Last Updated on by Jeremy
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Let's pretend for a moment that you arrived at a blog, one not so different than this one perhaps, read the article you intended, and enjoyed it. What do you do next?
While your own path from there may be different, the vast majority of people who read blogs do something fairly simple: they leave.
Odds are good you do this too, but let's take a moment to go past that. Let's say you really enjoyed the article, or perhaps you have been a fan of that particular blogger and want to help them out. What can you do?
Well, we have several easy ways for you to help out a blogger you like, and they all can be done for free!
Read One More Article
This one is fairly simple. Most bloggers who host ads make income based on the number of ad views their site gets every single month. It isn't much, but for every 1,000 views they may earn $5, $10, $20, or even $30. Multiply that over tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of views per month, and they may be able to actually make a reasonable income out of it.
You reading one more article would not help them reach this goal alone, but every extra view does count on the order of a couple cents. So if you have time to read one more article when visiting your favorite blogs, this can go a long way for the blogger over time if more and more people do this one simple task.
To read one more article on our site after you've finished with this one, check out our Read More Posts links at the bottom of this article.
Subscribe to Their Newsletter (and Read It)
Do you really like the blogger's content and want to read more in the future, rather than right now? Subscribe to their newsletter! Most bloggers offer newsletters anywhere from weekly (like us), to monthly, quarterly, or even less frequent depending on their newsletter structure.
By subscribing to their newsletter you'll receive these updates, can check out new articles in the future, and it gives the blogger a heads up that you really care about what they're doing. Be careful with this one, however, as bloggers have to pay to maintain their subscribers so if you join a blogger's newsletter make sure you will continue reading in the future!
To join our newsletter to receive our newest articles in your inbox once a week, click the link below and submit your email:
Share Their Articles on Social Media
Think your friends and social followers will enjoy the article you just read? Be sure to click the sharing buttons found on most blogger's sites and share it with your community (or like, comment, and share if you see an article pop up on social media). Even if you only got one extra click to a blogger's page because of your share, that is one extra view to their site, a little bit extra revenue for them, and the possibility of obtaining one more subscriber for your favorite blogger. Have more friends who would enjoy the content? You could personally trigger an article going viral and earn the blogger a lot in the process (it's even happened to us from one random share)!
Going even further on this one, those pesky algorithms we mentioned above (such as how Google displays results) often take social media numbers into account when showing an article to other potential readers. If you think your share may seem small to your community, this aspect of social sharing is independent of that and goes further than most people think.
Example: Our Strip District article on our local Pittsburgh blog has been liked, retweeted, and pinned over 30,000 times and it is now #1 in search. When did the jump to #1 occur? After a viral share on social media- the shares help!
Link to Them on Your Blog
Are you a blogger as well? Do your favorite blogs a favor and link to them on your site if it is relevant! The added links will help your readers find your favorite blogs or articles, and the link itself will help that blogger rank higher on search engines which use linking as a primary metric to gauge popularity.
Example: See that Strip District link in the previous bullet above? Links like that, when appropriate and relevant to the content, are quite helpful. But we would always advise only to add links when they are 100% relevant to the topic at hand and may be of value to your readers, and not simply to just give a link back.
Email Them to Say Thanks (or Comment!)
It may seem like a silly one, but take a few minutes out of your day to email your favorite blogger and to thank them for an article. We as an industry rarely get these and they are almost always appreciated, especially if they helped you in one way or another.
Along this topic, do not email a blogger asking a million questions, making unusual requests (unless clearly made available on their site), or asking them to do work for you for free. Bloggers are people, employees, and business owners too and have to weigh their work and time just like everyone else. Odds are good they will ignore emails asking too much, but are more than happy to reply to simple questions and to those who say thanks! We definitely reply to those.
Can't send out an email? Head to the comments section of a post and leave your message there instead!
Shop Using Their Affiliate Links
The previous few bullets we've covered a number of ways you can support your favorite blogger through only giving a few seconds or minutes of your time. What we have not covered to this point is how you can support them monetarily.
While every blogger would appreciate money falling out of the sky into their laps, ourselves included, we all know that isn't a realistic approach to business. One way we make money as an industry is through affiliate links placed within our sites. If you go to a major business through these links and make a purchase, odds are good we may receive a small commission on the order of a few percent. So if you buy a digital product for $10, we may make $0.60. If you buy a camera worth $600, we may make $40. If you book a hotel stay worth $500, we may make $20 or more depending on the setup of the affiliate plan. Multiply this by several bookings over a month, and your favorite blogger can make a decent income from this at no extra cost to you!
That's right. By you buying items you were already going to purchase, but using a blogger's affiliate link as an intermediate click, you'll give them a commission without (in most cases) changing the cost you pay. Not a bad deal for a few extra moments of your time, right?
Are you a frequent shopper on a particular site and want to support a blogger? Email them so they can join an affiliate program if it is available!
So, now that you have many new ways to support your favorite blogger, what are you going to do?
Have an existing blog that is in need of an upgrade? Check out the following services we personally use!
Looking for tips? Read our Blog Your Trip series!
If you liked this article, you can share it on social media, comment below, subscribe to our newsletter and social networks, or read another article below! We'd love it if you did!