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The advantage of beginning my blogging career for a company is that from day one I have had monetization drilled into my head. To this day, there is nothing I will post that can’t be monetized. Rule #1 – All bloggers need to monetize their blog.

When I took ownership of my blog and launched my sports blog http://CamelClutchBlog.com in 2009, I had monetization in my mind from the launch. I certainly didn’t expect to get rich or make a full time living. But, why not capitalize on hundreds of thousands of eyes a month and by offering affiliate products that they would find interesting while at the same time making a few bucks?

I receive a lot of emails from new writers or friends that find their blogging careers frustrating. These are usually people with a passion for something who launched their own blog. They have stuck some AdSense code on their website and are wondering why they aren’t making any money? AdSense is a great piece of the puzzle, but AdSense is just one slice of what your monetization plan should be.

The ABC of SEO Book

I tell these bloggers that they should be putting affiliate links in all of their posts. More importantly, these affiliate links should be relevant. If you are writing a blog on the New York Yankees, you don’t want to cram a link for a health insurance referral in the blog. It looks tacky and you lose instant credibility. If I were writing on the New York Yankees I may promote a link to any of the following in the article.

– A sports gambling website
– MLB or Yankees jerseys and apparel
– Sports or Baseball tickets
– Sports or baseball collectibles
– A Yankees themed book

Bloggers should always be putting something in the articles. Most of the affiliates will record the cookies of the visitor for a specific amount of time. So for example if you have a link from Amazon to a Yankees book and the visitor stays on Amazon.com and shops for something else, you will get credit for it. That is very important because the idea there is just to get them to open up a link to Amazon whether they buy that specific book or not.

Signing up for these programs is generally free. Some may require a $1 credit card charge to verify your account and credit your $1 back to you. I highly recommend setting up these accounts to direct deposit rather than PayPal because PayPal will take a fee. Here are a few programs that I recommend.

– Amazon.com
– LinkShare
– CommissionJunction.com
– ClickBank.com

You also want to spread out your links a bit if you have the room in your blog. If you are writing a blog make sure you spread the love of your links. If you can, drop a link unobtrusively in your post. Sometimes people immediately leave your page after the article is over. This way they have to see the link.

Finally and most important, don’t encourage people to click your links. That is a clear TOS violation of most affiliates and AdSense and will get you immediately kicked out of their program. I have seen some bloggers leave a message in their About Us in regards to this but for my money, I prefer to stay clear of the subject altogether.

How to make Money Blogging!

Monetize your blogs, keep working hard and adding content and you will start to see some results. Just like SEO it is a slow climb, but once you are there you will be happy you put in the extra time.

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