Monetization Strategies

Now that you have a website fully optimized, tweaked and filled to the brim with relevant content, and you have begun to generate traffic to your website using free resources such as blog communities and social networks, it's time to transform your blog into a cash generating machine.

This is where it gets interesting!

When it comes to making money with online blogs, there are many different opportunities available. Like regular websites, you could integrate Google Adsense, or other advertising networks such as AdBrite, or you could implement CPA offers from services like CPALead.com.

But it doesn't stop there.

As a blogger, you can make money by promoting affiliate products on your website, by growing a list that you can promote your own products and services to, and you can even make money by joining blog project databases, where you are paid for writing about new launches, providing feedback on company products, or in offering paid reviews for other new bloggers who are interested in gaining traffic from you.

Of course, how much money you can make will ultimately depend on how much traffic you are able to generate to your website.

The more traffic, the more lucrative your blog will be to potential paid sponsors, and of course, with consistent traffic you can make money through commissions from affiliate products that are purchased through your referral.

As someone who has been blogging for over five years, I always recommend to new bloggers that they focus on growing traffic before ever trying to monetize their blogs.

You need to build a reputation within your market, generate as many back links as possible, and push your website out in front of as many potential prospects as possible before you focus on making money from your blog. You need a captive audience, a loyal following, and return visitors who find your website informative, useful, interesting and worth returning to time and time again.

Once you have solidified yourself within the blogging community, you can then take it a step further by implementing money-making strategies into all areas of your blog, but you need to lay the groundwork first and focus on generating a steady stream of traffic to your website.

That being said, even from the birth of your website there are a few things that you should do that can be monetized in the future. One of these things involves building a list.

While you may have an RSS subscription option on your website, you need to take it a step further by implementing an autoresponder opt-in form on your site that captures your visitors information and lets you stay in touch with your subscribers.

By doing this, you are able to grow a relationship with your target market, and once you have developed that relationship, you can begin to make money with direct offers, affiliate products and referrals even before your blog is generating a lot of traffic.

To do this, you need two things:

1) Code Banter's autoresponder plugin available free at http://www.CodeBanter.com

2) An Autoresponder Account, available at http://www.GetResponse.com or http://www.Aweber.com

With these two resources, you will be able to start growing a list from the very first day that your website is developed. All you need to do is consider what "subscription bait" (also referred to as your "opt in bribe") you are going to use in order to motivate your visitors into becoming newsletter subscribers.

The easiest way to do this is to outsource the development of a free report or ebook from an experienced freelancer on websites such as http://www.Elance.com .

If you are capable of writing yourself, you could save yourself time and money by developing a short report that specifically caters to your blogs theme. You NEED to make sure that what you are offering is relevant to your topic.

Once you have a report ready, you can log into your autoresponder account and create your welcome email, which is the introductory email automatically sent to each subscriber upon confirmation of their request to join your list.

This email will thank them for subscribing and will include the download link to your report.

Just like in monetizing your website, you need to first work to build a relationship with your list so that they trust your recommendations and look to you as a sound source of advice, tips and information relating to the subjects that interest them.

Spend some time engaging with your subscribers, offering them free material, information, tips and resources that will help them.

If you do this, it won't be long before you have a loyal following of people who will eagerly open up your emails, respond to your offers and genuinely investigate the products that you promote.

When it comes time to promoting products, don't worry if you don't have the ability to develop your own product line. Using services like the Clickbank marketplace, you will be able to instantly locate dozens of high quality products worth promoting.

The Clickbank.com marketplace is filled with thousands of products that you can promote. It's free to setup a Clickbank.com affiliate account, so you can begin exploring potential products and services instantly.