Monetizing mainstream blogs
 

Blogging experts,

How do you choose to monetize your mainstream blogs? More importantly, what methods have you found to be ineffective, as well as personally annoying to deal with?

I have a few mainstream projects that were engineered from inception with end monetary means in mind.. but this one is different, intended to be a passion project, and most importantly the first blog I've ever laid a hand on. The subject matter is a hobby that I know well.

I don't want to make a cunt out of the user experience, but naturally I would like it to be worth the time investment. As passionate as I am on the subject matter, I still intend for it to be profitable.

Typically, my aim is to pitch my own affiliations and convert them directly from start to finish in total continuity.. But I'd like to be more hands off and concise with my time on this one.

What have you found to be worth your time and relatively hassle free?

Not so much about pure profit but more like a viable balance.. In good taste, perhaps even unobtrusive :2 cents:

It depends on the blog and subject matter.

I have some blogs which are doing well with zero ads and only affiliate offers related to the subject of the post.

Then I have a video review blog, action movies, which I was using AdSense on and earning a few bucks a day, switched to dating and semi-adult offers and now it's doing $20 - $30 a day.

Other ideas are making ebooks out of your content and selling those via the blog, you'd be surprised how easy it is to get that to work. For example using the old dog training subject - you have heaps of content videos and text on dog training. Those posts get people interested in dog training but some of those people want to become dog training ninja experts and those people will buy your ultimate guide to dog training ebook as quickly as they can check out with Paypal. You can make your ultimate dog training guide ebook simply by repurposing existing content and then adding some stuff only available to the ebook.

Rule #1: Provide Value to people.
Rule #2: Refer to rule #1

As I said though the different methods you can use depends on your niche. In my experience, unless it's lonely guys looking for distractions (as the ad performance on my action movie review sites reflects) or highly relevant affiliate offers or ads then for the most part people don't click on ads. Adsense is less and less a money earner these days even on fairly exclusive, good traffic content.

Traditional ad placement.

Contextual Amazon and similar.

Look at agregator VIGLINK, if you have enough text content


As a passive stable income you would try to start with push notifications from REALPUSH