Money Making Blogs

If you want to get a sense (no pun intended) of what others are earning with their websites from Adsense, check out Admoolah. This site allows you to search based on the categories of websites, traffic, PR, etc. You can also contribute by submitting your monthly Adsense earnings to the database.

When I checked, the highest earning site listed was one in the “computers” category with 300,000 monthly visitors. For the month of April, it earned $16,445 from Adsense. There were 4 other sites reporting monthly earnings over $10,000. That’s a good goal to work for.

Set an amount that you would like to make with Adsense per month and write it down. Then divide it by 30 (on average) and that’s what you have to make per day. Then start optimizing your blog and post more entries. The more traffic you have the more you can earn. Once you have a decent number of readers, you can test different ad placements, ad formats, colors, etc.

Tweak and test until you reach your daily goal. Then increase your monthly goal and break it down into a new daily goal. If you keep your focus, you will reach your earnings goal.

This entry posted by Jason Calacanis reports that Weblogs, Inc. has broken the $2,000 per day barrier recently. It took them about 7 months to go from $0 to $1,000 per day but just 6 weeks to go from $1,000 to $2,000 per day. Quite an achievement. But then, they also have 75+ bloggers and 10 full-time staff.

Here’s a great resource for getting “private label” articles you can use and modify for posting to your blog. Read this excerpt from the publisher:

“Bryan Winters has just put together one of the most
valuable “bonus offers” you’ve ever laid eyes on!
This is something that he’ll be paying hundreds
or even thousands of extra dollars each *month* for,
and passing on to just 722 lucky people for no charge!

Are you ready?!…

If you’re one of the next 722 people to join
InfoGoRound (Bryan’s new private label content
service that *exploded* onto the scene just 5 short
DAYS ago), you’ll NOT ONLY receive the thousands
of dollars worth of freshly written, private label
article-content that IGR provides to its members
on a monthly basis…

(Here it comes!…)

You will ALSO receive at least one exclusive,
private label *PRODUCT* each and every month!!
Each product will be based on a hot NICHE topic,
such as:

-52 Tips to Lowering Your Golf Score
-How to Find a Steal-of-a-Deal on a Used Car
-How to SLAM DUNK a Basketball
-How to Pay Off Your Mortgage in Just 5 Years!
-(Etc.)

…Those are just a few sample titles to give
you an idea on what type of product-content you’ll
be receiving =) The first product is *already written*
and ready for download, but the title/topic is a surprise
(you’ll find out after you join!) Though, I can tell
you it’s an in-demand niche topic that millions of
people are interested in.

Each private label product release comes with
resale rights. You can do just about anything
you want with these products. Modify them.
Sign YOUR name as author. Insert your own
affiliate links. Use them to set up content-
based web-sites and Google Adsense “portals”.
Turn them into “polished” PDF or EXE format
and offer them for up to $25-50 or more a copy.
The possibilities are endless! Each product
comes in rich text format and is 40-75 pages
long - ready for you to get creative with!

WAIT! I’ve saved the BEST PART for LAST!….

Thanks to IGR’s patent pending Cash for Content
program, you can obtain all IGR membership benefits
AND this special bonus offer for NO COST! (Visit
IGR and click on the “Cash for Content” program
link for full details.)

IMPORTANT: While there is no cap on the regular IGR
membership itself, this special private label bonus
offer CLOSES after the remaining 722 open slots have
filled! (IGR will post an obvious notice on their site
when the bonus offer has been filled/closed.)

Click the following link to join IGR *immediately*
so that you can secure your special bonus! Each month
you’ll receive at least one NEW private label product
(worth hundreds of dollars in price paid), in *addition*
to IGR’s already amazing membership benefits!”

Find out more about IGR

Just found this site called Pheedo. You can join the blog traffic exchange and get more visitors to your blog. The way it works is simple. Once you create an account, you’ll get a piece of code you can paste on your blog to show ads promoting other blogs. Each time you show an ad, the ad for your blog is shown on someone else’s site.

Promote your blog for free.

Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. Take a read of the official Blogger document “Promoting Your Blog”.

As suggested, you’ll want to make sure that you enable the setting to ping Weblogs.com. This means that each time you make a new post, Weblogs.com will be notified. Since many sites use Weblogs.com to check for blog updates, it’s a good idea to do this.

They also recommend submitting your blog to these sites:

1. Technorati
2. Daypop
3. Blogdex
4. Popdex

From time to time, keep looking for directories where you can submit your blog. Once your blog is listed, you will also get a backlink to your site. This will help to increase the PR of your site. With a couple of high PR sites, you’ll be able to get your new blogs indexed by the search engines a lot faster. Well now, you’re on your way to creating your own blog network.

If you don’t already have a subscriber list for your blog, you’ll have to seriously consider setting one up. The beauty of a subscriber list is that it lets you keep in touch with all your blog readers. Plus, you’ll be able to leverage your list to get repeat traffic to your blog.

There are many reasons to have a subscriber list. Among them are:

1. Promote a free newsletter - you can write about tips on the topic of your blog. For example, if you’re blogging about money saving coupons, you can start a newsletter that provides weekly updates on ways to save money.

2. Promote a paid newsletter - if you’re providing valuable information for free on your blog, you can also create a premium version of your newsletter which is by paid subscription. This is another way to monetize your blog aside from displaying ads.

3. Promote affiliate products - if you find a particular product that is of interest to your blog readers, you can join the affiliate program and promote the product to your list. Make commissions.

4. Not everyone has time to read your blog daily. You can send out updates on the latests posts on your blog. Something might catch the eye of your reader and remind them of your blog. That’s a way to get repeat traffic.

If you want to set up a subscriber mailing list, you can check out what I use for this blog. Just click on the “Email Aces” image below the subscription box on the right hand side.

You can’t make money from your blog unless you have traffic.

You can’t get traffic unless people can find your blog.

One of the ways to get more people noticing your blog is submitting your blog to directories.

Here’s a list of places to submit your blog. If you create a feed from your blog using Feedburner, for example, there is also a list of places to submit your RSS feed.

Does John Battelle’s BoingBoing really rake in $40,000 per month?

It’s anybody’s guess. But with a PR of 7, 43,000 backlinks and 67,000 indexed pages in Google you better believe that they’re raking in some chunk of change from advertising.

Gawker is a blog focused on Manhattan entertainment news. According to the description of the site, its “audience [consists] of upscale, enthusiastic online consumers and entertainment junkies.” This blog or “web magazine” as they call themselves makes money by selling ad space.

Take a look at the advertising rates for Gawker. The site is not really small business friendly. The minimum ad purchase is $750 and you can only pay by check or wire transfer. Sorry, no PayPal.

You can take this model and use it yourself if you have a blog with a highly focused reader base.

Here’s an interesting comparison of the different business models of the “big guns” - Nick Denton, Jason Calacanis and John Battelle. In a nutshell, they are:

1. Start blogs in areas that interest you - Nick Denton
2. Start blogs in profitable markets (based on bids of Google Adwords advertisers) - Jason Calacanis
3. Acquire established blogs in specific niche markets - John Battelle

Can Blogging Ever Become Big Business? (from Business 2.0)