Every Internet Marketer needs a blog. Some marketers choose to run their blog concurrently with a site they use to promote and sell other products. Some marketers, however, choose to create and run their blogs on separate websites. You probably know exactly how critical it is to set up your own blog, no matter which way you decide to do it. Blogs are great for brand building, forming relationships and establishing your expertise within your chosen niche. They are also ideal for additional cash generation.

You have plenty of choices when it comes to monetization so that you can start generating some extra cash from your blogs.

Create and post Amazon product reviews on your blog. You can opt what products to write about which is one of the biggest advantages of this strategy. Amazon has a great affiliate and referral program you set up and if someone buys a book or product based on the link you've put in your blog, you get a pretty good sized percentage of the sale. You need to write thorough reviews that give people enough information without actually giving everything away, as this is the secret to generating sales via this strategy.

Sure, you could set up a widget in your sidebar but you'll get more sales by reviewing products in posts. You will be making more sales but you'll also find it easier to win over the people reading your blog.

Create paid posts. Sponsored posts and paid posts aren't the same thing. A paid post is usually about a topic that the payer has decided upon. This approach requires some caution. Some people believe that if they pay for a post it means they can make you change your opinion and write something else in your post. You can choose whether or not you want to accept post assignments like this. The nice thing about this is that there are a lot of different networks you can join to make it easy for people to find your blog and buy posts on it.

Have you considered creating your own paid job board? Because you are an IM'er, you are probably aware of plenty of people who have odd jobs that they do not want to do. Build a board and let them list these jobs? You can invoice them for board space. You get paid. They find potential employees. You might even bring in more traffic. This is good for the other forms of monetization you might have in place. Everyone is happy in the end.

Blog monetization is an excellent strategy to make some extra cash. Some people have been so successful at blog monetization that they don't really need to do anything else to make money. Most people, however, use their blogs for supplemental income to the money they make from larger projects which is likely what you will be doing as well. On the other hand, every little bit extra is important, isn't it?

Santos Crumrine is an expert blogger known for writing on a varitey of subjects. His high-quality work can be seen at empower network Clarification and on Ambit Rationale