This is part 1 of the series of articles on one of the most demanded and read topics on the web. The title says “30 ways”, which does not mean that there are only 30 ways to make money online. In fact, these are the ways I have researched and listed so far. There may be more. Within each list as well, there are other sources of revenue generation then those I have covered. So don’t get surprised if you see this list going beyond 30 ways and lists of options within each way growing over the period of time. If you know a method that is not listed below, just let us know and we’ll update it.
I want to clarify here that this list guides you to ways of making money, not the ways to optimise ways of making money. That I’ll cover separately. To highlight the difference between two, I’ll say that PPC is a way of making money, whereas optimisation of PPC programme (getting more traffic, getting more targeted traffic, improving click-through rate etc) are the ways to improve the rate of income generation.
Now why I am giving only five tips? Because if I give all 50 ways now, most of the bloggers will become overloaded by information and will be unable to act. So read the first 3 and let these 3 sink in. Wait for the next post to see the next 3. Keep on trying 1-2 methods (each method offers a number of options) every week. Different people get different results with different tactics. See which one suits you and your blog the best and delivers and then continue and optimise that one.
1.
Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category and almost every blogger know about AdSense. However, there are others as well. The implementation is simple: You have to sign up with the network and paste some code on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
The amount of money that you are going to make depends upon
traffic volume
Cost Per Click (CPC) and most importantly
Click-through rate (CTR)
The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the niche of the website. Mortgages, financial products, money making sites are examples of profitable topics, while technical topics tend to receive a smaller CPC.
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors are already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.
List of popular CPC advertising networks:
Google AdsenseChitikaYahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)ClicksorBidVertiser2.
CPM Advertising NetworksCPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions. The blogger gets paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. For example, a blog that has 50,000 page views monthly and displays an advertising banner with a $2 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.
CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format.
The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers).
If the ad is closer to the top of the page, the higher the CPM.
If you have bigger (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.
CPM generally ranges between $0,10 to $10, though may go beyond $10 in some special cases. CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).
List of popular CPM advertising networks:
Value ClickAdvertising.comCasale MediaBurst MediaRight MediaAdvertising.comTribal Fusion3.
DonationsThis concept has gained popularity recently. Placing a “Donate” link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content. For example, personal development and productivity blogs tend to perform well with donation based systems. The blogger either asks for the donation directly or can use a new plugin called
Buy Me a Beer. This WordPress plugin enables you to insert a customized message at the bottom of each article, asking the readers to chip in for a beer or coffee.
