How to Make Money Blogging

Become a Blogger and Make it Pay

Oct 28, 2009 Janice Hally

Writing a blog is the easiest way for any freelance writer to make their work available to the public. Most people do it for fun, but it can be profitable, too!

Making money from blogging is possible, there have been a few examples of people who have been highly successful at it. The key, first of all, is to have an entertaining blog which builds an audience. The next step is to become acquainted with all the possibilities that exist for earning money from a blog.

Incorporating Contextual Advertising

Advertising programs such as Google’s Adsense are easily incorporated into a blog. They generate advertisements tied to the content of each blog entry and the owner of the blog receives a percentage of the advertising revenue which is generated.

Selling Advertising Space Direct

Another way to handle advertising is to sell the space on a blog direct to advertisers. The advantage of this is that deals can be struck which guarantee a set amount of money over a set period. This requires a little more selling and administration on the part of the blogger, but it can have rewards.

Promotion

Similar to advertising is direct promotion of a company or product in a blog. For example if a writer is a fan of or an expert on a certain product, or company, and the writer creates an entertaining of informative blog, dedicated to that product, then it could be possible to do a sponsorship deal where the product or company is actively promoted on the site.

Selling

Becoming an associate for a company such as Amazon allows writers to sell a wide variety of items through links on their blogs, and in return they will receive a percentage of the profits. The most obvious example of this is a blog dedicated to book reviews, where there are links for people to buy the books through the blogger's Amazon Associates account.

Self-Promotion – Selling Services

A blog may be used to promote services that the writers themselves offer. For example, if writers offer editing services, writing courses, or they have e-books of their courses or advice, then the blog can be a shop window for them.

Self-Promotion – Selling Goods

Following on from the above, it’s possible for bloggers to sell their own merchandise direct from their blogs. If bloggers are also artists or photographers, for example, then they can write about their work, show it and sell it direct from a blog. Humorists can also sell items such as mugs, T-shirts, tailgate stickers or greetings cards with humorous slogans printed on them, by using a company like CafePress.

Blogging For Someone Else

Companies are now hiring writers to keep their blogs up do date. Writing jobs like this can be found advertised on freelance writing sites such as Elance.

Turning a Blog into a Book

Blogs which are collections of humorous stories, blogs giving advice on a subject, personal diaries which read like first person novels: all of these can be turned into books, either using a print-on-demand service, such as Amazon’s Booksurge or Createspace, or by creating and selling E-books direct to the public through the blog itself.

No matter what method is used, the bottom line is that the blog must be entertaining, informative, and popular. Building a regular audience, and keeping them is crucial to the success of making money by blogging.

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The copyright of the article How to Make Money Blogging in Freelance Writing is owned by Janice Hally. Permission to republish How to Make Money Blogging in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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