Unlike other bloggers, I'm not really interested in quiting my job to blog, I earn far too much money in my job to do so. However, I wouldn't mind if my blog generated enough money to allow me to invest back into it for things such as:
- professional web design - how to do that and be anon?
- pay for books and classes
- pay for giveaways for books, etc...
- pay for premium services
Granted I can pay for the above out of my pocket, but I'd like the blog to be self-sustaining.
Regards,
makingourway
6 comments:
Yeah, Adsense can be pretty lame on the income side. Where are you sourcing your other sponsor links (if I may ask?)
I know that there are a lot more options for ad programs on the wordpress platform via plugins, etc, but I'm not entirely willing to switch over just yet.
I thought that you weren't allowed to use rented links if you use Adsense. Am I wrong about that?
Since August I've been earning $10-20 per month from Adsense. It's not a lot, but I typically only add 3-5 new posts per month. I usually get between 40 and 60 visitors per day, although it's been closer to 80 or higher recently for some reason.
I'm not sure if I am doing well on Adsense based on the amount of traffic I get. I just blog for fun, so any money I get is a nice bonus.
One thing you might want to do is add a text box after the top post on your blog. That's what I did and I know that people sometimes click on it, although not as often as the ones at the top of my blog.
Also, the best ads are the ones that are closely related to the overall theme of your blog (visitors are more likely to click on those). You can block irrelevant ads from appearing by entering the ad's URL in the competitive ad filter on your Adsense account page.
No ad program is going to pay well until you get traffic. Traffic is ~the~ key to everything. You need page views, and the only way to get consistent page views is by writing good, compelling things that people want to read.
Make it your goal every day to do something that might get more readers. Leave comments on other blogs, or write a really good post and submit it to a carnival, or write a post that addresses in detail a post on a more popular blog (they might link back to you, or at least look at your blog a little and perhaps link to you in the future).
But more than anything else, write good stuff that others are going to want to read. When you finish a post, read it and ask yourself this question: if I read that on someone else's blog, would I stick around and read some more or would I click away?
Good luck!
Thanks for the helpful and thoughtful comments.
Fin Indie, I'm sourcing my ads from linkworth. It seems that whenever I have a spike in readership (at least recently) I get requests for ads from them. I participate in their extra emphasis program, which gives me 50% of the take.
Jim, I'v seen far too many blogs with both adsense and leased links - so I'm not sure if that's true. They reviewed my blog with the ads already in place. Trust me, the leased links do far better than adsense - at least so far.
Trent, everything your saying makes lots of sense. It's so important to have links from higher volume players. I agree. Also, good text - since you're commenting here, I hope you're enjoying your read. I especially like your idea about posting on ideas from more popular blogs to attract attention.
Regards,
makingourway
jim - no, that's not true about Adsense. Their rule is that you cannot have other contextual advertising on your site if you are running their ads. Link ads are perfectly fine to run with Adsense. For some bloggers the link ads provide a better income ;)
Tricia,
Thanks for the clarification and the e-mailed advice.
Regards,
makingourway
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