LondonKings

What is affiliate marketing?

We looked at Escalate previously and I described them as an advertising network.  You can certainly earn some money this way and many of you already have done.  But today we will look at signing up with ShareASale which is different – I would describe them as an affiliate network.

Escalate features banner adverts which you display and can be paid for in a number of ways, primarily Pay per Click and Pay per Conversion – email sign ups.  The advertisers aren’t necessarily selling anything.  You might try out several adverts to see what you readers are interested in, and perhaps change these out frequently as new offers are published.  These tend to be more temporary in nature.

But ShareASale adverts primarily promote online stores where you will be paid a generous commission for any sales referred by your site.  I’ve seen commissions of up to 80% but more typically they will be around 10-30%. These referrals can be by way of a display banner advert in your sidebar, but can also be by text links, sponsored posts, product reviews and social media – and more.

A sidebar banner can still work, and bring you sales if targeted correctly.   The really big earnings from Affiliate Sales comes from careful targeting of your merchants to your readers interests, along with personal recommendation and promotion which encourages your readers to BUY.  If done correctly, affiliate marketing can be a big earner.  But if there are no sales – you earn nothing.

Make Money with ShareASale

Take a look at this first video where I’ll talk you through:

• signing up at ShareASale
• how to find and select the best vendors to work with
• how to pick relevant products to feature
• looking at vendor stats, commission rates and agreements
• and applying for their programs.

Do go over to ShareASale and sign up if you haven’t already done so.  By the way, this is an affiliate link, so I’ll get $1 if you sign up with them, place an advert and generate a click on your advert.  I hope you don’t mind! A girl has to buy blogging fuel in the way of strong coffee…

And in response to a Reader’s Question about ShareASale, take a look at my suggested list of vendors that might be worth signing up with – large and small.  Some of them even offer freebies for their affiliates or auto-approval.

Adding banners, making recommendations and Deep Linking

Affiliate marketing may be more direct and personal to your readers than the advertising banners we have added before.  As an affiliate, you are only paid on SALES, so you may chose to take a more active approach in promoting your offers.  By offering your readers real value, you will receive value in return.

Your readers value your opinions, trust your content and want to hear more about what you have to say.  If you have a company or product you love – tell them about it, recommend it.  But don’t lose the trust of your readers. Recommend only products you have used or would use yourself.  You should never jeopardize the long-term standing of your site and reputation in the hope of making a quick buck.
Be genuine.

If you are already used to advertising banners and have recently been adding in banners from Escalate, then adding your affiliate links will be easy.  Your probably even already know how to do it.  But I will still review adding in a banner to your sidebar and post in case this is your first time.

Most affiliate sales come from ‘Deep Linking‘.  That is where you recommend and link to a particular product or range of products.  So rather than direct your banner to the front page and leave your reader to do all of the work, I will show you how to set up your own custom affiliate link to any page or product for the best possible sales results.
In this second video, how to:

• add a banner to your side bar
• add a banner to your post
• add a more subtle text link
• create a custom link to products or pages – essential for the best sales.  This is known as Deep Linking.

Reporting on your clicks, sales and commissions

So how did you do – did anyone click?  Did you make any sales?  The ShareASale reporting system is easy. 

Make Money Online With Payoneer Partners sites at low minimum payment

You should now be up and running with ShareASale and know how to apply for programs, place your adverts, promote products with Deep Linking, and then report on your results.  If you have any questions – do let me know. I’m happy to help.

If you just recently began blogging, this article could be for you. Blogging is seen nowadays like means of gaining the additional income. If you are lucky, however, you could have a source of revenue which could support you for a life. 

Can you make a decent income online?

Yes, absolutely.  At the very least, a high five-figure annual income is certainly an attainable goal for an individual working full-time from home.  I’m making a healthy income from londonclicks.com.  If you have a day job, it will take longer to generate a livable income, but it can still be done part-time if you’re willing to devote a lot of your spare time to it.  I’ve always done it full-time.

Making money from internet is not really that harder that you are thinking. But you have to know the right way to go ahead and step in. So now let me show you how to make money you can make money from your blog!

There are different ways for monetizing the blog and choosing the ones that meet your objectives to make out the cash. You should choose the right option for your blog.

Advertising Programs is most popular Method

Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google – Adsense (We will discuss this below). A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika.

Google Adsense is the Best and Easy way to Make Money

What is Adsense?

AdSense (Google AdSense) is an advertising placement service by Google. The program is designed for website publishers who want to display targeted text, video or image advertisements on website pages and earn money when site visitors view or click the ads.

Google AdSense is capable of displaying advertisements from numerous topics or niches, doesn’t matter what your website is about, there must be somebody already advertising something which would be related to your traffic, even if it isn’t as profitable as certain other topics. When you are using this form of monetization, the advertisements that show up on your website can take various forms ranging from textual links, images, banners etc. 

If You want to make money with google adsense then you should learn How to apply to adsense and How to get approved by adsense program.

Affiliate Marketing

It is the process of product linking from your website such that when a visitor clicks it and buy it, you get some commission over it. This is applicable to nearly anything from actual products, membership sites, software, courses, downloads, and lots more. You need to sign up for the affiliate program of the product and then you may start making money by redirecting your traffic to that website to make some purchase. The most famous example of affiliate marketing website is the Amazon. There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.

Selling Advertisement Space

As an alternate to showing products links or advertisements which will make money for you when the readers click and buy something, you may also sell ad space on a flat rate regardless of the amount of clicks they get. This kind of monetization is more predictable compared to the Google AdSense and affiliate marketing as you normally get a lump sum before an ad goes live. But this also means that you aren’t going to earn large amount in case your content gets a lot of traffic and clicking rate goes up; even though this may help you in negotiating a good rate for your next ad space. There are many adsense alternatives too.

Sponsored Posts

Depending on your blog topic, it may be a good idea to offer a sponsored post. This option lets you take a fee for post publishing, normally a review of a service or product on your website. The amount of money you would charge depends on the traffic, and you can enhance this income by incorporating an affiliate link to this post so that you may earn a commission. Normally technology and travel niche blogs are targeted by those having products for marketing. Depending how well known your website it, it may get you a free or cheap trip to some resort or a new gadget’s review copy.

You’re out there blogging with Google Blogger or some other host, bringing many sets of eyes to your Web site. Where’s the harm in making a little money for your efforts? The Web is full of ways to make your blog pay.

There are so many different ways to make money Online it’s hard to know which route to follow. As stated in my Two Main Ways You Can Earn Money Online blog post, you can either be an Online business builder (run your own Online business) or a Service Provider (become a Virtual Assistant).
Both have their pros and cons and you normally choose between the two as to which one you want to do.
But let’s take another look at both routes and then see how mixing these two routes up and working both on a daily basis maybe the best of both worlds for you in the short-term, whilst keeping an eye on your long-term goals.
Sounds confusing?  Let me explain…

The Online Business Route

The thing is you need to understand that in order to build a successful and profitable Online business, it takes a lot of time. You will work hard every day building your business and not see any monetary reward for a few months.  This can be very discouraging (of which I know from personal experience) and is the main reason why 90% of Online business owners quit.
I can certainly relate to this as you really do need momentum to keep your motivation, determination and spirits high in order to keep plodding on.  But you don’t really have that momentum within the first few months while your building-up your Online business.
First of all you have to decide which Online business model you want to follow and set-up.
This could be:

• Blogging;
• Creating a bunch of hobby niche websites;
• Setting up an ecommerce website;
• Creating an authority static site.

• Affiliate marketing;
• Creating your own craft products or information products;
• Direct Advertising;
• Writing ebooks/Kindle books;
• PayPer Click on-site adverting;
• Email marketing;
• Or obviously a mixture of a few of the above.

Once you’ve decided all that (and it takes a lot of decision-making along with trial and errors), you have to start building up your website content (website pages or blog posts) and putting systems in place (creating information products or setting up an email marketing system for example).
This is an ongoing process, but you need a decent amount of pages on your blog before you decide to promote it.  Which leads me onto the biggest hurdle Online business owners face – getting people to visit their blog.  No visitors = no money!

Do you remember oDesk? Do you remember Elance? Do you remember when the two companies merged? Well, in case you haven’t heard the news, the post-merged name of the company is Upwork.

How Did Upwork Actually Evolve?

Just to give you a little background here, for years oDesk and Elance were two of the biggest and most reputable bidding sites.  Freelancers from all skill sets, skill levels, and nationalities could go to either bidding site or both and look for work.  Some of the work was paid by the hour and some was paid by the project.  Then there was work that you could bid for by setting your own price and writing a proposal.

Human nature being human nature had some freelancers preferring one site over the other.  Although there were those who did equally enjoyed both sites.   Then in December 2013, oDesk announced that it was merging with Elance.  According to oDesk, the reason for the merger was that they felt they could do a better job together offering the same services across the same platform.  Elance-oDesk was born even though technically both still kept their own sites.  However, upon visiting either site you would see many of the same jobs posted in both places.

Then in May 2015, Elance-oDesk announced that it was changing the name to Upwork and hoped to go from $1 billion to $10 billion in 6 years.  Upwork continues to charge the clients 10% upon hiring someone just like oDesk did—unlike Elance who only charged 8.7%.

So How Do You Find Jobs on Upwork?

Once you have joined and decided upon your membership level, you will want to set up your payment system and profile.  Most use PayPal as their payment system, but you also may choose direct deposit or wire transfer.

Your profile should have a professional picture of you with your work history, resume, and a portfolio of your work.  Also, be sure to include your education as well as take a few Upwork tests to show your qualifications.

You may then browse the jobs and when you see one you want, click the apply button and write a short proposal (there are samples) as to why you are the right fit for the job.  Then you wait for the client to get back to you.  If the client never does get back to you, you may go back and decline the job.  Some clients can take months to get back to you.

What, If Anything Is New at Upwork?

The three biggest changes are the:

• use of connects instead of job bids
• new $10 membership fee
• chat tool

For years, there was no membership fee at oDesk.  You were allowed 25 job bids at any given time, and you could max that out without exceeding it.  The company also took a 10% fee of your earnings.  Now job bids have been replaced with “connects”.  Connects are points which are used to apply for jobs.  One job may be between 1 to 5 connects, and freelancers are allowed up to 60 connects for a free membership.  If you want to go as high as 70 connects, then you will need to pay a monthly membership fee of $10 USD.  Unlike job bids, connects may be rolled over each month, but you may not carry over more than 70 from previous months.

Outside of the new membership fee and the use of connects, there is a chat tool now where clients and freelancers may connect in real time to immediately discuss a job.  Previously you were limited to messaging one another via their messaging system or making arrangements on Skype or your own phone.  oDesk did frown upon too much outside activity, since they wanted everyone to keep communication on their system as much as possible in case there was a dispute.

What Are Some Improvements Freelancers Still Want to See?

Outside of better paying clients and more high-end freelance work for US workers, freelancers want to see better written job descriptions.  Many times hiring managers write vague job descriptions which leaves the freelancer guessing as to whether or not they want to spend part of their allotment of connects applying to a job.

Another complaint is that freelancers would also like to have Upwork require that the clients be as well trained with how the platform works as the freelancers are.  Many freelancers complain that they spend way too much time training clients how to properly use the system and leave feedback.

Does Upwork Still Have All of Those $1 to $4 an Hour Jobs?

While you don’t see the hourly rates spelled out that way, you do see a budget for the month or project.  Many times it can seem low for the amount of work needed, but not spelled out as an hourly rate.  However, when you do the math, you can see what the approximate hourly fee would be.

In the past, many freelancers steered clear of oDesk due to their reputation for having very low wages for workers in the US and Canada.  It does seem to be slightly higher than before.

Is Upwork Worth a Try?

Well, really only you can decide that.  Like anything, some freelancers have done rather well there, and some decided that it just wasn’t worth their time. You can always go to Upwork.com and sign up as a freelancer to see if anything piques your interest. Good luck!

 1) You’re Not Just a Blogger

2) Don’t Sell Advertising

3) Build the Funnel in Reverse

4) There’s No Such Thing As a “Shabby” Market

5) You Are the Bottleneck

6) In the Beginning, Creating Content for Your Own Blog Is Silly

7) Don’t Waste Time on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and so forth.

8) Promote The Crap Out of Your Content

9) Start Selling from Day One

To what extent would it be a good idea for you to hold up before you start offering? 1K or 10K of supporters!Or even more!

10) Teach Others What You Learned

Blogging is an excellent way of sharing your views and passion about any topic. Incidentally, it is also a wonderful means of making money online. A common misconception is that bloggers in India cannot make substantial income via blogging alone. However this is not the case. There are many leading Indian bloggers who are making lakhs of rupees from blogging. So if you have a blog and have not monetized it yet, now is the time to act!


Image credit “LondonClicks“

Here’s a list of five evergreen tactics that you can use on your blog to monetize it.

1. Advertising Networks

This is the simplest method of monetization; making it a good stepping stone for those looking to monetize their blog for the first time. Therefore, it also is most commonly used blog monetization method. It is extensively used across the world and is quite popular in India, too.
How this works: You display ads on your blog – when your viewers click on these ads, you earn a commission from the advertiser.

How to implement this on your Blog:

1. Choose the Ad network you want to work with. AdSense (owned by Google) is by far the favorite network amongst bloggers as well as advertisers. There are other options like ClickSor, Chitika, RevenueHits, Yllix, BidVertiser, Infolinks, etc
2. Apply to become a publisher on the Ad network of your choice. Application will require your payment details (details of the account where you would like to receive the commission payout) amongst other things, so keep this information handy.
3. Once your application is accepted, the Ad network will send you a confirmatory mail regarding the same.
4. Once confirmed you will be provided with Ad codes that you need to place on your blog – at the locations where you want to display the E.g. you may want to display ads between text sections or in the sidebar, etc.
5. Once you have placed the codes correctly, you are good to go. Your Ad network will start displaying ads at your specified location within a couple of hours.
6. Your job now is complete. Now it is up to your readers to view/click on the ads and earn you some moolah through your blog.

How much can you earn: The earning per click ranges from $0.01 to $50. How much the ads on your blog will pay depends on your blog topic, since ads displayed are related to that topic. Also, the amount you earn will depend on the number of viewers who click on your ads.

Tip to earn more: Optimize your ad placement – by checking which location and type of ad gets the most clicks. Image ads work best for some blogs, while others earn more from text ads. So keep adjusting things until you achieve maximum returns.

2. Affiliate marketing

This method can earn you a sizable income from your blog. Here you are looking to earn by pitching related products or services to your readers. You need to be smart in choosing the product or service you want to promote. It requires researching and analyzing your niche to understand what your readers are looking to buy. When implementing this method on your blog make sure not to overdo the promotion. Your readers come to your blog to read the post and share your blogging journey. Do not alienate them by promoting stuff all the time.
How this works: You place ads or links of your chosen affiliate product/service on your blog. When a reader clicks on these links and makes a purchase, you get paid a commission from the product/service provider.

How to implement this on your Blog:

1. Choose the product/service you would like to become an affiliate Clickbank, OMG India, Trootrac media are some popular affiliate networks. You can also choose to directly join an affiliate program offered by websites like Flipkart, Amazon, etc.
2. Apply for becoming an affiliate on your chosen website. Here amongst other details, you might be asked about the marketing/promotion strategies you use for your blog.
3. Most websites will review your application and approve or disapprove it within 24-72 hou
4. Once your application is approved, you will be able to log into your affiliate account and access different links/ads which you can place on your blog.
5. Add the relevant link/ad in your blog and check if it is working right.
6. You are all set to earn money from affiliate Now when a reader clicks on the link/ad and buys the product/service you will earn a commission.

How much can you earn: The commission earned per sale varies greatly. It depends on the website, as well as the product. You can earn commissions ranging anywhere from 2.5 per cent to 50 per cent of the sale value. Also, the earning will depend on the product bought by the buyer. E.g. you place affiliate ads of Flipkart on your blog – if a reader purchases clothes you earn a higher commission percentage as opposed to a reader who purchases a mobile phone.
Tip to earn more: Promote products/services that are closely related to your niche and your readers, so that you can have a higher conversion rate and be assured of making sales. While popular products are easy to sell they offer less commission, so always keep a lookout for a relatively lesser known but a potentially good product which can earn you higher commission.

3. Selling your own product

There is no better way to have supreme control over your blog monetization than selling your product. This is by far the most stable method of earning from your blog, since you have full control over the method. Right from designing the product, to pricing and marketing it, you are the boss of it all – hence the more effort you put in the more money you can make.
How this works: You create a product/service based on your expertise and sell it to readers through your blog.

How to implement this on your Blog:

1. Create a product/service with your own hands or you can get someone to create it for you. You can create physical products like books, cookies, DIY kits, Or, you can create digital products like eBooks, video courses, etc.
2. Establish a selling price for your creation. Determine the method of delivering your product/service. Will you send it via courier/mail or does it need to be collected personally? Also, decide on the method of payment -via PayPal or bank transfer, in cash or by cheque – you need to decide on a method that is convenient for both you and your buyers.
3. Create a special landing page on your blog explaining all about this creation of yours. Point out its salient points, its benefits and utility, and include a buy button on this page.
4. Promote your product/service to your readers and beyond. You can do this via email marketing, social media promotion, ‘AdWords’, and the like.
5. Make sales and earn money from your creation.

How much can you earn: Sky is the limit. Since everything from pricing to costing is in your hands, your earning potential is up to you. The better your product the more it will sell, and the more you can earn.
Tip to earn more: Research to understand what product your readers would like to buy and only then begin designing of your product/service. If you make something that the readers want, it will sell itself, like hot cakes.

4. Freelance via your blog

If you have been blogging about a topic for a while, you sure do have certain level of knowledge, skills and expertise on it. Freelancing is a way of earning money through your skills and expertise. If you have specific marketable skills like designing or baking then you can earn money by advertising these skills on your blog, and taking up jobs that utilize these skills. Even if you do not have specific skills you can always guide other newbie bloggers in your niche and charge them for the guidance. You will be amazed at the number of people willing to pay you money for your advice – which you might have been giving out for free until now!
How this works: You provide your skills/expertise as a consultant to those who require it and pay for it. Alternatively you might choose to take up projects which require execution and get paid for the same.
How to implement this on your Blog:

1. Create a brief of what services you want to offer as a Freelancer.
2. Create a dedicated landing page on your blog, listing your services. Also include on this page, a statement on why somebody should hire you, what benefits do you offer over others, and most importantly, your pricing Include information about how to contact/hire you.
3. Inform your readers about the services you are offering and encourage them to avail of these, and also request them to mention it to their family and Your readers will be more receptive to ask for your services as they are aware of your expertise through the regular reading of your blog posts.
4. Promote your services via other channels, too, like advertising, social media, The more you promote, the more people will become aware of your services; and more offers will come your way.
5. Once you receive a project ensure that you complete it in a professional manner. Get paid and earn money from your blog.

How much can you earn: Your earning will depend on your knowledge level and also on how popular your service offering is. You decide on the price – so the earning potential is unlimited. If you are an expert in your niche then your earnings can skyrocket easily; since you can take on more complex projects that pay more.
Tip to earn more: Do not short sell yourself. If you cannot decide on a pricing structure, conduct a survey amongst readers about how much they would be willing to pay for a particular service. Most bloggers are guilty of short selling themselves, and thus not able to sufficiently augment their own income.

5. Placing direct ads on your blog

This is another excellent blog monetization method which is used by many bloggers. However this method works better for some niches as opposed to others. On the surface this method is similar to the Ad networks one, i.e. you place ads on your blog and earn money from it. However, there is a huge difference, in its implementation. While with Ad networks you have no control over the ad displayed and the earnings you receive, here you have full control. You get to choose which ad will be displayed on your blog and you also set the price for the ads. In this method advertisers get in touch with you directly to place ads on your blog, thus eliminating the middleman (Ad network) and increasing your earning potential.
How this works: You place ads on your blog – when readers click on these you get paid a commission or you can choose to charge a flat fee to the advertisers on a monthly/weekly basis.
How to implement this on your Blog:

1. Determine the locations on your blog where you would like to place the ads (ad spots). You can place ads in the footer, header, sidebar, within the content,

• Create an ‘Advertise with us’ page on your blog. On this page provide information that will help potential advertisers decide if your blog is a right fit for them. Include a brief about your blog audience, what topics you write on, and most importantly, include pricing information about your ad spots. It’s your blog, so you set the prices. Remember you can set different prices for different ad spots. You might choose to charge more for a header banner and less for an in-context text Also, add information about how to contact you for placing an

1. Apply to join a monetization network where you can add your blog, your ad spot and pricing details. This will expose your blog to more advertisers via the network. BuySell Ads is one of the most popular monetization networks.
2. Place boxes in your blog on the ad spots with ‘advertise here’ This will attract attention of potential advertisers who visit your blog.
3. Some advertisers might want to negotiate prices with you – be open to such deal Once you have agreed on a price with the advertiser, make their ads live and see the money roll in.

How much can you earn: Since you decide the rate for your ad spots, your earning potential is in your hands. However, in general, the larger the audience you have the more you can earn, since advertisers are willing to pay higher prices for exposure to more potential buyers.

Tip to earn more: Do not put ‘Advertise Here’ text for all your ad spots. Place dummy ads in some of the prominent ad spots. This creates a psychological advantage for you when a potential advertiser views your blog. On seeing the dummy ad, advertisers feel that you already have clients, and so your blog is worth investing in.

Additionally, it creates a feeling of scarcity – that your ad spots might soon fill up and they might miss out on advertising with you. Both of these tactics motivate potential advertisers to do business with you.
This sums up the top 5 most popular methods of monetizing your blog. Making money from your blog is neither rocket science nor is it child’s play. You need to be smart about the products you choose to promote, or design. You need to put in some real hard work to create loyal readers of your blog, who will eventually help you earn money from your blog. And, most of all, you need to work hard on promoting and exposing your blog to the maximum number of potential readers.

Most bloggers write excellent articles but forget to promote it. A blog without promotion is like a secret diary. Only the blogger knows about it. Promotion helps the blog reach out to potential readers and make it popular amongst the masses. So promote your blog, apply any one or all of these monetization methods, and earn money from your blog.

To get started,if you have not joined DreamHost’s affiliate program, you can join now for free.
Join DreamHost’s affiliate program
For the purpose of the remainder of this tutorial, we’ll assume that you have an affiliate account with DreamHost and that you have used your credentials to log in to the DreamHost panel.

How to create a DreamHost discount code for your blog readers

DreamHost’s affiliate program allows you to create a promo code which you can offer to your readers so that they can in turn get a discount when purchasing DreamHost. You can generate a discount of up to $97 for your readers. I suggest, however, that you create your discount coupon for $50 maximum, as this will help you to make some money when your readers use the discount as well.
Once you are inside the panel, click on Billing & account > Affiliates. Click on “Create Your Own Promo Codes!” at the bottom of the page.


You will also be able to see all the promo codes that you have created to date.




I suggest that you create a promo code with a meaningful name. In the past, I  have created SBD50 coupon code for SolutionsBD, and other similar memorable names for other blogs. You will want to use a name that is easily recalled, and that is related to your brand.
You have the option to add extra goodies such as an additional domain name, private IP and so on. Remember, though, that these would decrease your affiliate income.
DreamHost gives you a maximum of $97 commission on every sale. So for example, if you are giving a discount of $50 for every sale, you will be making $47 on each sale. Again, I generally suggest creating a promo code for a $50 discount.
Once you have entered your information into all of the required field, click on “Create this promo code now”. You will see the message “promo code successfully generated”, or if that promo code name already exists, you will be asked to select a different code name.
When you log in to your DreamHost panel and click on the  rewards tab, you will see your affiliate link.


In this case, my affiliate link is http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?2160047
Now all I need to do is add my promo code after my affiliate link. So, for example, to link my LONDON50 promo code, which offers a $50 discount, I will use this link:
http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?2160047|LONDON50
So now, whenever a user signs up using this promo code, he will get a $50 discount on hosting.
In short, all you need to do is to simply add your promo code after your affiliate link.

Why a $50 promo code?

Some time back I created a DreamHost $50 discount code that is the maximum discount I can offer. Many SolutionsBD readers signed up for DreamHost using that code (LONDON50) to get a $50 discount, but they received only a $50 discount.
DreamHost’s customer service representatives noted that for certain regions, the maximum possible discount is $50. However, for some reason DreamHost is not revealing which countries are eligible for the $50 discount and which countries are not.
So instead of creating a false alarm for your readers, simply create a $50 discount code. 
At this point you know how to create a promo code and add it after your DreamHost affiliate link.
Now let’s have a look at how to promote DreamHost through the affiliate program:

• You can share a discount coupon via a blog post
• You can add the banner on your sidebar
• You can send it via an email newsletter

DreamHost also offers a free 15-day trial, so you can use that as one of the best marketing promotions for your DreamHost affiliate program.

More detail:  How to signup for a free Dreamhost trial account
 
Affiliate payment
Users who are in countries other than India can receive money via Paypal or check, but for Indian affiliate users, payment by check is the only available option. I will say, however, that I have received my checks within the appropriate time-frame each month.  (If you become a premium affiliate as I am, you can request your payments every month.)
What next?
I have shared one of my top money-making formulas with you in this post, and I hope you will benefit from the information. Make sure you take advantage of help from the tutorial to make some significant money, and add the results to your monthly income report.

Sign up for Dreamhost’s affiliate program

So you want to make money blogging? You’ve come to the right place!
I started blogging back in 2005 with the hope that it would help bring in a small stream of income and be a means to promote the online business I had at the time. So much has changed since then, but one thing has not changed and that is that you can make a good part-time or even full-time income from blogging.
However, it’s easier and harder than you may think. It’s easy because it requires very little cash outlay upfront, you don’t need a degree or certification, the field is wide open and the profit margins are high. On the other hand, setting up a successful blog that makes a part-time or full-time income will only be the result of massive amounts of effort, determination, consistency and perseverance.

How to Set Up Your Blog

1. Sign Up For Hosting

The first thing you need to do after you decide to set up a blog is to sign up for hosting. This is where your blog will “live” online. It’s basically like paying rent to have a site online. Hosting supports your site and keeps it live and online.
This is different than your domain name (your www. address). Hosting is like the house or apartment you rent or own, while your domain name is your address. You need both.
I recommend using Bluehost if you are new to blogging and/or just need a robust site with great customer service. I used Bluehost for a few years when I was first blogging. I no longer use it now that my site has grown very large and we need more personalized and customized service. But Bluehost is a great fit for small to medium-sized sites.


To sign up for your hosting with Bluehost, just go here and click on the Get Started Now button.

Next, you’ll need to choose your hosting plan. I recommend going with the $3.95 per month plan if you are a small to medium-sized site. You can always move up to a larger plan, if need be. But the $3.95 per month rate should meet your needs well when you are getting started.

2. Choose a Great Blog Name

Once you’ve chosen your plan, you’ll then need to choose and type in your domain name. As mentioned above, this is the www. link for your site. I wouldn’t rush through this part of the process. In fact, I’d say this is THE most important thing to consider once you know what your site or blog is going to be about.

How to Pick a Great Name for Your Blog

Your blog name should encompass your blog’s mission and should clearly articulate your blog’s purpose. Don’t hurry through the process of picking a name: it’s your brand and you want to make sure you love it and it’s something you’re going to love for years to come.
Take a week or two to consider potential names. Ask a few trusted friends to give their input. Toss around ideas and, when you land upon ones you like, check to see if the domain name (the www website address) is available on GoDaddy.com before jumping ahead and settling on any one name.

Important note: Blog names can be federally trademarked. This means that an individual or company owns the federal rights to a particular name or phrase and it cannot be used by others or you will be subject to fines and required to discontinue using the name. To be safe, search thoroughly online to make sure no one is using the name you come up with or a very similar variation of it.

Tip: If you want to think long-term and hope to turn your blog into a successful business, I encourage you to consider purchasing all variations of your domain name (for instance, we own LondonClicks.net, LondonClicks.org. etc). That way, you don’t have to worry about someone else setting up a site with a domain name very similar to yours. You can purchase these additional URL names through a site like NameCheap.com.

Once you’ve chosen your name and verified that it’s available, go to the next page and input all your information. You can skip the extra upgrades. The only one I might suggest you consider is that you purchase the Domain Privacy. This will guarantee that your home address or whatever address you used to sign up for your domain cannot be accessed in public records.
Input your billing information and you are good to go! Your brand-spanking-new hosting and domain are set up.

3. Choose the Right Blog Platform From the Get-Go

After you set up your hosting and domain name, you’ll want to install WordPress on your new hosting. You can do this in the dashboard section when you log into your Bluehost dashboard.
WordPress is the “software” that you’ll use to actually blog. Basically, it’s the nuts and bolts of what allows you to type up your posts and upload them onto your hosting so that they show up at the domain name you picked. It makes it very simple to type and publish posts without having to mess with understanding all the ins and outs of HTML or how to write code for your website.

Important note: You must have your own hosting and install WordPress from WordPress.org onto that hosting. While you can set up a free site on WordPress.com, you are not allowed to add advertising or affiliate links if you’re hosting it there — thus disabling your ability to making money blogging!

Why WordPress?

Not too long ago, I was asked what is the one thing you wish you had done differently when setting up your blog. I instinctively replied, “I wish I had started with WordPress.”
I started with Blogger because that was pretty much the only blogging platform in existence. I moved to TypePad when the Blogger SPAM bots marked my blog as SPAM in 2008 and I was locked out of my Blogger blog for 10 days.

Near the end of 2009, my blog outgrew TypePad and I was forced to switch to WordPress. Making the leap from TypePad to WordPress was daunting and tedious. We had to move thousands of posts and hundreds of thousands of comments. There were all sorts of glitches and it was a big learning curve.

Truth be told, though it was a major headache, it was one of the best blogging moves I’ve ever made. WordPress has allowed me to have a much more organized blog and offer many features I couldn’t with TypePad and Blogger.

So, if I were to suggest a blog platform, I’d highly recommend WordPress. It gives you many more options than other platforms offer. Plus, you don’t have to worry about your blog getting locked or outgrowing TypePad.

Another big perk of WordPress is that it has much more sophisticated SEO capabilities (i.e. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and basically refers to optimizing your site so it comes up high in search engines. People will find you a lot more easily if you come up on the first page or two of Google rather than page 133!). I don’t do a lot for SEO at this point, but I’m all about doing small things to help improve where londonclicks.blogspot.com shows up when you search for “London Clicks blogs” or “Payoneer Partner”. WordPress makes it extremely simple to accomplish this.

4. Hire a Designer

Back in the “olden” days when there weren’t many blogs, if you had great content and updated regularly, you’d have a good number of readers — even if you had a basic, free Blogger blog design. Today, because there are so many more blogs, great content is paramount, but a nice designer and ease-of-use is also very important. If people find your blog design dull or your layout disorganized, they are much more apt to just go find another blog.

Now, please don’t let this discourage you. You don’t need a fancy-schmancy blog with lots of bells and whistles. Just a clean design that is easy to navigate can make a world of difference. And paying someone to set this up for you may be every bit worth the money.
If you can’t afford a designer, at least consider paying to have someone design your header and connect your hosting and domain name on WordPress. I promise it is worth the bit of money that it will cost — and it will save you a great deal of hair-pulling.

I do recommend taking time to learn at least basic HTML. I’m not techie at all, but I’ve forced myself to learn enough to make basic tweaks and do minor fixes. It’s invaluable when talking to a designer to at least have a cursory knowledge of how your site works.

5. Publish Some Posts Before You Publicly Announce Your Blog

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a new blog advertised and been all excited to check it out, only to find there were a whopping three posts on it! If you want people to stick around, you need to have depth and series and a variety of posts.
Before you “open your doors to the public”, go ahead and post 10 or 15 posts, plus plan out and write another 15 to have in queue to post after you start “advertising” your blog. Not only will this allow you to “get your feet wet” and get accustomed to blogging before you have a real live audience, it also provides some great content for people to check out when they visit your blog.
I love Google calendar for planning out post series long-term. I also have recently begun printing out a monthly calendar to pencil in specific posts for each day. This gives me accountability, inspiration and organization — well, at least it’s better than my former “blog-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” routine!

6. Build Your Readership

Before you jump into making money as a blogger, I strongly encourage you to focus the first few months on producing great content and building your readership. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint.
There are many, many creative ways to grow your readership.

7. Become an Affiliate

Now that you’ve set up your hosting and have posted some great content on your blog, it’s time to start talking about how to make money with your blog. The first — and easiest — way to make money is through affiliate marketing.
For those who may have never heard the term of affiliate marketing before, it’s basically when you are paid to promote another person’s product, coupon, deal, or website. It’s typically CPA advertising — which means that you only get paid per action. In other words, a reader must take some form of action (purchase something, click through your link and sign up for something, download a coupon or ebook, etc.)
You sign up for an affiliate program (I’ll share some of my favorites in a little bit), you promote your unique affiliate link that the company gives you, and then you are paid if your readers buy the item or sign up for the item.
For instance, not too long ago, I promoted a sale on Amy’s Tell Your Time ebook. She has an affiliate program that offers 50% of the sales to the affiliate. Since the ebook was on sale for $2, I earned $1 for every person who clicked through my affiliate link and made a purchase. So, if 100 people bought the ebook, I’d make $100 in affiliate earnings.

In many cases, people have to make a purchase in order for you to earn money as an affiliate. However, there are also hundreds of other options that require no purchase. To give you an example, I’m affiliate for Coupons.com, RedPlum, and SmartSource. If I post a great coupon that is on any of these sites, I earn anywhere from $0.02 to $0.40 per coupon printed (I have different agreements with each network and some pay per coupon printed, others pay a flat fee per print session per user per day).

As you can imagine, since one of the key focuses of LondonClicks.blogspot.com happens to be using coupons, the affiliate money earned from coupons printed is one of the highest revenue earners. However, it is a win-win situation, because I’m sharing a great deal with you, it’s hopefully helping you save money and get a great deal, and then we both benefit from it.

Blogs nowadays are becoming a real source of income for some people and most of them have quit their real job because the money they earn through blogging is quite good as well. If you are thinking about starting blogging, then you have to think of more ways to increase your blog revenue as much as possible. Here are some tips to keep your cash flowing with the use of your blog.

• If you are about to start your own blog, make sure you enjoy what you’re doing and you know a lot about what you’re writing. If you write interesting things and articles on your blog, then your readers will surely visit it again and again to read and look at some of your work.

• In order to earn traffic for your blog, you have to capture the people’s attention and gaining popularity could be the trick. Put up video son your site to give your readers more things to look at and to make your blog more appealing. Your blog should be interesting and it should have a range of items for your viewers to see. While it is important to put up videos on your blog, you should also not rely solely on it. Make sure you update your blog regularly to keep the traffic going and for the items on it to be fresh and new all the time.
• If you can put up more links on your blog, the better. Although most people don’t click on those links, some people still do, and when you have a lot of them then you’ll earn more money in the long run. Putting up links is an effortless way to earn money, and you can make use of it to design your site as well.
• As a blogger, it is important that you earn your readers trust. If you can manage to be honest and open all the time, it will be greatly appreciated. Then again if you do make any mistake, just move on and try to learn from it and avoid doing it again. That way, you’ll earn other people’s trust and they might lead more people to your blog.
• Avoid posting incorrect information in your blog because doing so will just reflect on you and your site. Make sure you do a lot of research before you post anything on it.
• Earn more money by posting paid-to-answer-surveys, click links or earn a commission by posting other people’s products. Just be creative and you’ll earn money without breaking a sweat.

Use your blog to earn more money easily, and you can also utilize that money to pay for all of your bills or expenses to keep your credit score in good shape and to keep your credit rating in check. Do some more research online and you’ll increase you blog earnings in no time.

For a little over a month now, I’ve been looking at my AdSense earnings in Google Analytics to better understand my earnings, and I’ve stumbled across some rather interesting results. Without even realising it, I’ve come up with even more ways to increase my AdSense earnings each month. They range from simple ad placement, to writing specific posts, and appealing to a certain referrer. Here’s how you can increase YOUR earnings.

Setting Up

The first thing you’ll want to do is set up your AdSense so that you can study it in more detail, in Analytics. To do this, when you’re viewing your report overview, just click the link to integrate Adsense with your Analytics account. It’s just one click and then a small amount of information on your Analytics account. You have to be an admin on your Analytics account, otherwise it won’t let you make the changes necessary, but if you’re the only person running the website, this shouldn’t be a problem. NOTE: Because you’re adding new information, GA will not transfer over details from the past, you will only see new results from when your join the two together.
Now that you’re set up, it’s best to have a run down of what all the terms mean, so that you can understand your results better.


AdSense Revenue is the amount of money you’ve made in your selected time period (2 weeks for me).
/ 1000 visits, is how much money you’ve made for every 1000 visits to your site.
Ads clicked, is the amount of ads clicked by viewers.
Ads clicked / visit, is the total number of visits, divided by the number of ads clicked.
CTR stands for Click Through Rate and this is the percentage of clicks you get for each ad impression.
eCPM stands for effective Cost Per 1000 impressions (M being a roman numeral). It’s the total earnings per 1000 impressions.
AdSense Ads Viewed is the total number of ads seen, from all multiple ads on all the pageviews.
AdSense Unit Impressions / Visit is the number of ads that are viewed by visitors, per visit.
AdSense Page Impressions is the amount of pages viewed that have AdSense ads on them.
AdSense Page Impressions / Visit is similar to pages viewed per visit, only it’s pages with ads viewed, per visit.

Tip #1 – Appeal To Your Top Referrers

By far, my favourite thing about using Analytics to look at your AdSense, is that you can then find out which of your referrers are worth the most in terms of AdSense revenue. My results were rather shocking for me. For quite a while now, I’ve been featured on the homepage of a photography forum with about 7000 active members, but that’s grown a lot more over the last month or so. I don’t get a massive amount of traffic from them, as I currently only have 1 link on their homepage, but when I do, it’s worth a lot to me.
Let me show you an example of what happened. When you go into the new GA, click on Content, then AdSense, then AdSense Referrers, this will bring up a list of all the websites that sent visitors who have clicked on an ad, as well as a timeline of your earnings. The results below are for a complete month, and unfortunately, due to Google’s rules and regulations, I’m not allowed to show you them, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. The most important part of the results isn’t the ads clicks, viewed, or even the revenue; it’s the Click Through Rate (CTR) and eCPM (effective Cost Per 1000 impressions).


As we discovered earlier, the CTR is the percentage of ads that are clicked, per impression, so you want that to be as high as possible. The reason the CTR is much higher than some of the other referrers is because of the quality of visitor that I’m receiving from that referrer. StumbleUpon has a particularly poor CTR, because the people who use it aren’t looking for anything in particular so it’s hard to get their attention, which may result in them clicking on an ad. UglyHedgehog on the other hand is a forum for photographers, so the people on that site are actively looking for content in my niche.
The eCPM is also substantially higher than the other referrers, which tells me that if I can increase the number of impressions that I’m getting from them, then I will earn a lot more money. The quality of Twitter user is usually pretty poor, as they don’t typically spend too much time on the site (00:01:47), and even though a link a lot to my website  around 10 times a day through Twitter, I still get less traffic from them than Facebook. Facebook on the other hand has a better quality of visitor, with people looking at more pages and staying for longer (00:02:29, but their eCPM is actually lower than that of Twitter.
From these findings I can conclude that very high quality traffic, such as forums in your niche (uglyhedgehog.com has an average time on site of 00:04:09 and 2.19 pages per visit), will make you much more money, just so long as you can get the traffic you’re after. People are less likely to click on ads when they’ve come from websites such as Facebook, as they’re more interested in the content that you’ve written. They provide a good quality of visitor, but their time on site is almost half that of the forum in my niche, so it’s important to find a good balance of visitor quality. Twitter users seem to behave differently to other users, as they’re in a browsing mode, and are clicking on content that they see in their feed before it disappears. It would appear that they treat the websites they visit in a similar way, by clicking on more ads. I actually get more traffic from Facebook, but my earnings from Twitter far outweigh those of Facebook, which is good really, because it’s much more acceptable to post multiple links on Twitter.

Tip #2 – Write Content That Links Within Your Site

This step produced shockingly good results for my earnings. If you look have a look at my graph below, you’ll see that on the 6th of November, there was a massive increase in earnings. The first thing I did was look back to that day to see which post I had published, and I found a post titled ‘A Beginner’s Guide To Photography’, and this was simply a collection of my tutorials. This meant that anyone who had viewed the page would have to click on another if they wanted to learn anything. This forced them to increase their pages per visit, which produces more ad impressions.
When I break down my earnings so that I’m only receiving information from the 6th of November, I can start to see which referrer is earning me the most money. T.co is the URL shortener that Twitter uses, so I can see clearly that a small number of page impressions has yielded very strong earnings. With a large number of clicks from 76 page impressions, I have an unusually high CTR. From this response, I can see that to earn money, this is the sort of content that I need to be promoting, though as many sources as I can. I’m currently combining this content, with the forum mentioned in the tip above, so that I can drive top quality traffic, to the content that earns me the most money. After just 2 days of doing this, I’m already starting to notice a massive improvement.

Tip #3 – Text and Image Ads

Enabling your ad units to display both text and image/rich media ad types, increases the number of ads competing to appear on your site. More advertisers in the ad auction drives higher bids and more revenue for you. On average, publishers see a 59% increase in eCPM earnings when they make these recommended changes. If you’re not already using both, then it’s as simple as going into the ‘My ads’ tab, and clicking on ‘Edit ad type’, next to the ad in the list. This will increase the cost per click, so even if you’re not improving the number of clicks that your website is getting, you’ll still make more money.

Tip #4 – Increase Ad Size

Advertisers prefer wider ad units for their premium inventory, resulting in higher bids for your ad placements. Though all sites are different, publishers typically see 0.35 eCPMs when using the wider ad size. You can start by simply changing single ads on popular pages to see how well they work, and if it’s not too intrusive, then you can start rolling it out across your whole website. I didn’t do this in my sidebar because I was aware that the whole width of the sidebar would have to change, and that would not only take a lot of time, but mess up the spacing that I had laid out for posts. Instead, I added a wider ad at the end of each post, that differs to all the other ads on my website, and this saw a good improvement in ad sales.

Tip #5 – Ad Placement

Where you choose to place the ad on your site will make a big difference to the amount of clicks that you get, because the more obvious the ad, the more likely someone will be to see it. It’s hard to judge on your own website because we look at our sites differently to how other people view them, so the best way to start seeing results, is to experiment with ad placement. When I first started, I had two ads on my website, one at the top of the sidebar, and one at the bottom. Since then, we’ve added another ad to the side bar, and reloated the bottom one to under the subscribe button, added an ad to the bottom of each post, and put a small text ad just below our header.
The small text ad below our header made the biggest difference to our results because it stands out the most to new visitors, and could even be possibly mistaken for a link within our own website. It’s a very simple ad, and less appealing than a flash one, but it’s much less intrusive, and in a better position. Overall, I don’t like to add too many ads because I don’t want to put off visitors or make my website look bad. I always find it odd when people choose to include an ad block in their header, because that makes me find their website much less appealing.