Bloggers are great at writing relevant articles and posting topics of interest to attract readers.

Utilizing their social networking skills to capture an audience that is often loyal and receptive, but that’s not enough.  The missing ingredient is “money”, while some bloggers have monetized their blogs well, others have failed.

A blog that makes money is likely to survive longer than one that does not. Knowing how to make money from your blog is a key factor in determining its survivability.

Blogs that make money are by nature closer to the front of the pack and benefit from the inherent traffic that comes from their natural position in the search engines.  A high natural search engine position produces new traffic for a blog, which creates an environment for making money.

A blogger needs to view their blog not only as a publicity medium for their message, but also how to direct the traffic the blog receives.  Controlling the traffic of a blog gives the blog owner the ability to profit and grow.

Tailoring every element of a blog to make money and directing the profits to the blog owner can make the difference between success and failure of the blog.

Controlling traffic is an art and skill that comes with experience.  Utilizing tools like Google Analytics can enhance your understanding of how to control your traffic.  Study how and where your traffic comes from to discover your blogs impact on the Internet.

Know Where Your Traffic Comes From

Once you have an idea where the majority of your traffic is coming from, put in place a strategy to increase the top 3 sources.  Increasing your top 3 traffic sources can be easy once you know what they are.

If your blog receives natural search engine placement for certain keywords that are producing traffic, then consider adjusting your blog to be tailored more around those keyword topics.

This provides a great head start in the traffic game if executed properly.  If your blog is receiving traffic from a particular directory that you submitted to, visit the directory and learn everything you can about it.  If they have link commenting or tagging available, ensure your link is properly outfitted to gain even more valuable traffic.

How to Find Advertisers

Making money on every aspect of your blog is not as simple as some bloggers would have you believe.  To make a sustainable income, a blogger’s skills must be diversified and calculated.  That doesn’t mean that the less intelligent folks don’t have a chance either, it just means that you need to be prepared and have good timing.

There are number of ways to make money online from your blog. One of the best methods is to get advertisers to pay you for using your blog space. They will pay you commission for their banner ad, links, articles, etc.

You may have few questions in your mind,

• Where to find potential advertisers?
• Who are the best, individual advertisers or ad networks?
• Which is the right way for getting started?

Go ahead to get answers for your questions.

Traffic plays a vital role

If you really want to make money from your blog, then you should consider this seriously. You should have pretty good amount of traffic to bring in traditional advertisers. Good amount of traffic is not around some thousand visitors for your blog per month. It should be minimum 10,000 page views per month to get basic advertisers and around 20,000 visitors per month to get professional advertisers.

If you are targeting a particular niche, then it will be easy for you and for the advertisers to find each other. This will help the advertiser to reach the desired viewers easily.

It is just like a popularity game. More popular you are, more advertisers you gain and vice verse as well as behind you if you have huge followers in any social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Make it simple for advertisers to contact you

It is very simple. Just add a ‘advertise with us’ page in your homepage. It will be easy for the advertisers to contact you and if you are showing up the space that are available for advertisement in the ‘advertise with us’ page, then it will be lot more easier for them to find you for particular ad space.

You can also email your subscribers and mention them that you are looking for online advertisers. This will bring you some good advertisers as some percentage of your blog visitors actually comprises of probable advertisers.

Visit some popular sites in your niche and see the kind of advertisements they are displaying and the kind of ad network (if any) they are using.

You can use the same ad network or you can find the ways to contact the advertisers (if it is an individual advertiser, use his contact me page to contact him) with a proposal of what they are actually going to get from your blog like profits, visitors, etc.

If your reader base is increasing, then you will get proposals from advertisers and this will be a lot easier one.

Register with an ad network

There are many ad networks like Google AdSense, ClickBank, etc. Google AdSense is the biggest player in the ad networks program and it is made for people like you. With ClickBank, you can make huge money if you select the right niche.

Once you sign up with any of the advertisement networks, you have to select the size of banners that you are going to display in your site and other necessary details and should place the code in your site.

At first, you will be getting CPC (cost per click). But you can reach the point CPM (cost per 1000 impression) where you will get paid just to show the ad to your visitors.

How you are going to be get paid

There are three major representations available in the online marketing. First is CPC. As I have said before, you will get paid for each click. The amount may range from few pennies to some dollars.

If you are targeting high paying keywords, then the traffic might be lesser. So you have to plan wisely to get High Paying Keywords with Moderate Traffic and fewer competitors. You can also go for High Paying Google AdSense Keywords to get an idea about the high paying Google keywords.

Second is CPM. As I have said before, it is cost per 1000 impressions. This is one of the best means of advertisement for a site with huge reader base. You can earn a lot as there is no action necessary from the visitor and your pay will range from $0.50 CPM to $8 CPM approx.

Third is CPA. It is Cost Per Action. You can also earn lot from this mode of advertisement. But in this, it requires an action from the visitor. That is, you will get the commission if the visitor is buying any particular product by clicking the advertisement in your site. It is more like affiliate marketing.

Should you go for an individual advertiser?

If you are contacting any direct advertisers, then you will get huge payments as you are avoiding the middlemen in ad networks. If you are going through any ad network, then you will get only a percentage of what the online advertisers is willing to pay. But in the direct advertisement, you will get the full payment.

You can build a long term partnership with your direct advertiser and they might also customize the commissions for you by seeing the promotions and profits from your site.

Finally, do not forget to give your visitors an awesome content. It is the base for your blog and everything related to it. It will also bring big advertisment opportunities and their brands behind you.