Looking for a way to monetize your site other than using ads? While blog advertising may be the most common method, bloggers have plenty of options when it comes to earning money online. Even if you are monetizing your site using advertising, you could still use any of these strategies in addition to your ads. Here are just a few other monetization strategies:

Use a Premium Content Section

You can section off part of your site and have bloggers pay to access it. If you do this, make sure that you are offering content and ideas that aren’t normally available for free. That said, do continue to update your blog with free content. The free content will attract readers to your blog, convince them of your credibility and knowledge of the subject, but should only cover the surface of topics so that your readers will want more. For example, in the premium section, offer more details, specific case studies, etc. Thus they’ll be willing to pay to see your content. Include a list of features somewhere on your website so curious readers can see the type of content that’s not available for free, enticing them to pay for the premium content.

Offer Your Own Book or Product

You can also write your own book, compile your blog entries into a book format, or sell your own product. If you do decide to write a book, you can promote it on your blog and in your email newsletter. Consider publishing in an ebook format so that it’s easier for your readers to download it right away instead of having to wait for a hard copy in the mail. In your book, you should expand on topics that you haven’t covered as extensively in your blog so that your readers have a reason to purchase the product.

Ask for Donations

Simple and straight forward, asking for donations might seem a little like begging, but can still work. Just put a button at the top of your page that readers can click on if they want to donate. Consider also including a small button – visible, but not too distracting – at the end of your post too. Readers understand that writers blog for money, and will probably be generous enough to donate a little bit. If your readership is particularly large, then that will increase your chances of making money this way, too. If you only have a handful of readers, hold off on this method and work on building your traffic.

Offer Consulting

If you are an expert in something, then another option you could do is offer private consulting. It really depends on what your niche is if this will be a good strategy for you. If you are knowledgeable in SEO, for example, you could easily offer consulting work for clients’ websites. However, if you write a cooking blog I’m not sure what consulting services you would be able to offer. Think about your blog niche and see if you can offer consulting services.

Paid Blogging Jobs

There is another option that I recently learned about in this article about getting paid for writing articles. Basically you can get paid to write articles for bigger blogs. Sounds like freelance blogging. Apparently you can look at writing job boards (as the article explains) and find writing jobs there. The great thing about these jobs is that you not only get paid to blog, but you are gaining exposure on a bigger blog. This doubles as a way of promoting yourself and your site, so you can increase your blogs traffic, too. Check out that article, it explains more about how you can find blogging jobs and how the process works.

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Keep in mind that advertising and these other methods are not mutually exclusive. You can still use advertising and do all of these. In fact, it’s probably better if you do. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, and try monetizing your site with a variety of methods. Keep track of how much money you make with each strategy too to see which method is the most profitable.  Don’t be afraid to try new strategies when it comes to monetizing your blog.  Different methods work for different blogs, and by experimenting you can find out what works best for your blog.