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Monetize Your Blog
By Kyle Henrie | June 20, 2008
If you’ve read any press in the last year, the number of Internet users already reading blogs and blogging themselves may shock you. The blogging audience is definitely there, but what are they reading? Everything under the sun, from plastic surgery to biking across New Zealand. Closer to home, blogs track performance marketing strategies and the opinions of a host of online marketing professionals. The point here is that you’ve got a great deal of people reading a great deal of highly-targeted content.
So now it makes sense to ask: can you effectively monetize one of the Web’s last vestiges of traditionally marketing-free content to reach these tantalizing audiences? Should you? We think blog advertising maybe a line worth crossing assuming that we can find ways to include contextually relevant ads that provide value to blog readers. After all, hosting and ISPs don’t pay for themselves.
Lawrence Lee, president of Zoundry.com, developer of a blog monetizing tool, shares his perspective below:
“We’re seeing two types of bloggers.
- The first are bloggers who are writing for their friends and family. Given that they already have a trusted relationship, credibility around product recommendations is a non-issue. In a sense, friends and family can reward publishers for learning about new, often niche, products they wouldn’t have learned about otherwise.
- The second [group] are people who don’t necessarily call themselves bloggers, or view themselves as journalists. They are just using the simple tools of blogging to publisher Web sites without having to learn HTML, so they don’t have credibility issues around monetizing their blogs either.”
So let’s assume you fall into the categories above or that you’re on board with blogging. Now it’s Advertising 101: know your audience and target your ads accordingly. Beth Kirsch, senior marketing manager at Audible.com and affiliate marketing veteran, says “You have to be extremely strategic - matching the context of the blog to the product is the key. It’s tricky, but can be a wonderfully effective channel when done well.”
In other words, one can’t simply throw up an apparel advertiser’s banner in the middle of a blog about the experiences of tuning up your car’s engine and expect to generate commissions. However, placing a “Pickup this year’s hottest toy” ad when blogging about buying birthday gifts is both contextually relevant and valuable to readers.
If you’re already blogging, chances are there are plenty of you who match your content and audience. Take the lead of your competitors and implement your unique, lucrative take on blogs today!
Topics: Affiliate Marketing, Marketing Strategies |
