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If your blog pulls in a couple of hundred dollars to treat your family to a few extra luxuries every month then you could be sitting on a valuable asset that isn’t achieving its true potential.  The reality is that some successful bloggers are able to pull in several thousand dollars per month from a few sites that are effectively monetized.

That’s why we’ve put together these five top tips on how to explode your blogging income.  These simple strategies from professional bloggers can help to boost your blog monetization, giving you the potential for a highly profitable source of income and the ability to increase your earnings dramatically, with only a small amount of extra time investment.

Once you’ve created your blog with the WordPress website builder, use these five top tips to give you the best chance of blogging income success.

1. Connect with Social Bookmarking Sites

Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon… the list goes on and they all have millions of visitors every month that you need to tap into to drive extra traffic to your site.  Use plug ins such as ShareThis and Sociable to make it easy for people to share your posts with their network of friends.  All they have to do is click onto icons below your posts, which gives them an easy link to share your content on their networking site.

You can also link your blog directly to Twitter and Facebook using TwitterFeed and WP-Facebook Connect.  Both of these plug ins (available on our resources page) allow your posts to be automatically placed on your Facebook and Twitter accounts, with replies automatically going into the comments section on your blog.  This helps to increase your network of followers and gives you the ability to directly contact them with news about your site and any product promotions you may have.

2. Add an “Advertise Here” Banner

If you’re generating good levels of traffic, advertisers may want to make a private arrangement with you and advertise on your site.  So make it easy for them! Create a link to an advertising page, with information on your traffic and demographic.  Make your contact details easy to find, so they can get in touch for more information about your rates.  You may also want to directly contact companies that may be interested in advertising with you and let them know about your site.

3.  Adsense Placement

You can literally double your Adsense earnings overnight by working on the correct placement of your ad units.  A 336 x 280 unit below the post titles, as well as a unit on the left hand side bar, appears to have the most success.  WP-Insert is a really useful plug in to add to any website builder.  It can help you to increase your advertising revenue through Adsense, with 10 built in ad widgets and the ability to place your advertising units wherever you choose on your site for better click through rates.

4. Experiment with Monetization Options

Google Adsense is still one of the most effective ways of making money from your blog.  However there are a number of other options which may be even more successful for you and once you’ve created your site using your website builder program, try experimenting with different options.  Here are some ideas:

• Chitika: similar to Adsense, these units tend to work best on product related blogs.  Their eMiniMalls and Related Product Units often tend to be the most lucrative.  They do also offer Premium Ad Units with a non-product focus.   
• Amazon Affiliate Program: it’s easy to recommend and write reviews of books, gadgets, DVDs and music relevant to your content.  You can then add an Amazon affiliate link to make it easy for them to buy, giving you earnings on the purchase.
• Shopzilla: similar to Chitika but often with a higher click value.  However the choice of ad unit type is more limited.

5. Sell Your Own Product

If you build up a good following on your blog, your visitors will trust you and are more likely to buy from you.  It’s easy to convert your WordPress site into a platform for selling goods and a great way to make some extra income.   You could sell eBooks, handicrafts, clothes, music or even your expertise.  All you’ll need is a PayPal account and an ecommerce plug in, such as WP e-Commerce, which provides a shopping cart and all the other tools you’ll need to accept payment.