Today I’m updating the Make Money Blogging page here on ProBlogger – a page where I give a breakdown of how I make money from blogging.
This time I’ve decided to do a snapshot of last month (April 2010). I also thought that I’d put together a bit of a video as well as updating the page – to speak to the different parts of how I make money blogging as well as writing it up.
Here’s the video (created using ScreenFlow – please forgive the slight lag between audio and video).
How I Earn Money Blogging [April 2010 Stats] from Darren Rowse on Vimeo.
For more information you might also want to check up the updated Make Money Blogging page.
PS: Thanks to Tim Jack for the motion graphics intro/outro to the video.
It’s fascinating for me to see what is working for successful bloggers. The income streams are varied depending on the market, but the one common factor is that there are quite a few eggs in the baskets of all of the probloggers. That’s a good lesson for those of us starting out. Thank you for sharing!
Interesting… Surprised that even for such a diversified Pro Blogger AdSense is the #1 source of income.
it looks like it’s not that bad after all, eh?
Guillermo – AdSense isn’t for everyone, but when it works it can be great :-)
Seems like you really meant it when you said “its been ages since I played with Vimeo – they’ve really improved it no end – great user experience. Here’s my page – http://bit.ly/9GISaB” on Twitter
Very cool to hear about how you’ve made this into a full time occupation, Darren. The breakdown is really helpful… I need to start planning how I will branch out as I begin to monetize in the future.
-Greg
PS I’ve really been enjoying following this blog! Tons of great, insightful information. I also think its awesome that you can impact so many people, and do it in a positive, Christ-like way. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for sharing the breakdown of your income – it really helps to know which streams are producing the most income. However, I doubt I’d be able to match your Adsense earnings – at least not any time soon. :)
This is very exciting to see. Trends change and so do your routes in how you make money, I have read your past article on this and thought it was broken down nicely.
Now Darren, we all know though that ” Chitika is your 2nd best right behind Google”, LOL, just had to say that because of the banners I have seen around.
This will be a great resource to bookmark and utilize moving forward.
Chris – yes Chitika will need to change those banners :-) Just emailed them to let them know :-) I still recommend them though!
interesting income breakdown and it helps..
Being working on to make money from blogging. Like you i had stopped putting the google ads on my blog and sooner will search for others idea to make money from blogging.
Your money making tips are really helpful in making it.
Thanks so much for all the tips
Excellent breakdown, and very impressive to hear you’re creeping towards a seven-figure income.
One thing I didn’t see on there was anything from the b5media blog network.
Is that because it’s not yet profitable, or are you no longer involved with it? (Feel free not to answer, just curious).
Monevator – the only b5 income that I’ve really generated is when they’ve sold ads for me (so its in the direct ad sales). I drawn no income from b5 personally as I’m just a shareholder (and a minor one). You generally would only get money out of a company that you’re a shareholder in if you also work for them/are on management, something I’ve not been for 2 or so years – OR if you sell your share of it. You don’t generally take a share in profits, they are invested back into the company.
In terms of whether the company is profitable – you’d need to ask management there, as far as I know it is, they continue to attract investment from VCs and have sites that seem to be growing and attracting good advertisers.
It’s amazing to me that you you make a 6 almost 7 figure income and adsense plays such a pivotal role. I have a few sites and can’t earn a dime from adsense. Guess I need to study your digital photography site a little.
Thanks.
Mike – it’s partly about traffic (dPS does 3.5 million uniques a month), partly about positioning the ads (fairly aggressive in parts) and partly that the site gets targetted by advertisers with campaigns which makes them drive up the income as they’re bidding against each other.
I’m surprised to see the adsense that high. In my short time of hardcore blogging and checking your site here, I don’t even see the adsense popup that much.
I also wonder how the speaking would be so low. I’d think you would be able to Crush It by speaking, etc.
I also remember reading on one of your posts or a video that you tend to be more “introvert” I guess and maybe that is results in the speaking being lower…more underground stuff I guess than extrovert stuff.
Anyway, thanks for the info!
BrandonBurgh
Brandon – I don’t run any AdSense here on ProBlogger (there may be an old page or two somewhere with it) – I mainly run it on my photography blog where it makes 99% of my adsense income.
Speaking – its pretty low mainly because most of the speaking requests I get are in the USA and I’m in Australia. As a result I either say no to people because I can’t get over there a lot with such a young family or it means those wanting me cant afford me because I not only charge for my time but also have to have them cover my travel costs (even an economy seat over can be $2000+ depending on where in the USA i ned to get to).
On the introversion front – it’s strange, I really really really enjoy the speaking even if I am an introvert. I guess because its a controlled thing in that I’m talking and not having to interact individually with every person in the room…. its the networking after that probably tires me out more. I’d do more speaking if I could though – but its hard being so far away from my audience :-)
Here in Colorado US we can not be Amazon affiliates and I’ve been wondering how big a deal that is. Seeing it so low on your stream tells me that I am not really missing much since my traffic is a lot less than yours.
Thanks for sharing.
Daryle – I guess it depends on your traffic but also the type of products you’d be promoting. For me promoting cameras if I get a sale of a $2000 camera every day or so the amount can add up. If all you would be recommending is a few books then it might not be as worth it (unless your traffic was massive).
The breakdown of where all the money you make comes from is extremely helpful! It gives newbies and those who haven’t found their own success of how much really goes into making money from blogging. I personally didn’t realize just how many different sources of revenue there are.
I truly appreciate you sharing some tips to your success. You give many of us something to aspire to.
I also read an interview you did with Daniel on DailyBloggingTips this morning. So it really goes to show just how much time and effort you put into your work. Truly inspiring.
Awesome post Darren!!
David Walker – yes there are many sources, in fact the 10 or so I mention here are just the tip of the iceberg and I suspect you’d find another 100 or so if you interviewed 50 or so bloggers as there are many ad networks and programs that work better on other types of blogs.
Hey Darren,
Wooww..you making 23% of total income from adsense ! Grreat bud. Thanks a lot for sharing the breakdown of your income. Really Awesome breakdown bro :)
Thanks,
Dev
adsense can also get dangerous if you have some enemies…darren, u would be knowing that……
Wow, I can’t believe that you divulged this to us. Thanks Darren. It’s great to see how important it is to get revenue from so many different sources on your blog instead of just focusing on one thing.
I had no idea how much you depended on advertising income. i would have thought your ebooks would have been a lot higher of a percentage.
Once again, I’m really impressed that you peeled back back the curtain yet again.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
Joshua – yeah April made the ad revenue look pretty high, perhaps I should do another of these in a month or two to show how it changes when I launch a product or do a bigger affiliate launch.
Hey great video but I agree with jayant as a publisher that is now banned from AdSense. I think they get too strict with their program, and if you get a good day where there are bunch of clicks and you hit the $100 cash out they ban you and wont even answer your email.
That’s my biggest issue with AdSense, I asked them for my account back, I tried to communicate with them and they never wrote me back, this is back in December.
The Computer Expert – I can’t really speak to that except to say that in most cases that I’ve had dealings with, people who got banned were found to be involved in clicking their own ads or some kind of dodgy activity. I’m certain that that isn’t 100% of the cases and there are genuine complaints against the system but I know that they invest a lot of money into their systems of detecting click fraud and are pretty good at it.
A great insight into how you make money Darren, most bloggers I know are a bit cagey with there strategies.
I think for me, the biggest mistake was monetizing my site from the start, like most bloggers I had illusions of granduer about making a shed load of cash through blogging, now I realise I have to work hard to get that, and it is still my goal. I also learnt that if you monetize your site too early it can deflect you away from your core responsibility of giving the reader good content.
You can become quite obsessed with chasing the dollar sign, and I am guilty of checking my adsense earning at least 4 times a day, why I have no idea as I make next to nothing from it.
Now these days, the ads are still there, only because the readers are used to them now, but I tend to stop focussing on monetiziation and more on giving content. The money will come later.
Thanks again darren for a fantastoc video post, love to know how yoy animated your logo! that was pretty cool.
Adam – good thoughts. Actually in the case study in the 2nd edition of ProBlogger the book I talked about how with my photography blog I didn’t really focus much upon monetization of it for 2 years. I did make money from it from day 1 with a few ads and low level affiliate marketing, but my main focus in years 1-2 (the launch phase) was content, community, capturing leads/newsletter and promotion/traffic building – the ‘real’ money came later.
Thanks Darren…goes to show that you make money where you are putting your attention. Also that every niche is different.
Curious as to why you are using Screen Flow vs Camtasia?
Sheila – when I looked at Camtasia last they didn’t have a Mac version. I think that that’s changed now but as I paid for Screen Flow I guess I’m still using that as it gets reasonable results (and I don’t do a lot of this type of video).
Great post for me. I thought that adsense is the biggest over 50% but that was my wrong thought, one should try others income streams also.
bloggerchamps – yes it once probably was 50%, in fact in the early days it probably was more like 75-80% for me. However things change and I guess I’ve diversified quite a lot.
Hey Darren,
Nice to see how the income is generated. The best part is the diversity of income. Allows us to figure other ways to generate income.
Chat with you later…
Josh
It’s surprising to know that adsense is the number one income for a blog!
nice report
Great stuff. I’ve done a post and linked to this article.
Darren, when you refer to affiliate model do you also include Pay Per Deal advertising?
It’s interesting that majority of bloggers didn’t incorporate it yet in their monetization model, I guess it’s just a matter of awareness.
All those who include it in their program report that it’s their #1 monetization option in comparison with other income sources, since the payout per sale in extremely high, not like traditional CPA models.
Commission for PPD programs range from $1,000 to $20,000 per single deal! So, as a result, all you need is targeted blog. You don’t even need to sweat on building high traffic, as to make $10K/month all one needs is to make couple of conversions.
It’s a goldmine!
Alex – the affiliate stuff I do is mainly commissions earned based upon sales. If someone buys the e-book I recommend it typically earns me 40-50% of the price of the book. if someone buys the course, I earn 40-50% of the price of the course. It’s great money IF you find quality products to recommend (although it can be challenging to find good ones in some niches).
Most of the old bloggers know various channels(cpa,cpm,affiliate sales etc..) to generate income but when they illustrate them that will make the real aspect of make money blogging more interesting and useful and you are successful doing so! I appreciate it!
Well, thanks for sharing. But I have a serious doubt. Can people from Asian countries like India, China, Malaysia etc. make money blogging. I started a blogger blog called http://www.techlikes.com in April 2009, but still the traffic is very low. How do I increase my traffic. I recently got Adsense. But the income is very very low, in cents i should say. How to increase the CTR. Email me please with pure magical tips. I am willing to pay money also for traffic , although not much..
Palla – I think there are both challenges and opportunities for people in Asia and other parts of the world. Check out the links at the bottom of my ‘make money blogging‘ page – there are a number of them there which are about AdSense and how I improved my income from that source.
Cool stuff Darren, I really appreciate it. My key take away is the need to experiment until you find the formula that works.
Hi Darren. Thanks for sharing your personal info with us. It is very interesting to know that you have quite a number of different sources of blog income, and that the income sources vary from blog to blog. Something for us wannabe’s to keep in mind. The video and graph combo was a great idea too!
Cheers.
Its shocking how far you have come just by blogging. You have exactly what I want someday and thats making money from blogging. I have just started a blog and could use a little help or at least a suggestion. Check it out http://officialfreejay.wordpress.com/ Get back to me with a email or something id love to hear from you. Thanks for your time and good posts!
It’s awesome to see these break downs and I’m amazed with the adsense numbers. I’m thinking that my lack of luck with it is because my traffic really isn’t that high. But like any good blogger I’m plugging away to try to put up worth while content :) Loved the video and thanks for being so open with all this stuff. I know as a financial coach some people get a little finicky when it comes to how and how much they earn.
Nunzio – the AdSense numbers potentially do look a little inflated in April partly because:
1. I didn’t launch a product (if I’d launched an e-book in April that would have been #1)
2. There were no massive product launches from others for me to promote as an affiliate
I generally find that AdSense income is very very steady – it’s really good, but it doesn’t fluctuate too much (unless its christmas or two advertisers start a bidding war) but the other incomes do rise and fall a lot.
That’s really interesting… and not at all what I’d assumed. Curious about how much you invest into your blogs though, that might be fascinating to see and compare. =)
Heather – I don’t have a whole lot of expenses, in fact my accountant is always telling me she’s never seen a business with so few overheads.
Costs include:
– writers – a small team on dPS who are paid per post
– design – every year or two I redesign my sites
– hosting – this mounts up in the scheme of things isn’t massive
– admin support/community management – I have a couple of people who I pay to help manage my forums and do a little admin work
– there are a few other miscellaneous expenses, design of e-books, tools, computer etc.
That might sound like a lot (and it is growing as my business expands) but in terms of a % of total income its not massive.
Thanks Darren. It’s wild to see how how much you’re making and from so many different resources. Nice job. It just goes to show if you work hard you can accomplish anything.
Very nice overview of your marketing efforts across many different avenues for revenue. This business takes, effort, persistance and a solid strategy. Congrats on your success. I look forward to reading more of your insights.
Rustam – you go it there, it takes a lot of work, but it can be done!
Wow, those are great numbers! I barely ear anything with Adsense, mainly because keywords in spanish are not very well paid, I guess even less in my niche.
I will be launching an online store soon, I hope thatll help pick up the figures!
Eleté is great when you have a topic that relates to a product on Amazon (eg. a camera blog promoting cameras, a gaming blog promoting games etc), LOTS of traffic and an audience who are researching the buying of products.
Wow you make a lot. I’m reallly curious as to how many visitors you get a day. Also, I have a question:
How long will it take (do you think) for my blog to reach the 100 visitor a day mark?
Aaron – that’s a tough question (any ‘how long will it take to…’ one is). It really depends a lot on how much you put yourself out there on other sites and the type of content you write. It could take a single day if you write something provocative, intriguing, funny, exciting, useful and the right person shares it on Twitter…. or it could take years if you don’t write anything too good and never let anyone know about your blog.
One post to read is ‘the myth of great content marketing itself‘ which talks about how you not only need great content but need to ‘get out there’ and put it in front of people.
I do you find the time to manage everything? Just creating content for your sites seems like it would be a full time job.
ABaN – it is a full time job :-)
Funny. I keep seeing this ad of you; it mentions how your #2 income stream is Chitika. Seems that’s kinda changed around though!
Aury – yes, things change quite a bit from month to month
Adsense is a pretty big chunk there. Which monetization method do you focus on the most?
Hi Darren
Have you noticed any changes in your Chitika income over the last few days since they made some changed?
I’m asking as they are now only recognising about 5 ad impressions per day instead of 1,500 for me and so my income has completely died :(
Darren, thanks so much for taking the time to share this information with us. This is the kind of post I like the most. It really motivates me to get going. I track the income my blog makes each month and at the moment there is money coming in from 27 different sources. None of them are producing as much as yours, but it is cool to see each of the income sources grow and fluctuate month after month. I think tracking your progress each month is incredibly important… and good motivation to keep working!
Hello Darren, thank you for being so transparent about where your income is coming from. It does not only prove that money can be made online but it also shows that there are more than one way to monetize a blog and run a business. I shall refer anyone to this who asks about how to make money as a blogger.
I think the key takeaways here for me were:
1. It’s a good idea to diversify your income… this will ensure your income remains solid. That is to say, if one of these streams were to dropped out for whatever reason you’ll still have plenty of money coming in.
2. You really need to be tracking all your income so that you can correctly identify what’s working and what’s not. Obviously you do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t.
Great post and very transparent :)
Cheers
David Jenyns
I was quite surprised to see Adsense making up such a high percentage and direct ad sales making up such a small percentage. I’ve always heard people saying you use adsense until you become big enough to buy advertising on your site. But clearly that is not the case. Shows what those people know!
The Adsense contributes 23%. Wow! there is nothing else to compete with Adsense. I was banned from Adsense a long time ago. i am using other adnetwork and my their PPC rates are very much low compared to Google Adsense
Darren, I am, like many others, in awe of your Business Savvy. Thanks for sharing the income break-up. Very helpful for us.
Also, you are such an accomplished performer on video. You remain so cool in your delivery. Well done.
A continuity program? I’m concluding that you don’t include income from book sales in your make money blogging page. Even though your blog was the foundation for your success.
Tyler – book royalties are paid every 6 months – I didn’t get any in April. I would say however, that even if they did get paid they wouldn’t have been high on the list. I split my income from the book with Chris (my co-author) and retailers and publishers take most of the sale amount. You don’t get rich writing a book unless you’re writing a massive best seller :-)
In terms of whether the book was the foundation of my success – it’s certainly been nice to have but I’d classify it more as something that came after and added to my success than a foundation. I’ve been at this for 8 years and the book only came out 2 years ago after I’d already done pretty well from blogging. The book has sold well, for a book about blogging, but its been far from a NYT best seller. It’s been good for a little extra credibility but not a major part of what I do.
@ Roshan
How come you get banned at Adsense? What exactly is the cause? is it for the fraud clicks?
One more thing. How did Google Warn you?
Regards,
Robert
I was just wating for this! truly inspirational. it really makes the mind of new blogger to wark hard.
One this i would like to say u r amazing becoz very less blogger after becoming so popular are still using adsense. So i would say you realy have sharp brain.
And it was nice to see your direct ad revenue! very few blogger get so much of direct ads like you!
I would like to ask which affiliate you use? and which affiliate is best for new bloggers?
Ankush,
http://ankushwood.blogspot.com
Hello Darren,
Thank you for sharing your income steams with us. I’ve just started out blogging and still have so much to learn, but it’s insightful and motivating to see the potential.
I just recently purchased your book and 31 Days to Blogging, so I have a bit of reading to accomplish as well as learn about social media. I’ve been out of the loop for awhile, so social media as a marketing tool is very new to me.
I was also curious as to how you market for Amazon.com?
Thanks again for the post and you really deserve everything you’ve accomplished. I know I appreciate your experiences and what you’ve been able to teach.
Regards,
Amber
Amber Baldwin – check out this post where I give some of the lessons I’ve learned from working with Amazon. It outlines some of the approaches that I’ve used which hopefully will answer your question.
Hi Darren
Adsense is your higher income stream, but I can’t see and ads on your blog. How you do it?
tool maker – I use AdSense on my photography blog but not here on ProBlogger. It works better on some topics than others.