I read this article in Fortune about Jon Gales whose blog MobileTracker.net earns more than $5,000 per month from Google AdSense. This from a kid who is 19 and still in college. The site has been in existence for about a year and a half and gets over 200,000 visitors per month. That’s pretty good stats.

I checked the blog just now and noticed that Adsense ads has been replaced with Chitika mini malls. However, if you look at the archives, you’ll still see the AdSense ads. Take note of the color scheme for the ads. The title and text match the color of the post title and body and the URL is just a lighter shade of blue. The layout integrates the ads to make them look like part of the posts. This is a common strategy for AdSense publishers, i.e. making ads blend into the rest of the page content.

Check out his other blogs: Carbwire, GoogleRumors.

Carbwire is PR6 and has 1,210 backlinks in Google. Mobiletracker is also PR6 and has 1,790 backlinks in Google.

Also, the list of media mentions for MobileTracker and Carbwire is impressive.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Here is another good example of what a niche blog looks like. This one is focused on credit cards and looks like it’s main sources of income are affiliate programs and Google AdSense. Notice that the Adsense titles are the same color as the link text on the page. Two comments - the search box can be replaced with a Google Search box to add some revenue; and secondly, adding AdSense within the body of the post may increase the CTRs.

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you would like to find out what a niche blog looks like, you can take a look at the Alaska Blog. I like the design, though I think the Adsense might do better if they had kept the traditional blue color for links and black color for the font. You could make a similar blog based on a different location. And to go for a more specific target audience you could write, for example, only about restaurants in the area.

The Alaska Blog is written by Taughnee Stone and she also chronicles her efforts on the initial starting phase of getting the blog up and running.

Popularity: 6% [?]

If you have a hobby or a favorite pastime, that can be the topic of your blog. If you don’t want to blog all by yourself, you can gather a group of friends and do it together. Maybe you are not as computer-savvy and you know something who shares your hobby and knows how to set up a blog. Team up with them.

For example, take a look at this team blogging effort on the topic of gardening. The title of the blog is “You Grow Girl” - very catchy. But don’t let the title fool you, the site has some male bloggers as well.

The blog is well designed and very easy to follow. Short blog posts along with photos immediately capture the reader’s attention. I noted that one thing was missing - Google Adsense. If the creators of the blog had included Adsense, they could easily create an additional income stream. It looks like the only thing that they are promoting is the book which is written by the creator of the blog.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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.

Popularity: 6% [?]

You can also create a profitable blog by writing product reviews. A good example of this is the PVR blog. Notice how graphics are integrated into the blog to attract the viewers gaze.

This entry was also written by the creator of the PVR blog. Read it. It’s interesting.

Need more ideas for your blog? Like watching TV or movies?

You can also blog on reality TV shows - take a look at American Idol blog.

Not to be outdone, there is also The Apprentice Blog.

Or you can also write your own movie review blog. For example, see this blog. Notice that it’s got a PR of 7!

These are just some ideas to get you started. I’m sure you can brainstorm for much more.

The key is to think of a topic that has a lot of general interest and with reasonably high paying keywords.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Visit Jim Buie’s blog and read this post about profitable blogs. It will give you some ideas about the different types of blogs and how much money people are making.

Political blogs:

Instapundit is a blog by Glenn Reynolds with 220,000 readers. Wow!

Andrew Sullivan’s blog is another one to take a look at.

Chris Allbritton runs Back-to-Iraq 3.0.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga runs this blog and was hired by the Howard Dean campaign to raise money online.

So you see, you can blog about anything that interests you. But the key to a profitable blog is to have a large readership. So, more importantly, it has to be interesting to your readers too.

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you want to look at blogs that are designed to make money, take a look at Weblogs’ latest movie blog titled Cinematical. Notice the clean layout. Graphics are used sparingly yet they draw the readers in.

It looks like they are making money from sponsored ads, Google Adsense, and Amazon.com’s affiliate program. I wonder about the sponsored text links though - I’m not sure if Google’s Terms of Service for Adsense allows what would be look-alike competing ads.

Here is a list of other blogs owned by Weblogs, Inc.

AdJab
Autoblog
Blogging Baby
Divester (scuba)
Engadget
Gadling
hack a day
Joystiq
Luxist
pPlayer (poker)
TV Squad
TUAW (Apple)
Technology
Apple (Unofficial)
CSS
Digital Photography
Flash Insider
Google (Unofficial)
Grid Computing
JavaScript
Microsoft (Unofficial)
Office
Open Source
Peer-to-Peer
Photoshop (Unofficial)
RSS
SAS (Unofficial)
Search Engine Marketing
Social Software
Spam
Tablet PCs
VoIP
Yahoo (Unofficial)
Wireless
BBHub (BlackBerry)
Bluetooth
Engadget: Cellphones
Engadget: GPS
RFID
Ultra Wideband
WiFi
The WiMAX Weblog
Engadget: Wireless
Wireless Dev
Wireless
Video Games
Blogging E3
Engadget: Gaming
Joystiq
Playstation 3
Video Games
Xbox 2
Media & Entertainment
Design
Digital Music
Documentary Film
Droxy (Digital Radio)
Independent Film
Magazine Design
Nanopublishing
Business
The Mortgages Weblog
Outsourcing
SCM Wire (supply chain)
Life Sciences
The Cancer Blog
The Diabetes Blog
Medical Informatics
Telemedicine
Personal
Brian Alvey
Jason Calacanis
Blog Maverick
Gordon Gould
Judith Meskill
Events
Blogging DEMO
Blogging E3
Blogging ETech
Future of Music
Blogging Milken
Blogging Sundance
Blogging Web 2.0

As you can see, they are operating in many different niches. Weblogs, Inc. founder Jason Calacanis also has a blog and I found in this post that they are now making over $1,000 per day from Adsense (posted on April 7th, 2005) . The CTR and CPM are really dismal though.

Note: Google doesn’t allow revealing the CTR (click through ratio) and CPM (cost per thousand) of your Adsense account, so Jason has since removed those numbers from the post. But I found them quoted at another blog.

If we take that $1,000 per day number and divide that by the number of blogs maintained (75), we get a little over $13 per day per blog. If they can keep this up, they will be doing over $360,000 per year.

This just goes to show that you can make some serious money by blogging.

Popularity: 8% [?]