Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The Basics of Making Money Blogging

I just ran across a great post that covers a few of the ins-and-outs of trying to earn money with a blog. Corey did a wonderful job summing up some of the main points that we've talked about here before, and that every paid blogger must know. You definitely should head on over and check it out!

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Passive Blogging Income

Darren has a great post over at ProBlogger about being able to earn a passive income by blogging. Basically, he confronts the question about whether you can build a blog, then sit back and let the money roll in.

The answer? NO

Well, Darren goes to a bit greater length to explain the answer. There are a couple ways blogging income can be "passive," in a sense. As you build up archives, those pages are earning money without further work. Also, some programs like Adsense can be "set it and forget it."

However, the key is that you will have to continue working on your blog, or your page ranking, search engine ranking, and overall traffic will fall. It won't plummet overnight, but you can't just walk away and expect the earnings to keep rolling in.

Be sure to check out Darren's full post for the details and his explanation.

Get a PayPal Account for Easy Payments

If you're trying to make money online, you should definitely setup a PayPal account.

The biggest reason for doing this is that some online companies only pay through PayPal. I believe PayPerPost operates in precisely this manner. Thus, if you don't have a PayPal account, you simply can't get paid by companies such as this.

Second, many companies offer expedited payments through PayPal. For example, Text Link Ads will send your payment via check or PayPal. As we all know, it takes time to cut checks and send them through the mail. However, PayPal provides instant payment. For Text Link Ads, this means you'll receive payment instantly on the first of every month. Cool, right?

PayPal provides a secure method to receive payments, assuming you take reasonable precautions. You should never click a link from an email to PayPal (or any other online account). This is a prime method of phishing. If you choose a secure PayPal password, protect it appropriately, and monitor your bank account, everything will be fine. Plus, you'll get your payments quicker.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Should Adsense Blend or Stand Out?

I guess that's a loaded question. It depends.

In my personal experience, I've had success both ways. However, I have noticed a bit higher CTR when I changed from ads from blended to a color that complemented the page's design, but stood out.

The page was mostly blues, so I chose a couple complementary reds for the ad design. The CTR went up a little bit when I did this. However, I'm not sure if that's really due to the color change or just more traffic. Who knows?

I submit that a big problem with Adsense (and ads generally) is ad-blindness. Users (especially regular readers) just become blind to ads over time. Perhaps shifting colors after a while helped with that. Maybe it would be a good idea to change colors (and ad locations) every couple months. I'm not saying that we should shift things a lot, but just a bit to make people notice.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Try Referral Programs for Easy Cash

Are you a member of some type of money-earning program? Have you inquired to see if you can also earn money by referring other people to the company?

Two programs that I participate in have some really good referral incentives: Text Link Ads and PayPerPost. Of the two, I think Text Link Ads' is a bit better. You post a simple graphic or text ad on your blog. Then anyone who either becomes a publisher or an advertiser with TLA will earn you $25. That's a nice piece of change for doing very little work.

The only problem with referral programs is that your network of people to refer is necessarily limited. If you try to just sign up your friends, you'll run out of people really quickly. This is why you must use the graphic or text ads on your blogs. Get your site's visitors to see the value in the program. Perhaps someone will actually have the desire to advertise on your blog and sign up through TLA.

Whatever you do, don't simply overlook referral opportunities. The possibilities are quite endless, and you definitely shouldn't knock it without giving it a go.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Drive Traffic by Being a Carnie

To get paid for blogging, you'll need traffic. How do you get that?


One great way is to participate in blog carnivals. They are basically a travelling collection of blog posts on a different subject. Most of them happen at a regular interval, and bloggers take turns "hosting" the carnival.


You can find carnivals in your nice by checking out Blog Carnival. Use their online forms to easily submit posts to carnivals you find.


Also, don't overlook being a carnival host. Carnivals only run through the contributions of bloggers like you. Being the host entails some work, but you will usually end up with several links from blogs that might not usually link to you.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Blog Dedication Required to Make Money

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

A lot of opportunities exist to make money online. You can serve contextual ads, sell ad space, link to affiliate products / services, post paid reviews, and more. However, you can't make money with any of these unless you put some work into your blog.

What do I mean by this? Well, all of these money making endeavors rely on one thing: traffic. In order for the ad or affiliate companies to make money, your website has to send them significant traffic. So how do you make money?

Traffic really is the key. You have to be dedicated to your blog or website and build your reader base. Otherwise, you cannot earn anything online.

Even with paid review programs, your blog must have some of its own content, and it must have existed for a certain number of days. You can't just get a free Blogger blog and earn money right out of the gate.

Dedicate yourself to blogging, build a reader base, and you'll be on your way earning money online.

Friday, January 12, 2007

First Text Link Ads Sold!

I'm so excited! I was working on my main blog, and I saw that I finally have Text Link Ads!

If you haven't checked out this cool way to monetize your blog, you should definitely give it a look. It's quick and simple to sign-up and add the code to your blog. Plus, you can sell ads on your RSS feed, as well as your blog pages.

Advertisers pay a monthly fee to appear on your blog, and you get a cut of that. Payments go out once a month, via either check of PayPal. Easy, right?