Monetizing: Baby Steps | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Post edited 6:30 am – May 10, 2011 by My Personal Finance Journey

First, I know some people have made money in the first few months, but I know that usually, people don't make money with their blog until after the first year. So, don't get discouraged if you're not making money immediately. 

Nevertheless, below are some steps you can take..

1) put up a guest posting (http://www.mypersonalfinancejo…..iters.html) and advertising (http://www.mypersonalfinancejo…..olicy.html) tab. A lot of times you can convert people looking for a guest post with links to a business website in to money.

2) sign up for Amazon's affiliate program so that you can provide an affiliate link in any posts you talk about products in (personally, I link to a lot of personal finance books). I barely make any money off this at all though.

3) Put up Adsense. There's some debate on whether it's good to put up Adsense before you have a critical mass of visitors to your site. However, I think it's beneficial to get it up there to get visitors used to your site having ads and for you to gain experience with blending the ad colors.

Thanks Jacob & Derek. Appreciate your insight. I'm in no hurry, I am just curious to learn what a realistic first-step should be. I think I need to do some re-structuring to better organize before I proceed down the money route. Thank you.

Ive been up for about 3 1/2 months now, and I have only made about $10 in Adsense money.  I have made a few more dollars from commission junction and people purchasing through plastic jungle or lending club.  However, Google traffic is what will drive those "link clickers"… you might very well get a loyal following of yakezie and such that visit your sites, and you will see that increase over time, though we aren't the type to click on that stuff, so your Adsense clicks most likely wont go up with your overall traffic.  I've recently seen a spike in Google traffic after some SEO work (not too much though), and I've seen a couple of Adsense clicks since, though nothing to get too excited about yet lol.

Echoing the other comments a bit, I think newer blogs should pay no attention to advertising income and just build your blog. Focus on content and growing your blogging network – commenting on other blogs, submitting to blog carnivals, guest posting, etc. Over time, your traffic will grow, and ultimately your search visitors will increase. Then it's time to focus on adsense and other opportunities.

Direct ads work better when a blog is new. You could contact advertisers yourself and sell ad space. As the blog grows, you can then add Adsense and charge more for ad space.

I would put in AdSense as a place holder and forget that it is there for about 6 months while you generate good content and network.

It can take a long time to make much money with your website.  My yearly Adsense earning illustrate that.  I do make money from sources other than Adsense but it has only been the last 3 years that I've been making much money at all.

2005 $1.85
2006 $484.54
2007 $227.10
2008 $1665.041
2009 $1918.13
2010 $4058.46

Dang, TFM, talk about transparency. :P

There is something really interesting in your numbers, too.  I'm making an assumption here, but assuming that you didn't change all that much in your strategy, writing, ad placement, or the number of ads, you can see also in those numbers how the general advertising economy affects earnings.

The poor economy in 2009 definitely didn't help earnings, but the rebound in adspend since then has been pretty robust. 

2005 $1.85
2006 $484.54
2007 $227.10
2008 $1665.041
2009 $1918.13
2010 $4058.46

I'm seeing an increase of over 40% in adsense per-click values since 2010.  I'd venture to guess that most Yakeziers are seeing similar.

Thanks JT, I appreciate your transparency. I enjoy analyzing the numbers too, that's what I did for years at Ford Credit. From what you are saying, the economy is improving.

Thanks Amanda, I appreciate the offer. I think I'll just wait for the time being. It is very tempting to start throwing ads all over my site, but I'm just going to do it incrementally, as my traffic organically expands. Not sure what my PR or MOZ ranking is. I'm going to get a baseline for all that in a few months.