You have a blog that offers quality content, services and useful information. You have attracted an impressive number of readers and the numbers are increasing. Although you may not have thought of it before, your blog is now ready to generate money through advertising.

Your diligent efforts to garner an audience have paid off and you now want to leverage your efforts and make money from your blog. Every time someone visiting your blog buys a product or service, you get paid a commission from the advertiser.

How to make your blog appeal to potential advertisers:

Advertisers look for three things from any blog:

• A large audience as they have more chances of selling their products and making bigger sales
• Prime advert placement. Advertisers will want to place their adverts where audiences are able to spot them quickly
• A good niche market so that advertisers have a readymade client base to cater to

Advertisements usually pay out according to ‘CPM’; Cost per Thousand (‘M’ is the Roman numeral for the number 1000).

Side Bar advertising

You can also consider placing adverts in the side bars of your blog. You could offer a range of sizes that fit comfortably in the side bar. Again, what you earn out of these adverts depends on the popularity of your blog.

Google Adsense

This is one of the most popular advertising networks used by bloggers. Google Adsense is easy to implement and generates income based on pay-per-click. You normally get paid about 10 to 15 days after the end of the month. For example, if you have earned $100 for March, Google Adsense will pay in your money by April 15^th.

Vertical advertising networks

These are the most lucrative form of advertising and are run by big companies. Your blog has to be popular and you need to apply to them in order to be invited to use their ‘code’ which they will insert on your blog. Once the code is inserted, ads run automatically on your blog.

But you do have an active say in the kind of advertising that you prefer. For example, you can specify that you don’t want flashing banners running on your blog. Vertical advert networks are used by a lot of big companies and you can make a lot of money from them.

Advertisers of products and services are always on the lookout for blogs that have great content, a good audience and a wide reach. A media kit containing information on the different advertising services your blog offers, including rates and terms, which you can send out to potential advertisers is greatly recommended.

What tips would you give to make a blog appeal to potential advertisers? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.