How do you Make Money from Your Blog?

I haven’t started to put that much effort into monetizing my blog yet, but simply because my readers numbers aren’t that high. I use some adsense and, since you talked so good about chitika eminimalls I’m giving it a try too. Let’s see how it develops in the future. Maybe, if you run a similar post in some months I can have some figures for all your readers.

I am in the same boat as A Marques. I have been blogging for about a month now, and I am just trying to build up my readership. I do have a Gormet Food Store as a page on my blog, which is linked through Amazon. I just put that up a week ago, so we will see if anyone uses it. So far, though, I am just trying to be an active member of the food blogging community, and keep putting good content on my blog. I hope that I will build up a group of readers soon, and then I can start integrating more and more money making techniques.

Monetization has so much scopes.One has to find the method thats working for him .Thats it.

Well now talking about my methods, i use Adsense only for now.I have tried others but didnt wuite work.maybe because my blog is in its starting phase.Anyways i will be having a few more experiments. :p

Darren,

While I’ve seen you and others write about ways to directly monetize your blog, there are indirect ways that are equally important as well.

One such way, is using your blog to brand yourself as an expert in your field. I decided to take that route with my blog.

This can later result in consulting or speaking engagements. Maybe even a nice high paying job.

Different blogs monetize in different ways. One of the first things I learned is that seemingly small changes to your blog design can have a huge impact on earnings, so it’s worth experimenting, especially with programs like AdSense which allow you to track performance on each ad unit.

I find that Google ads perform very well (be sure to use their Link Units – I was quite surprised at how effective they were, and I lost quite a bit of revenue by not including them on my blog for almost a year). I’ve had less success with shopping mall ads, in part because they’re not well targeted to my extremely broad audience. Things would be different if, for example, I was running a photo blog and *knew* that readers were interested in photos.

I only use direct text links to Amazon, not banners. They just clutter the screen and have an extremely low conversion rate. It’s a different story when you write about a book or product and provide a link. Here’s a recent example from my site that was very successful:

http://www.retrothing.com/2007/04/the_dangerous_b.html

This kind of monetization only works if you’re sincere. In this case, we loved the book and it was something that appeals to our audience – a natural fit.

I actually started posting some commission junction products in my guitar blog. One blog post is a regular post and then the next day I post something from commission junction. I am actually get a few nice sales this way, and generating extra income for the blog other than Adsense and Chikita.

No ads on my blog what so ever! wooooooooooooooooooo!
http://www.pixelpruner.com/2007/04/14/how-much-is-a-comment-worth/

Text-Link-Ads, ReviewMe… god bless them.

I only do affiliate sales on my blog. One of the first things I read when I started internet marketing(a whole 6 weeks ago) is that google ads and amazon ads are bad because they take people away from your site, when you rather want people sticking around and making purchases through your affiliate links, which is much more profitable. I guess I’ve stuck with that theory.

Adsense, TLAs, Linkworth, and direct sales. For me, direct ad sales have been by far the most lucrative, though obviously they’re a little more sporadic about when they happen.

I use payperpost and payu2blog, as well as Amazon and a few others like auction ads and TLA.
As a single mom who is officially unable to hold a “real world” job, I have to make an income somehow, and the pay to blog companies are paying my bills.
I know people hate them, but they work, they are paying my bills and affording me the extra income to get some things we want.

Great post as always. I read you every day, learn a lot from both you and your commentators.

I have recently setup my first blog and due to the nature of my site (education about cannabis please dont visit the site unless your 18+, it is NSFW) I had some issues getting adsense in place, however this was resolved.

I also use a UK based affiliate program and a US based one, at the moment it shows a random ad on the right side, I would like to develop this so it serves all US ip’s the US ad else the UK one.

I plan to do product reviews as well. However I would prefer to purchase the product and provide an honest review instead of

I have a very strong idea regarding a new offline marketing technique, maybe darren would discuss this with me to further develop the idea.

I have made no effort to promote my blog as of yet, it was only indexed in google in the last couple of days so there is no cash flow as of yet.

Although my primary objective isnt to make money from my blog, it is nice to see a small trickle of cash to help support it, especially if im using the cash to purchase products to give an honest review.

Hey Darren – it’s been a while since I stopped in but I attribute a portion of our success to you so I’ll participate. We’ve tried tons of different programs. In May of 2007, here is where we made money (in order of earnings):

Adsense
Feedburner Ads (mainly on the site as opposed to in the feed)
Amazon
Adbrite (50% is reoccurring through referrals)
Text Link Ads
Chitika (experiment, my blog is not in a good niche for this)
Shareasale (like commission junction but earning here are growing like crazy because of the ad selection, not the program itself)
Selling Ad placements direct (1st month doing this)
Commission Junction (placing affiliate links in my feed as text ads)

– Mark

Darren, thank you for asking. I use a variety of methods to make no money from my blog.

Firstly, AdSense provides a basic stream of no revenue. I attribute this lack of income both to my chosen niche, and the CTR commanded by my theme and layout.

Second, I give weak recommendations for a set of affiliate products that none of my readers want. Most of these orders would be fulfilled by Amazon, if anyone ever placed them, but I also shill for the occasional foreign DVD company–whom my site visitors do not trust with their credit card information.

Perhaps I should consider broadening my scope of my profitless blog endeavors? Unfortunately, exigent circumstances may force me to pursue other income opportunities (such as fishing aluminum cans out of public dumpsters).

Very Sincerely,
Chris

1. Adsense
2. Text Link Ads

…are the primary earners. I’ve received couple of direct ad sales offers but I don’t actively promote them since my blog is mostly personal.

Other avenues although I just earn in infrequent bursts are ReviewMe, Feedburner, AdVolcano, and Vizu Answers. Prefer to keep my advertising to a minimum now and focus on the big earners instead of cluttering up the blog.

Disabled Kontera as the links are deceiving and readers were getting pissed. Prefer to keep my readers happy first than earn a quick buck.

Google Ads, Amazon Associates, and recently some MTV Movie Awards Ads which just ended that were 30 cents a click!

Hi Darren

I am one of your fan club. You are extreme inspiration of network make money online for me indeed. I keep reading and catch your way, many words of yours make me fighting myself to keep going on.

For the question, I would say that I am now doing Adsense, adwords, Auction ads, Amazon, text link ads.. bra bra bra, about tens things but never success even one, poor girl. ^_^ but anyway I am still alive and keep walking forward. Until success not even more rich but happy enough for such a small additional income. Thanks again for your postsss

I have monetizedusing adsense and just started with SponsoredReviews

I have found that it greatly depends on the topic of your site. For me, I use Adsense on everything. Amazon Associate, Commision Junction and LinkShare all get used, as you can find affiliate offers that fit just about any niche. Like for my TV site: DVD sets at Amazon, NBC Universal, ABC and other official network stores through CJ and iTunes and Netflix via LinkShare. I also use Chitika, but it doesn’t work so well on the TV site, but on my Golf site, it works really well. I am looking at AuctionAds, Kontera, BlogAds and TextLinkAds/Feedvertising and maybe ReviewMe as possible ways to extend the monetization of my sites. Am very interested in how others have found these to work.

It is great to read about what others are using and what is working for them.

Most of my income is from TLA and private link sales. The rest is AdSense and affiliate commission.

I am testing the Chitika TagCloud on one of my sites. CTR isn’t the best, but not enough impressions yet to see if it can be a winner.

Volume is the key.

Michael

Hi folks, new poster here, been a fan of this blog lately!

The following is what I do on a few heavy traffic sites I operate, though it’s not my new “blog”. Even though it’s not from a blog per se but radio music sites I hope it is still relevant to be of use, because we’re still talking about displaying visual ads on regular pages in the browser. To give you an idea of the scope, the sites together at that time pulled around $500 and up per day (just high traffic, no secret optimization or anything).

YPN – I use this for contextual type of links *only* for USA traffic. They used to perform much better than Google Adsense for us in the USA market, however in recent weeks they are almost the same.

Google AdSense – I use this for all other International non-USA traffic. Google still seems to be king for International stuff.

Note: Keep in mind you can’t serve both AdSense and YPN on the same page at the same time, so your software has to be smart enough to serve either one set or another. This is when it can be useful to be in control of the webhost aspect so you can run software like OpenAds for geotargeting ( http://www.openads.org ). I hear RMX Direct may similar features to do this sort of thing also.

RevenueScience – these guys used to rock the socks off, and it was the best kept secret in the world, I thought, for a year or so. The payout was *excellent* compared to AdSense, especially for international traffic. Apparently though most of the ads were fed through a Yahooo partnership, and once that was over sometime by around end of 2006 they switched to other horrific visual ad partnerships and we totally had to jump ship. Oh yes, that was over when Panama rolled out and YPN went on its own few weeks later.

Casale Media – Casale can have very good returns on a CPM basis, however be ware that most of their ads don’t look so good. You can filter them out, but the more you filter them the less you earn (though just set up Defaults correctly so you don’t loose out). They do serve some International traffic too. I only use it in one place on only one of my sites where users are less savvy and do not mind so much. Other sites I run I cannot put Casale as the banners are not from major brands and are too visual. Pay is nice though if you have the traffic.

BlueLithium – have tried these guys a few times. Some CPM, CPC, and even CPA there – however mostly of quality visual banner stuff (the likes of Microsoft Live products, major credit cards, etc, not the “fart buttons”). However the campaigns can vary a lot from great to okay, and often times AdSense or YPN could just get you a better result. All this created too much micromanagement of trying to compare which week was better and which was worse compared to competition.

Chitika – even though I think they have an awesome idea and the way they are implementing is great, they need to provide stats that people can rely on. What I mean is, back when I tested them last year the difference between what they said we earned, compare to what they revised this to a month later was huge. The revisement was not so much my problem as the fact that it took them that long to revise. It meant I couldn’t compare how it was performing in almost real time or on a day or two delay compared to my other A and B tests with other networks. Sorry, a month later was way too late, and unpredictable. Plus it turned out I wasn’t making enough anyway at the end. Another thing that bugged me about Chitika is that it took many days for us to try and optimize which products seemed to work better – we got more revenue and so did Chitika. But then all of a sudden something changed on their back end, or more likely the advertisers decided they should pay less, and the selections we made after careful screening were useless and we were making low numbers again. Sure you can go the automatic route, but that wasn’t ideal. In the end it was too much micromanagement for us, I don’t know if things changed too much recently.

Direct Sales – when we can we try to sell directly. This works out nicely in terms of price and a poper fit for our viewers. But it doesn’t happen often enough.

I don’t have much experience with CPA or affiliate links, I guess I figure I either don’t have the time to optimize or can’t take a risk waiting for CPA.

Cheers, -Ari.

I use adsense, kontera textlinks, text link ads, bidvertisers… I’m still trying to figure it all out. I’ve only been blogging for a month,

i have been using adsense for a while. i just started getting in to CJ more rescently and i bought a script called PHPbay pro that has a beta WP plugin that allows me to import auction itmes from ebay SUPER easy. i am hoping to start making some money with that on my guitar related blog. The blog has only been on WP so i need to wait to start picking up some traffic i lost from search engines in the switch from blogger. But if not anything else, it also helps for my SEO withh all the geywords it brings…

This has been a challenge for me. Even as my site has grown in traffic and subscribers (just passed the 10K subscriber mark!), I have a feeling my revenue could be much better. Currently I’ve been experimenting with Adsense, YPN, Amazon, BlogAds and FeedBurner. I haven’t found the right combo yet. I dropped Chitika and Adbrite as they weren’t working out well for me. I might drop YPN if it doesn’t start doing better in a month.

My main blog is rewarding but not with cash. The single ad on my site is for an affiliate program that rewards me with store credit at the legendary Threadless Design Community. Everything else is there to spread information or inspire action. Nothing for profit. However, since I consider this info and action to be valuable, to society as a whole as well as myself, I use the same principles that everyone else does to get readers to click through. HearingTest (a music blog) will remain ad-free, but I have started to use the Amazon Affiliate program for another site I run. So far I love it! Thanks for all the great tips Darren, and Problogger Commentators!