Friends ask me all the time about monetizing a blog. They either have a blog already or would like to start one with the goal of earning money. Graywolf probably has the best advice I’ve seen on the subject of monetization here at the very bottom of this post.
Graywolf’s advise is to not worry about monetizing the traffic at first and just focus on building traffic for the first six months or year. (People are much more likely to link to your blog if it does not have ads, and why bother setting up the ads if there is no audience to click on them anyway?) After it gets some links and regular traffic, then start placing ads on the site gradually.
There seems to be two main ways to go. You can focus all your attention on one blog that you hope will earn an impressive profit or lower the bar and create several, where the combined profit is impressive. The idea of only making a few bucks per day, but on many blogs sometimes never occurs to people. Both strategies work. It’s just a matter of personal preference.
Below are links on the subject that have been piling up in my Bookmarks so I thought that since it’s the end of the year, I would clean out that folder and post “The Best Blog Traffic & Monetization Posts of 2006″.
Enjoy! 
Monetizing Blog Traffic
- First impressions count by The Google AdSence Blog
- Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets by Graywolf
- How to Design Your AdSense Ads by Problogger
- Affiliate Marketing Tools by Stuntdubl
- Other Advertising Networks Besides Google AdSense by John Chow
- It’s An Advertising Bonanza! by John Chow
- StumbleUpon Kicks Ass by Greg Hartnett
- Get Perpetual Traffic on Sumbleupon for Ten Bucks by First Page Fitness
- Monetizing with Feedvertising by Top Rank Blog
- How to: Make Money From Your Blog by BoydCreative
- Are you a great Webmaster or Online Marketer? By Hawaii SEO
Copywriting Tips for Blogs
- 5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang by Copyblogger
- 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work by Copyblogger
- 7 More Sure-Fire Headline Templates That Work by Copyblogger
- 10 Web Tools to Help Generate Blog Content Ideas by SEOmoz
- How to Eliminate the Echo Chamber by Problogger
- Blogging in Bunches by Problogger
- Adding an “About” Page by Problogger
- How to Write Your “About Me” Page by Problogger
- Do’s and Do NOTs of Blogging from the Cre8asite Forrums
- How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic by Copyblogger
- The Smart Way to Create a Sense of Urgency by Copyblogger
Blog marketing Tips
- Blogging for Beginners by Problogger
- 7 Ways to Optimize Your Blog by Folksonomy
- What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content by Lorelle on Wordpress
- 5 ways to building a better blog by Pronet Advertising
- 25 tips for marketing your blog by The Online marketing Blog
- How a Best Posts Page Will Increase Your Blog Subscribers by Stuntdubl
- The 5 deadly sins of blogging by Pronet Advertising
- 21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch
Blog marketing Tools
- Crazyegg
- The RSS button maker by The Online marketing Blog
- Links to Weblog Promotion Tools by Stuntdubl
- Adding Social Bookmarking Icons to News Feeds by SEO Egghead
- MyBlogLogging by Pronet Advertising
List of Blog Marketing Links
Blog Directory Links
- Best of the Web Blog Directory
- Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites by Robin Good
- 223 Places to List Your Blog by Stephan Miller
- Directories with affiliate programs
WordPress Plugins
(Surprisingly… there is very little repetition between the lists)
- SEO Plugins for Wordpress by Graywolf
- Essential SEO-Related Plugins for WordPress by SEO Egghead
- My favourite 10 Wordpress plugins by SeoPedia
- Marketing Pilgrim’s Plugin List by Andy Beal
- Google News Sitemaps Generator for Wordpress by Search Engine Journal
- My WordPress Plugins by Jim Westergren
- 18 WordPress Plugins For Affiliate Marketers by SupperAff
- My Top 10 Best WordPress Plugins by John Chow
19 comments
December 26, 2006 at 10:37 pm
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December 31, 2006 at 11:04 pm
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December 27, 2006 at 1:51 am
Very nice, thanks. Will take some time to go over.
I myself are working on a big article about SEO for WordPress.
Thanks again.
December 27, 2006 at 4:45 pm
Excellent list of “Best of” blog resources from 2006 - thanks for including the Best of the Web blog directory on the list!
December 27, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Thanks Brian!
(That was Brian Prince, CEO of The Best of the Web) Very cool guys over there. They have great customer service & I can’t say enough great things about them.
December 28, 2006 at 9:08 pm
great post! very comprehensive and quite some great thoughts!
cheers
~frank
January 6, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I am sure I will come back to this. Good work & Great list!
January 14, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Hey Dave, how did I miss this one?! Great reference — I’ve saved it for later.
January 17, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Great list, delished and will be coming back to go through it all.
June 17, 2007 at 12:02 am
great list David, definitely one of the best post i read. Already added on bookmark list. thanks
August 2, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Well, monetising a blog could be very time consuming. There are so many bloggers these days that you simply must find area which is unsaturated. If you start a blog about SEO or Harry Potter be sure that there are more chances that you won’t succeed than that you win and earn reasonable amounts.
I run several blogs but they are not commercial. One of them has about 40-200 visits each day because it is very unique
. However, other ones’ traffic is (and will be) pathetic… Just because there are thousands of similar things.
August 15, 2007 at 12:07 am
Thank you for the very useful list. I’ll bookmark this one so I can read more anytime.
November 7, 2007 at 5:01 pm
The list has saved me a lot of time. Very useful - Thanks.
November 9, 2007 at 2:54 am
Excellent lists, especially the plug-ins selection.
Every time that I build a new WP blog, I do find myself wondering what plug-ins to use, as there seems to be so many new ones every time you look.
So, whilst I would not necessarily agree with every plug-in that others have chosen, nevertheless, a very useful selection.
Thanks,
Steve
November 9, 2007 at 3:58 am
Bookmarked!
Thank you very much for this list, it has saved me a lot of time and hassle. I will be back here frequently to make good use of it!