There are lots of options for monetizing your blog – and not all of them may work for your specific site. First to mind is targeted advertising; if you specialize in outdoor recreation, then it makes sense to target vendors that cater to outdoor enthusiasts. Of course, your site needs to look and feel professional, and that entails not just great (relevant) content, but intuitive navigation and the proper use of white space.
Too many blogs lock themselves into Adsense – expecting huge windfalls, but targeted advertising does work. To market this effectively, you’ll need to track statistics on your site, and advertise that ad spots are available. Once you contract a couple of vendors, others will follow suit to keep pace with their competitors.
Don’t limit yourself – to one form of advertising. Aside from Google Adsense, there’s:
Microsoft’s adCenter – Market your business on Bing and Yahoo! Search, using Microsoft Advertising adCenter, and capture 30.7 percent of the U.S. online market known for buying, not just browsing.
Chitika Online Advertising Network – A Data Analytics Company in the Business of Advertising
Clicksor – Deliver Where It Matters. Clicksor.com Inc is a contextual online advertising network. Utilizing our contextual & re-targeting marketing technology, each ad impression is monetized for the highest effective CPM for our publishers as well as the greatest possible ROI for our advertisers.
Advertising.com – The AOL Advertising.com Group
adBrite – Easy. Efficient. Effective. adBrite is the largest independent ad exchange offering an entirely transparent marketplace, direct access to superior campaign data and analytics and ultimately, greater control over what matters most – results.
Advertise other company’s products or services – via affiliate links, and I don’t mean just Amazon. If there’s real interest in your content, approaching smaller companies may work well for your blog.
Sell your own products, services or content – just don’t come across too aggressively, or your site will appear spammy. There is a point where too many ads overpowers your reader base.
Of course, you can always ask for donations.
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