How to Monetize Your Blog
To monetize your blog, use sites, like Google Adsense, to sell advertising space on your blog. You can also sign up for an affiliate program to directly market products to your readers. In order to maximize your profits, keep your readers interested by posting new content a few times a week. Additionally, use social media to promote your blog posts or guest blog on other people's sites.
Sell advertising space on your blog. All blog platforms allow you to sell ad space, which generally gives a few cents every time someone clicks on the ad. The most popular option, Google Adsense, allows you to place ads that are related to the subject matter of your blog, giving fifty cents for each click. While you generally only get one click per thousand visitors, it can add up if you have enough readers. Ads are perhaps the easiest way to make money, but remember that you need enormous readership to make this possible. What's more, many readers are turned off by the sight of ads, which drags them away from your content. Other sites to sell ads include Kontera, IDG, and Tribal Fusion. Sign up for an affiliate program, where you directly market certain products to readers. This is a more targeted form of advertising, where you directly reach out to a company you personally like enough to vouch for. Look to see if companies you already love or write about have an "affiliate program." Whenever you recommend or talk about a product (putting a link in your blog) you'll get a few bucks every time someone buys it. Most affiliate programs simply give you a specific link. When the readers click it, they are brought to the site to buy the product, and you get a quick kick-back. Offer your services to your loyal readers. Are you a financial guru giving advice on your blog? Then offer some basic, paid financial services for your readers to purchase. If you're a writer, offer to help edit and revise, give lessons, or ghostwrite. Find the areas where you can charge for your expertise, letting your blog posts be the "advertisements" that prove your abilities. Other options include: Creating artwork or photography Coaching or training in a specific niche, including blog writing/creation Graphic design Speaking/lecture engagements Social media management. Promote and sell other products aimed at your audience. Your blog is often just the front-door for your business. It gets people engaged and involved with free content, building up a market of readers who would buy your actual product. For example, you might be a humor writer working on a comic book -- you can be sure the fans of your blog posts will be the first people to buy your book. You could also sell: Themed clothing or T-shirts Accessories, crafts, and little knick-knacks (ex. a bottle opener for a beer blog) E-books Courses or teaching videos Membership to exclusive content Original artwork. Mix and match your monetization sources for the best results. At the end of the day, getting full-time cash from a blog is full-time work. Without a varied, multi-level approach you will find it hard to make much cash from any one of the methods discussed above. Instead, find a mix of strategies that work for you: 2-3 ads, several services, and t-shirt/book sales, for example. You should always give your readers content, not just advertising. Build trust first, money later. At the end of the day, a blog is a marketing service and content provider, not a business. The more actually services/things you can "sell," like in a real business, the better you'll be at making money. Grow your blog traffic. More readers, more money. The equation is simple, but the actual practice of it is much harder. There are thousands of ways to increase readership, but the basics are actually simple. You should: Hone in on one specific niche or project. Use social media accounts to promote every single post. Embed links to other articles of yours in each article. Deliver regular content. Learn how to utilize SEO. Creating content multiple times a week to keep readers engaged. The top priority should be creating content that is worth reading. If you write blog posts that are worth reading people will come back to your blog over and over. You build a following, and when you have something to say there will be people who will read it. Do not write a financial blog one day and a cooking blog the next because you'll never know who your readers are. Pictures and video are becoming increasingly important online. Make sure you have images to go with your posts to keep readers engaged. Monetizing a blog is about finding a market of buyers interested in specific products -- finance or cooking -- not the small number of people who like both. Sell advertisements directly, not through a service like Adsense. This takes some time, but will net you much higher profits. Basically, you just ask a business or individual if they want to buy space on your site, charging by the month to keep it up. You can offer different sized ads for different prices or lengths of time and you get the entire profit, not Google. However, you have to take the time to find a buyer, which leads to less time blogging. You also have to be able to seamlessly incorporate the ad into your site. Be ready to: Show a potential buyer your monthly page views and visitor counts. Point out your blog's specific niche and target audience. Work with them to make sure the ads fit neatly in your site, without compromising content. Don't flood the site with ads in order to keep readers around. No one likes to click on a website and get inundated with ads. If your readers feel like you're selling them out, or that you care more about money than content, they will leave. So place your ads sparingly, using other methods like direct sales or services to make your money. In general, ads come in three standard pixel sizes: 300×250, 160×600, or 728×90. Build up a mailing list for direct outreach to your readers. This is especially important if you sell or plan to sell anything on your blog. Use a service like MailChimp or Useletter to collect and store mass emails. Wordpress even has a built in "follower" section that collects addresses. When your eBook comes out, or you have a fundraiser to start, being able to get the word directly to your reader's inboxes is an invaluable way to advertise your work directly. Do not spam your readers, however, with mail. One email a month is generally a good start, or whenever you have something new to promote. Build relationships with other bloggers and websites. The better you can tap into other sites like yours, the better your chances of attracting viewers. Comment on other blogs, offer to share or write specialty posts, follow your favorite writers on Twitter, and generally make your presence known. Within 2-3 months you'll see the uptick in traffic as your friends recommend you back and start building up your trustworthiness. Understand that monetizing a blog takes several months or years. Because you generally don't have a lot of "products" to sell on your blog, you don't usually have a lot of ways to make big bucks starting out. Building a readership, honing your writing skills, and finding your niche are most important. Once you've got this, you can start implementing monetization strategies. However, this should not be your first and only strategy. Forbes reports that the majority of bloggers make less than $2,500 from their blogs -- you must be prepared to work hard to crack this barrier. 
Sell advertising space on your blog. Sign up for an affiliate program, where you directly market certain products to readers. Offer your services to your loyal readers. Promote and sell other products aimed at your audience. Mix and match your monetization sources for the best results. Grow your blog traffic. Creating content multiple times a week to keep readers engaged. Sell advertisements directly, not through a service like Adsense. Don't flood the site with ads in order to keep readers around. Build up a mailing list for direct outreach to your readers. Build relationships with other bloggers and websites. Understand that monetizing a blog takes several months or years. 