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We all know what blogs are today, and those of us who have one are always looking at ways of making money with them. Gone are the days when a blog was simply a techies online journal – they’re now accepted as part of our culture. However, it seems rather curious that we choose to write our random thoughts and display them so publically.
From a psychological perspective, blogging can be seen as a means of release, giving us an outlet for things that we’d otherwise keep bottled up. They can be used to help us get things off our chest and to relieve our emotional tensions.
For students, a blog might be their mouthpiece to a wider audience allowing them to shout out against the system and to connect with others who feel the same way as they do.
However, it’s the business aspect of blogging that interests me the most. In this setting, a blog gives us the opportunity to advertise and sell our products or services in a whole new way. It becomes an essential tool in our arsenal, allowing us not only to market at a whole new level, but also to build credibility by providing valuable free content to our readers.
OK, so it can be good fun to maintain a blog (as long as you enjoy writing…!) Apart from this though, blogs can be used to generate secondary income alongside your main products and services. Here are a few ideas to demonstrate.
1) Promote Other Peoples Products
You’re probably more familiar with this under the term ‘affiliate marketing’. In other words, promote products that other people have created and are willing to give you a cut of the profits for selling for them. This can be very lucrative – especially for information products – and some bloggers make a good full-time income just doing this.
2) Sell Advertising Space
Most people think that this is only possible once you’ve built a huge following, but there more subtle ways to advertise. For instance, many companies are willing to pay to have a review written about their products or services, and they recognise that balanced reviews (i.e. uncovering problems as well as plus points) can be highly profitable due to the trust that accompanies the honesty.
Once you DO have a decent readership, you can start offering more traditional advertising, such as 125×125 ad blocks (like you see on the upper-right of John’s Tech Blog).
Oh, and don’t overlook AdSense…!
3) Don’t Just Look for Money!
It’s your blog, but more importantly, it’s your readership! Why not look for ways to reward your loyal fans by working with a third party to offer a gift (or a substantial discount) to your readers in exchange for a bit of free publicity?
These three ideas only scratch the surface of what’s possible with blogging. If you have any other ideas or suggestions that we can all use to make money with our blogs, then please share them in the comments below.
