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So you want to make money blogging, huh?

Well, you're in the right place! Below, you will find every post that I have written that relates directly to making money blogging. In here, you'll find a lot of talk about affiliates and how to impress sponsors. Be sure to bookmark and share the posts that you like!

Results from Our Pinterest Ads Experiment

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how to pinterest ads
About 3 weeks ago, I posted in my Facebook group that I would be doing a test of Pinterest ads.

I should mention that as of right now, Pinterest ads are invite only. They send you an email and you’re in. If not, you wait.

I have been running 2 ads for posts on my wife’s blog Katie Did What for 3 weeks now and here’s how it’s going:

pinterest ads
I blocked out the campaign names because they contain keywords that we rank well for.

Ok, so let’s break these numbers down.

Let’s start with the one that most people care about – what we spent. To date, our total spent is $223.83.

What has it gotten us?

A whopping 538,000 impressions on those two pins, which I don’t care too much about. Impressions are just how any times the pin has been loaded onto people’s screens. I care about results.

Like… 1,150 re-pins. Want to know the best part about these? They are free. We only pay when someone clicks the pin and goes to our site, so this is all a bonus to me. Plus, if they pin it and then click later, I don’t believe we pay.

We did pay for a total of 2,290 clicks at a rate of $0.10 per click. This is incredible to me. We started out with a higher rate and dropped it gradually until we stopped seeing clicks and impressions. Then, we bumped it up a bit and have found a happy medium level where we get clicks at a great price. As you can see, one of the ads is getting us $0.07 clicks and the other $0.15 clicks.

The rising graph shows how we’ve been getting more for our money. We have not increased our daily budget, but as you can see, our clicks and re-pins have gone up, due to us lowering the price we are willing to pay per click.

Here’s the thing about Pinterest ads, or any ads for that matter: you have to see a ROI at some point. I believe you should run tests for at least 2 weeks to get a solid idea of what is working and what is not. We have these 2 ads leading to pages on Katie’s site with some affiliate links. They were also already very popular posts, so we knew they would be well received by new people clicking through via ads.

We’ve seen the ads give us about a 100% return on our investment. Because of that, after this test, we will not only be continuing these ads, but will create a couple more and bump up our daily budget. You see, once you realize that ads are providing a bigger return than you are investing, it’s time to scale that as much as possible.

So, instead of say, spending $10 a day to increase your earnings by $15/day, you could spend $100 a day to increase earnings by $150/day. Make sense?

I may post another update as we add to what we are doing on Pinterest, so stay tuned!

If you’re hesitant to try them out, I’ll leave you with one last incentive: money spent on advertising is a tax write-off!

Filed Under: Blog, Make Money Blogging

The Ultimate Guide to Using Affiliate Links on Your Blog

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affiliate links
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online. With display ads being a dying breed, affiliate marketing with skill and tact is more important than ever to your income strategy. Done correctly, affiliate marketing can be one of the least intrusive and most profitable money-making strategies for your blog.

Let’s start by defining an “affiliate link” for you. Affiliate linking is the process of promoting a company or product and receiving a monetary reward when a sale is made through your recommendation.

This is a comparison of an affiliate link with a standard link:
examples of linksAll of that extra stuff is what is necessary to track the link and ensure that you get the credit for the sale after someone clicks the link.

An example of an affiliate link in a post is this: I love the Canon 70D DSLR camera and highly recommend it for any blogger.

Affiliate marketing sometimes gets a bad rap. A lot of spammers set up sites with useless content and tons of affiliate links in hopes of getting rich quick. In very few instances, this does work. However, affiliate marketing can be an awesome tool for your existing blog. This post will cover some best practices when to comes to affiliate marketing in addition to specific strategies that have earned me almost 6-figures in income over the past few years.

affiliate networks for bloggers
Amazon Associates – receive a percentage of sale for referring people to Amazon to make a purchase. Perhaps the single most popular affiliate out there. Unfortunately, if you live in the following states: Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, or Rhode Island, you cannot join due to tax laws.

Commission Junction – CJ has a huge library of affiliates that you can apply for. They also have a premium publisher program that they are building right now which focuses on content heavy blogs.

Ebay Enterprise – formerly PepperJam, EE is a network with just under 1,000 affiliates. EE lacks a lot of major retailers and has notable tracking issues. I recommend using them as a last resort for affiliates.

Flex Offers – another good sized network with major merchants such as JCPenney, Kohl’s, Roxy and Sears to name a few.

Groupon – promote the daily deals that Groupon has via their own affiliate program.

Impact Radius – a smaller network, but still with large companies such as Forever 21, NastyGal, Lord & Taylor and approximately 250 more.

LinkShare – another huge network of affiliates including Macy’s, Kohl’s, iTunes and about 1,000 others.

Point Click Track – has a lot of spammy-type offers like “free” stuff but also has a few merchants like Ellie, Pacific Sunwear and Vistaprint.

ShareASale – yet another large network with merchants including Zulily, Reebok, Wayfair and about 3900 others.

Viglink – I love VigLink because they track very well. They also have access to about 35,000 merchants. If you only decide to monetize via affiliates one way, join VigLink. Creating specific product links is a breeze and you can monetize just about any store you can think of with their massive library of merchants. The best part? They offer exclusive high commission rates for some merchants (like Nordstrom, for example). Their reporting also shows which exact pages on your site are converting, which links are, and what people are buying. That stuff is very helpful in gauging what is working and what isn’t.

*Bonus – ask your webhost if they have an affiliate program. Some (such as HostGator) pay $65 or more per referral!

affiliate links strategies
Be open about getting paid.
This is the most important thing I can say about using affiliate links on your blog is to do it the right way. The FTC requires you to disclose your relationship with affiliates. So take care of that before you do anything else. Good affiliate networks will require you to have a disclosure policy in place before using their links.

Another reason you want to be open about links being affiliate links is that you want to come across as open and honest with your readers. If your content is good and you are likable, people will want to help you out. If they know that purchasing a product through your link will earn you some money, they may be more inclined to do so. Being likable here is key. If you’re not likable, why would anyone want to help you out? Also, if you are not honest about your affiliate links and people catch on, you’ll lose credibility on your blog – which can be devastating to your traffic and readership.

Be selective.
While it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of promoting every product on the market with affiliate links, you have to be careful no to spam your readers. You don’t want to be known as a blogger who is just constantly pushing products. Why would I take recommendations seriously from someone who endorses a different product every day? There’s no way you can honestly recommend 6 different microwaves. (Maybe there is, but you catch my drift.) There has to be balance with the way you use affiliate links and recommend products. It’s sort of an art, but I always tell people to consider themselves as a reader of their own blog. What would seem pushy and spammy to them?

Now, while you don’t necessarily want to promote everything under the sun, you do want the ability to do so. What I mean here is that if you wind up talking about a certain Chicco stroller, it would be nice to already be a part of their affiliate program. This way, you can include an affiliate link right when your post goes live. The more programs you are joined with, the more chances you have of being able to use affiliate links when talking about products.

Why would someone use your link?
When you are placing an affiliate link, ask yourself the question: “why would someone click this link?” If you cannot answer that question, you probably shouldn’t insert that link. If you’ve offered an honest review of the product, or if you’ve talked about a positive experience with that product, you are giving your readers a reason to click the link and you’re adding value to the post. Just randomly putting a link with no background and your endorsement is obviously forced, you’re not going to get any activity and you will eventually lose readers because they will pick up on your lack of content and surplus of links.

Actually use/love the product.
If you can show yourself with the product, that will go a long way. Obviously, an endorsement is much more believable when people can actually see you using the product. So many bloggers promote products simply because they want to earn money. A lot of times, it’s for products they wouldn’t even use or recommend if there wasn’t a financial incentive. When people see that you actually are using the product that you are endorsing, they are so much more likely to consider purchasing the product. When you endorse a product on your site, that product becomes an extension of your site. If you recommend a bad product, you’ll be certain that you will hear about it and your reputation for recommending useful, quality products will go out the window. Also, it goes without saying that it is in incredibly bad taste to knowing promote a bad product just for the sake of getting paid.

Use direct links when you can.
Most affiliate networks let you create what are called “deep links” for products. This is a direct link to the specific product page that you are referring to. It’s much easier to convert a sale if you are leading your reader as close to the purchase page as possible. Leading to the homepage and making your reader find it from there is not ideal for a sale.

examples
Let’s see some linking in action. Here are some examples of good affiliate link usage on a blog:
My wife is a blogger at KatieDidWhat.com, here’s a post from her blog.
using affiliate linksThis was on a post about the outfit that she’s wearing in the picture. The links add value to the post because the reader can see more information or even purchase pieces from her outfit very easily via the links. The “c/o” links are explained further in the disclosure policy, but “c/o” stands for “care of”, meaning that the item was provided to her by the company linked.

As you can see, the links are natural looking and add value to the post. That is what using affiliate links in blogging is all about.

Let’s look at another example, this time from my own blog:
how to use affiliate links
As you can see, this post is providing a nice value to the reader. This is actually the 2nd post like this I’ve done, due to its popularity. I am providing something that people want, and am including my own affiliate links where appropriate. They are not out of place and flow very naturally in the post.

wrap
I hope I’m driving the point home that affiliate links should be natural and should add value to your content. Affiliate linking is not a get-rich-quick idea when it comes to blogging. You will need a significant amount of traffic to generate a large chunk of income from affiliate revenue alone. However, it is one more way (alongside sponsored posts, product sales, ads, etc.) to make money on your blog.

Perhaps the single best thing about using affiliate links on your blog is the ability for older posts to continue to generate income. My wife’s blog has had a few different posts go semi-viral (think 10k+ pins) on Pinterest months after posting. Since the posts had affiliate links in them already, we started to see some revenue from these posts that had been, for all intents and purposes, forgotten about. That’s called “passive income” and it’s pretty much one of the best things that can happen as a blogger/online businessperson. That should be incentive enough for you to start sing affiliate links asap on your blog!

What are some of your favorite affiliates?



Filed Under: Blog, Make Money Blogging

How to Put Ads on Your Website

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how to put ads on your blog


Note: this post is assuming you have access to ads to put on your site. You can either put ads that you sell directly, or ads that are part of an ad network.

Now let’s talk about placing ads on you website. I’ll break this post into 2 parts – WordPress and Blogger.

Up first,

How to put ads on your BLOGGER blog

It’s actually very simple. I’ll start with AdSense, since it is the absolute easiest.
Head to your layout screen by clicking “layout” on the left side of your dashboard. The screen will look like this:
blogger layoutWherever you want to put an AdSense ad, click the “add gadget” text to get to the gadget list. Find the AdSense gadget:
adsense gadgetAfter clicking the AdSense option, you’ll be brought to a screen where you can quickly customize the look of your ad.
how to set up adsense in bloggerNote: if you don’t have an AdSense account set up, you will have to do that first.
Make sure the text and image option is selected. More ads, and better quality ads will show if you choose that option. If you click the dropdown menu, you’ll be able to set the size of the ad. Make sure it’s something that will fit where you want it. The optimum size for the area you chose will be selected. Change it if you need to.

Then, you can change the color scheme of your ads. I recommend trying to blend it with your blog’s color scheme so it looks better. As you change things around, you’ll see the preview (shown at the bottom of the window) change, which is great for showing you how an ad will look on your site.

And that’s it! Click “Save”, then save your arrangement and your ads will appear within a few minutes to a few hours.

But Zack, what if I don’t want to place an AdSense ad, but instead an ad from somewhere else?

No problem!

Assuming you have the HTML code for the ad, follow the steps below:
(If you need to create the code for placement, follow the steps here and just replace the social icons idea with the ad)
Head to the layout section and click add gadget where you want to place your ad (just like above).
Instead of choosing the AdSense gadget, choose the HTML/Javascript one.
html blogger gadgetThis will bring up a box where you can enter some HTML code. There will also be a box at the top for “Name”, just leave that alone.
Simply paste your ad code in the HTML box, hit “save” and you’re good to go!
preview changesAlways make sure to preview your changes before saving arrangement!

That’s all you need to know for the basics on placing an ad on your Blogger blog.

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But Zack! I’m on WordPress!

Ok ok, it’s your turn now.

How to put ads on a WordPress blog

WordPress themes are all different, so I will try to cover them all by being slightly general.

Head to the widgets screen:
wordpress widgets
Take a look at the right side of this screen. Those are your widget areas.
widgetsDepending on your theme, you will have different widget areas than the ones shown above. Most likely, if you’re a beginner, you’ll just be putting ads in your sidebar. The sidebar (if there are multiple) you probably want to put the text widget in is the “Primary Sidebar”.

When you have found the widget area that you will be placing the ad in, click the little downward pointing arrow to expand the widget. Then from the left side of the screen, drag the button titled “text” and drop it in the widget area:
widget drag and drop
That will open up a box where you can add your code:
wordpress ad placementAs with Blogger, avoid the title box unless you want your ad to be titled on your site.
Hit save and you’re good to go! Your ad should be live on your site!

If you want to place your ads in other areas, you’ll have to be familiar with HTML code, CSS code and possibly even PHP code.

Hopefully that helped show you how to put ads on your website!

Filed Under: Blog, Make Money Blogging

How to Cut Your Paypal Processing Fees in Half or Even Better!

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paypal processing fee



I debated using a different title for this post, but I felt that it was appropriate and that it would draw more attention. In this post, you will learn how to cut your Paypal processing fees. There is a very easy way to reduce the fees that Paypal takes for accepting payments.

This post will also be about FreshBooks small business accounting software. I debated titling the post something with FreshBooks, or “accounting software” in it but let’s be honest, how many of you would have clicked to read that?

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time here. I’ll lead with how to cut your Paypal fees and then expand on FreshBooks after that.
paypal processing fees
That’s right. Part of FreshBooks invoicing system allows you to accept an option that lets you accept Paypal payments (of any amount) for a $0.50 flat rate when your client pays using instant transfer! Normal Paypal fees are $0.30 PLUS 2.9% of the transaction.

Take a look at a few sample transactions with the regular fee schedule compared to FreshBooks and their $0.50 option:
paypal transaction feesI didn’t believe this at first either, but I assure you, this is real.

There is more to FreshBooks than just reducing your Paypal transaction fees, although I am hoping that saving money on accepting payments is incentive enough to look into FreshBooks.

Invoices with FreshBooks

FreshBooks makes sending invoices super easy. If you have repeat invoices going to the same clients, you simply select the client from a dropdown and all of their vital info is automatically entered for you.

When adding items to invoices, you can also save items with prices and select those from a dropdown menu. So if you sell several ad spots on your site for the same amount, you could have an item called “sidebar ad” and when you click it, the item name and price are filled right in!

You can also preview invoices before you send them and download them as PDFs if you have clients who request them that way.

You can also mail physical invoices via snail mail right from FreshBooks! You do have to add stamp credits for this. (You are given 2 for free.)

When a client gets a digital invoice, they simply click the link in the email and can view, print and pay the invoice right there!

Here’s what an invoice received looks like:
sample invoice
Notice the nice, big “Pay” buttons in addition to the perfectly formatted and itemized invoice? Who would’t want to pay that right away? Also notice my company’s logo, which is auto-added to each invoice.

Some other things you can do with invoicing and FreshBooks:

  • easily send payment reminders
  • set up recurring bills
  • easily add tax to invoices
  • manually enter offline payments

 

Tracking Expenses

You can also easily and securely add your business’ bank accounts and credit cards to keep track of your business expenses.

You can also manually add or delete expenses as you wish.

You can view your expenses versus income on a nice chart at your account’s homepage to get a nice snapshot of your activity.

Sending Estimates for Work

If you’re a graphic designer or anyone who sends work estimates, FreshBooks is perfect for that too! Easily send clean, professional-looking estimates with their system that acts similarly to their invoicing system.

Your potential clients will get an itemized estimate with as much detail as you care to add.

Time Tracking

If you do hourly work for clients, you can take advantage of the FreshBooks time tracking features, which allow you to add hours worked in a timesheet style.

You can also add notes to any block of hours worked.

FreshBooks takes your hourly rate and creates an invoice based on the hours that you log. So easy!

Wrap

So with all of these things, what is stopping you from grabbing a FREE 30 day trial of FreshBooks today! You can also have a free account for life with limited features!

Me? All I needed to hear was the Paypal deal and they had a customer in me!

Filed Under: Make Money Blogging

Get Paid to Blog – 85 Ways to Make Money Blogging

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get paid to blog



About a year and a half ago, I created a post telling people ways that they could get paid to blog. Well, it’s approaching the the last third of 2014 now and things have changed. I have created a new list of 85 ways to make money with your blog.

The following list is current to the best of my knowledge. I have either personally worked with, or seen bloggers working with all of these companies within the past 6-months. (FYI this post was published August 2014.)

go back

I’ve created a 2 page checklist with all of the items on this list so you can easily keep track of which opportunities you have explored and which ones still need attention.

Click here to get the printable PDF.

Ad Networks
These networks will provide you with ads that you can put up on your site and earn passive income. They will serve ads that are targeted to your readers. There is a new ad network popping up every week and you certainly won’t find them all on this list. I do, however, cover many of the mainstream ones.

AdSense – With AdSense, you can run up to 3 display ads at one time on your site. There are tons of ad sizes available. You can also add link units, which are lines of ads that are just text links. AdSense is commonly known (though not true for eveyone) as the ad network with the highest revenue potential.

Advertising.com – They require very high monthly pageviews to join. I believe it’s 300,000 monthly. The payout is generally lower than AdSense but higher than Lijit.

BlogHer Publishing Network – You’ll have to make it through their rigorous application process where your site design, content and other ad networks will come under scrutiny. If you can make it through, you’ll be a part of the only ad network that comes close to AdSense earnings.

Chitika – Another mediocre display ad company that should be 2nd or 3rd in your queue.

Federated Media – another ad network designed for sites with a large number of pageviews. I have heard from several sources that Federated Media is an excellent network with good payouts. The one thing you should know about FM is that your site’s pageviews are available for everyone to see on their site.

Glam Media – sponsored content in addition to display ads can be found in this tough-to-join network. They don’t allow you to have BlogHer ads and Glam ads on the same site.

Lijit/Sovrn – Similar to Advertising.com, use this if you can’t get AdSense or want more display ads on your site. I don’t know of anyone who makes even 50% of what they make with AdSense using Lijit.

Luminate – this one is a little different. Luminate allows you to monetize pictures on your site with ads that pop up at the bottom of images. See an example of Luminate in action here. Luminate is on longer in service.

Media.net – owned by Yahoo, this ad network offers fairly ugly text ads and pays rather low amounts. Another viable option if you’re without AdSense though.

Link Ads
These companies have programs that will turn regular links or pieces of text into PPC links or paid affiliate links. A lot of these are not popular, as they do negatively affect the user experience by turning random words into random links.

InfoLinks – creates links that produce small pop-out ads (when hovered over) out of pieces of text on your site.

Kontera – another major player in the in-content ad game.

Matomy SEO – This is a very large network that provides you with text ads, in-link ads, content marketing pages and more. This is a very underused network in the blogging world and is definitely worth a look.

VigLink – you’ll also find this under affiliate networks, but they also have a link program where you install code on your site and VigLink recognizes keywords (aka dress, new shoes, hotel) and automatically turns them into clickable affiliate links that make you money. There is another competitor (Skimlinks) but they have severe tracking issues in my opinion and are not worth signing up for.

Affiliates
Get paid to blog by promoting products from your favorite stores. The majority of online merchants have affiliate programs, which pay publishers a percentage of sale when they refer customers from their site. Listed below are affiliate networks, which are networks containing the affiliate programs of a large number of merchants in addition to individual affiliates, such as Amazon.com.

Amazon Associates – receive a percentage of sale for referring people to Amazon to make a purchase. Perhaps the single most popular affiliate out there. Unfortunately, if you live in the following states: Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, or Rhode Island, you cannot join due to tax laws.

Commission Junction – CJ has a huge library of affiliates that you can apply for. They also have a premium publisher program that they are building right now which focuses on content heavy blogs.

Ebay Enterprise – formerly PepperJam, EE is a network with just under 1,000 affiliates. EE lacks a lot of major retailers and has notable tracking issues. I recommend using them as a last resort for affiliates.

Flex Offers – another good sized network with major merchants such as JCPenney, Kohl’s, Roxy and Sears to name a few.

Groupon – promote the daily deals that Groupon has via their own affiliate program.

Impact Radius – a smaller network, but still with large companies such as Forever 21, NastyGal, Lord & Taylor and approximately 250 more.

LinkShare – another huge network of affiliates including Macy’s, Kohl’s, iTunes and about 1,000 others.

Point Click Track – has a lot of spammy-type offers like “free” stuff but also has a few merchants like Ellie, Pacific Sunwear and Vistaprint.

ShareASale – yet another large network with merchants including Zulily, Reebok, Wayfair and about 3900 others.

Viglink – I love VigLink because they track very well. They also have access to about 35,000 merchants. If you only decide to monetize via affiliates one way, join VigLink. Creating specific product links is a breeze and you can monetize just about any store you can think of with their massive library of merchants. The best part? They offer exclusive high commission rates for some merchants (like Nordstrom, for example).

*Bonus – ask your webhost if they have an affiliate program. Some (such as HostGator) pay $65 or more per referral!

Offer Networks
These are networks that you can join and are given access to offers such as paid surveys, printable coupons, baby products and more. Promote these offers to earn (98% of the time) a set amount of money per action (usually just an email registration).

Centerpoint Media – offers include Esquire and Comso magazines, Home Depot sweepstakes entry, FabKids and more.

CPA/DNA – offers such as Savingstar and paid survey companies.

Integrate – a very large network of offers that can seem spammy. Some hidden Gems like ThredUp.

MySavings – current offers include – 24 Hour Fitness free 3-day pass, Big 5 Sporting Goods printable coupon, JustFab, Living Social and more.

Panthera Network – offers from Zoombucks, SoundCloud and a slew of paid survey sites.

Sponsored Content Networks
These are large networks with a lot of bloggers in them. They seek out sponsored opportunities that you can apply for as a member. It’s a nice way of getting sponsored posts without having to go out and pitch yourself.

Bookieboo – sponsored posts/Tweets and more, mostly revolving around healthy eating and living.

BSM Media – sponsored posts for mom blogs. The linked page isn’t necessarily an “apply” page so I recommend using the contact form to introduce yourself.

Burst Media – sponsored campaigns from companies including L’Oreal, Ella and Disney.

Clever Girls Collective – less campaigns than Social Fabric, but the ones they do have are pretty good.

CrowdTap – They have a Socialstars program that people are posting sponsored content from. I know for sure you get free products, but I think some get paid as well.

Glam Media – sponsored content in addition to display ads can be found in this tough-to-join network.

Ignite Social Media – land sponsored posts and even larger post series that can net 4 figures.

Latina Bloggers Connect – sponsored posts for Latina bloggers.

Latina Mom Bloggers – it’s pretty obvious who they are looking for… if you fit the bill, apply and be in the running for sponsored post opps.

Linqia – sponsored posts that pay per click. You are given a goal, but even if you don’t reach it, you get paid for the clicks you did get.

Massive Sway – the network created by the SITS Girls offers sponsored posts from a variety of brands.

Mode Media – part of the Glam family, Mode offers members sponsored post opps from a variety of companies.

ModernMom – sponsored posts and product reviews. Invitations delivered to your email inbox.

Mom Central – review opps, samples and sponsored content opportunities

Mom it Forward – sponsored posts and event hostings for moms.

Mom Spark – sponsored posts, in-home parties, blogging events, ambassador programs and more.

Mom Trends – host parties locally, get sponsored posts and more.

Pollinate Media – Even less campaigns than Clever Girls, but some decent ones.

PopSugar Select – sponsored campaigns for fashion, food, beauty fitness and mom blogs.

She Speaks – connect with brands and land sponsored opps.

Single Edition – sponsored posts for lifestyle bloggers.

Social Fabric – a lot of grocery and food based sponsored posts with fairly picky requirements, but they pay decently and on time.

SocialMoms – I recently saw a slew of bloggers posting a Cheesecake Factory campaign through this company.

Social Spark – sponsored blog posts and tweets.

Sverve – sponsored posts, tweets and Pinterest contests.

Tap Influence – create a media kit and let brands come to you. Once a brand chooses you, you can negotiate your rates.

The Motherhood – lots of sponsored posts for local and national brands.

Companies that Help You Sell Ads
These companies will help you manage the sale of private ads on your site. Most of them will have you enter your stats and companies will see your site in a marketplace of potential advertising places.

BlogAds – You enter your blog’s info and are in their network of potential blogs whose ad space is sold to buyers. They have a sales team in place to try and sell your (and all of the other members’) ads.

BuySellAds – for larger sites expecting to sell over $1,000 in ads per month.

Passion Fruit Ads – more of an ad management system, but allows people to purchase ads and pay you right away on your site. Offering discounts is also a breeze with Passion Fruit.

Free Credits
While not actual money, referral credits can be just as good as money if it’s used to purchase something that you would have bought anyway. Also, sometimes it’s okay to just rack up a little bit of fun money at some of the stores below. Note: many of these companies also have affiliate programs where you can earn actual money, but it will be a lower amount than the credits you can earn.

Cell Phone Companies – check with yours- most companies (Virgin Mobile, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc) have a referral program which gets you $25 or more off of a bill for referring new customers.

DirecTV – along with other cable companies offer a bounty for referring customers. DirecTV actually gives you $100 toward your bill(s) so that’s significant!

Diamond Candles – once you make a purchase, you get a referral link that gets people $5 off and you $5 in credit for each one who signs up and makes a purchase.

Dropbox – get 500mb of space (up to 16GB) for each referral.

Gilt – earn $25 after your referral’s first order ships.

Groupon – get $10 in credit for everyone who you refer with your special link.

Hulu – get 2 weeks of free credits (and so does your referral) for sending people to Hulu Plus.

Ipsy – earn Ipsy points for each referral that you can use to get bonuses in your Ipsy bags.

Julep – get $15 in credits for each friend who signs up using your referral link. New signups will get a code for a free box upon signing up!

Living Social – order something you want/think your fans will like. You will get a link to share with others. If 3 people purchase using that link, yours becomes free!

Lot 18 – get $25 for everyone you refer who makes a purchase on this fine wine site. The person you refer will also get $10 in credits!

ModCloth – get $15 for every referral who makes a purchase of $50+ within 30 days of signing up via your link. $585 max credits per calendar year.

My Habit – Earn $20 to spend on MyHabit for each friend who accepts your invite and makes a purchase of $20+. You can also find MyHabit’s affiliate program through Commission Junction and Amazon Associates.

Naturebox – get $10 in credits for each person you refer. No credits on special pricing offers.

One King’s Lane – get $15 for everyone who signs up using your link and makes a $30+ purchase within 30 days of signup.

Rue La La – get $10 for everyone you refer who makes a purchase. The nice part here is that they can join one day and make a purchase 3 weeks later and you still get credit for the purchase.

The Honest Company – get $20 for everyone who you refer who makes a purchase or starts a subscription.

ThredUp – get $10 for everyone you refer who makes a purchase. ThredUp makes it easy by giving everyone you refer a $10 credit to get them started.

Vitacost – get $10 in credits for each person you refer once they make a purchase.

Zaycon Foods – get a whopping dollar for each person you refer who makes a purchase.

*Bonus – my local pest control company has a referral program. Don’t hesitate to ask around – especially if you have a local audience.

*I could go on for pages and pages listing places with referral programs, so I’ll stop here, but that doesn’t mean you have to!

Free Products
While I subscribe to the philosophy that free products don’t pay the bills, some people aren’t blogging for money, so free products are totally fine. Additionally, if a free product is something that you would have purchased anyway, it’s money saved, which is the same as money earned in my book.

BlogDash – write reviews of products that are sent to you for free. With clients like HP, Sands Resorts and Intel, you could land some nice freebies.

Tomoson – join and apply to receive free products in exchange for reviews on your blog.

Wolf at Best Buy – sponsored posts from Best Buy in return for free products.

Product Sales
Another trend in blogging is to use your blog as a trampoline into the product/services sales business. Using your blog to connect with potential customers can be a great way of promoting your business.

Etsy – sell craft/diy/art things among others at the one of internet’s most popular stores.

Instagram sales – a popular thing with fashion bloggers is holding sales on Instagram for their clothing. Quite a few bloggers make decent extra cash doing this. Running these sales on Instagram means you avoid eBay/etsy/Amazon seller fees.

MLM businesses – use your blog to promote your essential oil, Avon, Mary Kay, Stella & Dot and other mlm business.

eBooks – write an eBook around your content (or about anything) and sell it on your blog. Tutorials, guides and recipe books are also options.

Want more?
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Do you know of any opportunities that I should add to this list?

What are some ways you get paid to blog?

Filed Under: Blog, Make Money Blogging

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