If you love blogging and you want to generate an income online using it, how will you start? And if you do become a success, how will you turn this success into profit?
It seems that the hardest thing to do is get traffic, but once you get it and become good at it, you can generate an income online, or at least that's what they all say, but no one takes the time to show you the exact steps they took after they acquired that necessary traffic to turn into profit. I don't want them to tell me what I already know by listing the different ways I can generate an income online, I want to know what they did the moment they decided to monetize their blog.
If I start a blog and it becomes popular due to my unique high quality content, whats next?
For example which one of the following should I choose, or at least start with so I can generate an income online from my blog?
1) Affiliates?
2) Google AdSense?
3) Other Advertising Networks? (such as ClickBank or BuySellAds.com)
4) Other ways…
Most people can get their blog to be a success based on their creativity and knowledge about the main topic their blog is based on, but then get lost when it's time to turn that into profit.
Whenever I visit a new successful blog with decent traffic ranks, I try to identify all the methods the blog owner uses to generate an income online.
Two common methods that I'm always able to easily spot are Google AdSense and ClickBank.
But I have no idea if the owner started with one of those or used other methods first and as his/her blog got better they upgraded to either AdSense or BuySellAds.
For now, lets take a look at these two methods. Both can be used to generate an income online:
We all know that AdSense is one of the best options to generate an income online by displaying relevant ads on your website. But if that's true, how come some blogger's prefer using services such as BuySellAds? (Even though their blog has the potential to easily get accepted by AdSense without any problems so that is not an issue).
BuySellAds is an Online Advertising Network that helps online advertisers and website publishers buy and sell ads without any hassle by matching them together, they get to keep %25 on whatever the advertiser pay you per ad slot per month. So if you have a good blog, advertisers can keep renting that Ad slot from you month after month, giving you a nice stable income.
If you want to be successful with AdSense you need clicks, but what if you don't get a lot of clicks but do have a high page impressions? will AdSense still be the correct choice to use? or should you try a service such as BuySellAds since advertisers pay you to rent an AD spot on your blog regardless of how many clicks you receive.
It's very difficult to get into BuySellAds. A few month ago I applied there and submitted my blog, I didn't have any hope but I said what the heck I'll try anyways, 2 days later I (of course) got rejected and they said to apply later once my site got better traffic.
Right now my blog is pretty decent and I plan to continue to grow it, but I'm not really sure what's next after that, should I just focus on Affiliates and forget about advertisers or should I try to rank high in every site metric possible so my blog looks good to advertisers?
What's your take?
Please try your best to answer ANY of the following questions in the comments below, I would love to here your opinions:
1) If you are a successful blogger and currently making money blogging, what is the first step you took to monetize your blog the moment you decided to generate an income online from it. Please name the method you used and a brief description of how you did would be awesome. 😀
2) If you have experience with AdSense, ClickBank or BuySellAds which one do you recommend for a successful medium traffic blog?
3) Any tips you have to help us get accepted by BuySellAds? If you view their site profile for any blog or site you can see they display many metrics about each site such as their Alexa, Google Page Rank, Twitter followers and even their delicious bookmarks, which one of these matter the most to get our blog to be approved?
4) If you are new and your blog is not where you want it to be at just yet, how do you plan on monetizing it once you become a success?
I think that knowing what step to take next once you gain enough traffic will help motivate you to work even harder to achieve your goal and eventually be able to generate an income online.
I don’t understand why people love BuySellAds that much. My site got approved there last year but I didn’t place their script on my site because I could earn much more for private offers.
Besides, I recommend using Adsense for sites with pageviews of at least 1000/day, or you couldn’t earn a decent amount from the network (except some sites targeting some high paying keywords like insurance or lawyer).
BuySellAds is very famous and if your site is doing too well, you can a lot from BSA, I’ve seen a website make over 7 thousands per month using BSA.
But its very difficult to get in unless you’re site/blog is really good.
It is not difficult to get accepted into Buy Sell Ads if you have a decent website. Of course, crappy sites with low content will have little chance of getting in. Even after you get into the network only good websites actually attract advertisers. Ad pricing also plays an important role.
I’ll look into it a little later on and see if I can make any good of it 🙂
is it possible to really make good money with BuySellAds vs. AdSense vs. Chitika ? 🙂
I’d love to hear the success story from anyone 🙂
Yes, it is possible. I’ve reached $1000 in revenue last month including over $500 from Adsense.
I think you should experiment with some popular ad networks and then you will get your own choice.
Good luck.
Very interesting. I’m going to have to look into it further. Thanks for informing me on your $ gUaP $ increase from BuySellAds! =)
I’ve recently started blogging and I must say that I am generating much more money from any of my other websites that with blogs. Probably because it is very early, but generally highest income is always from sales on websites.
Ya some static sites can make insane amounts of revenue if they get enough traffic, but first they must at least offer something more than just plain information, usually a sale of a product or special benefits you get if you buy from a certain site.
Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Kal,
I’m very happy to hear about your success in blogging to get:
—> $ gUaP $ <—
Online. What exactly are you doing in terms of promoting your blog, if you don't mind me asking? 🙂
I don’t limit myself with promotion, I am doing every kind of online and offline promotion. Diversify strategy as much as possible.
There may be some out there that make a decent amount with adsense, but I don’t know anyone personally that does. It seems like you might do better with affiliate programs if you find the right ones that pay well enough and are related to what your site is about. One affiliate sale or commission is sometimes equivalent to a lot of adsense clicks. Everyone want to sell you banner ad space. There are more people wanting to sell ad space than people looking to buy them. Traffic seems to help, but usually when someone is really searching for something related to your site and what you have to offer. I don’t know. I haven’t figured out how to get rich online yet. If I do I’ll let you know. If you do please let me know.
I agree Ray, it’s very difficult deciding the best option to use, I think the best thing to do is give each one a try for a certain period of time and see what happens.
I will definitely let you know as soon as I figure it out, I hope you do the same. 😀
well said, Sayed =)
I have Placed the code but Till now I didn’t get any ad from there. Impressions are good. Adsense and private offers are working well for me.
Glad to hear Adsense is working for you Atish, you gotta give BSA sometime though, an advertiser have to look for your site in order to purchase AD spots from you.
My blog is pretty new. I already have adsense and intext advertsing which is doing well at this level. Once my blog improves I will try advertising solutions such as Buysellads etc
Good plan Kumar, that’s exactly what I’m going to do as soon as my blog gets a bit better.
Thanks for sharing.
Nirmal,
yes, I would recommend doing so, and also look into affiliate programs. You’ll want to diversify your online income through various options 🙂
That’s what I’ve been doing as well. New blogs get adsense and intext links first then get buysellads later.. it definitely works.. a little slow up sometimes but is always worth the effort.
Still trying to figure out how to monetize my blog better. It’s generating some income but not that much yet to get me to quit my day job. 🙂
Glad to hear you started to generate an income online Adeline, keep at it and it will get easier and better, and if you found any new ways to monetize it, please share it with us.
Thanks Adeline.
In my case, got some few bucks from adsense but not that decent enough, in terms of advertisements on my blog, I think I still need to dig harder to have people advertise at my blog :/
You’re lucky Herbert, I still didn’t get a single paycheck from Adsense yet..lol. I’m looking forward for my first one though. Cant wait.
Im not that lucky though, I will if my adsense earnings a day will multiply to 3 😀
Awesome plan Drewry very organized, and you’re right, content really is king. People will come back to you simple because of the quality of your content. please let us know how it works out for you. 🙂
BuySellAds.com is really a great stuff to follow up.And i had started blogging recently and by many tips i am getting a great help as well as advancement.
Hey Junaid, BSA is a good option, just gotta figure out how to attract advertisers, once you do that, you’re set for a nice stable monthly income.
I personally think its best to diversify your income streams and test out different income generators. I use ad sense and CPA offers as my main earners but I also sell advertising space, affiliate products and also test other ad networks.
I agree, its best to test whats out there and see what works and what doesn’t, its just hard to make the right choices sometimes.
Thanks for sharing.
If I am new in the business, the best thing that I can definiotely do is to become an affiliate because there are lots of way to earn through affiliate marketing.
ya affiliate marketing is definitely worth it, but only if you find the right ones. 🙂
For a new blog, it would be best to stick to Google Adsense as it can give you some revenue even though small they might be, but just ensure that you have a decent amount of traffic as well. In lieu of BuySellAds, it’s really tough getting your site or blog accepted if it has a few number of pageviews a month. As far as I can remember, they only accept those who received at least 10k pageviews per month. And I know it’s quite hard for a new blog to get to this figure.
10k pageviwes? damn…still a long way to go lol, thanks for sharing.
It sure is! LOL.. I’ve been struggling with the same problem before only to find out that my blog still has got a long long way to go. But I know you can reach that thing one day. Good luck 🙂
You have to make a certain amount of money before AdSense cuts a check too though, I think it’s 100$ now. It is incredibly hard for new blogs to do well in any form of monetization. If you are looking to make income, freelance or do something besides blogging.
Great blog, very interesting and informative. I was just reading about how to make money from blogs on another blog funily enough. Its definatley a very interesting and comples world!
Thanks Harriet.
First off, I don’t think any of the methods are mutully exclusive. There’s no reason one can’t use them all. I wuld say that as you start to generate traffic, affiliate marketing is a good way to start. That was one of the first methods that I started with and it worked well, but only after you hit about 400-500 hits a day.
At that point, I was able to sell a few ad spaces as well. I don’t use buysellads though. I don’t think it’s worth giving them the commission just to have my site listed in their marketplace. Most people that want to advertise contact me directly from my site anyways. I use komoona, which is a great free ad management service. They work well for me.
Contextual advertising, such as adsense is a distant third option. The thing is that you need to generate a huge amount more traffic in order to generate a decent profit through contexxtual advertising. I would say probably about 10 times more traffic to earn the same income.
By far, affiliate marketing is doing the best for me, but you have to find good products to promote. I suggest using a reputable network like linkshare or commission junction, as theyy have reputable merchants.
Thanks Richard, Affiliate marketing is a great option, but as you said only when you know what to sell, gotta select the right product. I’m not familiar with Komoona, gonna check them out.
Thanks for sharing Richard. 🙂
Can someone kindly explain affiliate marketing to me? Is it selling their products on your blog or website? Or providing a link to another site so folks can buy their products? Please clarify for me. I am a REAL newbie and trying to learn before I actually do a blog or website. Thanks!
Thats a good point, Google reserves the right to cancel your account anytime, kinda makes you live in fear all the time, unless you got a mega site and they get to make a lot of money using you, I think in that case they will care about your account.
I monetize with Adsense and affiliate promotions. I earn WAY more from affiliate promotions across all my blogs. However, Adsense adds a nice chunk of change each month.
I’m curious how much traffic does BuySellAds.com require in order to use their service? Do you know? Did they tell you?
I don’t feel the need to rush into monetizing my blog straight away, I know it’s more important to build up content and traffic before I go and try and start making money from it. I might have 1 ad unit, and then slowly build up and branch into different forms of income as I go
I just got my blog up about 4 days ago so when I say I’m new, I’m a fetus compared to you guys. I’m really just working on my content because I’m working on an ebook. I’ve put in my categories, am creating unique content related to my products or my experiences, and I’m working on guest blogging opportunities so that I can build traffic. With all of this, I am still looking into how I can monetize my blog because if I make a penny, it’s a penny I didn’t have before. Plus, if I get this done now and in place, I can just concentrate on creating content and tracking results. Like I said, I’m new but that’s my plan. Thanks for the guidance. I actually applied for Komoona on my blog.
Yes, my blog is ready to generate an income and this article is very handy as I have been researching affiliate programs and other options. Thanks so much.
G’Day from Australia, hey Sayed, how is Toronto treating you?
I have read through a few comments but I could not find anything regarding Google AdWords. None of you guys (bloggers) using AdWords? I know AdSense seems to make more sense, but would be interesting to get some insights from real bloggers. I’m not a blogger, not really. Not yet :), so I’m happy to hear from you guys. Thanks.
I even started in the affiliate industry and it goes really well. I am looking forward to one day I can just fit my websites and does not need to have a real job.
hope 2012 will go well.;)
I am not getting enough money through my blog.i tried link exchange also but very less response .thanks for suggesting buysellads.
I really want my blog to be ready to create a income or even monetize my site. After I have read this I know I need to do a lot of work to make my website ready to generate a income. Thanks for sharing!
Again a great share Sayed !!
I’d prefer Adsense to BSA for a medium(+) traffic blog…. I suggest you to send a screenshot of your traffic to BSA after submitting your blog for review (This worked for me)
I’ve made quite a bit of money with ad sense over the years. Most people place those ads poorly. A site with 10,000 hits a day can make some decent income with adsense, at least 10-25$ per day if you place ads in the articles themselves, and in strategic spots. Another tip, gaming websites get better CTR with click through ads. People think they’re games, and advertisers make the ads look like games.
In 2009 I was making about 700$ a month with ad sense, and 90% of my traffic was coming from Google, but I had 45 websites online including a political blog that was doing heavy traffic. My friend who I sold my websites too is still making over 2k per month even though Panda caused a major drop in traffic. If you’re wanting to make money on the Internet, you shouldn’t be blogging in the first place really.
If you’re blogging and decide you want to make enough to pay for your host and get a little pocket change, there are also some alternatives. I’ve recently been contacted about a deal where advertisers will pay between 100$ and 200$ per year to place an article within any of my websites that qualify. The websites that qualify are PR 3 and above, produce content daily, and meet requirements relating to traffic and SERP ranking.
There are advertisers that will pay by the impression as well.
You really need to look at your traffic and website to determine the best ways to monetize it. If you’re getting traffic from search engines and stumble upon, affiliate ads do much better. If you’re one of the most popular blogs in your niche you can do better with affiliate ads.
My blog disabled for adsense, dont know why its happened.
Please help me out.
give me some suggestion if you find any fault.
My blog link is (removed)
Concentrate on Your contents , try to put more posts(should be quality content).
Do SEO for your site on Sunday or when you had time.
Share your post in twitter and facebook ,stumbleupon.
It will take atleast 1 year to reach the top level. When you reach the top level, You will have more money in your hands. That’s how i am earning.
Never stop doing post or seo.
It is really hard to find an alternative for Adsense, will take a look at BuySellAds. I think CPA is also good way but it is hard to find targeted offers.
I started adsense program a few months ago, but didn’t have idea about the other possibilities. Thanks a million for this article!
I would prefer to find an affiliate instead of adsense. But I do earn a little from adsense now, but not nearly enough. I think if my traffic goes up, I may be more pleased with adsense. My income was best when I had many amazon links and Google had my pages ranked extremely high. I don’t how that happened and because of that, the rankings plummeted on July 26th 2010. I remember that date like my wedding anniversary.
ooops…my most serious sincerest apologies. I copied and pasted the link too fast and forgot to add the “l” at the end of it. Here’s the correct link below 🙂
http://www.drewrynewsnetwork.com/f36/how-go-hard-online-delaware-get-$-guap-$-while-earning-full-time-living-2413.html
once again, sorry about that 🙂
My blog is new with around 10000 page views a month.Currently I am using chitikaand the results are ok.In future after making my blog more decent in terms of traffic,I am planning to have adsense and I will also try to get some sponsored posts.
I must say adsense is the bast way of making money online but for a beginners their are many thinks to manage before considering about monetizing the blog.
If my blog gets enough traffic then i’ll be happy to place AdSense ,rather than an affiliate ..
Even though I am still in my learning phase so it’s good to read an article about this….
good work….Sayed
Sayed,
Thats an interesting one. I don’t know what the percentage is for Adsense, but I suspect it is lower than 25%, hence the reason for the program being so difficult to get accepted into?
My expectation would be that your affiliate adverts are most likely to yield the best results, as you put them there, because they are related, and so are probably more focussed for your visitors?
Merry Christmas,
David.
I have tried BSA before with no luck since my site did not have alot of traffic.
I am now using Statcounter and adding CBEngine ads on my sites to generate more income.
Will be visiting your site more often – good info.
I just wanted to say thanks for your time for these wonderful tips for blogging.
hope i will complete my blog soon and some your tips are very useful..i am thinking about adsense..if they approve me…happy holidays <3
Well generally, there are lots of ways to monetize and become rich from Internet marketing specifically via blogging. I am currently doing a research in this. But for me , adsense and infolinks are cash generating machine. I have tried eBay, amazon, clickbank, CPA lead but best for me till now is adsense.
But as like other business, internet business also has pros and cons. Especially, adsense can ban a publisher anytime they wish and to reinstate after being banned is almost impossible.
Well for that also I have find out one way which I think it’s worth to share here. If your blog or post is positioned top 3 in Serp for targeted product keyword, run the keyword test in sites like spyfu, semrush and keywordspy and get advertisers who are targeting those keywords. Analyse the cost they are paying to google by traffic estimator in google keywords tool. Them manually contact them and offer low cost advertising space they are bidding then google adwords mentioning the position your site or blog in SERPs for their targeted keywords. This is just a way to bypass the mediator role google adsense is doing between we and advertisers and it is worth consistent income strategy no matter how much u get clicks, u will be paid manually!!!
Adsense is so unpredictable, after a reasonably good 2011, December was basically a write off. Only a fool would put all of their eggs in one basket, nobody can afford to sit back and just rely on one form of income from their website. There are a lot of opportunities at revenue generation out there, 2012 is going to be a year in which I look beyond adsense.
Good day Sayed. Lovely tips simply I have no words to describe it. Just describe in single word its awesome for new bloggers. I works for me. Thanks a lot. And thanks for sharing.
Internet $ gUaP $ is possible for anyone to earn, if you put your mind to it. As with a thing, success will not be overnight. You must stay the course, in order to succeed 🙂
Exactly said @Chris. We shouldn’t put all the eggs in one basket. If you have an authority site, try to monetize it by various means so, if one goes off, you will have many options to reply on. Actually, adsense is definitely unpredictable so apart of CPC, if you have good traffic, you can earn huge cash from affiliate marketing, CPA methods, intext advertising etc etc
very well said. When it comes to making money on the Internet, $ gUaP $ is everywhere, in terms of making money from contextual advertising programs, from affiliate programs,CPA programs, so on so forth etc. 🙂
My favorite income-generating strategy online has got to be Google Adsense. I’m making a fairly decent income from it every month. The biggest I got so far is about $1600. I tried joining BuySellAds but my application was denied because they don’t accept free-hosted blogs in their program.
Thanks a million for this small but essencial tips!
Although adsense is a great way to earn from your blog but it is quite risky too.Google can anytime ban your account and stand a chance to loose a significant amount of money.Diversification is the key to earn from your blog.As its said dont put all your eggs in one basket.A blend of adsense along with other advertisement sources should be used.
I see no one mentioned Amazon Associates over here.I have a good experience with them.If you are blogging in a niche wherein there are many physical products available then you should give a try to amazon associates once.
Hi,
I’m ambitious of guest posting on Basicblogtips, I’ll soon be post on Basicblogtips as a guest. Anyhow your post about monetizing is awesome mind blowing and other admirable words for it. Thank you so much @Sayed…. May Allah bless you
BuySellAds is the best option for technology blog because it’s fixed income for your site and you can manage as any other ad network. i liked it and i used it in my some blogs.
Nice info guys , if you started your blog and start expecting too much of amount from it then you are on wrong path.First implement some strategy to attract targeted audience it’ll surely drive some traffic toward your website . Quality content & social sharing are the ways which automatically help you to stand out of the crowd !
Proper Ad placement is also necessary to gain high results 😀
In my opinion Google Adsense is not only the ways for earning money and what if Adsense doesn’t approved or disabled the account since Google is very sensitive these days and some times it disables some genuine accounts by its mad like terms . So we need to have some alternate ways of earning sources and generate income from multiple ways.
Affiliate marketing is the current trend and if we know how to market or sell products we can earn more money. In this way we have no need to worry if Google disable Adsense account.
I think with the new update by Google, they will frown upon those selling links, I cannot say much about selling advertisements. Buysellads are more for those with technology blogs while Adsense is universal. Why not try both and see which converts better. But at the end of the day, affiliate marketing is the best method or sell your own products.
I am a part time blogger & planing to start it for full time.. In my opinion you should have passion for writing if you seriously wanted to earn money with your blog. Your first objective should be traffic, How you can attract good targeted visitors to your blog? As soon as you have good traffic on your blog you can find hundreds of ways to earn money.. Internet is not just limited to adsense or buysellads. We can identify so many ways once we have good traffic…
Great Article and comments. I just started blogging and looking into getting into BSA very soon. Hope some income comes through!