How to Build a Profitable Blogging Business

Scott Fox in his new book "Internet Riches: The Simple Money-Making Secrets of Online Millionaires" gave one of the best (yet succinct) explanations on how to turn your blog into a profitable business:

By targeting a market of desirable consumers with timely and concise information that is hard to find elsewhere, it's possible to build a blog publishing business with no employees and minimal overhead, using ost effective marketing and dministrative software services and the Internet to freely distribute your commentary

The secret has always been simple: great content that offers value to its customers.

How to Earn Money from Your Blog

Blogs have become very popular nowadays. With its more casual and laid back approach, it seems that a lot of people have something to say and start a blog. Even the homeless man who took up residence in a sidewalk near Union Station in Washington DC has a blog!

The next question of course is, how can you make money from your blog?

If you look at some of the top blogs and the advertising rates they charge, you'd drool with envy. Well, they're the top and get lots of media play and significant traffic.

One of my favorites, Duct Tape Marketing, which receives 160,000 pageviews per month, charges $36 per CPM for leaderboards and skyscraper, while medium rectangle costs $40 per CPM. Assuming that the inventory for medium rectangle is sold out at $40 per CPM, then the blog stands to earn $6,400 for one ad format alone (umm ... ok, that's not much, but still, that's only for 1 ad format).

Another favorite, TechCrunch, receives about 5,360,000 pageviews per month. Their medium rectangle is also priced at $40 per CPM, so assuming that this is sold out every month, the blog earns $214,400 for one ad format alone! Add to that the earnings from their full banner ($12 CPM), wide skyscraper ($36) and leaderboard ($36). Now, that's some serious dough!

If you want to earn even a fraction of what TechCrunch and other top blogs are earning, read the article "How to Make Money from Blogs"

Earning Advertising Revenues from Blogs

I previously wrote on ways you can earn from your blogs though this post focused on selling your writing instead of selling your ad spaces on your blog.

If you are thinking of monetizing your blog, here are Blog Advertising Network that sells ads exclusively for blogs. Sign up with them and start earning from advertising from your blog

• Federated Media Publishing http://www.federatedmedia.net/blog/
• Feedburner Ad Netword http://www.feedburner.com - you must have a healthy subscriber rate to be accepted to their advertising program
• CrispAds http://www.crispads.com/ - a blog advertising network
• BlogAds http://www.blogads.com/ - they represent some of the best known blogs

Here are other earning opportunities for Bloggers

• Google Adsense http://www.google.com/adsense = some blogs such as Yahoo 360 does not allow for placement of ads on their blogs so be careful and read the Terms of Service of your blog provider
• Chitika eMinimalls http://www.chitika.com
• Text link ads - you can sell for fixed price for a fixed period of time
• Donation (yes, you can beg)
• Affiliate programs such as Commission Junction http://www.cj.com and the Amazon Associates program