How To Monetize Blogger Blogs

Posted on January 25, 2008
Filed Under Ad Networks, Affiliate Programs, Blogger Platform Tips, Make Money Blogging |

How Can You Monetize Your Blogspot Blog?

What options do you have if you want to monetize Blogger blogs? I know Blogger is not considered a serious money making blog platform by some Wordpress users, but it does have its advantages. It’s free and it’s easy to use. But the downside is that you are at the mercy of Google. They can change the terms and conditions and even the platform itself whenever they like. Also, if you manage to build a successful blogger blog, you can’t really sell it.

There are plenty of monetization strategies available for Blogger. It’s really just a matter of finding out what will work for you. If you receive a lot of search engine traffic then contextual ad programs like Google’s Adsense can be a good option. However if you have a lot of repeat visitors and regular readers, you may need to explore other options. Here some of the more common ways to monetize Blogger blogs.

Adsense.

Adsense is probably one of the easiest ways to monetize a blogspot blog, at least in terms of setup and maintenance. Blogger provides a widget where you can enter your Adsense account details and choose the ad format. You can then position the Adsense widget wherever you like using “Add and Arrange Page Elements” on the Blogger user interface. There is even an option to display Adsense ads between posts.

There is still limited flexibility when using the Adsense widget though. You can’t position the ads inside of your posts. However, if you are comfortable with HTML and CSS you can position your ads by editing the Blogger template. You can also show different sets of ads on post pages to what is on the home page. For example, you might want to position ads between posts on the main page, but inside the post on post pages.

I wont go into the details of how to do that here. I’ve managed to display Adsense ads most place I’ve needed to using a blogspot blog so let me know if you need some pointers.

Other Ad Networks.

Most of the other ad networks I’ve tried or looked at will support blogspot blogs. As long as they provide javascript or HTML code to display the ads, you can use Javascript/HTML widget to position them on your Blogger blog. You will face the same limitations as with the Adsense widget, but you can still work around these by editing your template directly.

Something I should have mentioned earlier about positioning of javascript code in a blogspot template, is blogger’s treatment of comments.

Anywhere in the ad network’s javascript code you see:

<!– some code –>

you will need to replace it with

<!– some code –>

This will allow you to insert the javascript directly into the template. Once again, let me know if you have issues with this and I’ll see if I can help you out.

One other thing to be aware of with ad networks is that some have minimum requirements. This could be the content of your blog or the traffic it receives. I know TTZ Media for example doesn’t allow free sites - you need to have your own domain name. But there are plenty of other programs out there. You just need to find one which suits your niche.

Affiliate Programs.

There are literally thousands of affiliate products you can sell on your blogger blog. The technical aspects of displaying your affiliate ads are the same as for what I described in the Other Ad Networks section above.

As to what affiliate programs to use, Amazon Associates, Commission Junction and Click Bank are a few that come to mind. You should be able to find a product that will appeal to your audience in those programs.

Sell Advertising Directly.

Once you get a larger readership, as measured by page views, subscriber count or whatever, you should be able to sell ads directly on your blog. You can start by approaching advertisers who sell products in your niche - particularly those who advertise on other blogs in your niche. This may end up being a little more work particularly if you continually need to look for new advertisers frequently.

Other Ideas.

Getting paid to write reviews is another option you may want to look at. You just need to be aware of the penalty Google has been applying to blogs who have been writing these types of posts without including a nofollow on the link. If you rely on traffic from Google, sponsored reviews are probably not your best option.

So there are plenty of options available for you to monetize blogger blogs. While the technical aspects of displaying ads and affiliate links may be different, the challenge of monetizing your blog remains the same. Try different things. See what works for you. A lot will depend on your niche and the type of traffic you receive as to what the best way to monetize blogspot blogs will be.

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Comments

2 Responses to “How To Monetize Blogger Blogs”

  1. Pete on January 25th, 2008 9:48 pm

    Some great ideas here, thanks! I didn’t know about Google penalizing sponsored reviews… could you please elaborate more on the nofollow thing?

  2. Brett on January 26th, 2008 12:29 am

    Pete - to use nofollow, you would modify your hyperlink to look like the following:

    <a href=”http://www.monetizeyourblog.net/” rel=”nofollow”>my favorite blog</a>

    Have a look at this Webmaster Help article from Google.

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