About Blogging: Monetizing Your Blog (Part 8)

I've almost forgotten to finish this series I had about blogging.  This will be the last about monetizing your blog.  But first just to summarize all the topics, here they are:

Why are you blogging?
How do you choose your blog name?
What content should I publish?
Creating a Blogger blog
Blogger Gadgets
How to Get Traffic
More Ways to Get Blog Traffic

I've read somewhere that if you are thinking of monetizing your blog, you should do it sometime at the beginning of your blogging.  This will let your blog readers and followers know that you are monetizing your blog and they will not be surprised later on when they see banner ads on your blog.  In relation to this, don't forget to put a disclosure policy somewhere in your blog page.

What are the ways of monetizing your blog?  

1. Banner Advertisements

The most popular monetizing method is putting banner advertisements.  Some of them are contextual ads like Google AdSense ads, Chitika ads, and Bidvertizer ads where you get paid for every click on these ads.  This means that the ads that show up on your site depend on the type of content you have.  

There are also called in-line text ads offered by Infolinks, Kontera, and Adbrite.  These ads are the double-lined or dotted-lined highlighted text links within your written content.  Many like this because it doesn't take up any other space on their site.   Others also sell advertising spaces (banner size or just text links) on their blog via Project Wonderful or directly offering it themselves.  This is good, especially for those who have already successfully achieved increased traffic for their blog.

2. Sponsored Reviews

Another monetizing method is writing sponsored reviews or content in exchange for cash or goods.  Many have been making money through this method though I haven't really done a lot of this.  Often, sponsors look for blogs that are not new and has a high Google Page Rank or Low Alexa Rank.  Many also prefer blogs with their own domain name.  So, it is better to invest on a domain name early on if you wish to monetize your blog this way.  If you wish to do this on your blog, you can check out SponsoredReviews.com, Blogsvertise, Microworkers even ODesk or Freelancer.com.

3. Affiliate Sales

Another monetizing method that is common among blogs is promoting and selling affiliate products either from Amazon, ClickBank, Paydotcom, etc.  What many do is to make a product review on their blog and insert a link to the sales page of the affiliate product.  There are also others who are successful at doing this. 

There are still lots of other ways of monetizing your blog and you can even find one specific for your niche. Others also use their blogs as a platform for joining online contests and have earned some in the process.  Others start their own online store and sell their own products.  If you have any other suggested site out there that can help monetize your blog or any good idea, you can share it in the comment section.  Thanks.