SimpleBloggerTips: Top 10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog or Website

There are many ways to monetize your website or blog, make sure you target your audience and offer quality products or services.Monetizing doesn’t have to take a lot of time. When you’ve found quality, targeted ads or products, they can work for you for a long time. You might want to test several offers and see which products convert well.

The list below provides ways to monetize that won't take up a lot of your time, so you can focus on building your site with good content and growing your traffic. These are the most basic (and arguably the least profitable) methods, but they are effective interim monetizing strategies.

Top 10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog or Website

1. PPC Ads (Pay Per Click)

Google Adsense is the most popular and widely used option. Add Google AdSense ads to your site. This is your core moneymaker for most blogs.  A major benefit fo AdSense ads is that they  update automatically.  You don’t  have to go searching for new ads, and you also get paid for clicks even if no one buys anything.They serve contextual ads (image or text) based on your content, and pay when someone clicks on the ad. How much you make on Adsense depends on several things. First, advertisers bid on keywords, so if you happen to write about a topic that has high paying keywords, then each click will be worth a lot more than another topic with low valued keywords (keywords that has really low bids). Also, people who came to your site from search engines are more likely to click on these ads than people who are repeat visitors. It makes sense then to spread out your Adsense ads to provide easy access for search visitors.
Other PPC options include Bidvertiser ,Adbrite, Chitika and others.

2. Sell Your Own Ads-

 When your traffic is growing and also when you have a very niche audience, selling your own ads is a really great way to go. IFB put together a guide for selling your own ads, which has industry standards and ways to calculate how much you should charge.

3. CPM Ads (Cost Per Thousand)

Unlike CPC ads, CPM ads pay per impression. Viewers don't need to do anything for you to be paid. You just need to serve the ad to them. The downside is that you're paid almost nothing for each impression. Rates can go as low as $0.10 per thousand impressions. But it's still a good option to use in conjunction with CPC ads. CPM ads can be placed in less prominent spaces (below the fold) whereas CPC ads should have better position. Most ad networks that offer CPM ads have CPC ads thrown in as well. You can set your own prices and remove unappealing ads.
Networks that offer CPM/CPC ads include AdBrite and ValueClick Media.

4. Text Links

Text links work the same way as the above. You set aside a space on your page and text links will start showing up when they are purchased. You need to submit specific pages into the inventory, so enter your most popular pages (homepage, category pages, and very popular articles). Rates are based on your PR, which has to do with how many other sites link to your page. If you often get linked and mentioned, text links may be profitable for your site.
Some text link companies are Link Worth, TNX.net, and Text-Link-Ads.
  

5. Use Affiliate Marketing in Your Post- 

 Affiliates take a lot of patience to get started, but have the potential to be a great deal more lucrative than banner ads.Put affiliate links and ads on your blog. Selling affiliate products is usually more profitable than adding Google Adsense ads.  Affiliate products can pay 40 to 75% in commissions and higher.  If you don’t have your own products to sell, you can sell other people’s products as an affiliate.  And even if you have your own products, you should offer related products or services through affiliate programs so you’ll have more resources to offer to your audience.  There are many different types of affiliate ads that can monetize a blog.  You can find products that fit your niche through ClickBank, PayDotCom,  Commission Junction, Linkshare, Amazon and others.

6. RSS Feed Ads

Offering a feed of your content is essential. More and more readers are using feeds to catch up with their favorite sites, and not offering one will alienate a lot of readers who would be interested in your content. There is yet to be a lot of advertising options within feeds, but for now you can still monetize the traffic to your feed.

7. Sell an eBook-

 ProBlogger has been quite successful with his eBooks, I know I’ve shelled out $30 for an eBook. If you got juicy information to share, then you probably the beginnings of a successful eBook.

8. Sell Ad Space on Your Videos- 

Are you a video wiz? The market for pre-roll ads have really taken off, which means it could be a great time to start selling your own ads instead of relying on YouTube’s ad program.

9. In-text Advertising 

In-text ads don't require any additional real estate, which is attractive to many site owners. Ads are attached to text in your content, showing up as underlined or double underlined words that are clickable. Some will pop up a little advertisement when the word is moused over. Many viewers, however, find these ads distracting.
Popular companies are Kontera and Vibrant Media.

10. RSS Feed Ads

Offering a feed of your content is essential. More and more readers are using feeds to catch up with their favorite sites, and not offering one will alienate a lot of readers who would be interested in your content. There is yet to be a lot of advertising options within feeds, but for now you can still monetize the traffic to your feed.
Sign up with Feedburner or Pheedo.