Indian Mastermind

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This is second of the series of the blog monetization strategies and i want to give you an indepth idea of ways you can monetize your blog. Some of the ways you see may not suit you as your blog may be at a growth stage. It’s a long post so please be patient and read through every word of this post. Happy Earnings!

Selling the website : Developing a blog and selling it for profit has been one of the biggest profitable models of all time. To sell a blog for profit means you need to be well planned for your blog’s success and should be ready to flip it when the right time hits the door. Flipping websites is a long term investment. Some times it may take upto 18 months for your website to be in a profitable position to sell it in the marketplace. The basic criteria for website flipping is it helps if you have money to invest. The ground rule is You can earn more if you have more to invest.

Display Advertising

Banner advertising is a popular option for bloggers.  Sponsors can pay bloggers a monthly fee for display of a banner, or bloggers can use affiliate banners where they receive money from successful transactions.

There are number of banner options available.  These include the 728×90 leaderboard, the 468×60 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle, or the 125×125 square.  Most blogs utilize the 125×125 banner ad and those appear predominantly above the fold (which is a typical requirement for advertisers for maximum visibility).

If you are monetizing your blog with display advertising, you’ll likely need to provide information to potential advertisers.  Advertisers typically inquire about your demographic and the number of page views (and unique visitors, if possible).  You should have this information handy if at all possible.  Many advertisers often look at other metrics, including Alexa ranking and PageRank, to verify the popularity of your site and to determine how much exposure their ad will have.  This may influence the amount of money they want to offer as well.

If you choose to provide display advertising through a third party, you can use services such as Tribal Fusion, Right Media, Advertising.

In this way, you don’t have to handle the ad sale directly and it may be easier for you as a blog publisher.

 Pay Per Click

Most beginners start monetizing their blog with Google AdSense, or other Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising networks, such as the Yahoo! Publisher Network, Chitika, Clicksor and Bidvertizer. The idea behind these programs is that you sign up on the network and receive a snippet of code (based on the size of your selected ad) that you need to place on your website.  Google and other PPC providers will then serve contextual ads that are related to the content, and you will receive money for every user click.  Be advised that if these systems are abused, you can forfeit your admission into the program, so never click on your own ads.

Text Links

Once your blog kicks off, you’re going to be contacted by numerous people to engage in link exchanges.  Others will ask you about the ability to purchase links.  The first process is discretionary; many bloggers ignore the requests due to the lack of research performed in the blogger’s niche.  Most link exchange emails get ignored by all webmasters and you’re under no obligation to place a link on your site to another person’s website.  If the information and content is relevant and educational, however, a link exchange may be helpful. 

In the second case, text links may very well work if targeted appropriately.  Be aware that search engines can penalize you if they find out that you provide text links that are not targeted and do not carry the nofollow on them.  However, many services, such as Text Link Ads, Text Link Brokers, Kontera, and LinkXl provide contextual ads within blog posts without you having to make any changes or additions to your website code.  These systems can still be discovered by search engines and should be used with caution.  If you don’t like a text link ad, you may want to opt out.