Creating and maintaining a high quality blog requires a substantial amount of time, effort and sometimes even money, so why not earn some cash back for all your hard work? If you have a great blog that receives a generous stream of traffic, it’s possible to do so without sacrificing the quality and value of content you provide your readers.

Displaying ads, offering premium, paid-for content and selling products are three ways to monetize your blog. And as WordPress has just about every functionality you can think of via plugins, it’s possible to add these features to your blog.

Display Ads

One plugin that I really like is WP125, a really simple solution for adding 125x125 ad boxes (and - contradictory to the plugins name - ad boxes of other sizes) to your site. It’s easy to monitor ad clickthroughs, set automatic expiration dates and change the way ads are displayed. Once activated, simply navigate to Widgets under the Appearance tab where you can then drag and drop ‘WP125’ into your sidebar area.

Another way to gain money from your blog is through displaying third-party ads, the largest program for this being Google Adsense. Once Google approves your application, Adsense lets you control the types of ads that are displayed on your site, so you can ensure they’re relevant to your audience in order to maximise revenue. It’s easy to add an Adsense code to your WordPress blog. Go to the widgets menu, drag and drop a Text widget onto your sidebar, add a title and underneath in the text field paste your Adsense code. Alternatively, there are a few good plugins for Adsense integration with extra functionality, a popular one being Google Adsense Plugin.

Offer Premium Content

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