If you've read my first installments about setting up a blog with blogger and preparing your blog to make money, it's now time to make money online blogging. I'll let you know my personal approach to earning an income as a blogger and what has worked for me. I've had some questions as to whether I approach paid blogging from an affiliate marketing standpoint, and I do not. I don't sell any products and I don't market any ebooks on the subject of blogging. I started blogging for the main reason that I enjoyed it and if I made some money doing it, that would just be an added plus. 

Learn From the Best

The first approach I took to make money online blogging was reading about the top bloggers on the net. Not only was I able to collect a vast assortment of ideas to start earning a real income online, but I also found out that it's not necessary to have a tangible product that you have to sell in order to make a steady income with your blog. Check out blogs like Problogger, Tech Crunch, and John Chow for the newest ideas in affiliate programs, advertising networks, and paid review sites. 

Adsense

 We've all heard of it and most of us have used it on our personal blogs or writing sites. The difference is that there's much more to adsense than to just adding it to the sidebar of your blog. You have to remember that adsense ads are displayed according to the content and the keywords found on each and every post. It's extremely important for you to utilize keyword tools to find out the highest paying keywords. What this means for you is that when someone does click on one of those ads on your site, if it's a higher profile advertiser, you can make much more from just one click. For example, the term "auto insurance", on the average, can sometimes make you up $19.00 for one click if someone signs up at the site they clicked through to.

Consequently, you also making money online blogging from adsense by a certain amount of impressions on your blog. It's not just about clicks, as some ads shown are based upon impressions. This is why it's so important to build up the traffic on your blog.

As for placement of adsense ads on your blog, you need to make sure the background of the ad is the exact same color of the website background. You don't want adsense to standout, you want it to blend in.There should be an ad placed near the top of a sidebar, usually a 160 x 600 ad, that doubles as a set of links and an image ad. It's also a good idea to place a 468 x 15 horizontal row in between blog posts and possibly a 728 x 15 horizontal row on the top of your blog at eyelevel. They say readers don't want ads at eyeline, however just placing links instead of an image type ad is not as diverting to the eye.

Paid Reviews and Text Link Advertising

This is the section all of you have been waiting for, I'm sure. This is a list of sites that I personally use and have had great success with. I'm aware there are hundreds of these types of websites on the internet, however I've been able to find the most reliable sites for payment and opportunities, and of course, the ones the pay the most and on time. The most important fact about writing great paid reviews is that they shouldn't sound like paid reviews at all. You should be able to relate any review to yourself. Think of a personal experience and relate the product to yourself in some way.

<h4>1) Sell Advertising on your Blog-*****</h4>

This seems like a stretch for anyone starting out, but if you have a blog that caters to a certain clientele, maybe travel, education, sports, you can market your blog to related advertisers. You also need to make sure that advertisers acutally know that you offer advertising. Don't make them search around for a contact us link, have an advertising link accessible right from your homepage. Have a seperate page explaining why the advertiser should advertise on your site, what types of ads you offer, maybe even some info about your website statistics. You need to make these advertisers think and believe they will benefit from buying an ad with you.

2) Blogsvertise-***** My favorite paid review site on the internet!

It took me some time and tons of patience to start writing for this site. They are a bit strict in their requirements, meaning do not deviate from the requirements in the reviews. I was receiving lots of offers, but none of the topics really pertained to my site, nor could I actually find a way to make them sound natural. I started to become really picky about what posts I would accept and I raised my prices. I actually had to have an administrator go in manually and raise the price on my pagerank 6 blog. After they did this, I thought maybe it would bring in better advertisers. It did! Blogvertise works with blogs ranked from a pagerank one to even nine. They pay via paypal and always ontime. Blogsvertise may just be the best site to make money online blogging.

3) Linkworth (Paid reviews and Text Links)-****

Linkworth may just be one of my favorites at the moment. Linkworth allows bloggers to sell text links ads, link muras( rotating ads), in line text keywords, link banners, paid posts, and link packs. You have full control over the pricing and they even give you a pricing suggestion tool that helps you determine what an ad on your blog is worth.Linkworth may just be the best site to make money online blogging. It has been for me.

4) PayPerPost (Paid reviews)

PayPerpost is owned by Izea, who owns SocialSpark. The greatest aspect about PayPerPost is that anyone with a pagerank of one or above can get some pretty competitive work. You need to submit your blogs for approval, after which you will place a description, a price per post that you desire, where you placed your disclosure, category of the blog, and whether you will accept nofollow or follow links. Once you attach your email address to your account you will start receiving leads. You can either say not interested, desire more money, or interested. After the advertiser receives the information, they will once again determine if you're right for the job. Payment is made via paypal so make sure you have an account with them.

5) Text Link Ads (Text Links Only)-****

Text Link Ads works the same way as linkworth. The site will assign you a price per textlink based on traffic of your website, theme of your website, and link popularity of your website. There is a 50/50 revenue split on this site, so please keep that in mind when signing up. You don't want any surprises when you start receiving your payments. This is a copy and paste kind of site. They provide you the code for the advertisers and you paste that code onto your site. It usually runs for an average of 30 days. At the end of those 30 days, the advertiser will decide whether they want the ad to stay on your site and from that point they will renew the ad. Text Link Ads also offers an affiliate program.

6) Social Spark (Paid reviews, CPC advertising)-****

I started out with SocialSpark a while back and I still like the results. At SocialSpark you have to submit your blogs and they must be accepted into the marketplace. Your opportunities at this site are based upon many factors including daily visitors and average views on your blog, as well as RealRank rating. The lower the rating, the better chance you will receive a review offer. Advertisers do approach you on this site, however you can submit a request for a post once a week to see if the advertiser would like you to write a review for them. The only difference with Social Spark compared to all of the others is that they require open disclosure of paid posts. What this means is that, although you may already have a site wide disclosure policy on your site, they still want the readers to know it was "brought to you by said advertiser". Not to mention you have to place a small image icon at the bottom of the posts. It's hard to hide the fact that any review from this site is a paid review. That's my only complaint. Payments are made via paypal

7) InPostLinks (In line keyword ad with text)-***

InPostLinks is a super easy way to make money online blogging. This can be a fun site for those of you looking to make a bit of pocket change. At InPostLinks you can browse through the links offered and accept up to 4 a day. The idea behind this site is that the advertiser is buying a link on your site. You have to work that link into a 200 word post that seems natural. Submit the post and within a couple hours it's accepted. Payment is made via paypal. Check out the site for more details.

8) SponsoredReviews (Paid Reviews)-***

The first step is submitting your blogs. Your blogs will receive a ranking based on backlinks in Yahoo, Alexa rank, and Technorati. The higher the "Link Pop", the better chance you will be paid at a higher rate and receive more opportunities. There is a 50/50 revenue share on this site as well. The approach on this site is a bit different. You need to search through the advertisers, and once you find a review that you would like to write, you have to bid on it. Once you do, a page will open up that states the requirement for the opportunity and which one of your blogs meets the criteria.

Also check out:

Blogging 101: How to Set Up a Successful Blog for the Beginner

Blogging 101: How to Prepare Your Blog To Start Making Money Online

Blogging 101: How to Increase Your Pagerank to Your Blog