How to Make Money With Blogs

Advertising Programs - Perhaps the
most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition
of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers. No longer are
bloggers only presented with the Adsense and/or BlogAds choice - instead they now have a massive array to choose from. Getting the most publicity recently have been Chitika’s eMiniMalls of course but there are just so many other options now that also include:
<Adgenta, CrispAds, Text Link Ads, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, DoubleClickTribal Fusion, Adbrite,
Clicksor, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, Bidvertiser, Fastclick Value Click and OneMonkey
(to name just some of the options - I’m sure I’ve forgotten some) and
there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with
MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (so I hear).

RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some
advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers
making big dollars through it to this point - but as improvements are
made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see
examples of it being profitable.

Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising
programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the
business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise
directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have
been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past
month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed
with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog.
These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring
sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of
it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post
basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by
companies - either in one off or a regular fashion.

Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.

Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have
been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams
to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books,
courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into
this with the first series of the six figure blogging
course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the
study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future -
in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running
courses.

Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in
popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with
more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and
with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one
of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new
bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of
payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for
yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of
the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and
more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs
with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.

Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as
blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses
are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on
blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring
specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number
of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such
paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.

Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post
is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being
approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog
websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book
authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week
complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew
who didn’t have a book deal!

Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a
part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of
bloggers go full time after fundraising drives. Perhaps the most high
profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.

Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the
practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened
both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that
sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these
being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).

Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell
ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example
of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few
extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through
programs like Cafepress
(although I have to say they’ve lost one of my own orders and are being
quite unresponsive to my requests to follow it up at present). While I
didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger
blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult
following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one
largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the
calendar year of 2005.

Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular
for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also
starting to see bloggers with no consulting background earning money by
charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the
profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to
establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value
of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who
charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting
work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18
months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and
a minor celebrity in his industry.

As time rolls on there are more and more blog earning
opportunities opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas in
comments below

Adsense and your Site Building

I’ve been reading a few forums and blogs about Google Adsense tips lately, and thought it would be helpful to consolidate as many as possible in one place without the comments. I’ve also thrown in a few tips of my own. We start out with some of the basic general stuff and move to the more specific topics later on.
Build an Empire?
When you’re deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:

* Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
* Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit

The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm’s, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you’ll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.
General or Niche
You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.

If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it’s currently zero).

Once you’ve gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited. Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don’t try to run with the big dogs if you can’t keep up. If you have to ask if you’re a big dog, then chances are, you’re not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).
New Sites, Files and Maintenance
When you’re building a new site don’t put adsense on it until it’s finished. In fact I’d go even farther and say don’t put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with “lorem ipsum” dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google’s media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted. TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP’s you will speed this process up dramatically.

I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it’s only one file I have to work with. TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.
Managing URL’s and channels
Adsense channels is one area where it’s really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:

* domain1.com - 728 banner
* domain1.com - 336 block
* domain1.com - text link
* domain2.com - 728 banner
* domain2.com - image banner
* domain2.com - 336 block
* domain3.com - 300 block

While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail. TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.
Site Design and Integration



Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you’re going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it’s easier, if it’s an existing site it’s more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I’d say if you just slap the adsense code in, you’ll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I’ve done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you’re doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn’t work out.

Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

* 336×280 large rectangle
* 300×250 inline rectangle
* 160×600 wide skyscraper

From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don’t really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance. TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it’s own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.

Another ‘trick’ that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.

The one area where I’ve found blended ads don’t perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One ‘trick’ to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it’s a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it’s better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.
Using Images
One of the latest ’secrets’ to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads. Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be ‘enticing people to click’ and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn’t, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google’s perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being ‘over the line’ write to adsense and ask them to take a look.

As far as using the images, I’ve done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images ‘complete the story the ads are telling’. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples. TIP: Don’t limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.

Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn’t specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate.
Multiple Ad Units
Another way to increase ad revenue is to use multiple ad units. According to Google’s TOS you are allowed to post up to three ad units per page. Similar to standard search results the highest paying ad units will be served first and the lowest being served last. If there is enough of an ad inventory, place all three ad units. However you should pay attention to the payouts. Current assumption is you get 60% of the revenue (on a $0.05 click you get $0.03). So if a click from the third ad unit is only paying between 3 to 5 cents you may want to omit it from your page. This is one are where giving your ad units channels does have value. If one ad unit is getting a higher percentage of click throughs you’ll want to make sure the highest paying ads are being served there. TIP:Use CSS positioning to get your highest paying ads serving in the location with the highest CTR.
Adsense in RSS
With the growth of blogs and RSS feeds you’re starting to see adsense included in the feeds now. IMHO this doesn’t work, and here’s why:

* You only get to place one ad unit.
* You have no control over finding the ’sweet spot’ for the ad unit.
* The ads are usually poorly targeted (this is getting better).
* People develop ‘banner blindness’.

I know people like being able to read full postings in their feed reader, and there are at least a dozen other reasons for full posts from pleasing your users to mobile offline computing, all of which are completely valid. However if your website depends on generating adsense revenue to survive, then bring them to the site and show them the ads there.
Affiliate Sites
Placing Adsense on affiliate sites is tricky. Are you giving up a $10, $20, or $30 sale for a $1 click? This is something you have to test on your own to figure out. If you aren’t converting now it’s definitely worth a try. I like to use adsense on my article pages. For example let’s say you had an affiliate website where you sold shoes. You’re going to need some related articles to ‘flesh out’ the site. Things like ‘getting a shoe shine’ or ‘finding a shoe repair shop’ these are excellent spots for adsense. While you won’t get rich, they will usually provide a small steady income and cover things like hosting costs.TIP: If you find you have pages getting more than 50 clicks per month add more pages about this topic, and link the pages together. Mine you logs for the search terms used.
PPC Arbitrage
This is a dicey subject so I’m going to steer clear of precise examples. Basically you bid on low volume uber niche terms at a very low cost. You set up landing page that contains high payout ads for the related general topic. You are looking for terms with a large gap between the price you are bidding on adwords and the price you are getting on Adsense. If you pay $0.10 a click and get $1.00 a click you make $0.90 each click. To get your adsense ad approved you will need to ‘add some value’ along the way. You can make a killing or get taken to the cleaners with this one, so make sure you know what you are doing before you try it.

Have any other adsense tips, tricks or secrets? Drop me an email and let me know, I’ll give you credit.

Added
728 leaderboard works very well if it is just above the end of the
“above the fold” area on what would be considered your viewers average
resolution/browser window size if there are few other enticing links
above the fold. Makes for an interesting layout but if you’re building
a site for AdSense it may be worth it. We consistently receive very
high CTRs from doing this.

Try to build sites that allow you to quickly try any and all of
those locations outlined in the heatmap guide or at least allow you a
wide degree of freedom to easily change ad/content locations.