Empty Streets Special: Top 10 Ways to Earn Through Blogging

I have gotten a lot of questions from my friends about how I started earning online and if I could compile them to the top ten best ways to earn through blogging specifically. This has had me thinking a bit and after sitting on this article for over a week of consideration and research I have finally come up with a list. However, as I have mentioned to them, earning online is not as easy as coming up with a blog and writing articles. That is just a third of the work that needs to be done - the most part one has to work on is marketing every single article you write to people that you might think would benefit or would be interested in what you have to write. That entails joining social networks and blogging networks to help you get started. It is only after you have ranked up so to speak will you start feeling the benefits of the online blogging business. One thing is for sure, patience and perseverance are the primary keys to earning in whatever field you choose to be in.

With all that being said here are the top ten ways to earn through blogging:

Google AdSense
Obviously Google AdSense is one of the largest online revenue sources for almost every webmaster and blogger, and for a good reason. AdSense is super easy to set up, and it is also easy to manage. All that's required for using AdSense is a blog that has been live for over 6 months and you have the opportunity to make money using AdSense.

There are downsides to AdSense, and the biggest one is that anyone who uses the free blogging service from WordPress is unable to embed AdSense onto their blog. That is the largest downfall of AdSense, and I suggest if you want to earn an income from your blog, I would suggest you consider Blogger for your blogging platform. Also, if you are confused about choosing WordPress or Blogger, or you want to learn the pros and Cons about both blogging platforms, visit this link: Blogger vs WordPress.

An alternative to Google adsense would be Adgitize, which works on similar principles but with less of the strict rules that Google would have.

ClickBank
ClickBank has been around for a few years now, and has become one very large source of income for many people. People actually become millionaires thanks to ClickBank, and the doors are wide open for you to jump in and start earning money with the best affiliate program online. Signing up is free, and all you need to do is find products that you want to promote.

I want to caution you though to never promote something that you would never use yourself, or that you would never buy yourself. Always remember to think about what your readers would want to purchase. And to never promote scam/spammy products.

Amazon
My good friend Amazon Associates is a great revenue source. With Amazon being one of the largest online retailers of literally everything, there is great money to be made by becoming an Amazon Affiliate. Also, the great benefit of Amazon, is that everyone knows about Amazon, people are not afraid of purchasing through Amazon, thus more people will be willing to purchase through your Amazon affiliate links.

Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Ads.com is a great 'other' alternative way to earn an income from your blog. TLA is a program that allows you to sell your advertising space on your website or blog. You can either choose to sell 'real estate' on one page, or all pages, and you can also choose to get paid by a one time fee, or through the CTR of each Text-Link-Ad sold. One site I strongly recommend would be Ask2Link

AdBrite - Other Owner Controlled Advertising
There are many owner controlled advertising options such as AdBrite, Chitika, BuySellAds, LinkWorth and many more. The great advantage to using owner controlled advertising is that you have complete controll over what space you sell, and how much money you receive from it. You can sell your space on your website or blog in form of text and or in banner ads. And you get paid a one time fee from an advertiser or each time someone clicks your ads.

Ebay - Ebay Affiliate
Another great way to earn an income online is through ebay affiliate marketing. Ebay is the largest retailer of new and used goods online, and with the downturn economy, people are looking for a way to get products for inexpensive prices. Thus, ebay is making a very large profit every month. So, you can either sell products on ebay, or you can promote other sellers products on your website or blog. Becoming an ebay affiliate is both rewarding and lucrative. Visit ExtremeWealthGuide.com for more information on how to become an ebay affiliate marketer.

Paid Blog Posts
Are you good at writing? Why not get paid to write articles for your OWN blog? Many sites such as IZEA.com offers its clients the ability to write posts about products and get paid doing it! All you need to do is sign up and write articles for advertisers and post it on your blog, then you get paid from that advertiser! In basic terms, you write, and you get paid.

However this is something that I would like to advise to do with caution as the Big G (Google) has penalized a lot of bloggers who have done this sort of thing and pulled their pagerank down to 0. A lot of people may say that this is probably not an important thing, but if you want to be on top of the SEO game and be attractive to advertisers keeping a good pagerank is quite vital if you want to earn a lot in the long run. (I have to admit even this is open for debate - you have to definitely do more research and finding what works best with you)

In Text Advertising - InfoLinks, Kontera, Vibrant Media
In-Text advertising is a great way for you to earn extra revenue from your site without having to sacrifice valuable real-estate form your website or blog. All you do is sign up for any one of those three programs listed above, and pase the HTML code into your blog template, and your text links will automatically be embedded into relevant keywords on your blog. And you get paid each and every time someone clicks those links.

Commission Junction (CJ) - Affiliate Marketing
Many people will be wondering why CJ is placed so low down on this list. But the true fact about CJ is you need a very large blog following to make any money at all. There is good money to be made, but you only get paid if you actually sell a product through banner ads, or text ads. You will not get paid even if the advertisers ads get clicked 100 times per day. You only earn money when your visitors purchase. That is one extreme downfall to affiliate programs such as CJ or LinkShare.

Quality Content!
Putting a lot of advertisement on one's blog is not always the best formula to getting rich. You need to have quality content on your blog to gain visitors and subscribers. You need to also have good content because search engines such as Google look for good content when choosing a site to be listed high on the first page.

This may be the last of the ten things to earn through blogging but is by far the most important of all. It is through your articles that people find you and is what will cause them to come back for more.

To help you even more here is a cool video that talks about the topic to further help you guys out.

Eventually, through time and perseverance am sure that you will make a niche someday in the virtual highway. Have fun with what you do and always be ready to adapt to change. Experiment, experiment, experiment is what my financial adviser would say to me - eventually you will find an accident that will bring you what you have been seeking.

If you have more suggestions or sites that could offer other bloggers on how to earn online please leave them in the comment box with your feedback. :) Let us all help each other out. :) xoxo