Chitika audited earnings for January 2006 have been posted. Looking at my results, the difference between unaudited and audited earnings is about 20%. December was 4% and November was again 20%. I’m still evaluating Chitika and will decide soon whether to drop it from my network of sites. Basically, the CPM is, in a word - horrible - at least for me.
[tags]Chitika[/tags]
I just read this story that Kottke.Org which is a blog run by Jason Kottke is no longer accepting contributions from readers to support the effort.
Kottke revealed on Wednesday that he had raised a total of $39,900 (£22,800) from 1,450 donors. Most of that was received in the initial fund-raising drive in February and March 2005 when his project began.
More details about Jason’s decision can be found at his blog post. Part of the reason, to quote Jason, is:
I haven’t grown traffic enough or developed a sufficient cult of personality to make the subscription model a sustainable one for kottke.org…those things just aren’t interesting to me.
I find it interesting that there is no advertising whatsoever on Kottke.org given that it has a PR of 8 and probably a sizeable amount of traffic. Maybe he’s one of the few purists left in the blogosphere. But hey, bloggers got to eat too!
Found this article in the Microsoft Small Business Center website on tips for making money with your blog. To summarize, the tips are:
1. Sell advertising (surprise, surprise) - you can either apply to contextual advertising programs or sell ad space directly to companies who are interested in the subject of your blog.
2. Help others sell products, i.e. affiliate marketing
3. Ask for donations - seen those PayPal “Donate” buttons?
4. Market your services - if, for example, you’re a writer or graphic designer, etc.
5. Build customer relationships - get your customers to buy more from you.
This is an older article on rates bloggers are getting paid in several blog networks (Gawker, Weblogs). Reportedly, Jessica Coen of Gawker only makes $30,000 per year but I clicked on the link to read the article and couldn’t find it. I did a Google search and found the list here (Who Makes What?).
Here is another list of popular blogs featured by the New York magazine.
This is a long article about blogging for dollars but it’s definitely worth a read (yes, all 6 pages of it!)