I expect to see more people coming online with their blogs and trying to make money online, especially since stories about ‘probloggers’ keep popping up in the mainstream media, in this case the Wall Street Journal. According to the story, this site rakes in $15,000 to $18,000 per month from Google AdSense. Rhett Butler, the owner of the site, says that he gets about 1.3 million uniques per month. I’ve never heard of his site, Mongabay, until now.

The other usual suspects included in the article is Darren Rowse of Problogger.net. That’s what making the Forbes Internet celebrity list can get you. He sneaked in at #25.

For your convenience, here’s the full list:

1. Perez Hilton
2. Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
3. Mark Frauenfelder (who? think BoingBoing)
4. Seth Godin
5. Cory Doctorow
6. Matt Drudge (Drudge Report)
7. Gina Trapani (LifeHacker)
8. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
9. Harry Knowles
10. Robert Scoble
11. Frank Warren (PostSecret) - hosted on Blogger!!!
12. Om Malik
13. Will Leitch (DeadSpin)
14. Jeff Jarvis
15. Kevin Rose (Digg)
16. Kathy Sierra
17. Fake Steve Jobs (We LOVE Fake Steve Jobs!)
18. Markos Moulitsas (DailyKos)
19. Xeni Jardin
20. Ryan Block (Engadget)
21. Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)
22. Pete Cashmore (Mashable)
23. Steve Rubel
24. Heather Armstrong
25. Darren Rowse

Technorati Tags: celebrity bloggers, mongabay, problogger, wall street journal, full time blogging, influential bloggers

Popularity: 35% [?]

Maybe that statement is an exaggeration but the point is that too many blogs are depending on AdSense as their major source of revenue. And I’d say that the major motivation that’s keeping a lot of blogs alive is the fact that they can make some money off AdSense.

While many small-time bloggers can make some extra cash through AdSense on their sites, don’t fall into the trap of relying solely on one source of revenue. This is especially true if you’re planning to quit your day job and think that you can survive on AdSense alone.

image credit: blmurch (Flickr)

The importance of diversification

Imagine that you wake up one day and Google bans your AdSense account. Will that kill 80% of your revenues? 95%?

That’s what happened to Incredimail, a public listed company (NASDAQ:MAIL) that saw its stock fall 30% today after they announced that Google has banned them from AdSense.

According to Maxim Group analyst, Matthew Weiss:

“This announcement is a big blow for IncrediMail as we believe that approximately 85 percent of the company’s advertising revenues are attributable to its AdSense relationship”

According to an article in the MotleyFool:

“Through the first nine months of 2007, revenues soared 94% to $13.3 million. The company is taking advantage of its popular email applications to launch Instant Messaging and social networking.”

If 85% of the revenues are from AdSense, that would amount to about $11 million dollars for the first nine months of 2007.

Use your earnings to invest for the future

While you are getting some decent checks from Google, set aside a part of it to invest in your continuing education and also for growing your revenue streams. Maybe you can plan to acquire some other websites. Or use some of your profits to hire writers and invest in building up new sites.

Or you can invest it off-line in traditional stuff like the stock market, CDs, forex, or pick your favorite investment vehicle.

Think of it this way. Look at what happened to Polaroid. They should have seen the trends occurring in the photography business with the advent of digital photography. Instead they were relying too much on their instant cameras which use film and look at where they are today.

When you think of photography who do you think of? Kodak? Polaroid? Hardly. I think the winners are Nikon and Canon.

So be sure to keep up with what’s happening in the industry.

Once again, I see that so many blogs are following the same layout as some A-list bloggers, you know, having the 125×125 ad blocks on the right hand sidebar. It’s like lemmings.

The supply and demand for these ads will eventually adjust their prices. However, there will always be suckers who are willing to pay more than the market price for them. While some popular blogs can charge hundreds of dollars per month for these ad spots, the advertisers will soon come to their senses if they are really measuring the results of putting up those ads.

Ad buying tips

If you’re considering buying an ad spot, be sure to set it up in such a way that you can measure the results. For example, you can use Google analytics and look at the referrals coming from the site that you’ve placed your ad on. You can look at the traffic coming from that referral and compare it to your average visitor in terms of time spent on your site, pages viewed, etc. Don’t just advertise blindly.

Another way is to set up a specific landing page and link it to the ad. Place an opt-in box and measure the conversion rate from the traffic you are getting. In some cases, it may be worth it. If you’re paying $30 per month for a spot, that means about $1 per day. If you’re getting 20 visitors per day, you’re paying 5 cents per visitor. Let’s say 1 out of 20 visitors opt-in, that means your acquisition cost per subscriber is $1. This isn’t too bad compared to putting up an AdWords ad.

Who says that Google won’t penalize sites selling 125×125 ad spots next? It would be in their interest to squash the competition for advertisers who would otherwise be advertising on AdWords.

It’s almost like the heady days of banner advertising in the first dot com boom. Everyone was into selling banner ads on their sites until the whole thing came apart. Some of the Web 2.0 properties may face the same fate. You can’t base your business model on AdSense alone.

Technorati Tags: Google AdSense, Incredimail, getting banned from AdSense, revenue streams, diversification, banner ads, 125×125 ads, lemmings

Popularity: 53% [?]

Here’s an article from the Christian Science Monitor that talks about bloggers who are making money from their blogs. It’s from Feb. 2007 but the principles still apply today.

Bloggers Can Make Money But Most Keep Day Jobs

Here’s a quote from Darren that I like:

Several highly successful bloggers also caution that there’s no free lunch. “I worked anything from eight- to 16-hour days over the last three or four years just trying to do this,” says Mr. Rowse. “And a lot of people don’t see that.”

Technorati Tags: problogging, make money blogging

Popularity: 52% [?]

Danny Choo is a blogger who has nearly 10 million pageviews and 56,610 unique visitors PER DAY in Oct. 07 (see his Oct stats here). What draws visitors to the blog is content and DannyChoo.com has tons of it, some of which are user-generated. The blog is primarily drawing anime fans and folks who came through the various stormtrooper videos posted on YouTube. (Hint, hint - that’s a good way to draw traffic to your blog if you have something funny that you can post on YouTube)

Yeah… videos like this one:

Revenue generation is through AdSense where he uses a revenue sharing model. Affiliate sales also generate revenues for the site.

So what are the earnings for DannyChoo.com?

Here are some quotes from the site:

“Google Adsense is actually the lowest generating form of income for me.”

“On a good day I get about 50 USD and make enough from it to pay for all my monthly bills (hosting, telephone, electric, gas yada yada), my monthly mags and a few figures.”

“The most I have ever made through all my affiliate programs is just over 1000 USD per day last December (06) - my next goal is to keep it a steady 1000 by Q4 of this year - nearly there. ”

Since these data are a bit dated (from around April 07 or thereabouts), going by the reported affliate+AdSense earnings, I’m guessing that the site is now making around $40,000 - $50,000 per month.

Danny used to work for companies like Amazon and Microsoft before deciding to venture out on his own. He is using the earnings from his blog to fund his company rather than taking money from VCs. You should definitely check out his site and learn from his success.

Technorati Tags: Danny Choo, blog earnings

Popularity: 80% [?]

Better known as AshBo on her MySpace profile, Ashley Qualls is the owner of the website Whateverlife.com. Her success has been featured in Fast Company. She’s just 17 and has already achieved a lot of financial success with her website. It just goes to show that anyone with enough passion and know-how, at the right place and the right time can do it.

Here’s an excerpt of the article:

“At 17 going on 37 (at least), Ashley is very much an Internet professional. In the less than two years since Whateverlife took off, she has dropped out of high school, bought a house, helped launch artists such as Lily Allen, and rejected offers to buy her young company. Although Ashley was flattered to be offered $1.5 million and a car of her choice–as long as the price tag wasn’t more than $100,000–she responded, in effect, Whatever. “I don’t even have my license yet,” she says.”

So what does 7 million unique visitors and 60 million pageviews translate to in terms of revenues? Ashley reportedly rakes in around $70,000 per month. Revenue is mainly from advertising to the target market - teenage girls who want to customize their own MySpace page.

Content

In terms of content, there are tutorials on just about everything you need to know about MySpace. You can also grab layouts, banners, fonts, glitters, buttons, etc. The homepage of WhateverLife also features music videos. Leveraging the reach of the site, Ashley has also helped to launch the music careers of Lily Allen and the Jonas Brothers.

Site Growth

Ashbo has surely been keeping busy. To further leverage her brand, she has also launched WhateverLife Magazine, ShopWhateverLife.com and the SnazzyBoot forum.

The sites are growing so fast that she is even hiring for help.

So the lesson here is that you don’t have to have a lot of experience to start being successful at a young age. What you need to have is a passion for something and focus on that passion. The money will follow. If it doesn’t, hey, at least you’re doing something you love.

Like this post? Please consider joining our MyBlogLog community.

Technorati Tags: whateverlife.com, ashley qualls, ashbo, myspace layouts

Popularity: 58% [?]

Blogging can generate some serious cash these days, although most of the time the business model is one based on selling ads. Will this bubble go the way of the banner ads that were so popular during the first Internet bubble? Some of the ad rates can be quite outrageous and makes one wonder if the advertisers are really measuring the return on investment generated from those ads. Anyway, in case this bubble pops, you should definitely consider other business models for your blog as well.

Here are some impressive figures as reported in BusinessWeek:

BoingBoing - over $1 million last year

Advertising costs range from $350 to display a small button ad for one week to between $2,000 and $3,000 for the minimum 170,000 impressions on banner ads, all sold exclusively through Federated Media. Frequent posting—the four authors update the site 20 to 40 times each day.

I Can Has CheezBurger - Estimated $5,600 a month

ShoeMoney - $12,000 a month (that’s only from the blog alone)

OverHeardinNewYork - $8,100 a month

Kottke.org - Estimated $5,300 a month

TalkingPointsMemo - $45,000 a month

Perez Hilton - $111,000 a month

…24 posts on an average day—and as many as 40 on a day with talk of a Britney Spears meltdown…

Gothamist - $50,000 - $60,000 a month (for the entire blog network)

TechCrunch - $200,000 a month (holy smokes!)

TechCrunch became Michael Arrington’s full-time business in 2006, with $200,000 in monthly revenue from job boards and ads.

Go Fug Yourself - $6,240 a month

Mashable - $166,000 a month

Pete Cashmore started Mashable two years ago, to write about the emerging trend of mashups, which he defines as “the fusing of multiple Web services.” Text ads start at $100 per week, banners at $2,000.

Problogger - over $100,000 a year (multiple sites)

Like this post? Please consider joining our MyBlogLog community.

Technorati Tags: blog earnings, highest earning blogs, popular blogs, blog business models

Popularity: 60% [?]

Eric Nakagawa’s story about accidentally stumbling into blogging for profits is quite inspiring. Here’s an excerpt from the BusinessWeek article:

Eric Nakagawa, a software developer in Hawaii, posted a single photo of a fat, smiling cat he found on the Internet, with the caption, “I can has cheezburger?” in January, 2007, at a Web site he created. It was supposed to be a joke. Soon after he posted a few more images in the same vein: cute cats with funny captions written in a silly, invented hybrid of Internet shorthand and baby-talk.

As traffic started increasing, the income from advertising he sold on the blog became significant, so much so that he quit his job as a programmer.

He saw traffic on the blog, I Can Has Cheezburger, which he runs with his partner, “Tofuburger” (she refuses to disclose her real name) double each month: 375,000 hits in March, 750,000 in April, 1.5 million in May. Cheezburger now gets 500,000 page views a day from between 100,000 and 200,000 unique visitors, according to Nakagawa. The cheapest ad costs $500 for a week. The most expensive goes for nearly $4,000.

After reading this, start thinking about ways you can replicate his success. If he can do it, why can’t you?

Technorati Tags: blog entrepreneurs, blogger earnings, full-time blogging

Popularity: 49% [?]

Can bloggers really make money? I tried to search for a list of the highest paid bloggers. Anyone know of one?

Here are some names that come to mind:

1. Darren Rowse. Problogger and Digital Photography School blog.

2. Steve Pavlina. Read the interview here. Reportedly makes $40,000 per month. His blog gets 175,000 page views daily. Something to strive for, eh?

3. Yaro Starak. $6,549.52 in March 2007.

4. Amit Agarwal from Digital Inspiration. One of rare ones still using a Blogger hosted blog.

More to be added to this list soon…

Technorati Tags: top paid bloggers, bloggers who make a lot of money, highest earning bloggers

Popularity: 38% [?]