Blogging For Money

Is money your ultimate goal in blogging? Others openly declare that if it’s not for money-making, blogging is just a waste of time. So their every effort, (posting, blog design, commenting, blog hopping, blog title, post title, etc…) is aimed at making money online. How many creatively deceive the readers just to gain traffic? How many pretend to be experts in money-making when their post is just copied in from somewhere?

Others say that money as the goal in blogging is destroying the blogosphere. And that the “pure bloggers” are the personal bloggers.

I am not going to argue. This post is directed at those who want to start blogging for money. If you’re already earning a lot with your blog, you don’t have to read this amateurish post. For newbies, you can learn from the following in your attempt to monetize your blog:

GoogleAdsense. Do you see the ads on top of this post? These are from Google Adsense. If you write in blogger, the invitations are somewhat built in. All you have to do is click away the link then start the registration. You have to insert some codes into your template. After approval, which normally takes a week, you start earning on per click or per thousand impressions. If you write in wordpress without paying a fee, somewhere in their terms prohibits you from monetizing. If you blog on your own domain and using wordpress, there are wonderful plug-ins available.

The cashing in may be very slow to some but fast to the others. Mine is still under $10 after many months. I’m not really good at it, but I’ll get there soon. The internet is rich with articles (and even videos) on how to maximize Adsense. Just googlesearch it. Take note that traffic is very important in getting more clicks. That is why other bloggers are dying for the search engine traffic because this.

Banners and Widgets. There are others that pay you by just placing a widget or banner in a visible area in your site. The 125 x 125 ad is the most popular. You can either invite direct ads or join a network like Project wonderful. Take note that you got to have the numbers (traffic, ranking, subscribers, etc…) to justify your price.

Sponsored or Paid Posts. Some companies hire bloggers to write reviews for their products or services. They usually contact another internet company with a pool of publishers. The basic requirement for approval is a 90-day old blog (it’s now 30 days for Izea), written in English and with at least 20 posts. They evaluate your blog’s numbers (usually the traffic, backlinks, PR and Alexa Ranking) and then give you posting opportunities. These opportunities maybe as low as $2, or as high as over $1000, and that is dependent on your PR or some other rankings which, in the end, probably goes back to PR. This is where the PR is important to the publishing blog.

So what are these writing opportunities? You simply write a positive or even a neutral review, minimum of 150 words (though some require only 50), and put the link in the required anchor text in your post. You publish the entry in your blog, and then submit the link for approval. If approved, you get paid weekly or in usually in 30 days.

Though the blogger is required to maintain a balance between sponsored and non-sponsored posts, this is usually overlooked in the haste to make more money. There are times when the quality of the individual posts (sponsored or not) is sacrificed. But nobody cares anymore about quality when everyone else in your blogging circle is doing the paid thing. Or it is like saying that, “If they get paid for a crappy entry, why can’t I do the same?” But we are not the judge here. It’s ultimately the sponsor of your post who approves or rejects them. But generally, it’s the link that they are after. SEO tactics, you might call it.

The downside in doing sponsored posts is that google will swoop down your PR if they find out you are selling links. I lost my PR4 and PR3 because of this, not until I earned a few hundred bucks. And when you have a PR of less than 3, you won’t get too many opportunities. You’ll soon find out how futile it is to do sponsored posts when you don’t have the numbers.

Affiliate Marketing or Referrals. You refer someone to sign-up to their program, or buy their product online, and then you get paid. Google adsense also has referral products. There are other sites too offering affiliate marketing. This one works best for those niche bloggers. And many bloggers argue that affiliate marketing is the best for the long term.

Others. There are plenty of other money-making activities online like the text-link ads, payperclick, paid surveys, joining social networks, etc… Another way to make money is to sell a domain name or a digital product.

The internet world is just so full of surprises these days. Blogging for money is just one of those that changed the shape of the online world, and even change the blogger himself. If you want to earn money but don’t have a blog yet, better start now, develop your content, and join all the blogging networks available just to be seen and noticed. For those personal bloggers who want to jump ship, you can either start monetizing your blog, or create a new blog for the purpose of monetizing. If your personal blog is linked to bloggers who loathe blog monetization, you might lose them along the way.

And to add another thing, some advertisers prefer blogs with own domains than those free-hosted blogs. So, better shell out a few hundreds now as your initial investment.

But, whichever goal you set, that blog is yours and you can do everything with it. For those who consider themselves as “pure bloggers”, you know what’s best for you and your blog. Who am I to dictate your blogging goals? And who are you to dictate mine? Let us all learn to live and exist with each other, even with differing blogging goals.

Happy weekend and happy blogging, everyone!

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