1. Blogging
The act of blogging in and of itself is often free, but that doesn’t mean that blogging can’t serve as a useful platform from which you can earn money online. Many people are earning over 5 figures a month “just blogging”, by combining it with things like affiliate sales, ad networks, and paid reviews.
Go to the last chapter of this post to see all of the blogger income reports I have collected. There are thousands of blogs started everyday and most of them die off over the course of a few months/years.
From personal experience I think it is best to start a blog with a purpose/passion – aside from making money. This will help you to be successful in the long run, as it is normal to spend many months blogging without earning anything. Here are some of the best blogging sites you can use to get started:
How To Start A Blog - Google it and you will see millions of ways one can teach to wrote that will get you up and blogging in a matter of minutes.
Livejournal - A service for journals and blogs, that also offers privacy controls, photo storage, publishing tools, style templates, and online communities for many interests.
Tumblr - Post anything (from anywhere!), customize everything, and find and follow what you love.
WordPress.com - Free blogs managed by the developers of the WordPress software. Includes custom design templates, integrated statistics, automatic spam protection . You domain will look like yourdomain.wordpress.com It's different from Word Press.org.
WordPress.org - A web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog, with your own domain name.
***Additionally if you want to start a blog you are going to need hosting***
I use a few different hosts for my blogs. I cannot say they are the BEST hosting around. There are thousands of hosts. I can say that they work, they are reliable/dependable, the sites go relatively fast and the support is relatively good. There may be better options out there, but these are certainly sufficient.
WPEngine:This is what I am currently using for the SelfMadeBusinessman blog.
HostGator: This is what I use for the majority of my websites. Their shared hosting plan is solid and they have decent support.
SiteGround:This is what Vicky uses for AvocadoPesto, and I think the support is top notch.
1.2 Blog/Website Monetization
If you have a blog or a website with content and a following, I'm going to discuss a few ways you can monetize it through advertising and information products. Concerning the latter, you certainly don't need a blog to pull it off.
Anyone can sell an ebook, for example. But it is just so typical for bloggers to do these things, because they tend to be more successful when you have an audience, that I decided to include them in this section.
Still, if you don't have a blog, you just need to think of another way to reach your target audience (like a forum, or a simple landing page)
1.2.1 Contextual Links and Sponsored Posts
If you have a blog there are many ways you can monetize the writing portion of it, such as reviews, sponsored posts, and more. This is actually how I started earning serious money online.
Often, companies will pay you to link to them on your blog because they want the increased exposure as well as the “link juice” that they get from an inbound link to their website. Be careful with this one because in some instances it can violate Google’s TOS, which, in the most extreme circumstances, can result in your website being removed from the search engines.
Blogitive - Get paid weekly via PayPal for posting stories that interest you.
Blogsvertise - Make money from advertising and generate ad income from your blog.
BlogToProfit - Make $250 dollars or more by writing new posts on your blog.
Digital Journal - A digital media news network with thousands of Digital Journalists in 200 countries around the world.
Expo TV - Consumer generated video, social media and peer to peer recommendations enable influential consumers to share their authentic reviews and opinions.
LinkWorth- Easy text link ads for advertisers and webmasters to boost link popularity.After your blog has been accepted in their network, they will pay you $20 to $200 per post
Pay Per Post- Get paid as much as $500 or more a month, writing articles and reviews of their sponsors on your blog.
PostJoint - PostJoint enables content marketers and publishers to swiftly arrange deals on their own terms. Marketers can quickly distribute their content and publishers can easily grow and monetize their sites.
I've earned $1653 on PostJoint
Smorty - Smorty is a community site that helps bloggers generate a better income, and it could be defined as a network devoted to blog advertising. The site is split into two main sections. Earn $6 to $100 dollars per post you write on your blog, depending on the overall popularity and page rank of your blog.
SponsoredReviews - A blog post service that connects advertisers with bloggers willing to write paid posts about their services and products. They charge a 35% transaction fee for their services.
Teliad - SEO company for international backlinks & blogs. I have personally used Teliad and made nearly $1k doing so. They pay monthly.
Every month I receive ~$130 from Teliad
1.2.2 eBooks
It seems that just about every popular blogger has their own ebook(s) these days. Part of the reason is that there are just so few barriers to entry - if you want to write a book and self publish, go ahead! It can be a "passive" income stream for life (though that should not be confused with the fact that it can be a lot of upfront work).
bookbaby.com - Sell more eBooks with a professionally designed cover. The industry's best place for valuable tips on how to promote and sell your book.
flickrocket.com - Set up your ebook own shop.
kindle.amazon.com - The Amazon Kindle is a series of e-book readers designed and marketed by Amazon.com. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to shop for, download and sell.
payhip.com - Upload e-books and sell directly on Twitter, Facebook or your website. Sell your ebooks to your fans and followers and get paid instantly via PayPal.
secure-ebook.com - A website with an integrated Blog engine that will help you sell more eBooks; The renowned Secure-eBook fully automated purchase process.
1.2.3 Podcasting
Podcasting is all the rage lately and it is becoming the new, preferred form over content to connect with your audience. In addition, it can also be a lucrative form of income if you draw in enough of an audience.
Consider Entrepreneur On Fire, a podcasting series/blog, which makes over $40k per month on direct advertising through their podcasting. Here are some popular business podcasts:
- ENTREPRENEUR ON FIRE - John Lee Dumas
- SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION - Mitch Joel
- MARKETING OVER COFFEE - Chris Penn and John Wall
- MARKETING SMARTS - Kerry O’Shea Gorgone of marketingprofs
- THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW - Travis Jenkins
- SOCIAL TRIGGERS INSIDER - Derek Halpern
- EBOOK NINJAS - Joshua Tallent, Toby Stevenson, Chris Casey
- INSIDE PR - Gini Detrich, Joseph Thornley and Martin Waxman
- 350 THIRD - Anders Brownworth, Scott Barstow
- EVENTUAL MILLIONAIRE - Jaime Tardy
- YOUR GRAND IDEA - Todd Skaggs and Kevin Carter
- THE SOLOMO SHOW - Cory O’Brien & Adam Helweh
- THE FRIDAY FIVE - Tom Webster
- INSPIRING WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT - Zig Ziglar
- ONLINE MARKETING MADE EASY – Amy Porterfield
- THE FIZZLE SHOW – Corbett Barr, Chase Reeve & Caleb Wojcik
- THE START UP SHOW – Seth Godin
- PODCAST ANSWER MAN – Cliff Ravenscraft
- THIS IS YOUR LIFE – Michael Hyatt
- SMART PASSIVE INCOME – Pat Flynn
1.2.4 Online Courses
I ran my first online course last year and made over $2500 doing so. I also made a bunch of contacts from talented individuals who took the class.
Again it requires a lot of upfront work but the ongoing work can be significantly less by comparison. There are many platforms that are built for you to specifically offer courses.
Or you can simply create your own on your website through a series of emails.
All of these are essentially free platforms for creating online courses:
1.2.5 Membership Site
Although this has been around forever I've particularly started noticing it quite recently and I LOVE IT. At least as a business model.
The idea is basically to create a community of like-minded individuals and give them access to each other as well as instruction to help them achieve their mutal goals.
The math on these is quite astounding, as you generally see people charge between $20-$100/month. That means for each sign up they are getting a monthly recurring income of $20-$100. So, if you can get a few hundred sign ups leveraging your audience, well, do the math.
A few of the ones I am aware of (though there are many, that's for sure) are:
Entrepreneur On Fire's Podcasting Paradise - A community for podcasters from John Dumas.
1.2.6 PPC (Pay Per Click) Marketing
Most people have heard of adsense, which is Google’s advertising network. In reality, this is only one of over a hundred different ad networks.
These ads work off a variety of models whereby your pay is relative to the exposure the ad gets. What is actually required (a view, a click, a sign up) varies.
Ads come in a variety of forms, such as banners (of all different sizes), links, videos, and more. Pay per click marketing means that you get paid every time the ad gets clicked.
It is one of the most common forms of ad networks because, unlike a view, the advertiser has greater confidence that the user has purposefully interacted with the ad in some way.
Chitika - Develops real-time, scalable, on-demand contextual targeting services to help online businesses leverage their two biggest assets: content and online. Similar to AdSense.
Clicksor - Clicksor offers webmasters the opportunity to earn additional income by using a selection of clickable text or targeted contextual banners on their websites or blogs. Payouts are made by PayPal with a minimum payout of $20.
CrispAds - Access to over six thousand advertisers in their pay-per-click program. Decide which advertisers suit you best.
Feedburner - FeedBurner is a web feed management provider launched in 2004. You can implement AdSense earnings to your feeds also through Feedburner/Google.
Google AdSense - Google AdSense provides a free, flexible way to earn money from your websites, mobile sites, and site search results with relevant and engaging ads. It is the leading advertising network to make money online and usually offers the highest rates to their publishers through PPC (pay per click), CPM (cost per impression). Payment is done by check or direct deposit with a minimum payout of $100.
Infolinks - Infolinks leads the online advertising industry by driving new revenue opportunities for publishers while overcoming banner blindness for advertisers. Payment method PayPal, or check, minimum payouts are $50.
Media.net - Bing Network Contextual Ads program enables web publishers to easily and effectively earn advertising revenue.
Speedy Ads – Pay Per Click advertising
1.2.7 PPV (Pay-Per-View) Advertising
Pay per view advertising is similar to pay per click, except you can replace click with view. Your pay is largely based on the traffic you bring to the ad.
In general, ppv rates are lower than ppc because less is required of the user. For example, while 1000 people might see an ad, it is possible that only 5 (or less) will click it.
AdBrite - Approve or reject any ads purchased for your sites. You can also sell ads direct with "Your Ad Here" links.
AdKnowledge - Adknowledge is a digital advertising marketplace that efficiently gets results for your message wherever your audience happens to be: desktop, laptop, tablet or.
Adsella - Buy and sell ad space.
Advertiise - The advertising marketplace for buying and selling online and offline media. Buy or Sell print, online, outdoor, ambient, event and many more advertising.
Bidvertiser - Online advertising directly on sites of your choice, internet marketing solution for online advertisers. Webmasters make money online by displaying text ads on your site and advertisers bid for placement.
BlogAds - Blogads is an online ad network that provides advertising services to both bloggers and advertisers. Average blogger makes anywhere from $50 to $5000 dollars a month selling blog ads.
Blog Her - PPV advertising network that you can apply to if you have a blog.
BuySellAds - BuySellAds.com is an online advertising network in which you can earn money by selling your ad space with your own rates. I have used this before to get monthly ads for our food blog AvocadoPesto.com.
Direct CPV- Give your online marketing campaign the jolt it needs with DirectCPV's pay per view advertising solution.
DoubleClick - DoubleClick is the ad technology foundation to create, transact, and manage digital advertising for the world's buyers, creators and sellers.
IndustryBrains - Provides unique advertising and monetization services, for both advertisers and publishers by placing relevant contextual text listings and graphical ads on your site.
Lead Impact – Online ad network.
Media Traffic - PPV Contextual Advertising .
Pheedo - Providing online newsfeed and RSS marketing services.
Qumana - Desktop blog publishing tool. Embeds ads directly into your posts.
ROIRocket - Online Marketing Fueled by Research
Traffic Vance- Contextual Textlink and Display Advertising Platform that delivers high quality traffic to advertisers through high performing ad units, granular targeting, competitive pricing, and multiple optimization capabilities.
Tribal Fusion: Plan and execute campaigns based on your online audiences. Approval requires minimum 2000 unique visitors/day and targeted designs are needed to qualify.
ValueClick media -Displaying ads through banners, pop-unders and rich media.
Vibrant Media - In-text contextual based advertisements.
Yes Advertising – Run ads from their sponsors as well as a referral program that pays 20% of the referred webmasters earnings.
1.2.8 Private Blog Networks
Again, debatable as to whether or not this belongs in blogging but it is bloggers from whom I am seeing these services and therefore included it in this section. I have also started to see this now more than ever, and it is individuals renting out their private blog networks for links.
Some SEOs are saying that one of the best ways to achieve rankings in the SERPS is through private blog networks, as they are very powerful and direct.
Here are a few private blog network services:
Authority Website Income - Private Blog Network service by Jon.
CloudIncome's Rank Source - Private Blog Network run by Lewis Ogden.
God of SEO's PBN - Private Blog Network run by Charles Floate.
1.3 Revenue Sharing
If you don’t have a blog of your own, there are plenty of other platforms that you can write for. Many websites operate as large, content networks that allow people to write for them.
In exchange, they will put ads in your writing and give you a revenue share of what your articles make. The benefit here is that they receive a lot of traffic, so receiving 75% commission on the ad revenue that these sites produce might be better than 100% on your own blog if it doesn’t receive much traffic.
The downside is that you are building up another person’s website instead of building something for yourself.
451 Press - Write about various subject. Receive forty percent of all generated revenue.
About.com - A valuable resource for content that helps people to solve the large and small needs of everyday life. Become a paid guide writing articles for About.com.
Best Reviewer – A collection of reviews in the style of TOP X. 100% AdSense revenue share.
Bukisa - Share your knowledge via how to guides, tips & instructions. 60% revenue share via Adsense or Chitika.
Cracked: A funny website filled with funny videos, pics, articles, and a whole bunch of other funny stuff. Receive up to $100+ per article.
DemandStudios - Create content in your area of expertise.
HubPages - Online space to share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with hundreds of other authors. HubPages is completely free and offers an AdSense share of 60%
InfoBarrel - InfoBarrel is a social writing platform where writers from around the world come together to create media content. Currently, the revenue share model is based upon three programs; Google AdSense, Chitika and Amazon Associates. 75% of the time the publishers affiliate codes will be displayed and the other 25% the InfoBarrel codes are displayed. AdSense revenue share ranges from 75% to 90%.
Postloop: Make money by sharing informative articles and forum posts.
Seekyt - Make money writing original, reader-friendly articles. 70% revenue share via AdSense and Amazon.
SheToldMe - Social bookmarking site with a 100% AdSense Revenue Sharing program.
Snipsly - Publish articles and earn money. Snipsly enables you to post nearly any kind of content you want. Create a Google AdSense Account and keep 80% of your article's earnings.
Squidoo - Free site for creating single webpages on your interests and recommendations. The better the pages do the more money you earn.
SquidStop - Squidstop is a new bookmarking website. People who join this website can earn some cash with 100% revenue share via AdSense.
TipDrop - TipDrop is a place where people come to give and receive tips on just about anything. 75% revenue share via AdSense.
Weblogs, Inc. - Weblogs, Inc. is a blog network of about 90 blogs, covering a variety of subjects. You are paid per post that you write.
WordFirm - Managed Editing provides editorial services—mainly copyediting and proofreading—for nonprofits, government agencies, publishers, and others.
WriterTown - Earn 100% ad revenue share (AdSense/Chitika/Clicksor required). You may include self-serving links, including affiliate links. They also promote your articles through their newsletter.Break Studios
1.4 Freelance Writing
Say you don’t have a blog, and don’t want to join in an ad revenue sharing agreement, you can get paid a flat rate to write articles. Personally I have hired nearly a dozen writers to write articles for me and paid thousands of dollars to freelance writers.
There is definitely a huge demand for it although there is a lot of competition. I will not go into details on how best to become a freelance writer, as there are more experienced people to tell you that, however I do believe at least one aspect of it is building up a reputation.
Some of these sites can help you get start.
Associated Content - Submit your content and get paid relative to the views it gets.
Demand Media - Application based freelance writing site that reportedly pays up to $15 per article.
Fool - Write financial stories and get paid to do so.
London Brokers - You don’t have to be a professional writer but a native English speaker.
Mashable - Mashable hires freelancers for a variety of categories.
Need An Article - An Article Writing Service that provides, SEO writing, business writing, technical articles, creative writing and more.
Seeking Alpha - Write articles for them and get paid to do so.
Writers Domain - Looking for highly skilled and qualified writers to compose blogs on various topics.
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