Allllrighty!
Okay, so! We’ve looked at some of the barriers you might encounter on the road to making some money from your blog (and hopefully been given the tools to overcome them!). We’ve looked at what tools you need to have on your blog in order to start monetizing. Next up, over the next few weeks, we’ll look at different ways of monetizing your blog.
They include:
- PPC ads
- Sponsored Posts
- Affiliates
- Testing/Reviewing products & services
- Consulting/Speaking/Membership sites
- Blogger-for-hire
- Selling Things: Classes, e-books, gak (ie ETSY)
But we’re going to start with something really, really simple: a donation button.
This is really the simplest thing you can do to start monetizing your blog. Somewhere, in the sidebar, install a button that says “Donate” and is hooked up to your PayPal account. You can riff on this, if you like–Brian Thompson’s used to say “Buy me a Beer,” before he quit drinking. The one on my Facebook Page says “Buy me a Coffee.”
Will you get rich from having a “Donate” button on your site? No, likely not. Also, you have no way of making the donations come in on a steady basis. But still. My guess is, there are lots of people who read your site, who might really appreciate what you do, and be interested in sending $5 your way. The other bonus? No matter what platform you’re blogging on, all of them allow “donate” buttons, whether you are self-hosted, or your blog is hosted by the blogging platform.
- How to install a “donate” button on Blogger
- How to Install a “donate” button on WordPress
- How to add the “donate” app to your Facebook Page
Next week, we’ll look at “getting free stuff,” and putting yourself out there to offer to do product reviews.
I noticed your blog post on LinkedIn. I always wondered (not that I want to ask for donations): do people actually send donations to bloggers? Have you ever received any?
I have known people who do. I don’t have a “donate” button on my site. It’s not my thing. 🙂
What about a link to facebook – https://www.facebook.com/theartofthebiz/app_117708921611213? What is it an example?
Oh! I have a “donate” app on my Facebook page. It works basically the same as putting one on a blog, but it’s on my FB page, instead. Check it out: facebook.com/theartofthebiz
Do you find it useful?
In all honesty, I’ve gotten exactly zero donations. But then, I haven’t really tried to get any donations, either. While I’ve had the app on my FB page for a while, mostly its been buried below the fold.
This series of blog posts I’m doing outlines different ways that you can monetize your blog. This is just one of them. Some will be a fit for you, some will not. For me, this is not so much my thing, there are tons of other methods that work much, much better for me. But I want to be thorough and give you guys as many options as possible.
I’m not criticizing. Just curious.
Thx for answering the question, Rebecca.
Nope, I didn’t take it that way at all. I didn’t know if you had signed up to get the entire series or not, and if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t know.
If you did, and you still didn’t know, that’s important information for me to know, because I should be making it clearer!
I’m following along the series and have just added a donate button to my blog. Before I did so, I spent some time considering if it was the right choice for me. Because my blog is an artist site I’m hoping that people see it as a way to support an artist – the modern day, small scale version of a patron of the arts.
My other site is for my knitting patterns and because I sell product through the site (or hope to soon) I didn’t feel a donation button would be fitting.
Curious to see if I get any donations.