Twenty income streams for bloggers

This is a lengthy post.  Prior to reading it, you may want to read: How to make money by blogging , Twenty five steps to increase traffic and How and why to get your own domain.

I don’t recommend using a hosted service like Blogger if you want to seriously monetize your blog.  You don’t get enough control.  If you don’t have your own URL, you’re tying yourself to a service you don’t own and building up someone else’s asset.  You want to build page rank and links for your own URL, not someone else’s.  Plus you want sufficient control over the layout and design of your site, so you can jump on any opportunities that require low-level changes.  If you use a hosted blog, you’re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk.  It’s a bit more work up front to self-host, but it’s less risky in the long run. Web hosting is cheap, and there are plenty of good hosts to choose from.  — Steve Pavlina

The largest niche in blogging is the “make money blogging” niche and competition is fierce.  In these days of economic distress it’s even more important to absorb that fact and the fact that easy credit is no more. We can expect that some businesses will cut back on their advertising budgets and campaigns, and we can expect that click on ads may  decrease.

Traffic is the primary fuel of online income generation.  More visitors means more ad clicks, more product sales, more affiliate sales, more donations, more consulting leads, and more of whatever else that generates income for you.  — Steve Pavlina

Organic Traffic: Organic traffic is any traffic that comes to your site without being paid for. This includes people who visit via links in forums and blogs, traffic from search engines, traffic from word of mouth, or traffic from bookmarks. Organic traffic generally comes to a site naturally and is not driven by marketing campaigns.

Inorganic Traffic: Inorganic traffic is traffic that is pushed via marketing campaigns. Banner ads, search engine ads, etc generate inorganic traffic. Generally speaking this form of traffic is semi-immediate depending on how much you blanket the web with your advertising and slowly dies out over time unless more money is spent to build a new marketing campaign.

Traffic builders checklist:

• submitting your blog to directories and search engines
• commenting on other blogs
• social bookmarking services, social networks, social media
• joining groups related to your niche or topic
• commenting on forums
• link exchanges
• newsletters
• press releases
• podcasts
• Squidoo
• guest blogging
• Yahoo answers

1. adbrite: Find out how we can help you generate more revenue from your ad space. Customize ads to match your site. Approve and reject ads for your site. Works alongside other ad programs.
2. Adsense: Adsense is Google’s Ad network. You can display text ads, image ads, ads in feed and Video ads through Adsense.
3. amazon affiliates: Link to Amazon or Endless products, your favorite destinations, search results, or any other page on Amazon.  Feature any Amazon products in a self-contained online store embedded directly within your web page.
4. AzoogleAds: performance-based online advertising network that delivers targeted customers from a variety of websites, search portals, newsletters and contextual publishers.
5. BidVertiser: Bidvertiser is an ad network for text ads only. But it is more flexible than adsense as it gives you full control over ads and you can also create custom ad sizes.
6. blogads: Use our do-it-yourself tool, now in its 3rd generation, to find the perfect blogs, create a campaign, schedule, pay and track results. Blog advertising is a conversation not a lecture, so be sure to edit ads in real time as readers respond to your ideas.
7. bloggersforhire: Professional Bloggers Handling Your Social Media Needs.
8. Chitika: Chitika’s ads are targeted for your search engine visitors and your other visitors do not see them.  The Chitika | Premium Affiliate Program is Optimized to Monetize: Sites with significant US & Canadian Search Engine Traffic;  Options for International Traffic; Sites looking for an AdSense alternative or AdSense compatible solution.
9. clickbank: online retail outlet for 10,000 digital product publishers and their 100,000 active affiliates.
10. clicksor.com: Drive customers to your web site with text ads, graphical banners, interstitial ads and pop-under ads. You can choose any cost metrics from pay per click, pay per view and pay per visit.
11. commision junction: Maximize your revenue opportunities by developing sustainable relationships with top-tier advertisers. Perform and get paid for every sale and lead you generate. For qualifying publishers, take your program to the next level with our industry exclusive solution for top-performers.
12. kanoodle.com:  Kanoodle offers you a way to earn revenue for every visitor who comes to your site and searches for products and services. Our pay-per click network includes quality advertisements and  commissions.
13. linkshare: full-service online marketing solutions specializing in the areas of Search (SEM), Lead Generation and Affiliate Marketing.
14. linkworth: products consist of text link ads, paid blog reviews, in-text links, in-content pay per click ads, rotating text ads, hosted content pages, article submission, directory submission and many more.
15. Project Wonderful: The least expensive ad network around. Only ad network where $0.00 bids are allowed.
16. sponsored reviews: connects advertisers with bloggers willing to write honest reviews about their products and services.
17. textlink ads: Publish Ads – Make Money – Sell simple, relevant text ads on your website.  Retain full editorial control over the advertisers that appear on your website.
18. vibrantmedia: web publishers Is your site content rich? We plan and buy contextual advertising campaigns. Should we be working with you?
19. widget bucks: pay-per-click shopping widgets instantly display the most popular products based on buying trends.
20. yahoo publisher : Simply display ads that are relevant to the content of your site and earn money from qualified clicks.  No investment is required and setup is quick and easy.
    

Further reading: The Top 10 Alternatives to Google Adsense

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