Making money with your blog

A friend of mine, with really good knowledge of real estate business in Lahore, writes a personal blog. His posts include personal experiences as well as reviews of various real estate ventures. Recently he mentioned that a large number of people were visiting his blog and said this traffic was beyond his expectations. He wanted to monetize this. He asked for ideas.

The easiest (and lazy man) solution is of course to put google ads. I, however, do not recommend this for three reasons:

1. If it works, it forces your visitors to leave your site.
2. If it does not, it clutters your blog and makes the reading experience unpleasant.
3. And if you can make $100/month or more, you are really lucky.
   

The other solution I always recommend is to sell your own product or service relevant to your blog. If you don't have one, make a simple one like a PDF booklet. Make two of these.

1. The smaller (5-10 pages) one which you offer as free download.
   
2. The bigger (5-25 pages) one which you sell for a price range of $2 to $6.

Initially simplicity and low price are essential for quick sales. You can always tune things later on.

Your PDF product should have information which helps your visitor to save time and should be formated pleasantly. I often refer to Shama Hyder Kabani's "free online marketing plan" from this link as an example of a really good "product".

This is just to begin with. There are many other and better ideas to make money online. I, for example, write a lot of technical documentation which I make available free. This has helped me get a good number of consulting assignments from all over the world without direct marketing.

Posted via email from Saqib Awan