Making Money With Amazon
March 29, 2006
Making money with your blog or website is all about multiple streams of income. You don’t want to just have AdSense. You want to include affiliate programs, other kinds of ads, joint ventures and more to keep the money pouring in.
One way to get a little more money out of your site is through the Amazon Affiliates program. A quick sign up and approval of your site allows you to log in to a special page at Amazon where you can pick products you want to promote on your site.
The great thing about this program is that you can post anything you want that Amazon sells. If you’ve got a cooking blog, add ads for cookware and cookbooks. Love sports? Promote sporting goods products. If you’re an uber-nerd, set up ads for computer programs and hardware.
You can build the links into the text of your blog (say, when you recommend a book or product) or have graphic ads for products with “buy now” buttons. These are then linked to your account and you’re paid a percentage of the sale (including any other items that person buys in the same trip) on a quarterly basis.
Percentages vary depending on the fee structure you choose and the type of item. They usually range from four percent to as high as 7.5 percent for super affiliates. You probably won’t make huge money from this program, but every little bit helps.
Money-Making Methods for Bloggers
March 16, 2006
ProBlogger Darren Rowse has made a list of 8 (direct) ways bloggers can earn money. Here’s a summary:
1. Advertising
There are many ad options: Contextual Ads, Other CPC Advertising, Impression-based Ads, Blog Ads, Text Ads, RSS Ads, and more.
2. Sponsorship
The key if you’re going to take this approach is to target advertisers in your niche that have products that closely relate to what you’re writing about.
3. Affiliate Programs (Amazon, Linkshare, Commission Junction, Clickbank…)
Affiliate programs take some work if you want to get the most out of them (perhaps more work than advertising) but can be lucrative if you match the right program with the right blog/topic.
4. Selling/Flipping Blogs
…in reality [this] is not something that is overly common…yet
5. Donations and Tip Jars
Most bloggers just don’t have the critical mass or the cult following to make [this] work.
6. Merchandise
[This] will probably only work if you either have a brilliantly designed merchandise range and/or you have a cult-like status as a blogger with some fanatical readers who are a little obsessive about your blog
7. Selling Subscriptions
To make it succeed you would need to have some sort of premium/exclusive content and/or real expertise on a topic.
8. Blog Networks
You can start a network and contract bloggers to write for you or secondly you might like to join a blog network as a writer.
