This is part four of the overall series “The Business of Blogging“, but it’s part three in the more specific topic of monetization (making money off of a blog).  In this post, I’ll be sharing about affiliate links and how they work. First of all, what are affiliate links? They are special links from a blog post (or social media post) to a specific company, product, or service.  The blogger makes a commission if an item is purchased when a reader/follower clicks through one of those links. Simple enough, right? So, how do affiliate links work for the blog reader? In my opinion, affiliate links are a kind of monetization that are a win-win in most cases.  A blogger is sharing a product or service that you might be interested in and, if you are interested, and make a purchase based on their recommendation, they earn a small bonus for referring

This is part three of our overall series of the business of blogging, but it’s part two in the sub-series on monetization (aka – how bloggers make their money).  In this post, I’m letting readers as well as aspiring/new bloggers know how sponsored posts work. If you haven’t read the first two posts in this series, specifically the post on how ads work, I would suggest taking the time to do that before you proceed with reading this post. As I mentioned in that post, ads in general are a hot topic, but I think sponsored posts are the most controversial.  And, as a blog reader myself, I really can understand why.  I’ll get into that more once I explain sponsored posts and how they work.  For that reason, though, I found this post difficult to write!  It’s hard to not sound defensive, but I’m going to give it a

If you missed the first series in this blog post, the business of blogging / money matters, you can find it HERE. I have wanted to write a post about the ins and outs of ads and sponsorships for years, but it seems like such a hornet’s nest that I have decided to stay away from it.  Well, I’m going to beat that nest with a stick today, so let’s hope I don’t end up running away with a swarm after me! I think it’s such a hot topic for two main reasons… ONE If you ask anyone if they like watching commercials or being pitched to, I bet 99% of them would say no.  Including me.  When I answer the phone and I think it’s a telemarketer, I immediately bristle.  When we had cable/dish TV, we would always record shows and watch them later, so we could fast forward

When people ask me what I do, I usually say, “I own my own business.”  This suffices for those who aren’t curious or inquisitive at all.  For others, though, they press further.  “What kind of business?”  And that always stumps me, because my business it multi-faceted and it isn’t easily categorized.  Insurance companies and accountants often scratch their head when they are trying to define what I do in one word. I usually boil it down to “blogger”.  It was hard to me to call myself that for a while, because I always thought of bloggers as guys in their mom’s basements ranting about sports or politics.  But, after pecking away on this URL for over 6 years, I have embraced the title. It seems that a lot of people have the same misconceptions about “bloggers”, so I get some quizzical looks when I claim that job title. Like it can’t possibly be a