Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Using Blogs for Profits

By Randy Baustert

There are a number of ways that you can monetize your blog.

The first and most common way to turn a blog into a profit making machine is to sell advertising to different companies and brands who want to reach that blog's readers.

Another kind of money making blog is one that helps a single brand improve its image by creating positive associations between the blog and the product in the mind of consumers.

If you keep your mind on marketing both of these methods can become profitable blogs.

If selling advertising is your main goal you have a couple of choices, you can use established services that are ready to go or you can go out on your own and look for sponsors for you blog.

There are quite a few established third party services you can use to place advertising on your site like Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publishers Network by joining either one of these you can have ads on your site quickly.

It also saves you the work of finding prospects to advertise on your blog.

Unfortunately, most people expect to make thousands a month with this type service and the are usually disappointed by much lower income.

Selling advertising directly to companies who want to put banner ads or sponsored links on your blog can take quite a bit of time, but it is often fairly lucrative.

If you are working in a niche that you know well the first thing you should do is try to contact others in that niche that you think might benefit from advertising on your blog.

If you have experience pitching products and services you can try to your own direct sales with companies that have products in your niche but this method does require you to know at least a little about salemanship.

With either of these methods you might run accross the problem of not having enough readers. To make profits with the third party system and/or to attract sponsors you will usually need to have established either a fair amount of readers or a good search engine placement.

As blogging becomes a more and more lucrative business, a lot of established companies are considering how they can get into the action.

Sometimes they will establish their own company blog that will provide information about their company and product.

Often, a company will employ an established blogger to create a weblog designed specifically to appeal to that company's customers and to create positive associations with the brand in consumers' minds.

It isn't uncommon for a blogger that is getting a lot of exposure to be approached by a company and suddenly find that their blog is making them a good income.

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