10 Ways To Make Money From Your Blog Without Selling Your Soul?

I am in the middle of a project of re-designing my blog . I started this blog just over a year ago because I found social media fascinating and also a touch obsessive and it was started from a passion. The online audience seems to agree, with my  blog traffic approaching nearly 100,000 hits per month, so I must be doing something right.

Facebook the social media monster has gone from “Mainstream” to “Madstream” and almost daily is mentioned in the mass media for all the right and wrong reasons, from its manic growth to the latest privacy concerns.

Twitter has grown from 8 million visitors per month to over 180 million in 12 months. So where there is obsession and growth there is power, so how do you tap that in a credible and ethical manner?

I recently ran an online survey which  asked the question “Should Bloggers Get Paid?” and 79% said yes. This wasn’t surprising as almost everyone wants to make money and a lot of my readers have a blog so this result  was a bit of a no-brainer.

On the other hand there are a lot of people who blog because they just want a voice and want to change the world.

At the other end of the spectrum there are bloggers who have perfected the art of scamming without offering any value except to rip people off with get rich quick schemes. So how do you monetize a blog and maintain your tribe, subscribers and followers.

So I have started to research how to monetize this blog. The challenge is?

• I don’t want to be spammy,
• I want to offer real valuable information
• I want to help other bloggers be successful
• I want to help companies optimize their website to drive leads, enquiries and sales and consequently make great revenue from their website whether that be an eCommerce site or a dynamic and content rich online presence that is compelling and keeps their sales teams so busy, productive and successful that the CEO looks forward to waking up each day.

So if I am able to make this fly then the next step is to help you have fun and monetize “your” blog or website.

So here are just 10 initial ways ways that I could monetize my blog. (this is what I would call an open discussion on possibilities)

1. Affiliate marketing: This is done on a Cost Per action (CPA) basis meaning the customers have to take some kind of action from signing up to a newsletter to actually buying a product. This where you can sell other people’s products that you trust and know that offer great value to potential buyers.

2. Write Sponsored Reviews: This where you can write a review about a product, site or service and you are paid per review. John Chow says that this is his blog’s biggest money maker and uses ReviewMe. ReviewMe allows advertisers to buy sponsored reviews on your blog. Review prices are based on your blog’s Alexa, Technorati and estimated RSS numbers. The only requirement is that a review post must be at least 200 words long. Below is an example of a sponsored review from JohnChow.com

3. Kontera Content Link: Kontera ContentLink allows you to make money from advertising without giving up any current advertsing spots. Their technology reads your posts and turns certain words into an ad. The highlighted are double underlinesand an ad pops up when you hover over it.

4.Text Link Ads: This is done by selling text links you see under “Featured Sites” . The links offer advertisers traffic and search engine benfits and readers don’t seem to mind because they are not intrusive.

6. Google Adsense: Google Adsense displays simple text and and image ads on your blog and they are targeted  to what you are writing about.

7. Create Your own premium content whether that be online training and courses and sell it on my blog. The upside to this is that you increase your margin and have much more control. TimothySykes.com provides an example of how this is done with his high quality learning systems and DVD’s.

8.Selling Banner Advertising on my blog: This can be banners that generally measure 125 x 125 . It can provide a recurring source of income month after month.

9. Selling Monthly Memberships to  to premium content: TimothySykes.com provides an example of how this is done. Tim is well known for turning his $12,415 in Bar Mitzvah gift money into $2 million and starteda hedge fund during his senior year at high school. Timothy’s site shows how to invest in the stock market by following what he is doing.   Membership rates range from $49.95 per month to $1,497 per month

10. Promote My Presentations to obtain more keynote speaking bookings.

How do you think I should monetize my blog without compromising the content?