Have you considered making revenue from your blog to help pay down your debt? Blogging can help bring in a few extra dollars to supporting a full-time lifestyle.
At one time, I mentioned that I wanted to make a $1000 in extra income; to downshift certain areas of my life to make more time to spend with my family.
After refocusing my agenda and blog, I am getting closer to that goal – bringing in a few hundreds dollars on Money Funk to help pay down the debt.
In this post I want to share with you some of those avenues for making money on your blog.
Be aware – each blog makes money in its own unique way – some advertising avenues work better than others. The thing is to experiment with different avenues until you find that one that works for you.
Listed in order are the blogging income avenues that work for Money Funk.
- Private Ad Sales
Private Ad sales have proved to be my main source of blogging income. At this time, private ads are in the form of text links placed within my sidebar. I hope to expand this to including 125 x 125 banner ads located in the sidebar.
- Google Adsense
Reformatting some areas of my blog have helped produce an increase in blogging income. Currently, I use google search, a 468×60 pixel image ad in the home page header, 468×60 pixel text ad in the blog page header, a 336×280 pixel text ad in the blog page footer, and a 160×600 pixel text ad in the sidebar. I also have a 336×280 pixel image ad in the lower sidebar, but this is more of a space filler in my sidebar. The key is to place Adsense ads where your eyes wander.
- Amazon Affiliates
This has started to show some promise for Money Funk. Most of the sales are generated through book sales and tutorials from previous posts.
- Commission Junction
Commission Junction’s network provides publishers with opportunities to partner with leading advertisers while having access to millions of links and offers. This has provided me with a small income stream. I tend to link general products not associated with personal finance, just to break up the monotony. One exception, I offer a great place to print grocery coupons free of charge and receive a referral rate for your click (located as a text link in sidebar). I plan to experiment further commission junction’s advertising links.
There are many sites that offer great advice to make money blogging. Two of my favorite links are ProBlogger and Christian Personal Finance.
During my early blogging days as a young lad of 24 years old I tried putting up ads to make money, then I got banned from adsense b/c I was naive to the rules. Boy was that a big mistake. I have tried some other ad options but they have been far from fruitful. Time to sign up for all of your other suggestions.
Hey, thanks for stopping by. You know, Adsense rules are not really initiated when you sign up – like having to post a privacy policy. I actually found that out from another site – and then the revenue from Adsense went up. Interesting, huh?
And I think that one just needs to keep experimenting to feel for your reader’s preferences and what works. Privates work for me because it is an upfront fee and not based on EPC, etc… But you really have to sort them out and post the ones that will help to build your valuable reputation.
I rec’d a request to post an private ad for a Cash Advance place! Eeeks! I would NEVER propose my readers to that type of ad! We’re all trying to get out of debt and/or build are wealth! 🙂
I’d love to hear later what works for you or even great ways to bring in readership.
This is great info, and very pertinent in my case. I checked out the PF blog and read his article on making income through ads on a blog. Though the content on my blog is my number one priority, it would be great if I could also make a little extra money too!
I totally agree and know that is a KEY INGREDIENT for a blog – that the content is the number one priority.
As an example… if you could recommend the tools to help get one out of debt or increase someone’s attitude towards getting out of debt – then it’s for the better right? Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover book – Yes, I would definitely recommend it to my readers. Now, if I recommended my readers to the Cash Advance site that was offered to me… WROng! Totally would of lost my blogging friends and readers. That would of sucked cuz I’ve met so many great people with whom I’ve built lasting friendships. Content is Key.
Thank you for relaying that. And thank you for stopping by. 🙂 BTW, where was that landscape picture taken in your header? Looks like the place my husband wants to retire to. I understand if you want to keep location anonymity.
Do you have any advice about private ad sales? I have had a few requests and I don’t even know how to respond. So I haven’t responded yet – haha, not the best strategy!
Thanks!
Advice… Consider the amount of people that visit your blog. If you are not sure, you could install WPStats plugin, Google Analytics, or Sitemeter. Consider you Google Page Ranking as another indicator. But, I would believe your stats to be fairly steady, probably a Google PR of 3.
Are we talking a text link in the sidebar? I would start asking $150 for a year. As more come along begin to up your price and feel where the threshold is.
Now, if its a link within your post – I think there is some debate as whether to use them or not. Google around in regards to this issue.
If you use Google Adsense on your site, you may need to place a rel=”nofollow” within your affiliate links. Again up for debate but worth looking into.
Sorry, hope I’m not overwhelming you.
BTW, I used to do the same thing in the beginning because I just didn’t know how to answer them but didn’t want to give up the opportunity so quickly. 🙂
*For anyone with experience in placing Affiliate Links would love your feedback on this one*
you’re making a couple of hundred bucks a month on the blog? that’s awesome news. fantastic news actually!!! keep up the good work. now i need to just click away to make sure i’m contributing to your cause;-).
In the last 3 months I have been making that amount. I hope to learn to increase that thru this blog and am going to need to experiment with different things. It would be nice to say I can work from home and help to eliminate my debt. All a learning journey. And thanks for clicking away! 🙂
If you’re really serious about making goood money blogging, I’d suggest checking out the post in depth that you linked above at ChristianPF.com. I’ve followed similar steps at my blog, and now my blog income has increased to the point where it is more than what my wife makes at her day job. It’s been amazing because now we don’t have to worry if my wife decides to stay home if we have kids – because her income has been replaced by the blog!
My best sources of income?
1. adsense
2. affiliate networks like flexoffers, cj.com, linkshare.
3. text links (although i’m phasing these out – there is some debate as to whether they’ll hurt your page rank and rankings in google search.
4. private ad banner sales
Good luck!
Seriously? Very much what I like to hear. Can’t wait to read it more in depth in hopes it will have similar effects. 🙂
I need to still experiment with #2 – it’s not quite working for me yet. It is a continuous learning process for me. One thing I’ve learned – every blog advertising niche is different. That it is important to keep trying new processes.
It’s entirely possible to make money blogging, although you have to be able to separate good info from stuff that will just make you waste your time. I have a small but growing portfolio of websites and I can definitely vouch for Adsense as a good way to earn some income online
I am considering starting a couple of niche sites myself. Although, I have to make sure I have time to complete all the stuff on my plate. That or learn to delegate! Maybe I will hire my techie son to get some of the work done for me.
I realize that separating the good from the waste is a matter of experience. I’ve learned a lot of lessons thru out this blogging journey.
Thanks for stopping by!
Great post. I wish I’d buckle down and spend some time working on this. I’ve just never put enough time into it.
-1MansMoney
Thank you! Let me tell ya, it requires a lot of time! You really have to treat blogging like a job to make an income from it. Since I enjoy blogging and computers its a good fit to make this work.
I really enjoy negotiating a direct 3 month campaign with advertisers. This way I can screen the product. I’m not a fan of Adsense and the 1000% penny stock and interesting type of ads they have. Just my own pref.
Have you tried targeting the Adsense by writing content to keywords and using Google section tags? Eliminates much of the unwanted ads and increases EPC.
I dream of the day when I can do direct sales adverts with advertisers on Monevator, although I guess I’ll have to implement geo-targeting to hit the UK market and keep serving up Adsense in the US and elsewhere.
It’s not easy being a UK money blogger, cor blimey guvner, apples and pears, and so forth. 😉
cor blimey guvner…. HUH? LOL.
I don’t core to a specific location. But I did blog with many UK bloggers. So UK companies came to me for advert spots. But most of my readers (70%) come from the US.
Keep putting out your great stuff. Advert request will come. 🙂
Hi there,
Great blog, very good topic and content. We recently started blogs as well and it has been quite a slow and difficult start. Hard work, lots of hours, which you are made to believe it is easy, but let me tell it is not.
Nonetheless, we have survived and have learned a lot.
Blogs like yours have been a source of information, but also of reassurance.
Thanks
Mike
Of course, absolutely there are many ways…
i found days ago the name of a fantastic program which help us to earn money, without having to use social networks, adwords, adsense, etc,,
Let me find it, maybe tomorrow i post the name of the system….
see yaa