Strategies for monetizing your blog 2011

Blogging is something that is still one of the best ways to make money on the internet and if you browse the internet on a regular basis you will probably see why. Blogs are more than just peoples interests and travel photos these days and they are actually almost full websites. There are so many great blogs out there such as the SEOMoz blog and hundreds of others that make a lot of money simply from providing information to visitors. However, blogging is something that a lot of people are doing now so you need to stand out from the crown and use the best monetization methods out there to make running a blog worthwhile. There are people out there that make a full time living from their blogs and the fact of the matter is that you can actually become one of these people within a relatively short space of time. Here are a few tips for making money with your blog:
Sell header banner space:

Most blogs will have a section at the top of them that is widely underused. This is the section that is usually above the menu bar and will include your logo. However, many peoples logo?s do not stretch the entire width of the page which means that there is a lot of free space here. This is space that can be utilized to make money on your blog. If you have a good amount of visitors, then this space will be very valuable as a header advertisement. There will be companies out there that will be willing to pay a certain amount of money every month for this space and obviously, the more visitors you have, the more you will be able to make from this space. If you are just starting out with a new blog, then you might want to consider putting a Google adwords banner advertisement here. There are a couple of different methods of making money from a header ad: Charge for the space: One of the ways of making money is to simply charge a monthly or weekly fee for the space. This means that a company could pay you ?100 per week for the space. This is a method where the company is putting their trust in your website as they are going to pay you ?100 regardless of whether anyone actually takes and notice and clicks the banner or not. PPC: Another method is the pay per click method. You could offer this space out on a pay per click basis which might mean that a company pays you ?0.50 every time someone clicks the banner. In some cases, this can actually make a lot more money than the first method.
Create subscriptions:

If you have a lot of content on your blog, you might want to think about making people pay for some of it. This is a bit of a risky method for a lot of established blogs however and it is usually best if you are clear on the fact that visitors will have to pay for access to some content right from the first day of launch. If done correctly however, this can be a fantastic way to earn money from your blog and there are plenty of people out there that have actually made hundreds of thousands of pounds from doing this. There are a few different things that you can do when it comes to subscriptions: Paid access to certain areas: One of the best methods of making money from your website is to have paid (subscription) access to certain areas of your website. Perhaps you could make the blog on your website available to everyone for free but if the visitors want to see any video content on your site, then they have to pay a small monthly fee. This is something that is used in a lot of areas and works well. Offering a free trial: Another way to get people interested in your blog is to actually offer them a free trial. Even if you have the best content in the world, it is doubtful that people will start paying for something without actually even seeing it. It is for this reason that you could offer a month?s free trial where they will have access to everything. This is done in the hope that people will carry on paying after their free trial is up. With enough visitors, this can really monetize your blog.
Affiliate marketing:

Affiliate marketing is another way to make money from your blog but it has to be done right. There are so many affiliate schemes and people getting involved with affiliate marketing these days that you really need to stand out from the crowd. There are a few affiliate marketing ideas that are great however: Groupon: Groupon has seen huge growth in the past couple of years and if you have a blog that is focused on a local area, adding Groupon links to your blog could really see you earn a lot of money. Groupin offer up to 15 percent on every sale made through affiliate links so if you have a few thousands visitors a month, this could earn you a lot of money. Bespoke affiliate marketing: Another good way to stand out from the crowd is to actually contact a company and ask if you can market their products for them. You might want to review their products and then add an affiliate link on your blog. Because you have contacted a company that doesn?t usually do this, chances are that you will have a unique product and something that people are much more likely to buy than a bog standard eBook etc. ?
Conclusion:

Overall, there are millions of ways to monetize your blog and most of the time, it is just a case of being quite clever about it and knowing what methods will suit your particular blog. There is no actual formula for monetizing your blog and it is something that needs to be figured out by yourself. Some methods will alienate customers a lot of the time so it is something that you need to be careful with too.