How I’ve Started To Monetise My Blog

 

Hey lovelies, I’ve touched upon this a few times lately but I plan on making this the year I make myself financially secure, and hustle harder than ever before. Since writing How I Tripled My Blog Views This January I’ve been looking into all kinds of affiliate marketing, and ways of making that little bit extra cash flow from my website, and today I’ll be sharing with you how I’ve started to monetise my blog.

 

 

When browsing affiliate programs to join, there were a few that stood out for me. I found it really tricky to try and navigate the programs that I actually thought would be good for my blog and for what I promote as blogger.

 

For me, Amazon Affiliates was the one that stood out to me the most, I use Amazon a lot for buying books, for the Prime feature and for buying from the Pantry. I think if I can make a little extra cash from something I would buy and promote anyway, then why not. I share a lot of my book hauls on this blog, so I can insert the relevant links. You have to make three sales in the first 90 days, which I believe is totally achievable. The program has some great options for inserting Ads and widgets like so.

 

 

The second one I signed up for is Awin, this is because it was suggested to me by almost everyone you submit an application and they get back to you really quickly. Unfortunately I applied for the wrong section of the website and so I’ve just had to fill in the form a second time. The lovely guy who emailed me from them was an absolute peach in getting me on the right track.

 

You are able to browse the profiles of advertisers on the network, get in touch with them and start advertising. I can’t wait to write an update on this once I’ve actually been able to get around properly. I think that this will be a really good program.

 

I want to add that I’ve completely ditched Google Adsense, I previously had it on my blog and I just thought it was pretty wank and there is much better out there, the £60 payout is also really high. I’m still looking at other options but for now these are the two I’ll be using to monetise my blog.

 

 

Throughout the years I’ve always accepted sponsored posts and guest content on my blog. When I’ve been charging for sponsored content I think I’ve been underselling myself a lot, I tend to go with the agreed rate and I don’t tend to pitch my own rates. This is something that I’ve actually been working on, when two PRs got in touch with me today I pitched them paying a higher rate, and surprisingly both of them went for it. I do try and reach out to brands where I can, rather than wait and let brands get in touch with me.

 

As for setting out a rate for how much I’d like to be paid for sponsored posts, I think it works per brand for me, how much work is put in etc. Previously I would have no problem sharing rates, but I find myself in as spot where I am not entirely sure if what I’m charging is the normal, higher or lower than the average rate.

 

 

This is one that I’ve previously done before but walked away from, I used to have monthly advertising spots for bloggers and for brands which bought in a nice little bit of extra income per month. I found it really difficult to keep up with when I was juggling university but I will be having advertising spots starting the first week of March, they will be £5 each and will have lots of perks! More to come on that one.

 

I have also been looking into the having adverts on my blog, since I’ve left Adsense I’m looking for a nice alternative but I’ve not seen one which has suited my blog yet. I’m being exceptionally picky about which advertisers I do and don’t work with as I’d like my ads to represent things I would purchase anyway.

 

 

 

So this is how I’ve started to monetise, I’d love to know how you monetise or if you’ve found any successful programs.