10 ways to monetize your blog
As a general rule, generating enough regular traffic to your site and choosing a monetisation strategy is enough to generate profits. However, keeping this regular traffic requires expenses and/or time. Indeed, to (over)live your site, you need to :
- Create regular content
- Have a well referenced site (SEO) or a strong reputation
- Building a community on social networks
- Engaging and cultivating an ambassadorial readership
That’s why it’s strongly recommended that all bloggers or content creators multiply their sources of income. We have selected 10 of them to help you monetise your audience. Our favourite monetisation source? Web Push Notifications!
1. Monetize your blog with AdSense banners
When we think about monetizing websites, we think directly about advertisements. It’s easy to think that blogs make a lot of money from the advertising space they provide to advertisers, because content sites are very often crammed with them.
However, this needs to be qualified. There are several reasons why you won’t get rich by using only AdSense banner ads (unless your site makes millions of unique visitors per month).
First reason: about 36% of French internet users use an ad blocker, which means that they cannot be monetised through this method. Second reason, CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) are very low.
2. Monetize your blog with native advertising
Native advertising refers to advertising that is perfectly (or almost perfectly) integrated into the content of a site. In general, it offers a much higher visibility and attention span than display. If you want to sell advertising space on your site, this format will logically bring you more revenue than display. On the other hand, there are the same problems as with AdSense banners: the Adblocked audience does not see the ad, and CPMs remain relatively low.
3. Monetize your blog by accepting donations
If you choose to integrate little (or no) advertising on your site to improve the user experience – and therefore your traffic – there is no shame in asking your readers to support you. Also, be aware that you will not be the only one to do so, and that your audience can be very generous. For example, the Twitch platform works on the principle of donations, and many streamers earn good money thanks to this.
4. Create subscriptions for exclusive content
If you are uncomfortable with donations, you can create subscriptions that will offer exclusive content to all members. This will require you to create more content, or even recruit someone to support you or freelancers… so calculate your actions carefully to ensure a positive ROI!
5. Monetize your blog via sponsored links
SEO works in many ways. One of the most common and effective techniques is netlinking. If you are now able to get enough regular traffic to your website to monetize it, you have probably already bought some sponsored links. Today, it is your turn to charge sites/blogs that are trying to increase their notoriety and their referencing! Depending on how well known you are, you can sell a sponsored link from a few euros to several hundred or even thousands!
6. Sell your expertise
What if you took advantage of your reputation and expertise to offer your readers paid training courses? This technique is used a lot and its reputation has declined due to a number of charlatans who sell empty training courses at extremely high prices. But don’t make a mistake, it is a winning formula! Despite the heavy workload involved in such a project, you can generate a new source of revenue! Moreover, once the course has been produced, written (or filmed), it becomes passive income… A good investment! Nevertheless, keep in mind that you must have a good influence and have kept your secrets well hidden so as not to reveal everything for free, in order for the training to bring a real added value.
7. Monetize your site through affiliation
Affiliate marketing has been growing for a few years. Many brands pay influencers to promote their products/services. But wait… You are an influencer! Indeed, your content is viewed by tens, hundreds, thousands… of internet users. Take advantage of your notoriety and use it to generate income! To do this, you can either be approached by brands, or more simply, subscribe to affiliate programs!
However, be sure to keep a coherent approach to the types of programmes you relay, which must correspond to you or be in phase with the values you defend in your editorial line.
8. Create a shop
Your publishing site has many subscribers, people who follow and love you. These people may donate to you, buy your training courses, subscribe to your exclusive content… They would probably buy your products! Creating an online shop can work very well, but beware. You have to take into account the different factors: storage, delivery, creation, management of the shop…
You will probably need to hire some people to support and advise you, so calculate your return on investment carefully.
9. Create an emailing database
Emailing remains one of the most effective customer acquisition levers on the market. Ask any advertiser, none can do without it! In fact, more than 42 million French people had an email address in 2020, including 23 million who connect to it every day! (source: https: //www.arobase.org/actu/chiffres-email.htm)
You have the possibility to build up a mail database that you can share with advertisers! Be careful though, it is imperative to specify this when you request an email. The Internet user’s consent to receive offers from your partners is mandatory to comply with the GDPR.
There are different ways to retrieve an email:
- The Newsletter
- The contest game
- The lead magnets
- Account creation
You can of course mix the different solutions in order to maximise the number of email addresses collected. Once you have built up a database of contacts, you can make them available to advertisers for a fee. This is an excellent way of monetising your blog and keeping in touch with your subscribers!
10. Web Push Notifications
It’s the little newcomer in the world of monetization of a publisher site! Indeed, in addition to the many virtues that this solution offers, you have the possibility to generate very interesting passive income!
How to monetize your blog with Web Push Notifications?
All you have to do is integrate a subscriber collection script on your site and… that’s it! This script allows you to personalise the opt-in request to reach an average of 15% of subscribers. The contacts you collect are monetised by the Adrenalead advertising network. 50% of the turnover made thanks to your subscribers is paid to you.
What are the advantages of this format?
The Web Push Notification format has many advantages!
First of all, it is 100% GDPR Compliant because it collects the prior and explicit consent of the internet user.
Secondly, it is a format that appears directly on the user’s device (desktop or mobile). This means that the user does not need to browse the internet to receive the advertisement. So you don’t damage the user experience of your website!
And finally, ad blockers do not interfere with the subscription request or the receipt of notifications. So you can reach 100% of your base!
There are many other benefits described in this article!
Dear publishers, you have just discovered 10 ways to monetize your website! You probably already use some of them, but probably not Web Push Notifications because they are still largely under-exploited.
Want to get started?