How to Make Money Blogging in 2023
Many or all of the links on this page compensate me. Here is a list of our partners and how I make money.
Monetize Your Blog with Link Sales
Currently, I have sold 15 links on my sidebar to advertisers, which provides a decent amount of passive income. Selling links is advantageous for two reasons: they require little maintenance on your part and generate income on a monthly basis. I make money passively, meaning the income comes in monthly instead of a one-time payout.
You don’t have to convert buyers or generate click-throughs via third part advertisers either. The money is guaranteed unless your traffic dies, but I’m sure you do a great job at marketing your site.
Link Selling Resources
Text Link Ads – 50% publisher commission that’s negotiable, accepts most sites upon registering, owned by Media Whiz.
LinkWorth – I barely use their service but have sold 2 through them, decent network of publishers and advertisers, immediate acceptance into program, definitely worth a shot but is secondary to Text Link Ads IMO.
Digital Point Link Sales Forums – Offers passive income, not as much as TLA or LinkWorth but every little bits helps, increases your link sales volume when you command a lower link price.
Optimize Google Adsense Units on Your Site
Ah, King Google himself is my second favorite income source. Why? Because Google Adsense provides highly contextual ads that add value to my pages. The difficult thing about Adsense is that you have to find a medium that allows you to earn a decent income, but not alienate your readers in the process.
I’m no Adsense expert, but I’ve come to this conclusion about the Adsense program: You will earn big money as long as your ads add value to your pages. A lot of people don’t want to admit that fact, but it’s completely true.
Make sure you sign up with Adsense, and begin playing around with the ad formats, colors, options, etc. If you’re already a publisher, find an ad layout that blends well and switch around the placement to find a hotspot. Hotspots are locations where your readers spend a significant amount of time browsing.
You can find more Adsense Tips on my past post about making money from blogging.
Drive Affiliate Sales With Your Blog
For some people, these are big money makers, particularly those with exceptional marketing skills. I, on the other hand, have experienced limited success with affiliate sales, but things have picked up recently.
I use Commission Junction for most of my affiliate sales, but have also experimented with:
- ReviewMe
- Text Link Ads
- Cash Crate
- AGLOCO
The key to affiliate sales is matching products to the interests of your site’s readers. In other words, you wouldn’t promote computer games on a site for dog lovers.
Another important piece is the pre-sell page where you basically explain the benefits of the product you choose to promote. Your goal is to highlight the positives and negatives about the product, so your readers can make an educated decision about his or her purchase. The pre-sell method will definitely increase your conversion rates.
An example of a pre-sell page is my Cash Crate Review.
Affiliate Resources
Commission Junction – provides the largest network of affiliate programs on the web, everyone should join this program.
ClickBank – I don’t have an account with them, but have heard good things from time to time. It’s worth a look.
Amazon Affiliate Program – you can link to products or place banners on our page, they just released a new contextual program that links to product automatically, I would give them a try.
AuctionAds – displays contextual eBay ads within your site. You can set the keywords before hand, and show relevant products to your viewers. Works very well for product related sites.
Monetize your Blog’s RSS Feed
RSS Feed ads will boost your revenue numbers, especially if you have a large feed audience. Most of your RSS subscribers will keep track of your site via RSS or e-mail, and will only visit your site to explore a specific post, contact you, or comment on an entry (Feedburner allows you to track RSS click throughs to your site for a monthly fee). Feedburner’s FAN network connects you with potential advertisers who decide to run banners advertisements throughout your feed and website.
FAN network serves mostly geo-targeted (at least in my experience), meaning they only appear in specific geographical locations across the world. This can be a challenge if advertisers target ads for Canada, but most of your feed readers reside in the US.
Text Link Ads offers Feedvertising, their version of ad campaigns for your RSS Feed. You can sell text link ads in the marketplace or run your own ads. Unless advertisers are willing to pay a premium, it’s best to run your own affiliate or site links. It’s an additional way to earn extra affiliate income or promote your own products.
Feed Ad Resources
Maki wrote a fairly comprehensive guide on monetizing your feed.
Earn Blogging Revenue with Site Reviews
ReviewMe presents unlimited income opportunities to those who write high quality reviews and return value to the advertisers. You can charge upwards of $500 gross for a review, but you only get to pocket 50% of the revenue at the moment. I suspect high earning publishers use leverage to increase their percentage of the profits.
Site Reviews Resources
ReviewMe – You want to spend some time concentrating on Reviewme because that’s where the big money lies.
PayPerPost – A distance second to Reviewme, better suited for blogs with lower traffic levels.
Build A Niche Ebay Store For Your Blog
If you blog on a specific niche and/or topic, you can make money by adding a relevant ebay store to your blog. Simply build an ebay store to instantly make your blog more profitable.
Once you create your niche store, make sure to link to your store from every page on your blog. Your visitors will read your posts, then see what your ebay store sells. If a visitor makes a purchase on eBay through your store, you earn an affiliate commission. It’s an easy way to earn money without actively selling products on your blog yourself.
Manage Your Ads Unit Online
RMX Media’s online software is great for managing your banner ads, including Adsense blocks. It creates a live auction for all your advertisements according to CPM, and displays the highest paying ad. I give it two thumbs up.
Do You Know About A Worthy Income Source?
Well, tell us about it already, so we can all enjoy the love!
Update: Added to the reviews section (Hat Tip to Maki).
Update: Added Amazon Affiliate Program to the list.
Update: Added Auction Ads. (Hat Tip to Technified)
Good luck, and continue to make money with your blog.
