Most people write blogs simply to share their opinion on something. But it occurred to me that there must be some more business-minded folks out there, who would have found ways to generate an income using their blogging ability. Seeing that I write a blog every week, this is a great idea to at least look into or little, if not apply some strategies.
It didn’t take long to realize that it is indeed possible to make some extra money or even to earn a living off blogging. One blogger (How I replaced my day-job with earnings from this blog) gives a detailed account of how he managed to earn enough money to quit his corporate job and just go on blogging for bucks. This is just one example of many, but I figured I could categorize the information a bit better to make it more accessible for you and me. Here are therefore 4 strategies to earn money with your blogs:
- Sell advertising. This is likely the most common means of generating income through blogging. If yours happens to become a well-known blog, or one that is well-received in a particular niche, it’s always possible to sell ad space on your own. Otherwise, Google’s Adsense is a great solution. It is an ad program, which allows you to select several ads that are relevant to the content of your blog. Programs such as this one pay you based on how many readers click on the ads for further information. What’s best: it’s free.
- Help sell others’ products. There are programs which enable your blog to serve as a link between readers and online sites offering various goods and services. A good example is Amazon.com. If, for instance, you offer book reviews or even just mention a book in your blog, an affiliate program provides a way for your readers to click directly from your blog to Amazon to obtain further information on the book. If they decide to buy the book, you earn a commission!
- Solicit contributions. Not only advertising third party goods generates income. If, for instance, your blog supports a relevant cause or issue in some way — say you repeatedly mention tax reform, health care or some other topic — you can always ask for reader support. Especially so, if you’ve managed to attract a group of regular followers, who enjoy reading your blogs.
- Market your own services in your blog. It is important not to overlook a blog’s capacity to generate new business as well. Writing about what you do and what you offer could possibly hook any would-be client or customer who may be reading your blog. At the same time a blog can also be used to deepen ties with already existing customers, by keeping everyone up-to-date about your business.
Of course blogs don’t offer the promise of making big bucks fast and easy. The famous blogger known as Fake Steve Jobs said:
“I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn’t one of them.” [see]
Nevertheless, there are several ways to monetize your writing passion and with a little skill and insight many people have made a lot more than just shouting our their opinion out of blogging.
unitedtribes 
Hi Johann,
you decided to put the two things we talked about in the very beginning together: monetizing and blogging. That is probably in everyone’s interest, as we have to blog anyway and way not making money at the same time 😉
The four strategies you present sound quite simple but you clearly said, that it is nevertheless difficult to make big money with a blog.
I would like to show you another way of getting money via blogs. The system is called social micropayments and you if you liked a blog post, you click and Flattr will take a part of the money you pay in your Flattr-account monthly and give it to the websites owner. Flattr is the next step of the “Like”-button.
Check out the website http://flattr.com/
Here’s a video which explains Flattr