How To Convert Your Blog's Words Into Greenbacks

Written by Stu Lisonbee Sunday, 29 May 2011 08:42

If you're like most people, you've probably thought about starting a blog -- assuming you're not already owner of the more than 100 million blogs currently in existence. And whether you own your own blog or have simply only given it thought, then you've probably also thought of it's potential source of income.

If you're like most people, you've probably thought about starting a blog -- assuming you're not already owner of the more than 100 million blogs currently in existence. And whether you own your own blog or have simply only given it thought, then you've probably also thought of it's potential source of income.

If you maintain a blog, then you probably have a passion for whatever it is that you regularly write about. Regardless of what your passion is, there are many ways to turn your words into money. But for the purposes of this article, I'm going to stick to just a couple of the more common ones.

The first method is to get lots and lots of people to visit your site on a regular basis. On the internet, visitors are in many ways a kind of online currency. The more of them you have, the more valuable your site is.

One of the ways to turn visitors into money is by selling ad space. The easiest way to do that is to join some sort of ad network such as Google Adsense, Bidvertiser, Adbrite, Valueclick and so forth. If you're big enough, you'll be able to negotiate directly with an advertiser and make even more money by cutting out the middle man.

In the meantime, while you're working on building your website to the incredibly popular level needed to take advantage of the first option, you can still make a few bones even if you only get a few visitors each day.

This requires that you join a service that connects advertisers with bloggers. PayPerPost is one of the more well known providers. Getting paid is as easy as browsing for offers, accepting an offer, then writing a new post. Some providers allow you to negotiate rates with an advertiser, but the easiest method is to simply find an existing offer and accept it.

From there all that's left to do is write a post that includes a link back to the advertiser's website. The beauty is that you don't have to compromise your blog's theme to get paid. There are so many advertiser offers that you should easily be able to find one with a subject that will fit your blogging style.

Offers are often based on your site's Google PageRank (PR). The higher your PR, the more you can make for each post. I've seen offers for all levels of PR, from PR1 all the way up. You'd be amazed what an advertiser is willing to pay for a link on a PR7 or higher blog!

As long as you are making regular contributions -- preferably all based on a common theme -- your PR will increase over time as will your earning potential. You can give your site's PR a boost by asking your fellow bloggers to link to you. The more links to your site, the higher your PR can become.