more about that in the Affilorama lessons.

6 great reasons to become an affiliate

1. Start up costs are super low. To start a regular business where you rent retail space and stock inventory could easily set you back tens of thousands of dollars. As an affiliate, you can get started for the cost of a burger and fries.
2. You don’t need staff. No more office politics, and no messy payroll handling. When you get started as an affiliate you can do it all yourself, and when the time comes to grow your business it’s easy to outsource.
3. You don’t even need a product you simply have to promote products which are already for sale. Whether it’s an eBook about dog training your or a weight loss supplement – there is a product out there that you can sell as an affiliate.
4. You don’t need any expert knowledge on a subject to sell affiliate products either. If you want to be an affiliate for weight loss products, then you don’t need a PhD in nutrition or exercise. All you need is an eager-to-learn mindset and the ability to market the right affiliate products to the right people. 
5. Earn passive income. It’s a bit like the money you earn if you buy a house and then rent it out – for as long as you own that house and are renting it out, you earn money. In a normal job you only get paid once for the work that you do, but as an affiliate you can keep making money from the same work day in, day out. 
6. The opportunity to work your own hours. I’m not saying that you’ll be sitting on a beach drinking Pina Coladas and only working an hour a day after your first month as an affiliate. However, you do have the power to work when it suits you and have a more flexible life. You become your own boss – how cool is that? 

How much money can you actually make?

Like any real business it all depends on how much effort you put in and how seriously you take it. For example if you only work an hour a day, or you spend most of your time checking emails as opposed to doing the work, then you might not make much money at all. 

But if you are really dedicated and treat your affiliate marketing like a real business, and you put 100% in every time you sit down in from of your computer, then you can DEFINITELY make a full time income.

Let’s do some quick math on how much you can actually make as an affiliate. Imagine you’re promoting Singorama, a really popular learn-to-sing training course. 

Checking the affiliate statistics for Singorama tells us that the average sale earns you just over $106. 

If you could get just ONE sale per day of Singorama (and trust me when I say there are many affiliates who make far more than that), then you would be making an extra $840 per week. That’s an additional $3360 per month in your bank account, or over $40,000 per year.

What would you do with that kind of extra money?

How does affiliate marketing really work?

With affiliate marketing you typically have a website, like the World of Warcraft Black Book site you can see below. Now you don’t actually need a website – there are loads of different ways to do affiliate marketing and some of them don’t even involve owning a website – but most affiliates prefer to have their own digital real estate. It’s also the method we teach here at Affilorama, because there's so much more potential to build a brand, and grow an affiliate strategy that will profit you in the longer-term.

On your website you talk about different affiliate products – recommend them to readers, give detailed reviews, make comparisons and so on. For example Zygor's Leveling Guide is one of the affiliate products on WOW Black Book.

You’ll have a special link, known as an affiliate link, for every product that you’re promoting. Affiliate links have tracking in them to make sure that you get credited with every sale you make. When someone clicks your affiliate link, then the merchant knows it was you who sent the customer.

Let me stress that affiliate links don’t affect the customer at all… they don’t pay more, they don’t miss out on anything, and they will most likely never know that they purchased through an affiliate link.

All it means is that when a customer buys something within a certain time period after clicking on your affiliate link, you get the commission. 

So the big goal of affiliate marketing is to get as many people as possible clicking on your links and visiting merchant pages like the one below for Zygors Leveling Guide; the more people that click on your affiliate links, the more chances you have of a sale occurring and earning a commission. 

What this means is that affiliates talk a lot about getting “traffic” – which is basically the number of people coming to your site who can potentially click on your links.

The aim of the game is to get your traffic to climb… because the more traffic you get the more clicks and sales you will make.

In the Affilorama lessons, we cover loads of different ways of getting traffic! Some of these methods are paid, such as PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, and some are free, like SEO (search engine optimization) but take a little more time and effort on your part. You can find more information on both of these traffic methods in "introduction to PPC" and "introduction to SEO."

If this all seems a bit overwhelming, don’t panic. Getting started with affiliate marketing is actually really easy. Start by checking out the affiliate marketing for beginners lesson.

These exciting video lessons will get you started on the right foot, and teach you the basics of affiliate marketing.

Most importantly, you need to take action. The most successful affiliate marketers are those who do, rather than those who think about doing. Take what you learn from Affilorama and start working hard. You might not get it right the first time, but the experience is what really counts when you are learning affiliate marketing. You will hone your skills and abilities over time, so don’t sweat the fine points!

If you want to get it right the first time, then you need to try AffiloBlueprint. It’s our exclusive step-by-step blueprint for building profitable affiliate sites to a proven formula. 

Check out how AffiloBlueprint will help you start earning faster.

Thanks to Iffilorama for this article.. head to their website here to learn more