*Ad
This post, like many others on my site, has the #ad marking. This is because I monetise my blog, as a way of earning a small income to support our family and choices. I don’t accept any advertorial, it generally has to be linked to what I write about, or has to have a relevance to my audience.
Why #Ad
The ASA has created much tighter rules and guidelines about blogs and how they promote products to their followers. I am often gifted books or items to review, and these must be marked as an ‘ad’. I will make it clear that it is a gifted advert in these cases. However, I only ever feature items on my site that the children and I genuinely love. A book only ever gets featured on my site if it’s been used and loved – there are plenty that I am sent that are not to our tastes and so they don’t feature.
Why I monetise
Many people often gripe and complain that bloggers have monetised their blogs, but for me it makes my hobby viable! Blogging takes up an awful lot of time, I do it because I enjoy sharing what we do with others, and the feedback I get is that others find it useful and helpful for ideas of things that they can do in their own home education, or gives ideas of resources or curriculum to consider.
How I monetise
There’s a number of ways to monetise. Some bloggers are successful using affiliate links such as Amazon or AWIN. I tend to just stick to Amazon and it makes me a small amount each year. It’s easy to set up an affiliate site and many online stores offer this, so it’s well worth looking at sites you link to to see if they offer an affiliate scheme.
Another way is to join sites such as Get Blogged which work to match bloggers with clients to create content for a fee. These are usually well-defined jobs that set expectations clearly and it’s a simple application process. Once you’re registered you get emails to alert you to jobs or it’s quick enough to log in and see what jobs are available.
It’s also worth finding bloggers within your niche and linking with them. There are a number of Facebook groups for bloggers in different niches and many will share opportunities where they can and ideas for contacts and how to monetise. There’s a really nice network out there that offers support to each other.
Other Things To Build Your Site
I see many bloggers who start out with a desire to monetise immediately. But it takes time! You need to build up content on your site, and if you don’t enjoy blogging and find regular non-sponsored content to write you will soon lose any readers. It’s a hard balance to find as it is sometimes hard to turn down paid blogging jobs in favour of the day to day writing that keeps your blog alive. But it’s important to remember why your blog started and what you want to share with your followers, and why your followers follow you.
