best way to monetize a new blog

February 21, 2014 6:54 AM

I have just begun a new blog, one dealing with the world of marijuana, medical use, songs, photos, news, legal matters...How best to get ads to monetize my site? Any experience with the vaqrious ad placement outfits?
posted by Postroad to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

The best way to monetize a new blog is to focus on growing readership. But, that's not your question. Assuming you have readership, the best way, i.e. the way that makes the most money, to monetize a blog is to pitch products that are highly relevant to your readers on commission as an affiliate. You can do that by putting ads in traditional ad locations, putting simple text links at the end of posts and in the RSS feed, writing entire posts about the product, etc. I personally prefer text ads at the footer (like a post on MeFi) and traditional sidebar ads.

Doing this will work better if you know more about the products or services than your readers, so, rather than directing you to a big affiliate broker like CommissionJunction, I'd suggest to scope out products yourself, giving you knowledge, and participating in their/their retailer's affiliate program directly or contacting them to set up an affiliate program.
posted by michaelh at 7:14 AM on February 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

On the flip side, the easiest way is to join an ad network like Google Display/Ad Words. Throw some ads on the right rail and in between articles using their publishing tools and forget about it. It's not going to be as lucrative as finding advertisers yourself, but depending on traffic you could make a decent amount with little to no effort.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:28 AM on February 21, 2014 [1 favorite]