How to Make Money from Your Blog

There are many ways to monetize your blog a little money or even large amounts if you’re serious about it. Companies are more than willing to pay you so that they can put ads on your site. Two such companies are Amazon and Google through the Amazon Associates Program and Google Adsense.

Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates is a online affiliate marketing program that gives an income to those who advertise Amazon products. It’s as simple as adding helpful links in your posts that direct readers to an Amazon product related to your article. Affiliates can receive up to 15% in referral fees.

How do I become an Amazon Affiliate?

1. Go to the bottom of the Amazon.com home page and find a link for "Join Associates."  Follow the link.  This will allow you to sign up for the Amazon Affiliate program.

2. You will need create an Amazon account or sign in if you already have one.

3. Next, there will be a form requesting your name, company name, address for payment, and website info. Fill it out, choose from the many options of payment, and read the terms and conditions of becoming an affiliate. Then, send your information to be approved.

4. Once you’ve been accepted, there will be an Amazon initiation where you have to stand on your head... no, just kidding! Now you can use Amazon for links. There will be a bar that appears whenever you’re on Amazon that helps with linking.

Amazon Associates is a popular monetizing program because Amazon is a trusted company that many people go to for their online shopping to buy an array of different products. Bloggers with extremely narrow niches are able to find products to link to. Amazon product lines include books, electronics, kitchen items, tools, lawn and garden, toys, games, baby products, clothing, sporting goods, health and personal-care items, cosmetics, and musical instruments. Anyone can sell things on Amazon, not just companies, which also increases the chance of someone selling something related to what you write about. 4% commission is the base rate, but the percentage goes up as you lead more people to buy products. And the up side is that once you lead a person to Amazon, for the next 24 hours you get a percentage from anything that person buys.

Google Adsense

When one starts monetizing their site or blog, it’s best to have more than one affiliate program. Amazon doesn’t always have the highest pay, though their are ways to optimize your earnings.   Another popular choice is Google Adsense.  Google Adsense puts ads on your site for free with a pay per click program. There are for types of ads available: Adsense for content, Adsense for Search, Referrals, and Adsense for Mobile. Adsense for content is the most popular. Adsense for content is automatically content sensitive. It is programed to put related ads on every single web page on your site. So, if a visitor is reading your article on gymnastics there might be an ad selling leotards that he/she might click on which gives you a profit.

How do I sign up for Google Adsense?


1. Apply for Google Adsense. You must first submit your website to Google. On the main page of Google.com, there is a link for Google Advertising Programs. From there, click on “Get Started with Adsense” and fill out the necessary forms needed to submit your site. You will have to get an approval e-mail by Google, before you can go on to step 2. For some people, it’s hard to get approved. You have to wait until you have some quality content and a little traffic to your site. It’s advised to wait until you’ve had your site for six months before applying.

2. Log into your Google Adsense account. You will see tabs at the top; pick the "Adsense Setup" tab.

3. Choose which kind of ad you want: Adsense for content, Adsense for Search, Referrals, or Adsense for Mobile. There will be a brief description of each.

4. Create the ad. Go through the process of designing your ad. It will take you through the options where you choose exactly what your ad will look like on your site. At the end, you will then receive a HTML code to highlight and copy.

5. Now go to your site and under the layout editing, paste the code where you want the ad to be. With Blogger, go to the Layout/Page Elements and click the link “Add a Gadget” and then the “HTML/Java Script” option.

6. Save and publish your changes. Yay!!! You’re done!!

With Blogger, you can also create the ad right from your blog instead of using the Google site. You would follow step 5, but instead of clicking “HTML/Java Script” click “Adsense.” From there you can do steps 3 and 4 right from Blogger.