The weblog has come a long way since its first appearance in the late 1990s. Today there are many ways in which a blog can be used to generate a substantial amount of money. Here are nine of them:

1. Affiliate marketing

Many online business owners pay a commission to people who promote their products and services. Once you are confident you know your audience and understand their needs you can identify the products and services that would benefit them. Look for ones that will pay you a percentage of the sale in return for promoting them. The best will offer a reward worth your effort and provide you with promotional tools like images, blog post templates, and a review copy. Place the affiliate code on your blog, promote the product or service, and if it’s a good fit for your audience you will start getting commissions.

2. Sponsored reviews

Once you start getting traffic to your blog and growing your audience business owners in your niche may want you to review their products and/or services. The business owner may be willing to pay for the review or allow you to try what he offers for free. You should be given full access to the subject of your review and perhaps some behind-the-scenes information too. Be clear with your audience that you are giving a paid for review and give your honest opinion. If you’ve chosen the subject of your review correctly you will encourage sales. With this success behind you you can approach other business owners and suggest you do a sponsored review for them too.

3. Sponsored posts

An alternative or addition to sponsored reviews is publishing sponsored posts. For example, the post could be about something the seller has achieved or an event about to take place. As with reviews always be clear when you are being paid to produce a post and make sure that whatever you are promoting to your audience is useful to them.

4. Sell your own products and/or services

If you have a product or offer a service yourself you can market it via your blog. It may be related to the niche your blog is based on or, if you have a successful blog, you can offer a resource or service that will help other bloggers. If you have a number of products and/or services you can use your blog as a hub. Set up a product or services page, place images and short descriptions of what you offer and include links to your sales pages.

5. Pay per click advertising

Google advertising was one of the most successful ways to monetise a blog. Sign up to Google AdSense, install some code and the software will deliver ads based on the content you publish. Each sale will earn you a commission and if your blog is tightly focused within a niche and you have good SEO the ads displayed will be sufficiently targeted to interest your audience.

6. Direct display ads

An alternative to using third-party advertising services is to sell ads directly yourself. Once you can show that your blog receives a good amount of traffic and that your visitors are responsive you can approach businesses in your niche with an offer to advertise on your blog. If you have a WordPress blog there are plug-ins that set up an advertising platform.

7. Business resource directory

If you have a blog that offers help and support to small businesses or solopreneurs you can set up a business directory on your blog and offer to include them for a fee. You can also approach businesses that offer products and services that would help your readers and offer them a listing in the directory as well. As in the last category, if you have a WordPress blog there are plug-ins for installing business directories.

8. Have a pay per view section

If you can offer information or advice that people would be willing to pay for you can set up a pay-per-view section of your blog. This will include premium content that can only be accessed for a fee. Within this section you could also offer regular webinars and/or one-to-one coaching sessions, etc. Again if you have a WordPress blog there are plug-ins for setting up pay-per-view content.

9. Ask for donations

You may have seen creators of apps, WordPress plug-ins and other software include a donate button on their site. PayPal has a code you can add to your blog that sets up a donation button and links it to your account. You can suggest a donation amount or leave it to your visitors to donate what they feel is fair.

If you want to monetise your blog it’s best to use a range of methods. You may find that some work better for your niche than others, so don’t have all your income generating eggs in one basket. Whichever methods you choose, their success will rely on your ability to identify with your audience and offer solutions they are willing to pay for.