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.