How to monetize your blog as an African content creator

 

Click here to register as a content creator and monetize your site.

 

 

Key takeaways

 

1. 1. Google AdSense has been a reliable service that has assisted website owners in monetizing their content.
   2. Adsense provides a user-friendly experience in monetizing your website by supplying key data to help you keep track of website or blog performance.
   3. As such, most online publishers have AdSense at the beginning and end of their website monetization plans.
   4. Google Display Network (AdSense) has empowered content creators and also assisted advertisers to reach their target audiences more effectively.
   5. There are, however, more exciting ways of content monetization in the ever-expanding digital space.

 

 

 

 

How to monetize your website without AdSense

 

As a content creator in Africa, advertisers and brands all over the world are looking for your platform to connect with African audiences and boost their visibility on the continent.

Brands in the fields of forex, gambling, and crypto have in the recent past made major advances as they try to stamp their presence in Africa.

 

 

Also read: Monetize your website through link insertion and niche edits

 

 

 

Different ways to monetize your website (Paid content partnerships)

 

Away from the Google ads, you can consider the following content monetization services on your website:

1. Sponsored posts/Sponsored blog posts
2. Link insertion/Niche edits
3. Web banner ads
4. Affiliate marketing
5. CPC campaigns
6. CPM campaigns
7. Native advertising
8. Social media promotions
9. YouTube ads
10. Link adverts (Web footer and navigation bars)

 

 

Click here to register as a content creator and monetize your site.

 

 

 

 

 

Why is your site/blog valuable to advertisers?

 

Brands and businesses across the globe are searching for advertorial services among content creators, site admins, and blog owners to achieve different objectives.

High-authority sites with good metrics are sought-after for the following reasons:

 

1. To increase domain authority, page authority, and domain rating for their websites through in-content editorial backlinks.
2. Raise the search engine ranking of their websites. The aim is to have client sites appear on the first page of the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
3. Increase web traffic and visits.
4. Create awareness about products and services as they try to penetrate new markets.
5. For instance, gambling, crypto, and forex firms are heavily investing in outreach campaigns in Africa as they venture into the less-explored African market with over 1.2 billion people.
6. Boost online visibility and reach more potential customers.
7. Make sales directly from content campaigns.
8. Build credibility for their brand by collaborating with authoritative and trusted websites.

 

As a website owner or admin, you stand in a pole position to make more money in addition to what you are earning on Google AdSense.

To benefit from these partnerships, however, you need to do your homework and first ensure that your site is optimized for search ranking.

 

 

Start earning from promoted content services

 

As a site owner/admin you need to implement the following to earn from sponsored posts, niche edits, or even web banners:

 

1. A well-designed website that is optimized for search engine ranking. This is done through a process called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
2. Your website should rank highly in terms of traffic, domain authority, and domain rating.
3. It is also important to find a niche that you can focus on. Niches are specific content categories like sports, gambling, forex, finance, technology, etc.
4. Niches help you to build a strong and interested audience, which then draws in advertisers interested in your content category.
5. You should be able to publish articles and share live links with clients as fast as possible.
6. An active email address and contact number should be readily available for clients to easily reach out with orders.

 

 

 

 

 

How to optimize your site for search ranking

 

The following brief steps will help you optimize your site for search ranking:

 

1. Create long, informative pieces of content about your product or service. Informative articles, audio, or videos are valuable in building a solid audience.
2. Keyword research. This is the process of identifying and analyzing words that are searched by users on search engines like Google.
3. Keyword research gives important data that guides you in structuring your content to include information that is most wanted by your audience.
4. Main/prominent Keywords should be positioned in web page titles. Keywords should also appear in subheads and body text by order of prominence.
5. Search Intent Analysis. This involves a thorough examination of the SERP to identify what people are really looking for by searching specific words.
6. Search intent could be transactional, informational, or navigational.
7. For instance, when people search for a specific Toyota car, what specifically do they want? It could be information about features, prices to buy, or local dealerships.
8. Search Intent is easily identified by looking at the articles/materials that are displayed as the search results.
9. Identifying Latent Semantic Keywords and incorporating them in relevant content on your web pages.
10. Latent Semantic Keywords are words that are closely related/with similar meanings to the keywords people search for.
11. Submitting a Google Site map. Google reads your site map to index and rank your articles properly.
12. Conducting an SEO outreach campaign to get high-quality backlinks. Having other sites linking back to your website increases your authority.
13. Having active social media accounts to engage and direct more users to your website.
14. Content marketing
15. Video Marketing

 

 

 

 

 

Monetize website traffic by publishing sponsored posts

 

1. Also called sponsored articles, sponsored posts are pieces of text that promote particular products or services.
2. Sponsored articles are published to generate traffic from search engines like Google to particular websites.
3. Sponsored posts are also published on social media like Facebook to drive traffic to specific business websites.
4. Bearing text, images, and contextual links, sponsored articles are paid for by brands/companies thus earning the tag “sponsored”
5. High-ranking and authoritative websites/blogs are the most preferred platforms for sponsored posts because of their high traffic.

 

Below is a simplified approach to earning revenue through publishing sponsored posts:

 

1. Optimize your website search ranking through SEO. This is how your site will get noticed by both readers/viewers and advertisers.
2. Actively check your emails for sponsored post requests
3. Research how much you can charge based on your traffic and other metrics like Domain Authority, Domain Rating, and Page Authority.
4. Prepare a rate card for advertisers.
5. Respond to content requests through well-toned and informative emails.
6. Publish sponsored articles from advertisers efficiently.(Preferred turn-around time is 24 hours)
7. To get more orders you should consider publishing all link types inside advertisers’ content.
8. The various link types include;
   • 1. Do-follow links
     2. Indexable links
     3. No-follow links
     4. Permanent links
9. This will make your website a one-stop shop for all your clients’ needs.

 

 

 

 

Click here to register as a content creator and monetize your site.

 

 

Sponsored posts best practices

 

1. It is advisable not to mark articles as “Sponsored” as this may draw your readers away from the content.
2. Advertisers also do not fancy having their content marked as “Sponsored”.
3. Once published send the live link and invoice, while thanking the client for the business.
4. Be sure to follow up with advertisers after successfully processing their orders by publishing articles.
5. Create a mailing list for all sponsored post clients to enable routine follow-ups.

 

 

What are contextual do-follow and no-follow links?

 

1. Contextual links are pieces of clickable text within an article that direct you to related content or more ideas to what you are reading.
2. Do-follow backlinks are links that allow Google to associate your website with the one you want to link from.
3. This passes authority to your site and increases your domain rating.
4. No-follow links are ignored by search engines. A no-follow link will not be associated with another website, and hence will not be considered for page authority.

 

 

 

 

Why would some websites have more sponsored content than others?

 

Advertisers and brands publish sponsored posts on specific websites for specific reasons.

The amount of sponsored content on different websites can vary due to the following aspects:

1. Brands and businesses target different audience demographics that mostly include age and location.
2. Consequently, websites that cover thriving sectors such as betting and have appropriate target audience demographics get more sponsored content.
3. On the same note, certain content niches have the most content appeal to advertisers.
4. The most attractive niches/categories for sponsored posts include:
   1. 1. Betting and casino
      2. Crypto and Forex
      3. Gadgets
      4. CBD (Cannabidiol) – Posts related to the subject of Marijuana
5. High traffic, high Domain Authority, and High Domain Rating sites. These are the most favorable metrics that advertisers go for.
6. High traffic, for instance, guarantees high visibility and engagement for products and brands.
7. It is also worth noting that websites with high-quality content attract more sponsored posts.
8. High-quality content is detailed, and in-depth, carrying as much valuable information as possible.

 

In essence, the amount of sponsored content a website receives depends on a combination of reasons as listed above.

 

 

What is Domain Authority, Domain Rating, and Page Authority on a website?

 

1. DA (Domain Authority) is a metric developed by Moz.com that shows how likely a website is to be ranked on the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
2. DR (Domain Rating)  is a metric developed by Ahrefs.com and refers to the strength of a website based on the number of other sites linking to it.
3. PA (Page Authority) is a score (0-100) that shows how well a specific page from a website can rank on the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

 

 

Click here to register as a content creator and monetize your site.

 

 

How do sponsored posts work?

 

1. Sponsored posts mainly work through contextual backlinks.
2. Backlinks drive traffic/visitors towards related blogs, websites, or online shops.
3. Web metrics like traffic, domain authority, and domain rating are grown through a steady supply of backlinks.

 

 

Also read: What are sponsored posts and how do they work for business?

 

 

What is the difference between guest posts and sponsored posts?

 

1. Sponsored posts refer to paid content while guest posting involves contributing articles to another website that does similar content.
2. Guest posting is a mutual partnership where publishers can get contextual backlinks pointing to their sites.

 

 

 

 

While Google AdSense has been a reliable method to monetize websites and online blogs, publishers should be aware of new revenue streams in the digital media space.

With the now popular strategies like publishing sponsored posts, link insertion and banner advertising, bloggers and site owners stand to gain even more.

This, however, is only possible if bloggers and site owners do a bit of homework including the all-important Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process.