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Guest post by: Tom Walker

Finding quality and reliable advertising revenue can be a make or break proposition for many bloggers. Most bloggers understand the importance of advertising and that it is just par for the course when it comes to making their blog profitable. Discovering how to go about finding and maintaining worthwhile advertising relationships however, is often much more difficult. Making your blog profitable when it comes to advertising, first means you must find advertisers willing to promote their products or services on your site, and the following tips might be able to help you do just that.

1. Adsense: Using Google AdSense can be a great way to get your feet wet when it comes to advertising on your blog. With AdSense, you can let someone else handle the advertising for you as you begin your foray into blogging. By using AdSense, you can get a general idea of the types of advertising that might work well on your site as well as how the revenue system works.

2. Spread The Word: When you decide to branch out to do your own advertising, you will likely have to put in some effort when it comes to finding prospective advertisers. In most cases, they won’t come looking for you. Use your available resources and networks to let people know that you’re on the lookout for advertisers. Utilize email, friends and family, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and your blog itself as great mediums for finding possible advertisers for your blog.

3. Market Yourself: Most advertisers will look for a reason or reasons to choose your blog for their advertisements. Consider possible enticements to get them to look twice at your site. Are you a top ranked site in your market? Have you found a niche few others know about? Maybe you’ve won awards for your blog or blogs. Finding ways to sell yourself and differentiate your blog from the masses can appeal to advertisers.

4. Location, Location, Location!: It’s important to remember that once you begin reeling in the advertisers, to keep them happy you must often consider the location and placement of their ads. Being stuffed into a distant bottom corner, or wedged between two other massive ads probably won’t make your advertisers too happy. Of course, how much they are paying will likely determine placement on your page, but you should also consider that sometimes smaller return business is more lucrative than one-time big business.

5. Don’t Get Lost In The Fluff: When considering location and placement of advertisements upon your blog, it is important in keeping your advertisers happy to avoid too much clutter on your blog. Video clips, pictures, graphics, and text can at times overpower your advertisements. While the quality of your blog is important, it must be weighed against quantity and available space for advertisements. Most advertisers won’t be happy to find the effects of their ads diminished by surrounding graphics or lost in the fluff of your text.

6. Don’t Waffle: Moving back and forth between subjects on your blog can be a turnoff to some advertisers. When a company or advertiser thinks he is placing an ad on a blog about personal finance, and suddenly finds that you are blogging about your pet goldfish, it can be a turnoff and they could decide to pull their advertising faster than it takes those last flakes of fish food to hit the bottom of the bowl.

7. Stay Relevant: Keeping your blog relevant and on topic is one of the best ways to bring advertisers to your blog. Inconsistency in posts, letting your blog lapse into long periods of inactivity, and not staying current on the most recent subject matter relating to your blog can drive advertisers away.

8. Be Reasonable: Keeping your CPM low, at least initially can help you draw in advertisers until you get your feet under you and your blog builds in popularity. Starting your CPM too high may tend to drive away many advertisers who would have been willing to work with you. Be reasonable in your expectations and don’t become greedy. Even once your blog hits it big, it is important to remember where the money that is rolling in comes from. Angering advertisers with high CPM rates is a quick way to ensure your advertisers won’t want to work with you.

9. Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day: It will likely take you time to learn the advertising system and how best to attract new advertisers. Don’t get frustrated or pushy when it comes to finding advertisers. Enticement is good, but putting on the pressure might drive advertisers away. Just keep at it, and more importantly look for ways to keep your blog active with plenty of traffic. A popular blog will often breed advertising revenue and bring more advertisers to your site.

10. Keep At It: Turnover can be high in blog advertising. Consistency is the key to building and maintaining healthy advertiser relationships. Don’t expect to be able to grab a bunch of advertisers all at once and then sit back and put it on cruise control. You will likely find yourself constantly on the search for new advertisers. While your search methods will probably become more refined, and your time spent finding advertisers for your blog may diminish, the process will likely continue for as long as you wish to keep making money from your blog.
About the Author
Tom Walker lives in the UK where he writes and designs for a office supplies company offering Epson printer inks, toners, paper and other printer accessories. You can read his posts about advertising and design on their blog.

Apart from very few people who seem to be leaning towards social entrepreneurship, everyone else is still here to make money and we are hence capitalistic in nature and actions. We all blog for money and there is no mistaking that fact.

However, there are emotions involved when the subject of money comes up. Blog monetization, hence, is a subject much discussed in the blogosphere; it doesn’t seem to end.Yet, not everyone makes good amount of money from their blogs and I think here are the reasons why:

Placeholders, PLR ( private label rights) content and free blogs will never make it

Too many blogs out there have been made by affiliates trying to sell one product or the other and they think that they could start making money just  by putting up a free blog, a couple of web pages or free content from Private Label Rights packs ( PLR packs) — this isn’t going to cut the ice.

The Internet works with a two-pronged strategy which consists of providing quality information and convince your readers that you know your stuff. Once this happens, selling is only a matter of putting a web-front on your website.

Unless you provide great content for a long time and write persuasively enough to inspire your readers, make them think about what you wrote or push them enough to buy directly, you aren’t going to be in business.

Look at that single dark spot on the wall

Most blogs have no focus at all and they usually seem to be all over the place, talking about almost everything. Good blogs have a primary focus.  Look at some of the examples of some blogs below:

• Location Independent, JetSetCitizen, World Hum, EverythingEverywhere – all of which focus on living a location Indepent lifestyle by traveling and workin at the same time.
• The Host Reviewer: A comprehensive site that focuses on nothing but in-depth reviews on web hosting providers and their services.
• Blogging Elements : Blogging, tips, best-practices and information on blogging for beginners — a shameless plug, I know. Still, you get the point, don’t you?

Focus, my friend is everything; it’s that wretched 5 letter word that stands between you and your success online.

How do you want to monetize your blog?

For the first few months or years of your blog’s existence, don’t even bother monetizing your blog. Blogging is a great way to make some money but the time will come. Start writing great posts and make sure that you swear by producing content that is effective, reflective, thoughtful, provoking or at least informative.

After your blog picks up on readership, look  to monetize your blogs using just one or various types of monetizing. However, avoid Google Adsense because that isn’t for you, if you want to make a lot of money for  a long time to come.

Ideally, you will do well with CPA networks that pay you per lead. Ultimately, you will have to decide and I’ll leave it to  you. Just remember that you have to stay focused. Pick merchants who sell products or services relevant to then niche you are operating on.

Once it is monetized optimally, all you need to do is to drive traffic to your blog.  That makes for a whole new post  altogether.

How focused is your blog? Do you think blogs with content on everything and anything make money?