Jan
23
How would you like to make more money with your business blog? You could use the extra money to invest in more supplies for your business, treat yourself to dinner or purchase some additional advertising.
I’m sure you’ve already read about each of the programs available to help you make more money with your blog, so instead of rehashing the old, I’m going to put my own twist on an overdone topic by revealing tips to help you use those programs effectively so you can make more money with your business blog.
Affiliate Programs
1. Create links in your sidebar with a heading related to your blog. Then, underneath each of the headings, link to products, ebooks, services and websites from your affiliate programs that are relevant to your business blog as well as the heading you plan to place them under. For example, in my blog about my life as writer, I have the following headings: Resources for Writers and Recommended Reading for Writers.
2. Login to your affiliate program(s) and choose text links to go with some of the text within your blog post. For instance, the Amazon Affiliates program lets you add a Quick Linker Widget, which allows you to create shorter affiliate links that you can use to link to search results, certain products or etc..
In my blog, I link text phrases such as freelance writing and paying markets to search results in the book category at Amazon. Alternatively, if you mention an ebook or other product in your blog and the affiliate program you’re a member of has a text link available for it, then you could hyperlink the title of that ebook or product.
3. Contact the author of the ebook or product with a review request. Explain to him or her that you’re an affiliate and believe your review of their product could help you sell more. They may refuse to send you the product for review, but it’s worth a shot and benefits you both.
Pay Per Post
1. Don’t fill your business blog with tons of pay per post ads. A few every once in a while is fine, but too many will drive your readers away.
2. When writing a pay per post ad, try to keep the message relevant with your blog. In other words, be creative. Here’s an example.
Private Advertising
1. Create a page listing your rates and advertising services, and include instructions on how a company or individual can purchase advertising on your blog.
2. Keep your rates fair, and include the average number of monthly visitors and page views that your blog receives. This information lets potential advertisers know the size of the audience they’ll reach. See our advertising page as an example.
3. Offer occasional discounts.
4. 125 x 125 buttons works the best for bloggers who sell private ads on their business blogs. The reason is because you can place these banners together in the sidebar, and they don’t take up much room.
Donations
If you ask your readers for donations to support your business blog, then in an effort to build a good reputation for your business, you could let those generous enough to support your business blog know that you’ll donate a certain percentage of what they donate to you to XYZ charity. Mention the percentage you plan to donate as well as the name of the charity, and place a link to the charity’s website so those interested can find out more about the charity.
Contextual Ad Programs
Successful bloggers who use Chitika and Adsense report that they’ve found the following contextual ads to be more effective for them:
Chitika
1. eMiniMalls positioned at the footer of your blog posts.
2. Related product units (RPU) placed at the end of your blog post.
3. Experiment to determine which Chitika product ads work best for you.
Adsense
1. Wide ads ranging from 336 x 280, 300 x 250 and 250 x 250 seem to be the most effective. Also, build those ads to blend in with your blog’s design, and set them to show both text and image ads.
2. Embed your Adsense ads within your blog posts. The best areas to place them are at the footer of your post or to the right of your post.
3. Place a search box at the top of your business blog. Set your Adsense Search up to allow your readers to search both Google and your blog. Every time a reader clicks on a sponsored ad from the search results, you’ll earn more revenue from Adsense.
4. As with Chitika, experiment to determine which Adsense ads work best for you.
I hope you found my tips helpful, and I invite you to share your own tips in the comment area. Join me again next Wednesday as I conclude this series of posts on Building a Business Blog with a list of ways you can promote your business blog. Stay tuned or subscribe to our RSS feed.
Popularity: 9% [?]
You have to be careful of adding lots and lots of affiliate links to a site…the Google algo recognizes these links (even if you nofollow) and may penalize.
db
another well written post, private advertising and contextual ads are good bets if you have enough traffic
Jamaipanese is right. Paid blog post and contextual ads are always good ways to make money. If you get a chance, you should check us out here at LinkWorth. We have all of the products you need to better optimize and generate some revenue with your blog. Hope it helps and let me know if you have any questions.
Scarlett T.
LinkWorth Staff
Going to respectfully disagree with you on all of this, Misti. No ads on a business blog. No paid posts. Not even affiliate links. None of it.
A business blog is about helping a business get more and better business (as opposed to a pro blog or a money blog). Ads and the rest of it tell prospective clients that you don’t have any business. If you did, you wouldn’t need the ads. The ads communicate the wrong message, and it’s wrong enough to mean that it isn’t worth the money you could have made in business.
Ads and other programs do not further your reputation, they erode it. They do not engender trust, they damage it. Your most important assets as a business person who blogs for that business are the levels of permission, attention, and trust earned from your readers/customers.
In my opinion, ads and such are not the best long-term strategy for most businesses.
One thing you didn’t mention… create your own products and sell them on your blog. This is a heck of a lot easier then some of the other options listed.
-Jim
To David, Jamaipanese and Jim: thanks for the added tips.
Michael, you could be right, and I guess it’s more of a personal preference whether someone would want to place these on their business blog. I have come across several business blogs and seen some of these things, and their blogs seem to be popular as they gain many comments. I will admit, though, most of what I do see on these blogs is the two things that Jamaipanese mentioned: contextual ads and private advertising. But again, I would suppose it’s more of personal preference.
Don’t forget RSS Feed Advertising!
Darin
Insightful post, thanks for the info.