How to Monetize Your Content Ethically and Authentically

1. Create great content.

Content is the key to monetizing your blog. In order to make content that will draw readers to your website, you need to find your niche. It goes without saying that you should write about a field in which you are knowledgeable, and about which you are passionate. It’s much easier to write a 200-word blog post about something you love than to eke out 200 words on a subject that is meaningless to you.

I’ve been writing and publishing novels, as well as teaching creative writing, for twenty years, so I blog primarily about writing. I blog about writing across several different platforms, including here, my Medium writing blog, and my blog about writing on Substack. I use my blogs to provide writing advice and resources, and my readers also receive occasional alerts about new writing classes. My blogs offers value to readers while generating income in two ways: through the products I personally sell (writing classes and workbooks for writers) and through paid subscriptions for the blog itself on Substack. I also blog about living in Paris (more about that in a minute).

2. Sign up for affiliate programs.

I personally like group affiliate programs like Share A Sale, which feature hundreds of merchants in fields ranging from home design to tech. How Share a Sale works: First, sign up for the program. Blog approval depends on a few factors, including how long your blog has been in existence, what your blog ranking is, and the legitimacy of your content. Once you have received approval for your blog, do a search of merchants by category and apply to the affiliate programs that compliment your blog content. Some premium programs require that your blog have a certain page ranking, but if you’re fairly new to blogging, there are programs that are more open to new websites. Next, find links to specific products or general links to that merchant and add the links to blog posts and/or widgets. Each time a product is purchased through your blog or website, you earn a commission. Commissions are paid out monthly. 

Be sure to sign up for more than one program, so you can find out which one works best for you. The majority of my sales come through Linkshare, as the most heavily purchased item on my site are Itunes apps, but because app purchases yield such a small commission per sale, the bulk of my actual commissions comes from Share-A-Sale.

3. Limit the number of brands and products you share.

My blogs are about writing, publishing, design, and French style, so I limit my text links and sidebar ads to companies I respect and which sell products that would appeal to my readers. For my writing blog, I link frequently to Bookshop.org and Amazon. On my Paris expat blog, which I started while living in Paris, I link to brands that sell the kind of clothing you might find on the street any day in Paris. This includes Kate Spade, Boden, and Everlane. 

I find that the most effective links are text links placed within an informative, well-written post about a very specific subject. Text links that offer a clear benefit to the reader–such as a sale event or credit for signing up–work well. 

4. Use an SEO program to increase blog traffic. By figuring out which key words are popular, how much competition exists for those key words, and how well your posts, pages, and website in general fit in with keywords that your readers are searching for, you’ll be able to monetize your blog. I use the SEO Checklist from SEO Buddy, which simplifies the process of bringing visitors to your site.

5. Create strong landing pages. The landing page doesn’t have to be the home page of your blog, but it can be. You can drive traffic to your landing page through good SEO practices, or by pasting the link at the bottom of email messages, in social sharing, or in comments you make on blogs and online forums. One way to easily create landing pages and complete websites is Weebly, which is very friendly for beginners.

6. Share your posts on social media. A large portion of the hits to my website come from Medium, Facebook, and Pinterest. But be careful, and share judiciously. If you share loads of links to thinks you want to sell, but you don’t share any personal news or practical information relating to your business, you’re going to lose followers. Only share information that you think your readers and persons in your social network might actually benefit from.

Ethical affiliate linking: Respect your twitter followers and facebook friends. I frequently post links to my reading recommendations, writing contests, design tips, and other content that is interesting and valuable to my readers. If I share a link to a post that includes affiliate links, I want to make sure the post is valuable in its own right. For example, one of my posts, Great Gifts for Writers, contains links to items that I actually use or that I would love to receive or give to someone else. My most lucrative post, 7 Things Parisian Women Really Wear, contains links to brands I personally purchase and wear. In both cases, I feel good about what I’m sharing, because these are products and brands I love and use myself.

I almost exclusively join an affiliate program only after I have been a customer. This is by no means mandatory, but it does ensure that you’re sharing products and services that you really stand by as a consumer. 

And this leads me to my golden rule of monetizing your blog: Only post links to products or services that a) you have used or b) you would be happy to use.