How to Make Money Selling Ads on a WordPress Blog
Selling ads is one of the most lucrative ways of making money on a WordPress blog. But how do you go about it? The purpose of this post is to help you learn how you can sell ads on your WordPress blog or website.
What do you need?
The obvious thing that you will need is a WordPress blog or website on the right blogging platform. There is WordPress.com which is a hosted blogging service and the WordPress.org which is a self-hosted WordPress. To run ads on your blog or website, you will need to be on WordPress.org. This is because WordPress.com has its own WordAds programs which only allow third party ads under the business plan. If you don’t have a WordPress.org blog, you will need to set it up in order to make money selling ads.
Types of ads you can sell
Once you are setup on WordPress.org, you will have several types of ads to consider. Not all ad types will work on all blogs or websites. Some perform better with certain audiences. Your web traffic will also determine the type of ad you end up using. It is also possible to combine several types of ads in order to optimize your income. Here are the main types of ads you can use.
- Cost-per-Click (CPC) ads
These are the most common types of ads being displayed on blogs and websites. With this option, the ads are sold on a per-click basis. This means you will only get paid when a visitor on your page clicks on the ad. This type of ad works great for both advertisers and publishers.
To get this type of ad, you can start with Google Adsense. You just need to sign-up to the program and your website will become visible to the network of advertisers. The downside of selling ads using this method is that low web traffic and poor ad placement will cause you not to make money.
- Cost-per-Thousand-Impressions ads (CPM).
These are ads sold based on the number of times they are displayed. You will be paid for displaying ads on your blog or website whether it gets clicked or not. These ads don’t generate as much revenue as CPC but they are a great way to supplement your income if your website receives loads of traffic. Advertisers buy CPM ads on sites with a great reputation among their intended audiences.
- Flat Fee Ads
This will allow you to sell ad spots on your WordPress blog or website for a specified period of time. You price the cost of the ad based on the amount of traffic your website gets. This type of ad will allow you to know how much you will make at the end of the specified period.
- Affiliate ads
This is the fourth option you can use. With this, you will be sending traffic to an advertiser but only get paid if a user completes an action. The action could be downloading software, making a purchase, creating an account and so on.
The ads you use will depend on what you want to achieve and the nature of your website. Always use ads that are relevant to your website.