Blog Monetization Without Advertising

JASON FALLS · 
April 29, 2013

Is it possible to monetize your blog, website or digital presence without advertising?

Certainly it is, but only in certain contexts.

Consultants or businesses can focus their energies on providing thought leadership and educational posts with the thought that interested parties will reach out to them to hire if and when they need the help. The organic content leads to search engine results which leads to traffic which leads to leads, and so on.

Put yourself in the shoes of the professional blogger or writer who doesn’t make ends meet with consulting or free-lance services for a moment, though.

They almost have to depend on either online sales of what they write, often in the form of e-books and paid email subscriptions, or some sort of advertising as revenue. Affiliate advertising is enormously popular among this set and has proven a lucrative career for many online entrepreneurs.

But as audiences become desensitized to advertising, perhaps even antithetical to it, and the all-important conversion and click-through rates dwindle, what can individuals do to continue to drive revenue?

These are the questions we asked ourselves at CafePress a few months ago. (Disclosure – I’m an executive at CafePress. This post is about something we’ve launched. It’s cool, though. Keep reading.) Certainly, CafePress offers an opportunity for anyone to monetize their content — image or written — by placing it on any number of products. You can upload a picture you took of your family, a pet or sunset and turn it into a mouse pad, shower curtain, canvas wall art, wall clock and more. You can pull that funny Tweet you posted yesterday and make it a bumper sticker, poster or T-shirt, too.

So as we asked that question — how can we make it easier for people to monetize their content without just asking them to slap an affiliate ad on their blog — we landed on what we think might be a pretty neat idea: The PressIt Button.

The PressIt button allows you to apply a class to any image you have on your website and make any text on your blog or website active to be placed on CafePress products. When you set an image to be “Press-able” a little, green “PressIt” button appears in the upper corner of the image. You click it and a carosel of products with that image appears. Your audience can then buy something with the image if they so choose.Photographers and graphic artists now have an easy way to productize their content!

But the button also appears when anyone visiting your website highlights any text on your site. The button appears in the upper corner of the highlight. If clicked, the carosel loads with products containing that word or phrase on them.

The WordPress plugin is available here. The JavaScript and other information can be found at the PressIt info page. We’d love for you to give it a try, of course.

But now back to the meat of the discussion: How can bloggers and non-profits and other companies monetize their online content in creative ways?

Not everyone will want or need print-on-demand solutions to allow their content to be productized. But not everyone is a consultant or free-lancer either. How are you monetizing your online presence?

As always, the comments are yours.

Top 10 Blog Monetization Strategies

Top 10 Blog Monetization Strategies

DAVID RISLEY

You want to make money with your blogging efforts.

But, how? Which method is the best one?
In this article, I outline what I believe are the top 10 ways to monetize a blog site. And I’m also going to do my best to rank them in order of workability.

1. Membership Programs

The “freemium” model is a huge and growing trend in online income right now. You provide a lot of quality content for free to your audience, and you provide a premium-level program to those willing to pay for it. You charge a monthly membership and that provides continuity and a steady income stream.Learn how to set up a market a membership site using this free guide I set up.

2. Information Products (Of Your Own)

The selling of knowledge is HUGE. If you build up your position in your market, you can then sell quality information to that market. This can take the form of e-books, audio, videos, or all of the above. You can package them up or just sell them digitally. If you author the product yourself (recommended), then you keep 100% of the profit.

3. Services/Consulting/Coaching

Another great way to make money with a blog is an indirect one. Use the blog to build reputation. Build a brand and build an audience. Then, you make your money by directing that attention into offline services, consulting and/or coaching. This can be quite lucrative. The drawback is that you are, again, trading time for money. So, it is only scalable up to a point.As an example, you can hire me for a personal strategy session.

4. Speaking Gigs

If you become well known as an expert in your niche, you can turn that into speaking gigs which you get paid for. Chris Brogan does this with his blog. Whether he makes money directly with his blog or not (I honestly don’t know), I know he gets paid to speak at various events.

5. Product Sales

If you have a physical product line to offer, you can use the blog as a face for your online store. Sell whatever you want. For example, if you are an artist, you can use an online store to sell art pieces and a blog to build up audience and a following.

6. Affiliate Programs

Affiliate marketing is a great way to build up your income. You offer the products of others to your audience and get paid when they buy it. In fact, any time you recommend a relevant product or service to your audience, check to see if they have an affiliate program. If so, sign up and use your affiliate link. After all, if you’d recommend it to your readers anyway, you might as well make a little cut if they happen to buy.

7. Direct Ad Sales

Banner ads and in-text ads are another popular way to make money. In fact, it is usually the first method you think of. However, if you’re going to go this route, selling the ads directly will result in more cash in your pocket. As I mentioned in my video evaluation of Jim On Light, make a media kit for your blog. As for pricing, I would recommend you shoot for twice your eCPM from Google Adsense. Why twice? Because that’s what Google is charging (they take half).

8. Banner Advertising

OK, if you don’t want to sell your own ads, you can obviously still run network advertising from a variety of different sources. Personally, I am using Adsense,Kontera, IDG and a little bit of Tribal Fusion.You can also direct sell ads and use network ads as filler for unused inventory. It is done all the time.

9. Paid Posts

Yes, you can get paid to review products and sites on your blog. Sites likePayPerPost and ReviewMe are popular options. I’ve seen some blogs sell this option directly. When doing this, it is important to disclose the fact that it is a paid review. It is also important that you maintain your integrity and never give a positive review unless you’re really feeling it.

10. Job Boards

Some sites (like ProBlogger) have job boards. It does work for some sites, however it probably won’t work for a majority of blogs out there.

11. Build It & Sell It

OK, I’ve thrown in an eleventh one as a bonus. You can build up a blog, build an audience, then turn around and sell the thing. In fact, some people actually buy blogs which are dead or are vastly underutliized by their owners. They’ll then put their marketing skills to work, build the SEO backlinks, build the readership. Then, they turn around and sell it at a profit. It can work. I’ve never done it myself personally, but I’ve read of others who have.

Monetize Your Blog

LEYL MASTER BLACK
Feb 09, 2013
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

While there are currently tens of millions of blogs worldwide, close to 60 million powered byWordPress alone, many bloggers are not yet monetizing their sites. If you're one of these bloggers, a good place to start is with affiliate marketing: directing readers to a product or service in exchange for a commission on the sale (or other action) when it occurs.SEE ALSO: Connect Your WordPress Blog With Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr"If an individual is looking to monetize their blog, I would make a strong case for affiliate marketing as the best avenue for doing so," says Josh Waldron, founder of creative design firm Studio JWAL LLC. "Blogs with quality content attract loyal readers. Since readers benefit from the content offered, they grow to trust the authors of that content over time. Consequently, an author's blog posts are a logical place to promote relevant products and services without compromising the integrity of the content."Here are four quick steps to monetizing your blog through affiliate marketing.

1. Choose Relevant Affiliate Programs

Affiliate ads pay per action, which means that readers will need to click on the ad and then either sign up or register for something, or make a purchase before you get paid for the action. The more relevant the ad is to your content, the higher the likelihood visitors will click on the ad and perform the desired action.So, what type of affiliate program will provide the most relevant ads for your blog? If you're focused on a particular topic, you will want to join affiliates specifically associated with your content. For example, if you have a photography site, you might apply to be an affiliate with a camera equipment dealer.Many bloggers start with Amazon Associates since Amazon sells millions of diverse products that are likely to be a fit for most bloggers. Amazon pays commissions of 4% to 15%, depending on volume and product type.To find other targeted affiliate programs, check out popular affiliate clearinghouse sites such as Commission Junction, LinkShare, and ShareASale. All three offer access to thousands of affiliate programs, but you must apply separately to each one.While you should choose programs related to your content, you don't have to feel restricted to stick too closely to your niche, says marketing consultant Dennis Duty. Think about what other types of products your audience might be interested in."Perhaps your Halo audience would enjoy other FPS games as well," says Duty.

2. Consider an Affiliate Aggregator Service

If your blog topics are more diverse, you might consider a program such as VigLink, which automates access to more than 30,000 affiliate programs and monetizes the links on your site for you.For example, if a blogger is writing about a new pair of shoes they found on Zappos, instead of having to sign up with the Zappos affiliate program directly, they can work with VigLink, which will automatically append the affiliate code to the link and pay the blogger their earned commissions. While VigLink typically keeps 25% for this service, the company claims that because of their size, they "often negotiate higher commissions that more than cover our share," says Oliver Deighton, vice president of marketing at VigLink.In addition to automatically monetizing existing links, VigLink can also optionally insert new, ordinary links where none existed before. For example, if a blogger mentions a product, brand or store, they don't have to worry about linking it themselves: VigLink will take care of that with its link insertion technology, which optimizes for both user experience and revenue."For most websites, link insertion lifts VigLink revenue by more than 90%," adds Deighton.Deighton notes that while any blogger can try VigLink, bloggers will find the most success if their content is geared toward commerce."Hobbies, fashion, tech gear, deals and savings are all topics that naturally lead to spending; religion, food, raising children are less ideal," adds Deighton.

3. Create Content That Sells

Many bloggers will actually write reviews of products with affiliate marketing in mind."The power of a blog is that it's easy to aggregate a lot of loyal fans for niche topics. This lends itself to making recommendations and providing affiliate links to those recommendations," says Chris Conrey, a partner at digital marketing company Vuurr.com. But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors, writes Lynn Truong, Editor-in-Chief of Wise Bread, a popular personal finance site."Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content," says Truong. "Don't put up a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link and purchase the books just because you listed them. Take some time to write a detailed review, and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information."

4. Integrate Affiliate Links Appropriately

If you do add affiliate links to your site, make sure you maintain a balance between monetization and user experience, suggests web designer Kevin Spence.One way to do this is to keep the majority of your content ad-free."What I would recommend to people is to think of 5-10 great pages that you could use to promote affiliate offers related to your niche. Then link to those money pages from your sidebar, footer or somewhere else that will give them a lot of visibility from the other pages on your site. Keep the rest of your site ad-free," says Spence. "The goal is not to monetize every page, but for every page to be a potential gateway to monetization.