How to Monetize a Blog on WordPress
So you’ve utilized the powerful but simple power of WordPress software to create your own blog. Now you’re interested to find out about the possibilities of how you can go about monetizing your web presence? Here are some ways you can go about adapting your content management system so you can generate income from it.
Before looking into the various methods you can choose from, it’s important to grasp the realities of monetizing any WP blog. The amount of money you can generate from customer interaction closely correlates to factors beyond having the smartest widgets installed. It’s important to see your blog in the overall context of your web presence when it comes to providing a service. An optimum way of looking at this is to consider the basic facts of this type of e-commerce: you’ll get what you put into it.
Affiliate Marketing
With the right amount of forward planning it’s possible to make a decent income from signing-up to affiliate programs. This is where you provide links to products produced by a retailer. Because it saves on their advertising costs they are quite happy to outsource their marketing to their affiliates.
In the first instance you have to make an important decision about what products to sign-up to. If you choose wisely you can set about ensuring your WordPress blog entices customer to actioning those all-important click-throughs that will earn you commission if customers go on to make a purchase. There are drawbacks. While you are exempt from advertising costs and don’t have to get involved in stock issues, you are also tied to the retailer. You have no say in modifying the product, and what happens if the retail company decides to discontinue it? The answer to this issue would be that you are adaptable in this – you can switch your WordPress blog onto a different income stream. To lower the risk of loosing offers you can join this site or any other affiliate network to build relationships with a trusted partner that has multiple offers for you.
WordPress Advertising Plugins
Because WordPress is an open source project it is constantly being updated by a dedicated team of coders. Among the widgets and plugins released on an ongoing basis are many advertising plugins. Exactly which one to use is dependent on various factors, but you can check out the options.
Google AdSense
Despite its name Google AdSense is not tied-in with its search engine. When you select Google AdSense for your WordPress blog you can generate revenue from hosting third-party ads. The plugin places ads to your posts, custom posts, categories, search results, tags and widgets. It’s easy to manage these ads from your WP admin dashboard, whether you want to change position and so on.
Write Reviews for Money
Whatever topic forms the background to your blog, you can harness this as a means to generate income by writing product reviews. This is an aspect you can also tie in with participation in affiliate marketing programs. You write positive product reviews in order to entice customers towards your links. But you can also write product reviews for third parties and get paid for doing so.
You’ll want to try out products that are related to your niche. Sometimes you won’t actually get paid to do this but you’ll get offered the products for free. On other occasions you can get paid for writing reviews.
You can approach the relevant companies yourself and explain you are managing a WP blog and would like to give their items a positive endorsement. If you can show you have a decent following they may well be delighted you have chosen to give them this advertising channel. On the other hand you can go to sites like SponsoredReviews or PayPerPost that will put you in touch with relevant outlets.
Flip Websites
If your expertise in constructing WP blogs grows, you can make some money out of your newfound technical/artistic abilities. Put together a competent and well-designed site or blog, start drawing in significant web traffic, then you can pass the site on for a reasonable amount. Business love the fact you’ve saved them a wedge of web development cash by providing them with a bespoke website.
In order to capitalize on opportunities like this you need to do a fair bit of background research. Learn to appreciate the types of website that are most popular, how to set a price for the site you’ve designed, and how to go about advertising these in the marketplace.
You might want to check out Flippa, a website that serves as a virtual auctioneer in the buying and selling of websites.
Restricted Content
Away from advertising or brokering, you can tap into the loyalty of your readers by providing exclusive content – specialized blog posts, downloads, video and so on – and offer them subscriptions for the privilege.