Blogging: From Hobby to Business

April 28, 2007 By Matthew Paulson

For those who have a knack for writing, blogging can be a very enjoyable activity. You can write about whatever you want, and if you know how to promote your blog, some people might actually read it. If you get a lot of people reading your blog and throw on a few pieces of advertising, you could turn a fun hobby into an enjoyable part time job. If you can get people on your blog, there is a way to monetize that traffic and you should know your options.

The de facto option that most bloggers opt for is Google Adsense. It is generally considered one of the best places to get advertising from for your website or blog. They serve targeted advertisements based on the text in your blog. If you have a very popular topic, there’s a good chance that you can do very well on a cost per click basis. Google has some strict rules which need to be followed by its publishers, so a small percentage of people have decided that they should search out other options.

There are a number of other cost per click advertisements which offer similar programs to Google Adsense, but most of them cannot compete with the sheer amount of high-paying advertisers that Google has. Some of the good alternatives include AdBrite, Bitvertiser, FastClick, and Clicksor.

The other option for bloggers is to make user of affiliate programs which pay a certain percentage of any sales generated off their blog. This can be very effective for niche blogs, such as a golf blog which advertises golf clubs. In order to do well with these you’ll need a good amount of traffic to going to your site. Amazon offers one of the most popular affiliate programs offering for 4% to 8.5% of the amount of business you refer to them.

Another popular affiliate program is Chitika Minimalls. Essentially they will show products that you choose which go along with your blog, such as digital cameras for a camera site. If a user clicks on the link and purchases a product, the seller will get a certain percentage of the sale. There are a number of other less popular affiliate programs available for bloggers.

You can make money with blogs in other ways. You can get someone to sponsor your blog, you can gain popularity and get speaking engagements because of your teachings, you can sell your blog if it becomes popular enough, you can do consulting for other blogs, request donations, and the like. The only limit is how well you can market your site and your imagination

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