Starting to Make Money From My Blog

Now that I have set up the CMS to work and look the way I want, the next thing I needed to do was start to look at ways to make money from the site, or to use the American term to “monetize” it.

There are a number of ways to make money from your blog, and I have decided on the following:

Google Adsense

Paypal Donations

Affiliate programs

Direct Advertising

Google Adsense
I guess everyone has heard of Adsense by now, but in case you haven’t, Adsense places small adverts on your web pages, and pays a small amount of money to you each time a reader clicks through to the web site in question. The system works very well, reading the page first and then putting on adverts which correspond to the content. Have a look to the left now, and you’ll see ads that relate to what you are reading right now.

Adsense is already working on this blog, indeed it produced income from Day Three! But the income at this stage is very, very low – a matter of cents each day. However, that is a function of traffic, and if I can earn a few cents from 40 odd visitors, then can I earn a few dollars from a few thousand visitors, so I just need to raise my traffic levels and watch the income from this source rise.

I haven’t mastered Adsense by any means yet, and I will play around with the design, position and any other factors I can, in order to determine the best way to present the adverts.

Paypal Donations
I decided early on to put a Paypal donation button on the site. In some ways this seems strange, but my theory is that if people enjoy reading the site, then they may wish to contribute a little to help my situation. I haven’t had any donations yet, but I’m sure at some point, someone will send a small amount my way, and again, as traffic increases, that may be enough to make a difference.

Affiliate Programs
I researched this thoroughly, and decided to sign up with a company called Affiliate Future, www.affiliatefuture.co.uk as they seemed to offer a good choice of products I could eventually offer readers.

Essentially an affiliate program works like this: You either post a link to the product or service on your site, or recommend it directly through a post, using code supplied, which allows the company to recognize that the recommendation came from you. If people but the product, you get a commission. Here’s an example: If this were a travel blog, I would choose to write an article about car hire. At the end I could offer readers a choice of 3 or 4 car hire companies with whom I am affiliated. If they click the adverts or links I have put there, the system tracks the fact that they came from my site, and when they book, my account is credited with some commission. This way you can earn anything from a few cents to more than a hundred dollars depending on the value of the business.

So far I haven’t used any of the affiliations, as traffic is too low, but I will in time. One thing I have promised myself is that I will only recommend a product or service I would be pleased to use. I believe that the moment I recommend something of low quality, will be the moment I lose a reader!

One small affiliation I have used is with my web host, Servage. They don’t pay a commission, but if anyone signs up with them via my recommendation, they give me a couple of months free hosting, and they give the new sign up, free additional web space. If you’re interested, please sign up with them here:

Direct Advertising
This is something else I will introduce one I have enough traffic to make it worth a client’s while to invest in. I’ll offer small graphic adverts on the site, in various places, which link directly to their sites, and I’ll charge a reasonable monthly fee.
I already have a few potential clients in mind, and will begin to target them directly when the time is right, but I don’t see that happening until the blog is at least 4-6 months old and generating substantial traffic.

So, in summary, I now have two sources of income on the site, and I’m earning a little from one of them, but I know where I’m going with the other two, and fully expect all four to make a contribution.

The other thing I spent time on recently has been Twitter, http://twitter.com/mikecj if you click that link you’ll be able to follow me on Twitter. Let me try to explain what Twitter is – it’s a kind of microblog, you just stay logged in while you’re at your PC, or even on your phone, and every now and then post an update on what you’re doing. The update has to be short and sweet, 140 characters or less. Over time you follow more and more people, and get a real feel for what’s going on in their lives and work. It’s also a great place to ask a question and draw on some fabulous answers. Twitter is used mainly by bloggers and computer folk, so is relevant to what I do. Have a look and see what you think.
We managed 49 visitors today, with 241 page views. Income was steady (!) at less than 10 cents.

Update: At the time of writing this update, the blog is now over three months old. Visitors are over 300 per day, which is fantastic! Adsense income is all over the place, but some days I'm earning as much as $8, which is really good news. I've launched with a number of affiliates, all of which have earned a little money, and I'm now offering direct advertising slots on the site, which you can read about here.

Things have moved a long way!

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To bring yourself up to date, you should read these posts:

1/ Blogging for Beginners

2/ Useful resources for new bloggers

3/ Blog update March 2009