As a Netizen, you are familiar with the term "blog", which stems from the word weblog. There are different kinds of blogs, but many of them tend to be on the personal side of the spectrum. Still, it is possible to make money blogging. Some people make enough income to rely on it as main source of livelihood. Others just use it as something to supplement their day jobs.
How exactly does it work? Early in the Internet boom years, when people were scrambling to get connected and enjoying cyberspace, marketers saw a golden opportunity for marketing and product placement. Whether you are the type to tolerate advertising or the kind who hates overt product promotion, you know how much marketing has pervaded throughout the World Wide Web. This marketing is what makes making blogging income possible.
When you put up a personal blog, it will usually contain posts with your thoughts and expressions within. What if you can earn from mentioning products and services in your posts? It is literally word-of-mouth advertising. Of course, the way you advertise them may or may not be based on your actual experiences. The point is, if a deal have been made between you and those who are interested in marketing their products or services via your blog, then you can get paid to do so. The most common business model is the pay-per-click model, where the blog owner gets a bit of money every time someone clicks the link provided to him or her by the marketers.
Ads on blogs can take a variety of forms. Inline insertions may be the most difficult to apply even if it is the most basic in terms of technology. This basically means writing up articles and posts that include the referral link within the text. Blog sites like WordPress never come without a hyperlink option and how to use it is usually taught along with the basics in WordPress guide. You may need really good writing creativity if you plan to include referral link within the text, this may hamper personal expression, it that is your goal.
Aside from including the link within the actual article, you could put them in the header or footer sections of your posts. This has the advantage of loosening constraints on personal expression and readability, but can cause the link to become less conspicuous and thus less likely to be clicked.
The last method involves putting up banner ads on your blog. Banner ads are what you would expect: they are like the advertising posters and classified ads of the Internet. These banner ads may be static, staying the same until the owner changes them, or dynamic, generated every time someone visits the webpage. With all the effort it takes to market a product through blogging, you may want to consider the option of putting in blog security as well, you don’t want to have all the income you’re making just disappear into thin air.
Another way to make some money is to put up an advertising blog. This kind of blog stuffs itself with advertising gimmicks throwing away personal expression. All three methods mentioned above are used in this type of blog. Since these sites are perceived as corruptions of the purpose of blogs, controls have been put into place to limit these blogs. It is up to you how you choose to make your blogging income.