Two weeks ago, we looked at the possible ways to make money online and I briefly mentioned that if you want to make money online, you could start a blog.
Quite a number of people contacted me asking how they could make money from their blogs. So, I decided to explain one can make money from one’s blog.
This will particularly be of benefit to some of my readers who already own blogs and those planning to get theirs.
If making money is your primary reason for owning a blog, then you may burn yourself out because blogging is demanding. I concluded last week’s article by saying the most important piece of advice is for you to get involved in something you love doing. This holds true any day, anytime. I have decided to mention it again so that it serves as a guiding principle for any prospective blogger. Some of the ways through which you can make money from your blog are as follows:
1. Become a solution provider
2. Sell adverts on your blog
3. Launch a product or service
4. Become an affiliate (partnership)
Becoming a solution provider is basically about carving a niche for yourself and meeting the needs of the people who would most likely visit your blog in search of a solution in that area of need. Again, you must understand that all blogs providing information are actually fulfilling various needs and this is how you should always look at it. If your blog is focused on technology, then you are meeting the needs of the people who love technology. This is the same if you operate in the entertainment space. As soon as your status rises in this regard, you can simply extend to the physical world by offering consulting services or speaking at industry related events. These are some of the ways you can claim authority in the real world, so you are not regarded as an online hipster.
There are a number of ways to sell adverts on your blog. The most popular way is to sign up for a service such as Google Ad sense or Ad dynamo. These are quite popular in this part of the world. When you join, you are requested to add certain codes on your website/blog after choosing the types of ads you want to feature.
Examples of online advertising, according to Wikipedia, are contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, blogs, rich media ads, social network advertising, and interstitial ads.
Others are online classified advertising, advertising networks, dynamic banner ads, cross-platform ads and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.
Not all these will be relevant to you as a blogger based in Nigeria, but it will be important for you to have the knowledge of them all.
It makes common sense to inaugurate a product or service when your blog grows to a certain stage. This is because, as long as you have been properly positioned from inception, people will come to regard you as an expert in your field.
As the numbers grow, you will find yourself too busy to attend to everyone. So at this point, it makes sense to start a product or service that will provide such solutions or related solutions. This is also the best time to start a business around your blog, if you have yet to do so.
Finally, it is important to consider partnerships when trying to grow an online business. This is what brought about the idea of being an affiliate of others. As an affiliate of Mrs. A, who sells service B, you earn a percentage for helping her close a deal by either placing an advert on your blog or writing an article about her service or any other strategy you use. But as long as you use your special affiliate link, then you would automatically earn from a sale.
Does this work? Yes, it does.
Is it very popular in Nigeria? Not really, and this can be attributed to the known e-Commerce challenges. Is this an excuse? Not exactly, because I am an affiliate of a number of international businesses and I have truthfully earned from them.
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