content optimization |

Thanks to the rise of user-friendly content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, it’s never been easier to create a blog. However, you may want to convert all of that time and effort into cash at some point.

Fortunately, there are lots of ways to make money as a blogger. If you’re generating a healthy amount of traffic, you’re in a prime position to turn your visitors into revenue.

In this post, we’ll discuss why so many people are monetizing their blogs. We’ll then share three of our favorite revenue-generating tips. Let’s get started!

Why You Should Consider Monetizing Your Blog

There are many different reasons why people decide to start a blog. You might have dreamed about monetization all along. Alternatively, perhaps you’re knowledgeable about a particular subject and want to share your passion with the world:

An example of a passion blog about growing succulents.

You might even use your posts as part of a content marketing strategy for a related business.

Regardless of why you started blogging, running a successful blog requires time and effort. At some point, you may want to be reimbursed for all your hard work.

Blogging can also turn into an expensive hobby. While there are plenty of free tools, you’ll usually end up investing some hard-earned cash into your blog.

Most commonly, these costs include purchasing web hosting and a domain name. However, you can also incur additional miscellaneous fees.

For example, you may pay for specialist training to help grow your audience. Alternatively, you might run advertising campaigns on popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Google.

By monetizing your blog, you can recoup some of these costs and perhaps even turn a profit.

While blogging is a hugely competitive industry, it’s still possible to convert a popular site into an additional revenue stream. You might even achieve the ultimate dream and trade your job for a career as a full-time blogger.

How to Monetize Your Blog (4 Revenue-Generating Tips)

If your blog has an audience, there are many ways to convert those visitors into revenue. Here are three ways to earn money from blogging.

1. Use a Paywall Plugin

As with any product, one of the easiest and most straightforward ways to make money off your content is to sell it.

If you have a WordPress site (and what blogger doesn't?), a high-quality paywall plugin is your best bet. The most popular one out there is MemberPress – and for good reason.

The plugin is super easy to use, requires no coding, and lets you do things like…

Create a new paywalled site
Add subscriptions to your existing site
Use super customized paywalling with flexible sampling (lead-in, metered, and hard paywalls) like The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, for example
Create and sell online courses
Build a dedicated community
Accept credit cards and digital wallet payments right on your site

The real beauty of MemberPress is in its Content Protection Rules and Memberships functions.

Through Content Protection Rules, you can really drill down how you monetize your content. You can protect…

All content – Your entire website
Posts categorized and posts tagged – All content under a specific category or tag
Single posts – Any individual post
All posts – All posts except those you specify as exempt
Custom URIs – Specific URLs (super useful if you want to restrict content like ebooks or digital downloads)
Custom post types – Any custom post type you create

MemberPress basically makes your blog work like any of the big, fancy online publications out there. And if you run into any issues with the plugin – or your site in general – reach out to the MemberPress wizards over at WP Tech Support.

2. Become an Affiliate Marketer

As an affiliate marketer, you’ll partner with third-party businesses and promote their products and services via your blog. You’ll earn a commission for all sales originating from your unique affiliate links.

Affiliate marketing is big business. With annual spending estimated at $12 billion, bloggers have a huge opportunity to make money online.

A quick search will reveal hundreds of affiliate programs that you can join. To help drive conversions, we recommend searching for a partner or products that will appeal to your existing readership.

If you’re unsure about your audience demographics, then you can learn more about your visitors using a tool such as Google Analytics:

It’s also wise to feature products related to your blog’s content. For example, if you write about your experiences as a parent, it may make sense to promote baby-themed products.

These relevant promotions will make your affiliate links feel more authentic, which can help drive conversions.

While using affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to generate money from blogging, affiliate URLs aren’t always pretty.

These links are often long and complex with obvious tracking codes. They can be off-putting to your readers, who may even wonder whether these odd-looking URLs are spam.

For this reason, we recommend simplifying your affiliate URLs using a link shortener such as the Pretty Links plugin:

Monetize your blog using the Pretty Links plugin.

With Pretty Links, you don't have to worry about lengthy URLs scaring your readers away. Simply enter the target link into the dashboard. Then, the plugin will generate a shorter, neater alternative, ready for you to post to your blog.

3. Enrol in an Advertising Network

Many businesses, including blogs, generate revenue by selling advertising space. There are various ad networks, but Google AdSense is one of the biggest platforms. In fact, it is used by over 38 million blogs and websites.

All of Google’s ads are mobile-responsive, so you can earn revenue regardless of whether readers are using a desktop, smartphone, or tablet.

Google even tailors these adverts based on the visitor’s geographical location, which is great for driving conversions.

There are multiple ways to display Google advertisements on your blog, but WordPress users may want to check out Site Kit. This plugin adds a range of popular Google services to your WordPress dashboard, including Google AdSense:

After activating and configuring this plugin, you’ll need to wait for Google to approve your blog. However, as soon as you get the go-ahead, it will start displaying ads across your site.

Site Kit will even optimize your advertisements automatically by determining their optimal sizes, types, and placements. With this tool, you can avoid alienating your readers by displaying intrusive or irrelevant adverts.

4. Add Buy Now Buttons to Your Blog Posts

Some of the biggest websites in the world use buy now buttons to encourage visitors to make a purchase. These buttons simplify the purchasing process by enabling customers to jump straight to checkout:

Although they’re commonly associated with ecommerce giants such as Amazon and eBay, you can add buy now buttons to your blog posts. If you sell products or services in addition to writing articles, these buttons can convert your readers into customers.

Alternatively, you can use buy now buttons to promote your affiliate URLs if you're part of an affiliate network.

Even if you don’t have any products to promote, you can still monetize your site using buy now buttons. Many writers publish blogs for free but ask visitors to donate if they enjoyed the content.

If you create your buttons using a flexible service such as our Buy Now Plus plugin, then it’s easy to transform them into donation prompts:

By simply changing the button’s label, you can start accepting donations. Buy Now Plus even supports variable pricing, so your readers can choose how much money to send you. This flexibility may result in more contributions.

Conclusion

Creating a successful blog takes time and dedication. At some point, you may want to be reimbursed for all of your hard work.

Let’s quickly recap three ways to monetize your blog:

Become an affiliate marketer, using a plugin such as Pretty Links.
Enrol in an advertising network.
Add buy now buttons to your blog posts, with our Buy Now Plus service.

Do you have any questions about how to make money as a blogger? Let us know in the comments section below!

If you liked this post, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Buy Now buttons can be an effective tool for driving conversions and boosting your profits. However, in the competitive world of e-commerce, it’s essential to optimize every part of your store, including your buy now buttons.

Fortunately, if you’re using a flexible tool such as Buy Now Plus, there’s a lot of room to get creative. By putting some extra thought into how you set up your buttons, you can maximize the chances of customers spotting Buy Now and taking you up on the offer.

In this post, we’ll explore why this button is such a powerful solution for driving sales. Then we'll share three simple tactics to improve those all-important click-through rates (CTRs). Let’s get started!

Why Buy Now Buttons Are Important for Conversions

Cart abandonment rates are a huge problem for e-commerce sites. There’s evidence to suggest that 69% of customers fail to complete the checkout process.

To boost conversions, it’s vital that you streamline your checkout workflow. The fewer steps customers have to take, the fewer opportunities they’ll have to rethink their decisions and abandon their purchases.

Here, a buy now button can be your secret weapon. This is a simple-but-effective call to action (CTA) that, when clicked on, takes users directly to your checkout page:

Buy now buttons enable customers to skip multiple steps in the purchasing process. This may include time-consuming stages, such as account creation. When shoppers can complete their purchases in seconds, you should notice a positive impact on your cart abandonment rates.

If you create your button using a platform such as Buy Now Plus, you can even use it across multiple platforms, including your website, social media accounts, and email marketing. This helps provide a more consistent and seamless user experience (UX), which can further boost your conversions.

How to Optimize Your Buy Now Buttons and Boost Your ROI (3 Tips)

Buy now buttons may be a powerful tool, but e-commerce is a competitive business. If you’re going to get a cut of the online shopping market, you’ll want to optimize every part of your store. Here are three tips to ensure you’re getting the maximum value from your buy now buttons.

1. Add Buy Now Buttons to Your Blog Posts

Content creation is a hugely important marketing strategy for many online stores. By regularly publishing valuable content, you can encourage people to return. Every visit presents an opportunity to make a sale.

Blog posts can be particularly effective for promoting your products and services. For example, if you sell cooking utensils, you might publish recipes showcasing all the delicious meals that budding chefs can create using your products. This content can also help boost your search engine rankings.

Once you’ve attracted a potential customer to your blog, it’s important to bridge the gap between them reading your content and making a purchase. By adding a buy now button to your post, you can capitalize on the buzz generated and encourage impulse purchases.

If you create a button using our Buy Now Plus service, we’ll provide a handy embed code:

With it, you can add the button to any part of your site, including specific blog posts. Simply open the page or post where you want to feature your button and create a new shortcode block:

Once you paste the embed code into this block, your button will appear. This flexibility and fine-grained control enable you to deploy your buy now buttons at the exact moment when readers are most likely to make a purchase.

2. Create More Powerful CTAs for Your Email Campaigns

Email marketing can be another effective way to promote your products and services. According to the 2019 Adobe Email Usage Study, Americans spend over five hours checking their mailboxes every single day. That’s a huge opportunity to get your items in front of your target audience.

In addition, your marketing emails remain in customers' inboxes until they perform some action. Even if they fail to check their inboxes for hours or even days after receiving your emails, your content will still be waiting the next time they log in. This is in stark contrast to time-sensitive marketing channels such as social media.

Email marketing is a powerful tool in your arsenal, so it’s crucial that you use it to its full potential. By incorporating buy now buttons into your next email campaign, you enable customers to start the checkout process directly from their inboxes.

If you couple your buy now buttons with compelling marketing copy and beautiful product images, you should notice a sharp surge in conversions:

An example of a Buy Now button in an email.

Even if you deploy buy now buttons across your website, some shoppers may still abandon their carts. Many store owners use email to remind these customers about the items still in their baskets. However, requiring busy users to navigate back to your site and then to their abandoned baskets might be too much to ask.

By adding a buy now button to your cart abandonment emails, you can remove multiple steps from the cart recovery process. This may be enough to nudge uncertain shoppers over the finishing line.

3. Replace Traditional Affiliate Links With Buy Now Buttons

Many website owners use affiliate marketing to monetize their content. As part of an affiliate partnership, you’ll promote a merchant’s products or services using a special URL. You’ll earn a commission for every sale that originates from this link.

Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative sideline, or even a way to generate a full-time income. To put this into perspective, The Wirecutter affiliate marketing site famously made an estimated $10 million in revenue, and was eventually sold to the New York Times for $30 million.

If you decide to explore the world of affiliate marketing, buy now buttons can encourage visitors to interact with your links:

An example of a Buy Now button used in affiliate marketing.

Many internet users are security and privacy-conscious, and may avoid clicking on a link that contains an obvious affiliate tracking code. By embedding your URLs in a buy now button, you may be able to improve your CTRs and increase your affiliate revenue.

Conclusion

If you’re going to drive conversions, it’s not enough to simply add a bunch of buy now buttons to your site. With careful planning and creativity, you can capture potential customers when they’re most likely to make purchases.

Let’s recap three ways that you can transform a simple button into a high-converting CTA:

Add buy now buttons to your blog posts.
Create more powerful CTAs for your email campaigns.
Replace traditional affiliate links with buy now buttons.

What techniques do you use to drive conversions? Let us know in the comments section below!