These plugins all have a track record of monetizing blogs, but it’s important to not get too carried away when you’re choosing which ones to install. Take them one step at a time, and install them as you see fit, because although the could technically all be used together, it’s unlikely that you’d want to use them all at the same time – it would be a little bit much.

Ad Injection

Ad Injection from reviewmylife makes managing your different ads even easier, as you can place them around your site, and within your content. You can use any type of ad that you want, including Google AdSense, Amazon Associates, ClickBank, TradeDoubler, etc. into the existing content of your WordPress posts and pages. You can control the number of adverts based on the post length, and it can restrict who sees adverts by post age, visitor referrer and IP address. Adverts can also be configured in the post (random, top, and bottom positions) or in any widget/sidebar area.

I personally found this this plugin to be incredibly useful as I was able to input ads where I had never had them before, and start to see an increase in my earnings. This plugin works especially well for me as I write very long posts, never under 1000 words, often exceding 2000, so it’s acceptable to include a small break, by using an advert. Ads are commonplace now, and so long as you don’t overdo it, no one is ever too offended by seeing them. You need to be careful that you don’t start to include too many ads because they will decrease the worth of each ad, and will actually result in lower earnings – it’s simply supply and demand. Experiment with your own website and you’ll soon come to a situation that maximises your ad earnings.

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin

This is a premium WordPress shopping cart plugin, built by Tribulant that allows the WP blog admin to sell both digital and physical goods online plus any services the admin decides to offer. This if perfect for anyone who sells online teaching courses, hands on training, premium support, or any other non-product related sales that are service oriented. Using this premium wordPress plugin you can easily find ways to monetize your WP blog whether it’s through selling digital products like ebooks, online services, or any tangible goods.

You can set up your multiple products and categorize/organize them into multiple product categories. Add additional images to showcase your products so that users know what they are buying and add digital downloads to products if needed so that users can securely download paid files from your website.

With suppliers, shipping methods, payment gateways, product variations/custom fields, product inventory, affiliate products, discount coupons and many other amazing features, you can run a full featured online WordPress shop that suits your needs. The cost is just $54.99 for a single website licensee, but once you start to see a return, you’ll forget that you ever even spent that money.

Amazon Associate Filter

I don’t know about you, but I find the whole process of manually going in and creating custom HTML links for Amazon through the Associates Central, really laborious. That’s why I was so happy to find this plugin, which stops you from even having to login to your Amazon. You simply share a normal amazon like like you would any other link, and this plugin will pull your information and add it to the link when someone clicks on it. Now you don’t have to be bothered by spending ages putting together hundreds of links through Amazon, which will encourage you to link more often – I recently made 140 of the them hard way.

Another really good selling point is that people are always asking me follow up questions about products that I’ve written about, and I can’t include HTML code in the comments, so I’m losing commission when I help people out, by providing them with a specific link. Now, I don’t have to worry about this because not only is the plugin is doing all of the hard work for me, but it’s inserting links where I couldn’t have them before. 

WordPress-Amazon-Associate

You might be wondering why I’m suggesting another Amazon Associates plugin, when clearly there’s a plugin already out there that does the job just fine, and that’s true, to a certain extent. You see, this is more than just another Amazon plugin, because it does more than just provide you with links and commissions, it also comes with various advertising widgets, which help to improve sales. This plugin also fully supports amazon product localization to supported markets, such as Canada, Germany, France, Japan, United Kingdom (GB), and the Unites States.

The WordPress Amazon Associate plugin is designed to be your all inclusive source for enriching you website with Amazon Products and Widgets embedded with your unique Amazon Associate Tag. Widgets such as the carousel have been proven to provide better results and more commissions, as they’re more like adverts, than anything else. So long as you’re advertising the right products, to the right crowd, then there’s a good chance that your commissions are going to be much better than the space that would have been taken up by Google ads. It’s certainly worth trailing.

Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer

This plugin not only automatically changes any Amazon link on your site to use your affiliate ID, but it also changes the link to point to the user’s local Amazon store. This means that if your visitor is visiting from the UK they’ll get a link to Amazon.co.uk, and if they’re visiting from the US they’ll get a link to the same product on Amazon.com – All you have to do is provide all your affiliate IDs.

It doesn’t matter if the link is in your post, in your template or anywhere else on your page – it’ll be converted automatically. This can make a noticeable difference to your earnings, from a very small amount of effort. The last time I checked, 66% of my traffic came from America, and 10% came from the UK, so by simply installing this plugin, I can tap into the UK market and increase my earnings by approximately 15%. With the exception of checking that the plugin works after you make the odd update, you very much just install this plugin, and leave it to do its thing.

SEO Smart Links

If you’ve been following this site for a while, then it will be no secret to you that I love this plugin, as it’s easy to set up, and has numerous benefits. The idea is that you input different keywords, and you assign links to them, so that whenever these keywords pop up in your text, they automatically redirect to different content that you’ve preselected. Obviously, there are a great many uses for this when you’re trying to promote your own content, throughout your own website, as you can link to different articles, and keep your readers interested.

The beauty of this plugin is that you don’t have to just link within your website, you can link to anywhere on the internet, which can be used for affiliate marketing purposes, or even just to gain recognition from a source that you’re referring to. In my niche of photography, there’s a program called Animoto, which can be used to create video slideshows, and they have an affiliate program, which provides me with money, every time someone goes to their site, through my special link. This is nothing special or unique, as you’ll find that there are plenty of programs out there that offer a similar service, and I’m sure that you’ll have no problem finding someone in your niche too. All I have to do is to assign certain keywords, such as ‘animoto’ and ‘video slideshow’, and they will automatically send people to the website, using my custom link. Now I can start earning passive income, every time I write a certain keyword.

Cleeng Content Monetization

This is a very cool plugin, which allows you to sell articles, videos, images & downloads, whether it’s a single item, or a long time subscription, and anything in between. Cleeng (pronounced cleng) is designed in a similar way to cable TV, where you have to pay to see good content. You can limit access to certain parts of your website, which holds the information that someone is looking for, until they’ve paid for the access. It’s a really simple system, and the same used by large newspaper organisations, such as The New York Times, who insist on money to see the latest articles, and it seems to work for them. With Cleeng you can sell any individual piece of content directly from your own website.

It’s certainly a bold idea, but it seems to be working so far. This plugin could be considered a bit of a risk, depending on your niche, and how readily available the information is, but it’s been proven to work. The great thing about it is that you keep 80-90% of the money and there are no hidden costs; all payment fees, user support, software maintenance is taken care of. You just need to create the right content that sells.