THE NET-TECH REPORT: 5 Easy Ways of Monetizing Your Blog

The Net-Tech Report with Chris Kauza

The last few months we talked about why you should be blogging and what are some good ways to get ideas for a blog. And as much as blogging can be lots of fun, as business owners we need to be able to make money and get exposure for our businesses. Blogging is a great way of making money online, driving traffic to your websites and capturing the email addresses of your prospects.

Here are 5 easy ways of monetizing your blog today:

1. Add an opt-in box

If you are building a mailing list (and you REALLY should be) then in my opinion this is the single best way of monetizing your blog. Why? Because you are giving your opinions and information on your blog, and if people like what you write, you will immediately begin to have rapport with you – even if they DON'T like what you write, you can create engagement with them, by responding to their comments (and sometimes being a little controversial can be a GOOD thing!). Simply add an opt-in box to your blog page and begin capturing the names and email addresses of your visitors. After they have opted-in you can immediately create a more meaningful relationship with them, and be of greater service to them. In some cases, you may want to add an offer for one of your products or services, but in all cases the dominate question you should be asking them I, “How can I be of service to you? How can I add more value to your business and your life?” From the perspective of “making sales” - your customer list is your most valuable asset. It's not the numbers of subscribers you have, so much as it is the value of the relationship they feel they have with you.

2. Google Adsense

This is probably one of the easiest ways of monetizing your blog – simply sign up for a Google Adsense account. You get paid a small amount of money every time somebody clicks on one of the ads. Nothing more complicated than that. The only thing to keep in mind is that you CANNOT click on the ads that are on your site, as that will violate the Terms of Service, and you account will be banned.

3. Links to your own products and affiliate products

Links can be placed within the body text of your blog posts or within the actual blog template. If you don’t have your own products to sell then you could consider posting links to other peoples' products or services. Suppose you wrote a post about blogging (like this one, for example). You could recommend an email marketing product or course which you know could be useful to your audience. If someone clicks on that link and purchases the product or service, you will make some money

4. Selling ad space on your site

Once you reach a point where your blog is receiving a decent amount of traffic and has a good readership, you can start selling advertising space on your blog. People like advertising on blogs because the visitors are usually very interested in the topic being discussed (so it's highly targeted traffic), and if the content is good with a strong following, people will come back to see what's new, on a regular basis.

5. Selling your blog

Yes, you can actually sell your blog to someone else, once you've built it to a point where it has some value. A blog which makes money is highly valuable to other marketers and there are many people who run businesses buying and selling blogs. You might want to consider creating a blog with the sole intention of selling it.

One thing to keep in mind is that the FTC put forth a set of guidelines last year, to help protect US consumers from deceptive business practices. While they do not have the full force of regulations, it is a good idea for businesses to keep these in mind when doing ANY kind of marketing online. Generally speaking, don't lie or otherwise deceptively mislead your market about your products or services. Do good work, talk about the benefits and you should be okay letting the quality of your work speak for itself.

Personally, I blog and write articles because it's an enjoyable way for me to share my message about things I like (business, online topics, technologies, people, etc.) with a larger audience. If you found this post useful, feel free to share this with your friends.


For more information, please visit Chris's TNNWC Bio.

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THE NET-TECH REPORT: 5 Easy Ways of Monetizing Your Blog

WORKING WITHIN: Networking From A Different Perspective

Working Within with Leanne Hoagland-Smith

What is networking? Where does networking take place? Business professionals have their own definition and favorite geographic locations.

Yet, the power of networking to build loyal customers, centers of influence and strategic partnerships is being greatly diminished because the definition has been somewhat corrupted in the haste to increase sales.

Lillian Bjorseth, author of Breakthrough Networking, provides one of the best definitions that I have read. Networking is “mutually beneficial relationships.” For many business professionals to small business owners to C Level Executives, the focus of networking is very much about external beneficial relationships. Yet, if we believe Lillian’s definition is accurate, then why is business networking restricted to external relationships for so many? This focus, on external relationships, is the source of corruption.

In attempt to bring the focus on networking back to its primary origins, this column, “Working Within” will be on the internal relationships within any business and how by using the same or similar external networking behaviors can dramatically improve business results. As Marcel Proust once wrote, “the true voyage of discovery is not seeking new landscapes, but seeing the same landscape with new eyes.”

Just imagine for a moment if you could establish mutually beneficial relationships between your internal customers (your employees). How would these “working within” relationships:

Reduce costs?

Improve productivity?

Increase team building?

Create a culture of high performance?

Build a following of loyal external customers?

Unfortunately due to the human condition as well as current business practices, many organizations are a series of unconnected silos (think the word “departments”) where employees operate in isolation and start to believe that everyone else in the organization is uncooperative. There are existing individual beliefs combined with the cultural conditioning from the organization that reinforce chasms between those department procedures and protocols. These communication chasms only further contribute to the multitude of reasons not to build internal relationships. The old expression “people leave managers and not companies” is a reflection of how internal networking is not valued.

With human capital talent being the most expensive asset in all organizations and the most under valued, building mutually beneficial internal relationships makes just good business sense. Now is the time to reconsider networking from an internal perspective. You just may be surprised as to the improvement in your bottom line.

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WORKING WITHIN: Networking From A Different Perspective

TNNW, October, 2008, Week 1: The Show Must Go On...

By Adam J. Kovitz

CEO, Founder & Publisher

I am doing something that I have not done since February, 2005...

...I am taking a break from writing my regular column for TNNW.

I am not taking a break, however, from my editorial duties, so you will have my pre-rambling-editorials for the four weeks of October. My intention is to keep my editorials as brief as possible...we'll see how that goes!

My good friend Douglas Castle, who has recently joined us as our Director of Product and Program Development stands in for me this month, and in keeping with the theme of "Monitizing Relationship Capital", he submits (for your approval) his article.

Douglas, himself, is a prolific writer and contributes to a virtual cornucopia of blogs including "The Global Futurist" and "Humanitas Maximus". While he doesn't know it yet (hint hint, wink wink), we will be making use of his writing talents as well in the coming months. Stay tuned for that!

Next month, I will continue my series on "Monetizing Relationship Capital".

As always, I look forward to networking with you...

- Adam
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TNNW, October, 2008, Week 1: The Show Must Go On...