Starting a blog can be quite interesting, even though it will require you putting your time and thoughts together. Most of the blogs you come across are meant to generate income for the bloggers. I am sure you have the same intention for starting yours.
Before you start, you must pause and think. Why do I want to blog? What niche do I have a passion for? Of what relevance will my niche or interest be to people? What group of people will I be blogging for? This is why you really need to have the time to make a good plan and also organize on how to implement your plan.
Here is An Easy Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Blog
Bloggers have a passion for sharing. It may be information, ideas, trends, phenomena, solutions and a host of other things. They also want to be successful and respected in their niche of choice. Besides, they also want to make some earnings out of what they have passion for.
Many bloggers don’t think it is possible to make money from blogging or from their sites. It is possible to make money or passive income from your site. However, there is no quick way to turn your site into a money spinning venture. You have to grow your blog over time and build traffic. If you are a busy person, passive income is one of the suitable ways for you to make money from your site.
Passive income means that you don’t have to be active all the time before money can be generated from your site. You can do this by having ads displayed on your site – so even when you are not available to add new content to your site, or you wish to take a break from blogging, passive income keeps being generated.
Having a passive income stream through your site gives you time for other things. Knowing how to make money through ads on your blog is Key to building a successful online income.
As you prepare to make money from your blog, let’s look at tips you need to know about monetizing your blog.
Bloggers always work hard to have traffic on their sites. When there is traffic to a web page, whether a website or blog, the blogger is presented with opportunities of generating money from the site.
In what ways can a blogger make money from his site?
Ways that a blogger can make money from his site include:
- Advertisements
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
- Selling e-books
- Administering online courses
- Selling physical products online
- Securing sponsorships.
Why We Use Display Ads to Make Money on Our Blogs
It takes some commitment and patience to be a blogger. The first few months of launching your blog is usually marked by a lot of hard work, developing and posting content hoping that you will be able to earn income from it. It usually takes a while for your hopes to begin to manifest. Impatient bloggers usually get tired and give up after some time of trying.
Without having to wait for that long, you can begin to make some money early using display ads. Display ad simply means that you are giving room for an advertising network to show ads on your blog. Every time your viewers click on these ads, you get paid.
It does not matter if your blog is old or new. All that is required is that it should be a self-hosted blog, it should have quality and helpful content, and it should be signed up with an advertising platform.
Why Go for Display Ads?
- It is a fast way to generate revenue from your blog. The money you get at the beginning may not be much but as more people visit the blog, you make more money from it. However, you will be pleased to see some revenue coming in, and you will also derive satisfaction that your efforts are beginning to pay off.
- It is very easy to set up display ads. All it takes is for you to join a network. You don’t need so much technical knowledge to be able to do that. Once you apply to the network, you wait for their approval. After that, you put a code snippet on your blog and the adverts begin to display. The network you join will assist you with the ads setup.
- Having ads on your blog is just a way of diversifying your income. It is just one of the many ways to generate income on your blog. Remember I mentioned some ways in which you can generate income on your blog. You will see that if money is being generated from only one source, it may be affected by seasonal fluctuation and niche type; so, while one source of income is down, you will need another source to generate money.
- Income generation from ads is completely passive. Once you set it up, the money begins to flow in. You don’t need to always manipulate the setup for income to be generated. The most you can do is to monitor the blog and make it attract tons of visitors. This you can do by adding quality content, problem-solving and trending topics to it; and from time to time, promote your blog.
- Sometimes, just a single topic can go so viral that there will be so much influx of visitors to your blog. That is an opportunity for your ad income to soar. At such times, you can even earn triple your passive income – every blogger wishes!
Display ads are a fast way a blogger can make money from his blog. After setting up your blog, you begin to add topics that will begin to drive traffic towards your blog. Then you can set up your display ads. When visitors visit the blog, they see the ads, and from there, you begin to make cool, passive income.
How Do You Get the Ads to Your Blog?
Take a look at the following steps:
Choose a network to join. You can make your choice from any one of them, but bear in mind that each of the networks has their minimum required traffic for joining. That is the essence of having quality, relevant and trending content on your blog.
Let me tell you about an advertising network – Google AdSense. I know you have come across it. It is a very popular advertising network. Why? There are many reasons it is popular.
First, it is quite easy to set up. Here are the steps:
Log on to the Google website and read their policies and requirements. Make sure your blog or website meets those requirements. If everything is in order, you move on to the next step.
- Move on to AdSense and click on “Get started”.
- Use your full website URL and email to sign up.
- After accepting their rules, you click on create account.
- Then, you’re onto the dashboard. Fill the information.
- Next, you connect your AdSense account to your website. When you are through, your AdSense code will be inserted into your web source code automatically.
- Wait for your website to be approved. It may take some days. Once you have been approved, your website is ready to receive ads on the Google AdSense network.
AdSense has some interesting features:
- It has auto ads that place ads automatically on your blog.
- You can choose what type of ads to be seen by your visitors.
- You can choose to create auto ad rules for each page of your blog.
Check out the Top 17 Tactics to Boost Your Google AdSense Revenue.
Now, I will mention other alternatives to AdSense:
Infolinks: It is a network that allows you to select different ad placements and unit options. It is fast and easy to set up and has no minimum amount of traffic as a requirement to set it up. You can earn some decent revenue from it.
See More on this Powerful AdSense Alternative
Media.net: It is also suitable for new bloggers and has no minimum requirement to be on the network.
Monumetric: It is another good option but you will need a minimum requirement of 10,000 page views in 30 days to join their network.
See my detailed Monumetric Review here.
Mediavine: It needs a minimum traffic of 25,000 sessions in 30 days before you can join. After that, they use their unique technology to maximize earnings for you.
AdThrive: It is also quite popular and you need a minimum of 30,000 thousand page views in 30 days to join.
Ad networks do much of the work for you so you can do other things such as adding content that will attract traffic to your blog or working on other sources of income.
Now, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of getting approved like:
- Having as few as 10 – 20 posts on your blog
- Having unique, interesting and trending content
- Ensuring that you have created any necessary legal pages such as privacy policies
- Setting up any necessary displays for ease of navigation
Always ensure that you read the policies, terms and conditions of any network that you wish to apply to, before applying.
After securing the approval of your chosen network and adding the ad code snippet, you can choose and adjust ad locations and units. Do not place them in such a way that they will constitute an obstruction to the flow of your content.
They should be placed in such a way that they would not become an embarrassment to your readers. Also make sure that there aren’t too many ads per page and position them such that the readers can close them if they so wish.
Test and experiment with different ad units and locations. If you are a reader visiting the blog, what would you be comfortable with and what do you think should be adjusted? Make the necessary adjustments to give your readers a great time on your blog.
As you wait for traffic to boom, have some patience. It will take some time for your ad placement strategy to yield reliable results; so, you have to give some time – say 4-6 weeks before you review to make necessary adjustments.
Look at the ad units and locations. Find out which had the most clicks and those that didn’t get many clicks, especially the big ad units. Find out which ad types got the highest clicks.
Keep on adding trending and quality content to your blog, promoting it from time to time and growing your traffic. Remember; the more traffic you get, the more you earn. With time, you will be able to develop the best strategy that can get ads more clicks on your blog. Also remember that ads display is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
As much as you can, use your time well so that you can add other streams of income to your blog.
Making Money from the Ads
The amount of traffic you get determines how much money you get from the ads.
How the Pay per Click (PPC) advertisement works is that you get paid only when readers click on the ads displayed on your blog pages.
You can also earn through Pay per View (PPV) ads. This type of ad earns you revenue when visitors to your blog are on the page where the ads are displayed. PPV ads usually have a fixed revenue for a specified count of thousands or several thousand impressions.
Your ad network determines how much you earn. You may earn as little as $1 or as much as $8. If there is a specific ad unit that performs impressively, it could get noticed by your ad network and they could place ads that will earn you more there.
So, if we assume that your blog gets 10,000 visitors per month and you place 4 ad units on each page, there will be 40,000 impressions. And from that number, you can earn as much as $4 to $240 in a month.
I am sure you feel more encouraged to start your blog now. After setup, without waiting for too long, ads display will earn you some revenue. At least, consider it as compensation for your time and the quality work that visitors come to benefit from on your blog.
Follow the steps to set up your ads. Just take your time to choose the network that suits you. Remember to read their requirements, terms and conditions. Remember also to give your website or blog a very pleasant, attractive and easy-to-use setup.
This is not only useful for getting approval from your ad network but also to give your readers a pleasant user-experience when they visit your blog. Their patronage matters a lot.
Conclusion
So, keep earning while you seek more means of revenue. And with the little amount of traffic you’re currently getting from your blog, you can monetize your blog and earn some additional revenue.
Earn from affiliate marketing and build a passive income stream using your personal website/blog. Read this post and get rolling.