Running a blog can be hard work and keeping on top of new posts, search engine optimisation and gaining followers can take a lot of time. As your blog audience grows it’s natural that you may think of looking into rewards for your work and monetising your blog could be the perfect solution as long as you know the best services to use. Here we look into the top three services to help you make money from your blog in order for you to choose the one that’s right for your site.
Google Adsense
Adsense is the most popular monetisation network for bloggers as it’s easy to implement and run. Adsense adverts are everywhere, some are text adverts and other are image or video ads which provide a richer user experience. These are pay per click ads (PPC) which means that for every person that clicks on an advert on your site, you are paid a small amount. While the payment per click may seem small, it can soon add up and there are many bloggers that make the majority of their income from Adsense.
Adverts shown on your blog will be relevant to your content and niche which maximises clicks as your readers will be interested in the products or services being advertised. With Adsense you can show content from many different advertisers without having to implement many different links or employ a complicated rotation system. This makes it a useful and relatively hassle free service to help you make money from your blog.
Google Adsense makes use of ad tracking, which means that viewers are targeted based on products or services they have already been looking at in order to encourage them to click the ad and purchase the item they have been researching. You can customise each advert widget in terms of size and orientation as well as choosing a colour scheme that fits with your blog template to ensure they blend in.
The amount you earn from Adsense will vary based on the amount of traffic you get to your blog and the niche of your content, but once placed on your site the ads will work for you and your profits will grow as your audience grows.
Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is an affiliate marketing service that allows you to make money by advertising Amazon’s extensive selection of products and get paid commission for every sale made using one of your links.
Adverts can be in the form of banners or widgets that show off an Amazon category or promotion, or text links that link to a specific product you choose. Text links are the most helpful for monetising your blog as they look natural and will fit in with the theme of the post you are writing. You can integrate text links into your articles when referencing certain products or choose to use text and image or image only links to show off the product to the full.
Some categories will earn you more money through your blog when using Amazon Associates than others, but you’ll be paid a percentage of each sale that a reader makes on Amazon after clicking your link. As with other blog monetisation services, the amount you make will be dependant on the amount of traffic you get to your blog. This type of service relies on the reader making a purchase rather than just clicking on an advert, but individual commission may be higher as you are paid based on the cost of the item bought.
Skimlinks
Skimlinks is a great service for making revenue from your blog as it allows you to add text affiliate links to products from thousands of online retailers in order to make money from each sale. There is a variety of ways to add these links because as well as being able to create them manually on the Skimlinks site by using their link generator, you can let the service do it for you. Implementation is as easy as adding a few lines of code into your footer so that the service can track your links and sales. The Skimlinks service converts normal product links in your posts into affiliate links so you earn commission on each sale. In addition, the Skimwords service automatically turns product references you’ve made on your blog into affiliate links without you having to do anything which is handy if you reference lots of products or have varied content.
While the two extra services are very useful and create automatic links that generate income from your blog without you having to do anything, creating links manually ensures you have full control of your content and reduces the risk of inappropriate links being added in the wrong places.
The Skimlinks hub provides lots of extra tools and performance information but also shows you the highest paying merchants so that you can choose links to sites that will earn you the most commission from your blog once a reader makes a sale.
Skimlinks is most useful to monetise blog posts on blogs that are product focussed and write regular reviews or product comparisons. You have control over what sites you link to and aren’t tied down to just one merchant which makes this a brilliant service that helps earn an income from your blog and one that shouldn’t be overlooked.
