Thursday, June 4, 2009

Why Not Make Money From a Blog?


In surfing around and reading various blogs I'm amazed by how many are devoid of any advertising. Some even have a banner which proclaims them to be "Ad Free". I was talking to my brother about this, about how I'm trying to make some money with this little endeavour...his reaction about how my blog might be perceived by those who shun any and all advertising was good for a chuckle: "You're selling out to DAH MAN Gord".

I do wish to make one point perfectly clear, I don't view my little corner of cyberspace as a career, far from it. I enjoy blogging and sharing my thoughts on various and sundry issues. If in doing something I enjoy, if I'm able to get a little Do Re Mi from it...well I certainly won't argue.

I've asked a few bloggers who are "Ad Free" about why they don't bother with trying to earn some revenue and the response overwhelmingly is that its not worth the effort for a very small return. I can't argue that point, so far I've banked a grand total of $0 from my little soapbox. That's not to say I haven't made any money, but the advertising platforms I'm using have minimum thresholds before they'll issue payment and I'm not there yet. Google's Adsense is probably the most popular with bloggers, and you have to hit $100 before they'll issue a cheque...which I think I'll probably hit sometime this year the way things are going.

I tried a few different advertisers, but have settled on just two. Adsense fills up the right sidebar, and I don't think it distracts from the content. The ads are supposed to be targeted based on my what my blogs are about...which seems to be the case most of the time. Still there are occasional ads for soft drinks and chips, but I don't ever recall writing about snack food.

I'm also running ads through Chitika, which has an interesting platform. The ads only show up when surfers arrive on my blog via a search engine like google. Like Adsense they're supposed to be geared to my content, but to be honest I don't really care. If a few people click on the ads and it results in ten or a hundred bucks dropping into my hands every now and again...then its all good. Chitika's payment threshold is only $10, and I'm almost there, so if you see me getting a sundae for dessert at the golden arches then you'll know why.

I put those hyperlinks on the word Chitika on purpose, they have a referral program so if you have a blog and decide to give them a go...What the hell, I guess I'm just a money loving cyber whore at the end of the day. I could put up a bunch of free banner junk on my sidebar, its not like I'm raking in major cash here....as things stand only about 1 in 300 people even bother clicking the ads on this blog.

At the end of the day I'll continue blogging regardless of whether its making me $$$ or not...but I won't begrudge "selling out" if I'm able to pay for a round of golf or two each year from the nickels, dimes and pennies that accumulate.

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