Making Money on a WordPress.com Blog

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  burritonator · Member · Jul 30, 2013 at 11:06 pm

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  Hi,

  I’ve had a personal blog on WordPress.com for several years. It isn’t devoted to any single topic. I just write about what interests me.

  I’ve never tried to make any money off of my blog, but I was thinking about trying to make a few dollars here and there. I’ve read the TOS and some posts about the subject of monetizing a blog. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of what is allowed and what isn’t, but I wanted to ask and make sure what I have in mind is allowed. Keep in mind I’m not a premium user and therefore I’m not paying for my blog.

  Here’s an example of what I’m considering: I’ve written several posts about the Andy Griffith show. Would it be OK if I post a link to the Amazon store where my readers could purchase DVDs of the show?

  Another example is that I’ve written a lot about the Dollywood theme park. I haven’t looked yet to see if there is any Dollywood merchandise on Amazom, but if there is, could I put a link to that at the bottom of my posts about Dollywood? If Amazon doesn’t carry that merchandise, could I post a link to Dollywood’s online store?

  A final example would be movie reviews. I post them on my blog occasionally. Would it be OK to post a link to the movie on the Amazon store in case a reader wishes to buy it?

  Thanks,
  Brent R.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  raincoaster · Member · Jul 30, 2013 at 11:26 pm

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  I’m not staff, but I can reasonably say two things:

  1) staff will almost certainly approve that, because your blog is a real blog and monetization is not what it’s about. And of course, no more than one link per post.

  2) this is a crappy, crappy way to make money. I did affiliate blogging for a couple of years and you’re maybe MAYBE going to see a hundred bucks a year out of that kind of thing unless your traffic is well up in the thousands per day, in which case you’d be better off moving off WP.com and getting an independent site with WP.org software.

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  burritonator · Member · Jul 30, 2013 at 11:31 pm

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  Thanks for the info. As for your point #2, that’s kind of what I expected. I’m not expecting to make more than a little extra spending money (or maybe just some pocket change). It’s just something I thought I might try.

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  raincoaster · Member · Jul 30, 2013 at 11:37 pm

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  I would recommend, if your traffic is steady or increasing, that you get a custom domain name. It’s the only paid upgrade I always recommend, but it’s worth it, the sooner you get it the better (for SEO-related reasons). Then you can also apply for WordAds.