I know a lot about making money with small blogs. Not just a little bit. A lot. Why? Because I’ve been monetizing my own blog for over 3 years now, and have helped hundreds of other bloggers do the same thing! In fact, I’m currently coaching several new bloggers to help them start earning income from their very first post! If you’re looking to make money online as a blogger, there are several ways you can go about it. You can sell your own products or services, become an affiliate marketer, offer paid guest posts on larger sites, offer consulting services, or even set up ad networks. But today we’re going to focus on one specific source of revenue that a lot of people don’t take advantage of. And that is using ad networks to make money with a small blog!
There are several different types of ad networks you can choose from, but I’m going to focus on two specific ones: CPM and CPC.
First things first: What does each one mean? Well…
CPM means “Cost per Mille” (or thousand). So if someone clicks your ad and visits your site for 1 second, you’re charged 1 impression. If they visit for 30 seconds, you’re still charged 1 impression.
CPC means “Cost per Click”. When someone clicks on an ad on your site, it counts as a click. Simple as that.
So how do these work together? Well imagine this scenario: You have a small blog, and 2 people visit your site each day. One person stays on your page for 23 seconds, while the other stays for 3 minutes. You’re charged the same amount of money in BOTH cases! Here’s how it breaks down:
CPM Ad Network
You make $2 per 1000 visitors to your website (or $0.0002 per visitor). So you can earn up to $6 per DAY with this ad network if you get 6000 visitors! Wowzers!!
CPC Ad Network
You make around $1 PER CLICK on an ad. So when ONE PERSON clicks on an ad on your site, you are paid. If BOTH click, you are paid twice!
Making money with small blogs is possible. Thousands of people are doing it, even without writing about popular keywords or focusing on the big name brands.
As per Paul Haarman building a blog network to make money is not easy but can be done. Here are some proven methods that you can use for your blog(s) that don’t require spending large amounts of money on advertising.
To make money with your blog, you need to fill it up with ads. You can use affiliate links and/or CPM (Cost per Mile) and CPC (Cost per Click) ads to generate revenue from your site.
Affiliate Links: I’ve found that adding a few affiliate links here and there in my posts is not only acceptable but also very effective when trying to monetize a small blog. Instead of earning less than $5 per month like many other bloggers do, my affiliate sales help me bring in about $220+ monthly and sometimes more depending on how hard I work for it.
Here are some examples of popular affiliate programs that you can promote:
Amazon Associates Commission Junction Rakuten Link Share CPM Ads:
The trick to maximizing revenue with CPM ads is to have a large number of page views. You can expect at least $1-$2 per 1000 visitors. So if you get 100,000 visitors per month on your blog, you could earn anywhere from $100 – $200+ monthly from CPM ads.
Popular companies that pay for CPM ads are:
Google Double-click Federated Media Amazon Associates
To be honest, I haven’t tried Google Adsense because I’m just not seeing the kind of CPM payout they promise. However, I’m sure they’re worth looking into and trying it out — especially if you feel like you need more control over the type of ad that shows up on your blog.
CPC Ads:
To make money with CPC ads, you need to have a steady stream of traffic on your site. If you don’t, please read my previous post HERE. Also note that even though I said it doesn’t require much traffic, you still have to have some because the majority of CPC ad programs pay for action — meaning they pay per click not just any visitor who lands on your site.
Just know that if you’re serious about making money blogging, you’ve got to have at least 10k+ unique visitors per month or more depending on the type of ad program being used.
Popular companies that pay for CPC ads are:
Google Adsense Amazon Associates Commission Junction Chitika Info links
Conclusion by Paul Haarman:
The majority of your traffic should come from search engines, social media or other websites. However, it’s probably not realistic to depend on that completely since there are millions of blogs competing for the same spots in popular search engines.