This is a continuation of the first post in the series "Blogging: The Hottest Job Right Now"...

Making money with a blog is something many internet entrepreneurs aspire to. There are various ways that you can make money which I will outline in this article. All of the techniques I offer below are things I am currently doing to make money with my own blogs.

Affiliate marketing - Is there a product or service you love that your blog readers would like as well? You can sign up to be an affiliate of a company and make commissions from products you promote on your blog. You can find companies to affiliate with through directories such as CJ.com, Linkshare, ShareASale, and PepperJam. Big companies like Amazon.com have affiliate programs. If like to read ebooks, you can also check out Clickbank's marketplace for ebooks to promote.

When promoting a company's product or service, what I've found to be very effective at getting people to buy is sharing my own review of the product or service. Since many people go to the internet to do research before buying a product, your review may provide helpful information that a person needed to make a purchasing decision.

For more of my thoughts and tips on affiliate marketing, I recommend reading past posts from the Affiliate Marketing archives...

Google Adsense - These are text links ads hosted by Google that you can ad to various places on your blog. When a visitor to your blog clicks on any of these ads, you get paid. The amount you receive per click varies. Depending on the topic of your blog and the keywords that advertisers are targeting, you can get a few cents or you can even get $10 or more.

Here are a couple of helpful resources that will help you get started with Google Adsense:

• How Do I Get Started Making Money With Google Adsense?
  
• InsideAdsense's Channel on YouTube (watch video tutorials and webinars about Adsense)
• Joel Comm's Adsense Secrets 4. (Free ebook download for a limited time)
  

Text link ads - You can make money with your blog by selling ad space. This is a great way to make passive income. Let people know that ad space is available by dedicating a page on your blog that offers information about advertising. Here's an example of an advertising page I created for my Audi blog. You can also sell text link ads through "brokers". I currently use Linkworth, but I know that there are many other companies out there that will connect with you advertisers on commission.

Sponsored blog posts - There are companies who are willing to pay bloggers to review their business or product. However, I must warn that sponsored blog posts tend to turn readers off and could jeopordize your credibility. This is especially true if you're writing a post about a product or service that isn't even remotely related to your blog topic.

There's an art to writing a sponsored blog post. Here is an article that offers good tips on writing a sponsored post: 5 Tips For Pay-Per-Post Success. I personally try to stay away from hyped-up verbage when writing a sponsored post. I make an effort to write a post that provides valuable information to the reader while including a brief mention of the business, product, or service.

I've been making money with my blogs for the past five years and my income continues to increase each year. If you stay persistent and maintain a strong belief that you will make money, then it will happen.

Stay away from naysayers! I've read quite a few blogs where people complain that they only made a couple bucks a month and therefore, making money with a blog doesn't work. Don't let someone else tell you that these methods of making money online are useless. Most of the time, these are people who probably only blogged for two or three months and quit.

Of course, the more visitors you get to your blog, the more money you can make. In the next post in this series, I will share the different ways you can get free traffic to your blog.

Are you currently monetizing your blog? What is or isn't working for you?

Photo Credit: d70focus