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Although Adsense is one of the most effective monetization strategies for many blog owners, there are countless other income streams which don’t involve the use of advertising at all.  When you create a website, it’s important to explore a number of different income avenues and see which works best for you. 

We’ve put together 3 of the most effective strategies for making money from your blog without the use of advertising:

1.   Turn Your Blog Into A Paid Membership Site 

If you are an expert in your field with valuable knowledge to share, people will pay to hear what you’ve got to say.  You may need to build your profile first and generate a loyal following, but once your name is recognized as an expert in your niche you can create a paid membership blog. 

The WP-Membership plug in allows you to collect membership fees from your readers via PayPal, YourPay and Authorize.net.  There are multiple subscription options, different payment options and varying subscription lengths.  You can also offer a free trial, discounted trial and certain areas of your website that can be accessed for free.  The plug in costs $29.97 with free lifetime upgrades and gives you everything you need to create a website for members only.  Go to our resources page to download it.

2.   Sell Your Expertise

Another way to sell your valuable expertise is by creating additional products that your visitors can buy.  This could be anything from podcasts to eBooks, telephone consultations to tutorials.  Go through your resume and you’ll see that you have specific knowledge that can be transformed into great services and products.

For example if you are an experienced tax accountant you could create an eBook or podcast entitled: “101 Tax Saving Tips for Small Businesses.”  Or you might offer phone consultations for small businesses or tutorials on filling in your tax returns.  This kind of information is invaluable for a large market of people. 

If you want to create a website to sell your products you’ll need an ecommerce plug in that allows visitors to make payments.  Are PayPal and YAK for WordPress are two easy to use plug ins (available for free on our resources page), giving the option to pay through PayPal and a number of other different avenues. 

3.      Affiliate Programs

As readers get to know you, they’ll begin to trust your recommendations and want to hear about products and services relevant to your niche.  Most bloggers name drop during their posts and a great way to make money from this is through affiliate links.

There are literally thousands of affiliate programs available, which give you a percentage of the sale of products you recommend.  You may think these are just the same as advertising but affiliate links are quite different.  People will appreciate your recommendations and the fact you make it easy for them to buy the products. 

When talking about your affiliate products don’t use blatant sales copy.  This will almost definitely turn your readers away.  Instead give them details about the product in your own words, why you think it’s good and your own personal experience with it.  Also make the reference to the product as natural as possible. 

You’ll find many different affiliate products relevant to your niche, such as books by experts in your field, new gadgets, or services offered by specialists.  If you create a website and want to add affiliate links, simply go to any search engine and type in affiliate programs.  You’ll come up with countless options relevant to your niche and it’s just a matter of seeing which works best for your site.