If you fill your blog or site with popups, advertisements and bait-and-switch paywalls, you will definitely get an immediate cash flow, however the reputation of your blog as a trustworthy source of useful and helpful articles will be broken. It will be hard to gain the community’s trust back, as well.
This was the main reason why we have gathered several methods for you to be able to gain profit from your WordPress blog without damaging your reputation.
1) Make the unique content available only for members
Content models like that are widespread across numerous industries, which offer the base content for free with an option to buy eBooks or special reports.
Many websites like that offer free publications, but if you want to see the premium content, you must be a part of “club” or “membership”.
Actually, there are several ways to load membership-only publications on WordPress,among the most popular are Membership Pro 2, Wishlist and Restrict Content Pro.
2) Background of your blog or site can be rented out.
You may not even realize it, but background of your blog with high traffic is a very valuable estate.
At the moment it can look unassuming, but advertisers will pay a lot to place their adds at the background of your popular blog or site.
Why? Simply because relevant ads, placed on the background of websites with high traffic, have much higher click rate than any other. You can even create beautiful and stylish looks for your website with the help of these background ads.
3) Advertising related products
As surprising as it sounds you actually have plenty of opportunities to
make money by offering relevant clothing items or gear to your readers.
If your blog is about the design, then it is worth to offer your audience mugs or shirts,
where they will be able to print the designs they like on your website.
Besides, you won’t need any additional investments in order to get started,
which is why you won’t loose anything. WordPress offers a perfect opportunity to integrate such items.
If you make a deal with the manufacturer of certain goods you can monetize your blog via the affiliate traffic.
For instance, users will gladly read thorough and well illustrated guides, which contain recommendations to purchase products, described in them, based on certain well-explained criteria.
For example, famous bloggers can write reviews and don’t conceal the fact that they were paid to do so. They don’t have to hide it because their readers read their reviews in any case as they have previously built a strong following for themselves, providing useful and interesting information.
There has recently appeared a new trend – publishers accept sponsored content only if it is highly qualitative. It’s a tricky issue, because no one wants its blog or website look cheap and possess a lot of trashy sales content.
So what can be done to smoother the effect?The most obvious and correct answer will be to mark the post as “sponsored”, so that the customers have correct expectations.
Thus, it is obvious that you have several options to monetize your website or blog without harming user experience. You just need to figure out a way to add value to that content that is free on your website, so that it can be equally if not more valuable than the sponsored one. In such case your readers won’t consider themselves tricked and will not abandon your blog.
4) Recommendations of the products/services that you trust
If you make a deal with the manufacturer of certain goods you can monetize your blog via the affiliate traffic.
For instance, users will gladly read thorough and well illustrated guides, which contain recommendations to purchase products, described in them, based on certain well-explained criteria.
For example, famous bloggers can write reviews and don’t conceal the fact that they were paid to do so. They don’t have to hide it because their readers read their reviews in any case as they have previously built a strong following for themselves, providing useful and interesting information.
5) You can publish posts, sponsored by advertisers
There has recently appeared a new trend – publishers accept sponsored content only if it is highly qualitative. It’s a tricky issue, because no one wants its blog or website look cheap and possess a lot of trashy sales content.
So what can be done to smoother the effect?The most obvious and correct answer will be to mark the post as “sponsored”, so that the customers have correct expectations.
Thus, it is obvious that you have several options to monetize your website or blog without harming user experience. You just need to figure out a way to add value to that content that is free on your website, so that it can be equally if not more valuable than the sponsored one. In such case your readers won’t consider themselves tricked and will not abandon your blog.