This week’s Reader Poll asks bloggers how much they earned from blogging in October.
This is a poll that I ran in 2006 and I’m interested to see whether there has been much of a change in the results.
Before you vote – here are a few things to keep in mind:
- I’m asking about ALL forms of income from your blog – from direct income earners like Advertising, Selling products, writing Paid Reviews and using Affiliate programs through to indirect earners like consulting or speaking work that you might have picked up BECAUSE of your blog (more on the distinction between direct and indirect earnings here).
- I’m also talking on a personal level – what YOU personally earnt from ALL of the blogs you work on.
- Don’t answer straight away – tally it up, give it some thought and then let us know.
- If you didn’t earn any money from your blog in October either because you tried and didn’t have any success or because you don’t try to then there is an option for you in the poll also.
- If you’d like to comment on your vote or on the poll in general feel free to do so on this post.
Here’s the poll.
{democracy:25}
I will be posting about the results of last week’s poll on whether you’ve done paid reviews on your blog in the coming 24 hours.
Over $15,000 for me thanks to a few big sales and a lot of love from Google!
Good poll.
RT
I’m also very interested in seeing the results of this poll.
yea it will be.
I had a fantastic month last month, I don’t think I will be able to beat it this month.
I included my contest winnings ;)
I did fair last month (considering it was all made from my personal cowgirl blog) but November’s and December’s earning will increase by so much more:) due to having 3 more blogs;)
Just getting started, but the growth is encouraging! Great poll, I’m also interested to see the results.
I did ok with earnings, I didn’t count the amount that some sites give you just to sign up. Hopefully I will be able to steadily increase this. I am attempting to do this in the way you suggested, by making it a goal to try to double my earnings each month. I am well on my way, I think! I have some great opportunities coming up!
Unfortunately, I did not make one penny. I did have someone contact me about placing four text ad links on my site and he was willing to pay $50 per link for a whopping total of $200 for the year. Since I didn’t know the standard rate I said no.
What is the standard rate for a text ad link on a site with a PR4? And how are people making such astronomical sums (e.g. $15,000 stated above)?
I love the way you state direct and indirect earnings :D In my mind if your blog is a front end of your business it is responsible for generating not only sales but establishing your right to speak on the subject and as such contributes to success, however small or big it might be :)
Good poll
I didn’t make a penny, but I’m new to blogging and just getting the hang of social media etc. Just posted a page on one of my blogs and got 568 views by stumble in 40 mins, didn’t get much conversion though. Anyhow, progressively monitising this month and next, and hopefully will have more than a mere pound to my name in future.
@ Mark, why did you pass it up? Was the guy wanting all links to point to the same blog, and are you a new blogger like me?
Just seems a little strange as after a month you could ditch him.
I am on the free wordpress site which doesn’t allow us to profit from google, etc.. Maybe on day I will host my own blog somewhere!
3 people vote over $15,000? John Chow and Shoemaker must have stopped by.
Wonder who the third guy was? :-D
I’m just starting to earn something since Paypal in our country had its paypal withdrawal feature. I earned around $150 bucks this month… Is this good for starters already?
I have quite new blog. But, it is performing very well. It has been only few days I have placed ads on my blog. So, I hope I will earn big money in coming days as much as Darren!!!
I made close to $2000 all from affiliate programs.. I’d love to get into selling ad space but my topic is niche and a little controversial.. so i’m not sure how to go about it.
This is a great poll as I’m curious to see what the potential is in blogging. How much can i realistically expect to make?
I can’t wait to see the results.
I haven’t made any money blogging yet, but I haven’t really tried either.
November 20th will mark 3 months for my blog, so I should have a pretty good gauge on when I can expect earnings in the future. It might not be for another 6 months!
I earned a little less than usual, but that’s because I had a baby at the start of the month and I had to step down my work prior because of an injury. I imagine earnings will be down for a while, although they’re still pretty darn good, IMHO.
I didn’t see the option for how much a month it costs to blog… I’m in to triple figures on that front, easily.
Incredible! $11 puts me just above the lowest income bracket. Careful guys, I’m on my way up!
Great Poll; how do you count it? An example: I used to post to a columbus Livejournal community. Last week, I earned an $8,000 fee (I’m a mortgage guy) from an indirect referral from that source. I’ve also earned a lot of direct-referrals-from-advertised people.
So how do you count it?
Does it count if you earned the money but they have yet to pay you? :)
I think my adsense was working on about $10 but like Patrick said above… no place to go but up. Scott
First month over $5k for me, pretty nice!
I’m not sure how to judge it- blogging is just one form of marketing for me. I also have an email newsletter, and I have a membership site/community, plus I do speaking gigs from time to time which generate back-of-the-room sales.
Who showed up where buying what because of what? I’m not good enough in my stats tracking to judge how much comes from blogging versus other channels.
Total of $13 for my first month. Hopefully I can increase to 100$ by this month. 3 vote for $15000 @@ cool.
Last month was my best ever, things seem to be slowing down this month but I expect things to pick up again coming up to Xmas.
just keep building & building :)
Stu
I made about $30 last month from Adsense from a business blog I created.
I made income from writing work I picked up because of Sex and the Beach. The clients would have never found me had it not been for the blog.
15,000 in one month is simply remarkable. How do we achieve the same success?
Depressingly, $0, although I DID sell a calendar from my Cafe Press store . . . it’ll just be 45 days before I get that money . . .
I could perhaps have topped $1,000 last month, but the new site I launched must have had bad Google traffic as my existing site got a knock-on smack down and I saw my earnings fall from $20-$30 per day to $4-$5 per day on similar traffic, and I couldn’t get any affiliate CPA sales.
How about a follow-on question on how much did you spend, then how much of a profit.
Technically, $0. Right now, I’m not doing much to monetize though. I’m mostly concerned with becoming a better blogger and writing better posts.
I have been working on setting up my blogs but have made about $52.50 total from Google and two of my affiliate programs.
I choose sponsors for my blogs from different affiliate networks. I haven’t started posting any content yet, getting geared up for consistent posting starting Monday. hopefully I’ll be making big $$ soon! The affiliate networks I use are linked on my Blogspot blog ‘SoCalWorkatHomeMom’.
I have 8 blogs I am working on so I hope to have some success stories to share soon. The information here on ProBlogger is a HUGE help!
Much Luck to everyone!
Peace and Wellness,
~Julie Phineas
So, Darren – How much did You earn this October?
$0.00 for me if you don’t count the Amazon money I’m waiting for which I’ll just spend at Amazon.
I’m almost at 3 months and did not start this to make money. My expenses (not counting my time) are less than $20 per month. After saying that I’m now starting to think differently about it.
After hearing some of you making such good money I think I’ll try and tap into all this money some of you make with another blog idea I have in the back of my mind.
Nothing to brag about for October, but i will have a sweeter income report for November. I’m opening 10 spots on two PR4 blogs for dirt cheap to get things going. Only $5 a month.
As my traffic grows, the prices will go up, so get in now. Just shoot me an email. I’ll add your site right away.
P.S. Both blogs are vegetarian blogs. Both PR4.
Making money isn’t my goal. Gaining respect in the community, making connections, etc. A single conversation off the books at a conference will make me more money than my blog ever will.
And I like blogging. It’s a lot of work but even without the income it’s well worth it. Keeping up with the industry is one of the more important things we have to do anyway.
Aaron
5-10K for me, It was a great month :-)
Man… Oct. was a great great month for me Darren. We’re looking at $5000 to $9,999. Very awesome to have created this poll. It is extremely interesting to learn more about where everyone is at with there ventures on making money online.
Also, keep in mind, last month was actually my record breaking month. Sept. was nothing like last month and so far Nov. is trending the same way Oct. did… so we’ll see.
Down to $27, for me. Revenues seemed to collapse halfway through October, unfortunately. Not that they were ever particularly high, but I was usually pulling in a couple of dollars a day and it was on the increase – and then suddenly everything turned around.
A total of 4 blogs, all have PR2 = $1100 for the month of October. Some of my blogs had no PR until the update though, so I am expecting more money in November.
I only made about $10.00 but I’m still adding content to my site (It is a little light)
Another good question would be “What Percentage Did Your Blog Earnings Increase in October?”
I can proudly say that I saw a 137% increase this month, which is an improvement over last month’s 62% and the previous month’s 36%.
Though I’ve had quite a bit going on in the last month: a couple diggs, increase in PR, and a new theme. I wouldn’t expect this month to have triple digit growth again, but who knows.
I know you have the “I don’t make money blogging” option, but I think you should also have the “I’m not trying to make money blogging” option.
There are many indirect ways blogging helps you make money that can’t be quantified with a dollar amount.
Thanks for this great poll. Its results will give a fair idea of the income curve for blogs (in the sample data).
– Very curious about the blogs claiming huge earnings $5k+; if we visit the sites and analyze them, most have a PR of
Recently after my experiment with adsense, by removing them from the front fold, i managed to clock in $100 bucks. I see potential in doing direct advertising since its all be taken up. I see exploring monetizing on feeds as another source of income. Let’s see how my experiment come about.
I made less than $100 from my blog since it was still new and I guess it is still finding its spot in the saturated blog on blogging niche.
As a blogger, traffic is still the most vital part of my blog. I do believe that with traffic, money can come in proportion with it.
Gross or net?
My $13 was from a hobby website/blog which I don’t spend much time on – I’m happy to just cover the costs with some coffee money left over!
Interesting to see Mark’s comment (8th from top) questioning the going rate for text link ads. I was offered $35 each for 4 ads for a year, and wondered if this was good or bad. I still have no idea – is there a standard rate?
I took the $140, as it was better than the $0 that saying no would have got me.
I just wanted to answer: I don’t earn money from blogging.
But then I realized, that I started my blog on 31st of october and (by some funny accident) someone happened to click on my Adsense. So here I go with 44 Cents earned in October (with only one post up) boomchikawhoawhoaa :)
Yes I do have a blog (finally) PLUS I am earning money with it. 1.47$ so far, with no real marketing yet (since only five posts are up).
Gotcha *jump*
Thanks Darren for all of your motivation.
My fav tip of yours:
Stop reading about blogging just do it, and keep it going ;)
PS: my blog is in german so no point in clicking :P
My second blog has started well (went live in October) with some great traffic from Stumleupon, but that hasn’t translated into many clicks. Revenue is low at $5, but I’m happy with that for the first month as it just covers hosting costs.