103 dollar check from blogging - CLICK TO ENLARGE
This is an addendum to our previous article, “How to make 25 dollars with your blog.” If you are new to blogging and need a place to start, read that article. If you are a little more comfortable with blogging and already have one cooking, then this will cover more advanced concepts.
When you monetize your blog, you will have several options for making money. You can sell products, do affiliate advertising, do adsense-style advertising, do text-links etc…The list goes on an on.
This articles only covers one thing. That’s Google AdSense advertising. I would expect that advertising through yahoo and others would be similar.
Let’s begin.
You already have a blog. You already have articles. You already have fans. You already are tracking your stats at least once a week. (preferably once per day)
The big debate is on number of ads vs traffic.
I decided to go the route of less ads. This is because I originally had a three-column site. But I changed overidon.com to have only two columns. It looks much better on small devices like an iPhone or an iPad. Also the site looks less cluttered.
I also switched from having multiple ad blocks, to having just a single area for ads on the left. That actually worked out better for me. I began to get clicks on my left ad block even though I hadn’t been posting as much.
Pop up ads annoy me. So why would I use those ads on my person site? It doesn’t make sense to do anything to your own blog that you wouldn’t enjoy on someone else’s.
I was approached by someone to do in-article text link ads. You need to be very careful when doing that. One company seemed legit but then they backed out. Another company was not legit after I did my research on them. You need to have the third eye of wisdom when accepting money from anyone.
Your blog is your baby. Remember that.
Overidon.com hasn’t been around for as long as the first post to now. In fact overidon.com has been a website of one form or another since approximately 2003.
That being said, I have had to pay for web hosting on the site since 2003. That’s racked up to about $1,000 – so I’m definitely still in the red here.
But in all fairness, overidon.com has only been a consistent blog since 2009. And I’ve spent about $400 on hosting and domain renewals since that time.
So right now, you could say I’m $297 in the hole. I am perfectly happy with that.
Making 103 dollars wasn’t easy. It took roughly 2 years of AdSense revenue to generate that money. Also, I’ve heard of sites that got in trouble with Google for breaching some point of the terms of service and then they didn’t get paid. So you really need to make sure you read the entire terms of service. Read the whole thing, cover to cover. I spent hours reading it. I also read any changes in the terms of service.
So how did I make 103 dollars with my blog?
Well, I made anywhere from two to eight dollars per month over the past couple years. I know two bucks per month isn’t a lot of money to sneeze at. But the truth is. I’d be doing this anyway, even if I didn’t have an ad. So the idea that I got next year’s hosting paid for is a very nice thing.
I told my friends to read my blog when I talked to them. If there was an article that I thought might stimulate the mind of a friend I’d tell him or her. I didn’t get business cards made till a few months ago. Most of the spreading of the word happened through facebook and word of mouth. Also google searches for keywords that appeared in my articles helped drive about 40 – 70% of the traffic, depending on the month.
If your blog is not a variety blog like mine, then you can still make money. Actually, you’ll probably make even more money than me if you choose a specific genre of information. The most important thing is that you love what you do and you’d do it even if you didn’t get paid. Trust me, that will shine through in every sentence.
People know when you’re losing emotional content momentum in an article. That will make it so you lose repeat visitors. Also, don’t steal anyone else’s content.
The main thing to know about making 103 dollars with your blog is that you need content. Overidon.com had approximately 550 posts as of August, 2011.
By having 500+ posts of good content, you will have a better chance that articles will last the test of time. If you just regurgitate what everyone else is saying, you’ll never get the hits long into the future. That’s why it is important to have original content with as much individual style, opinion, research, original photos, video content…the works. Every little bit helps.
-Tyler