Monetize means to put money making links on your blog. There are many, many ways to do this and I have tried most of them. So I'm going to give you the Pro's and Con's of my experiences and you just make your own decision and don't look back.
Is there a perfect system? Nope.
Is it a hassle to get set up? Yep.
Will it be worth my time to do it? Who knows.
Will it "potentially" be worth my time to do it? Yes!
I don't care what anyone tells you, if they made money and got rich overnight with blogging then they were an anomaly (or a liar). It is a slow and sometimes discouraging process. One day you will check your accounts and there will be more money in there than the day before and your hope returns!
Here's how to get started:
1) Adsense is Google's Pay-Per-Click program. (Example on the right side of the screen.) Basically, if someone visits your site and clicks an Adsense link, you get paid. Sounds awesome, (yawn), but the reality is that you split it with Google. If the advertiser is willing to pay $1.00 per click, you will only get 50 cents. And if, after awhile, Google notices (and they will) that you are getting lots of clicks that don't "convert" to sales, Google does this cute little thing called "Smart Pricing". You don't want to be Smart Priced. All your clicks go down to 5 cents whether the advertizer pays $1.00 or not.
If you think about it, it makes sense. Let's say I'm an advertiser and I'm paying $1.00 per click and I've just paid Google $500 for 500 clicks. (This is called Cost-Per-Click.) Out of those, I can expect 2% to convert to sales. That's 10 sales. But I get no sales. So I spend another $500 and no sales again. Who am I mad at? I am mad at Google for not converting to sales! Now if Google keeps paying you for sending clicks through but none ever convert to sales, they're going to say to you, "You're just getting people to click links but they aren't real shoppers." So Google will Smart Price you as punishment for lousy click conversions.
And they don't just Smart Price your blog, they do it to your "Account", so all your blogs, websites, etc. just took a hit. Stay on the high road, don't covertly send in friends to click links, keep it all above board and you will never be Smart Priced. (And you can bet they are watching your click and conversion volumes.)
2) Affiliate Programs
Is there a perfect system? Nope.
Is it a hassle to get set up? Yep.
Will it be worth my time to do it? Who knows.
Will it "potentially" be worth my time to do it? Yes!
I don't care what anyone tells you, if they made money and got rich overnight with blogging then they were an anomaly (or a liar). It is a slow and sometimes discouraging process. One day you will check your accounts and there will be more money in there than the day before and your hope returns!
Here's how to get started:
1) Adsense is Google's Pay-Per-Click program. (Example on the right side of the screen.) Basically, if someone visits your site and clicks an Adsense link, you get paid. Sounds awesome, (yawn), but the reality is that you split it with Google. If the advertiser is willing to pay $1.00 per click, you will only get 50 cents. And if, after awhile, Google notices (and they will) that you are getting lots of clicks that don't "convert" to sales, Google does this cute little thing called "Smart Pricing". You don't want to be Smart Priced. All your clicks go down to 5 cents whether the advertizer pays $1.00 or not.
If you think about it, it makes sense. Let's say I'm an advertiser and I'm paying $1.00 per click and I've just paid Google $500 for 500 clicks. (This is called Cost-Per-Click.) Out of those, I can expect 2% to convert to sales. That's 10 sales. But I get no sales. So I spend another $500 and no sales again. Who am I mad at? I am mad at Google for not converting to sales! Now if Google keeps paying you for sending clicks through but none ever convert to sales, they're going to say to you, "You're just getting people to click links but they aren't real shoppers." So Google will Smart Price you as punishment for lousy click conversions.
And they don't just Smart Price your blog, they do it to your "Account", so all your blogs, websites, etc. just took a hit. Stay on the high road, don't covertly send in friends to click links, keep it all above board and you will never be Smart Priced. (And you can bet they are watching your click and conversion volumes.)
2) Affiliate Programs
www.CJ.com; www.LinkShare.com; www.GoogleAffiliateNetwork.com;
www.ShareASale.com
Affiliate Programs pay ONLY when a sale has been made, but the payment is much higher than a few cents. For instance, I'm an affiliate of all the above providers, and one of my affiliate links happens to be NetFlix. If you click the NetFlix link below this paragraph, I get nothing. But if you sign up for a free trial offer, I get paid $9 from my affiliate provider. Now we're talking!
Well... there is more to know. Again, you have to rely on that 2% conversion. In fact, it's the proven industry standard. You can always expect 2% of clicks to convert, hopefully more. So if I get even 1 click to convert, that means I had to get 50 clicks onto that little link. 50 clicks on one little link is quite a feat. So the obvious answer is to have lots of those links on many blogs, web pages, send out with emails, post onto your FaceBook. Whatever way you can get people to click through and purchase, go for it!
And it's ok to encourage people to click your Affilite links because if they make a purchase, everyone is happy! But I can't buy many groceries with $9. So based on the 2% rule, I would need 555 possible clicks just to make $100, and 5,550 to make $1000. That means I need traffic coming in like gangbusters to my sites. (See Lesson #6)
3) Amazon Affiliate Program
Now this is an interesting twist to the affiliate program in #2 above. This allows you to target specific "products", not just a company's website. And it pays a percentage that increases with the more you sell. You can actually build your own site of products from Amazon and they will take care of the shopping cart, etc.
(Note: Residents of North Carolina or Rhode Island are not eligible to participate in the Amazon Associates program.)
If you have a blog post talking about a certain book club, you can actually post a list of those books on the right side of your blog, each as an affiliate link. It can be books, music, products, etc. You don't have to find who makes the items, then find which Affiliate provider that company belongs to, then find the link for that item. Amazon makes it much easier, but they don't pay as much as the other affiliate providers above.
Summary: What system do I use? All three above. It depends on what your blog is focused on, what links you choose to post, and how much time you want to sink into the process.
Short and sweet: Adsense, but very little control over the type of ads that appear.
Time consuming: Affiliate links, and total control over the ads that appear.
The homework for this lesson is to download the document below and get signed up with these accounts. It takes time, it's a hassle, but when you're ready to rock-n-roll and get your money flowing, it's so nice to have the foundation in place.
Homework link:
ECommerce Accounts You Must Havewww.ShareASale.com
Affiliate Programs pay ONLY when a sale has been made, but the payment is much higher than a few cents. For instance, I'm an affiliate of all the above providers, and one of my affiliate links happens to be NetFlix. If you click the NetFlix link below this paragraph, I get nothing. But if you sign up for a free trial offer, I get paid $9 from my affiliate provider. Now we're talking!
Well... there is more to know. Again, you have to rely on that 2% conversion. In fact, it's the proven industry standard. You can always expect 2% of clicks to convert, hopefully more. So if I get even 1 click to convert, that means I had to get 50 clicks onto that little link. 50 clicks on one little link is quite a feat. So the obvious answer is to have lots of those links on many blogs, web pages, send out with emails, post onto your FaceBook. Whatever way you can get people to click through and purchase, go for it!
And it's ok to encourage people to click your Affilite links because if they make a purchase, everyone is happy! But I can't buy many groceries with $9. So based on the 2% rule, I would need 555 possible clicks just to make $100, and 5,550 to make $1000. That means I need traffic coming in like gangbusters to my sites. (See Lesson #6)
3) Amazon Affiliate Program
Now this is an interesting twist to the affiliate program in #2 above. This allows you to target specific "products", not just a company's website. And it pays a percentage that increases with the more you sell. You can actually build your own site of products from Amazon and they will take care of the shopping cart, etc.
(Note: Residents of North Carolina or Rhode Island are not eligible to participate in the Amazon Associates program.)
If you have a blog post talking about a certain book club, you can actually post a list of those books on the right side of your blog, each as an affiliate link. It can be books, music, products, etc. You don't have to find who makes the items, then find which Affiliate provider that company belongs to, then find the link for that item. Amazon makes it much easier, but they don't pay as much as the other affiliate providers above.
Summary: What system do I use? All three above. It depends on what your blog is focused on, what links you choose to post, and how much time you want to sink into the process.
Short and sweet: Adsense, but very little control over the type of ads that appear.
Time consuming: Affiliate links, and total control over the ads that appear.
The homework for this lesson is to download the document below and get signed up with these accounts. It takes time, it's a hassle, but when you're ready to rock-n-roll and get your money flowing, it's so nice to have the foundation in place.
Homework link:
Lesson 6... driving traffic to your blog in order to gather up those money clicks!
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