The next logical step after successfully starting a tech blog and generating leads is to monetize it. Of course, this is a process and it takes sometime before you can really start earning a profit from your blog. Nevertheless, this is one step that you should definitely take in 2018, especially since it is a brilliant way of earning supplementary income.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a highly profitable way of monetizing your blog. Affiliate marketing refers to the practice of businesses paying you for the traffic or sales you generate for them. It usually involves posting a product or service on your blog. If visitors from your blog view, click, or buy the product or service, you get paid. It goes without saying that you earn more if you have high amounts of traffic. The type of product or service you promote also matters. For a tech blog, you should market tech products and services. ExpressVPN and Microsoft have some of the best affiliate marketing programs.
Guest posting
If you’re attentive, you’ll notice that there are many tech blogs that offer guest posting services. If you didn’t know, this is one of the ways that they are earning from their blogs. Guest posting refers to where someone requests to post their content on your blog. Of course, you get paid for the post. The best part is that you retain the right to curate the content as much as possible to suit your audience so it doesn’t compromise the authenticity of your blog.
Why would anyone want to post on another person’s blog and how marketable is this? For various reasons, we can’t all start our own blogs. And even if we could, it would take a considerable amount of time to generate a significant amount of traffic. Guest posting allows those who don’t have blogs or the time to start one, to post their content and get the viewership they desire for their content.More importantly, it is a great way to create backlinks to other tech blogs and websites. But the benefit cuts both ways. In as much as you have the blog, you can’t always have the content. Guest posting offers you the opportunity to generate insightful content that increases your traffic and in turn, your revenue stream. There will always be a market for guest posting as long as there is a tech industry. Hubspot and MyVenturePad are great examples of blogs that offer guest posting services.
Blog sponsorships
Sponsorships are a little known money-making heaven. When it comes to sponsorships you get all the benefits of paid advertising without all the inconveniences. A blog sponsorship refers to where a business pays to sponsor your blog in much the same way that businesses sponsor sports teams and events. In return, the sponsor gets an ad section on your blog as a basic requirement. The best part about a sponsorship is that you can control who you get in business with and the duration of the arrangement as well as other factors. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement where the business pays for exclusive advertising rights on your blog. Mack Collier’s and Melyssa Griffin’s guides for successful blog sponsorships should set you on the right track, considering both their success in the same.
Consulting services
If you have useful tech-related insight, you can offer it to your readers for a fee. Essentially, people or businesses pay you so that you can offer useful advice on topics that you are well versed. For instance, if you’re an expert in cybersecurity you can offer tips and advice to businesses and individuals. Before you can offer consulting services, you have to prove to your readers that you are both capable and knowledgeable on your topic of choice. Hinge and Consulting Success are both excellent examples of blogs that offer consulting services.
Digital products
The sale of digital products is yet such as eBooks, software, site templates, etc, is yet another excellent way of monetizing your tech blog in 2018. It involves you creating the products then posting them on your blog for sale. You should make sure that the products you intend to sell are not only ideal for your niche but also safe, especially in the case of software.
Conclusion
There a many more ways to monetize your tech blog besides the sale of digital products, affiliate marketing, guest posting and offering consulting services. For each, you have to remember to exercise patience. It’s unrealistic to expect the money to start rolling in on your first day or week. Having an effective plan reduces the amount of time it takes before you get noticeable results from the selected method. Keep in mind that you earn more as you increase your traffic so you should still focus on marketing your blog and generating leads.
