$0-$5,000 Per Month: How to Make Money with Blogs
Written by Glen, this post has 112 Comments
Note from Glen: At your request, I’ve added a Print option to the bottom of all posts. This post is quite long, so you may want to give it a try. As there are over 100 million active blogs online I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of them don’t earn much money at all. I suspect a lot of blog owners can’t even cover their hosting costs. Whilst there are other benefits to blogging besides making an income, many people do aim to be financially rewarded for the efforts they put in.
If you don’t want to make money from your blog (which I totally respect) then this blog post is probably not for you. If you do want to get a return on the time and creative effort that goes into building a blog, then this guide will show you how to do just that.
In June 2008 I started PluginID; a blog I later sold, as many of you know. What you may not know is that since June 2009, the blog has consistently been making over $4-5,000 per month (over $6,000 in January, this year) without doing anything more than publishing new content.
Not only is the site making a great passive income right now, but it also enabled me to make over $4,000 in one single day thanks to a product launch. I own another blog that is making more than $10,000 per month on autopilot (well, the content is outsourced) so I like to think I have some unique and valuable insights on this topic.
I am going to discuss a number of ways to monetise a blog, but first of all, you have to…
Realise It’s Totally Fine to Make Money With Your Blog
If you know this already, feel free to read the next section. If you’re like a lot of bloggers though, you may feel slightly deterred from monetising your site. After all, you’ve built a genuine, loyal audience of people who care about your site – how could you dare charge them for something?
I’m being tongue-in-cheek with that question but it does reflect how a lot of people think. I know, because I used to be stuck in this mindset. With the traffic ViperChill is receiving right now and the size of the audience here, I could easily be making around $5,000 per month if not more. The reason I’m barely making anything is not because I don’t feel like I deserve to make money; I simply don’t need the income and it’s partly what makes me stand out in this niche.
I am totally comfortable with making money from blogs for no other reason than I believe that if you put value out there, then you deserve to get value in return. It just so happens that this returning value may be money. I put tens of hours each week into this blog for very little monetary reward. If I felt like monetising the site one day then I would have no hesitations because I believe the value I put out is genuinely worth getting something back for.
If you’re a reader of blogs and you feel like they don’t deserve to make money from their audience then you’re simply playing a part in an unfair deal. You go to that website for a reason, and though you don’t have to part with any cash, you should probably dig deeper as to why you think people adding value to your life don’t deserve value in return.
The last point is also something important to remember if you launch a product, for example. Feeling bad about making money is silly because people will only buy something if they want to buy it. If you launch a product to your audience and they buy it in droves, realise that they made the transaction because they want the value you have to offer.
As both a blog owner and a blog reader, learn to realise the true price of creativity and hard work. Feeling like you don’t deserve money for your value or someone else does not deserve money for their value is probably holding you back in many aspects of your life that are totally unrelated to this topic.
Just something to think about.
Work on Building a High-Traffic Blog
As you’ll see further down in this post, there are many ways to optimise a blog to make more money. If you’re already making money with your site then there’s a good chance that other income streams could be all you need to increase your revenue. Another, very crucial way to increase the income of your site is to work on building a high-traffic blog.
Put simply: Without traffic, you can’t make money online. Without visitors there’s nobody to click on your ads, nobody to buy your products, and nobody to sign up to your mailing list. Generally the more traffic you can get to your site, the more money you can make. It’s important that this is quality, relevant traffic, of course.
As I was in the personal development field for a long time, I see a number of bloggers who are now building up their subscriber counts nicely. Their list posts have gone hot on StumbleUpon and they may even have had a big-blog mention and suddenly their feed count looks impressive.
Whilst StumbleUpon can send you thousands of visitors in a single day, I can guarantee that less than one percent of that traffic would buy a product if they were to suddenly land on your website. Similarly, Stumblers are very used to ads so don’t tend to click them, and they have no intentions of giving away their email address.
The best type of traffic for blogs is search engine traffic and mentions from other blogs. These two have been fundamental in increasing the traffic to ViperChill and allowing me to build an audience of loyal followers. In order to get mentions on other blogs then you need to be focusing on being involved in the communities for that industry online and providing the very best content that you can.
I’ve written a number of blog posts that will help you increase the traffic to your blog so I recommend you check out:
- Wordpress SEO: The Only Guide You Need
- How I Ranked for 66,000 Visitors Worth of Keywords
- How I Really Built a Blog with 6,500 Subscribers
I also highly recommend you read The Most Important Blogging Analysis Ever to get an understanding of what content goes hot online, and what your audience is looking to read.
Focus on Providing Massive Value
In the most important blog post you’ll probably never read, I covered a number of different ways that bloggers are making money. The usual method, and the one I like to promote, is by genuinely helping your audience through valuable content (which can be text, video or audio based) and gaining a loyal audience by doing so.
The other side of the coin is to focus on getting traffic from search engines or other forms, and monetising them in different ways. If you want to run a blog that doesn’t care much for the audience then you don’t need to worry about providing value. Though, you may not feel great about it and still might not make any money.
A better long-term strategy in my opinion is to build a loyal, focused audience. I would rather have 1,000 loyal readers coming to my site on a daily basis than 100,000 visits from StumbleUpon every day with a 95% bounce rate. You should too if you hope to monetise your blog in the future and for a long time to come.
The best way to make money with a legitimate blog is by focusing all of your time and attention on providing your readers with as much value as you can. At the end of the day, that’s the only reason they’re reading your site in the first place. Some people may be curious about following your growth or simply want to see why you’re popular, but most people are there for your content. Not your design, your ads, your products or anything else you think might be attracting visitors.
If you provide consistent value and genuinely want to help people then you’re going to have a much easier time when it comes to monetising your site. I launched Cloud Living after writing over 100, in-depth articles on the subject of personal development at PluginID and made a large number of sales. If I hadn’t helped people with what I wrote in the past, they wouldn’t think a product from me would be worth their time.
Because I had genuinely focused on helping people and made that my aim, people knew that anything I put my name on would also meet that same quality standard and they knew I wasn’t doing it just to make money.
If making money from your blog is your main focus then you’re already heading down the wrong path. Worry about how you can help your visitors the most and you’re far more likely to make a living through blogging.
IMPORTANT: Each of the next sections will be accompanied by a graphic which shows how each source contributed to the income of my two blogs. Blog one is PluginID which made $5,000 as a steady income and blog two (Private) is a blog I recently purchased, making over $10,000 per month.
Launch Your Own Product or Service
Without a doubt, the number one way to make money through blogging is by launching your own product or service. Note that this applies to blogs who want to retain a community and an audience, not automated spam blogs or blogs that get most of their traffic from search engines like with my $10,000+ per month site.
When most people think about launching a product from their blog they automatically think about creating an eBook. eBooks are great in many ways, with two of the main ones being that you can duplicate them freely as they’re just digital files, and buyers can receive them instantly. They’re also very easy to create. The whole of Cloud Living was created with Open Office which is free software that anybody can download.
Whilst eBooks are one way to make money through launching something, they’re certainly not the only way. You could also:
- Start a monthly membership site (example)
- Create paid, private forums for your audience (example)
- Publish a real, physical book (example)
- Share your expertise with clients through consulting (example)
The great thing about having your own product is that you spend the time it takes to create it once, and then it can continue to make you money for months or even years to come. Imagine having a job where you only worked for one month and your employer paid you that monthly wage for another 11 months – it just wouldn’t happen.
Another reason selling your own products works well – and is usually better than promoting products or services as an affiliate – is because it has your name on it. If people are reading your blog for you, then it’s likely they’re going to want whatever else you have to offer. If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time then you probably like my work (thank you!) and would maybe be interested in buying something I sell.
Maybe you wouldn’t (that’s fine!), but I’m sure it would interest you more than a product in the same industry from someone you’ve never heard about.
Last but not least, if you have your own product then not only can you promote it to your audience but you can offer people a commission for having people promote it to theirs. Many million dollar launches online weren’t just created because of the ‘list’ of the product creator, but from the thousands of affiliates they get to promote their product as well.
In terms of affiliate marketing, it’s usually much better to own the product at the top of a Clickbank category and having thousands of people promoting it for you, rather than being one of the thousands of people promoting a product for someone else.
Product or service creation can take a lot of time, but it’s almost certainly worth it.
Sell Advertising
Another way a lot of blogs make money is by selling advertising. I’m not referring to banner networks here or utilising pop-ups; I’m referring to privately selling ad-space on your website to relevant parties. If your site is getting a steady amount of traffic and you want to sell ads then I recommend you try out a service like BuySellAds.
They have a large audience of hungry advertisers and they handle both the automation of new ads on your site and the entire payment processing. In return, you give them 25% of your earnings which is not ideal, but they do make life a lot easier.
The solution I implemented on PluginID (which made between $200-$300 per month) was by using the OIOPublisher plugin (paid – not an affiliate link) for Wordpress. The great thing about this plugin is not only does it allow advertisers to buy an ad spot and upload the banner without your involvement, but it also sends them weekly reports on how many impressions the banner received and how many clicks they got.
It’s completely up to you whether to show advertisers this, and either way you can still see the statistics from your Wordpress Dashboard. With a solution like this you do get to keep 100% of the ads that you sell, but you are also only advertising the ad spots to people who visit the site already and realise that they’re vacant.
There are three smart ways to sell more ads on your site directly. The first way is to go to some of the top blogs in your niche and contact them, offering them a spot for a small fee to see if they’re interested. The second way is to find blogs who are already selling ads and then contact the advertisers from those blogs directly, asking if they would be interested in advertising on your site as well.
After all, if makes sense that if they’re already paying for traffic in your niche, they can send some money your way. Finally you could go out to webmasters directly on forums like Digitalpoint, Sitepoint and others and post a thread in the relevant forum sections to alert people to your ad availability. I’ve found the first two tactics get the best results, but this is another option to try.
If you’re not having much success, offer people a one-week trial and if the banner works well, they must pay to leave it there. The more visitors you get to the site, the more you can charge for your ads. If you’re getting quality traffic that is converting for the advertiser, then they’re more likely to continue buying from you and leave their ad in place.
Use Contextual Advertising
As I recently wrote a post about how I make $200/day with Adsense, I’m guessing you were already expecting to see this in here somewhere. While PluginID only makes around $50 per month using Adsense (it’s in a poor position, on purpose), my other blog made over $12,000 in February alone with this type of advertising.
As I wrote on my Adsense post, the way to make the most money is by having a lot of traffic and also not being a destination website. If you want to make money with Adsense then you have to be totally fine with sending a large portion of your traffic over to other websites and away from yours.
The more blended the ads are into your site the more clicks you’re going to receive, but you’re also going to turn away possible subscribers and potentially annoy your loyal readers. If you want to build a great community around your site then I don’t recommend trying to make a lot of money through contextual advertisers like Adsense, Adbrite or Clicksor.
You can of course optimise specific pages on your site. For example, if you have a page that receives a lot of search traffic then you could put ads on that as search traffic converts highly. If it’s not a new post then loyal readers probably wont ever notice it but you can still be earning quite a lot of money.
For my other blog the whole site is designed to make money through Adsense by offering people a taste of what they want on a subject but not everything. The blog will never win any design or content awards, but it does make a lot of money. The route you decide to take is completely your choice.
Promote Affiliate Products
The first half of Cloud Living which details how I make most of my money online looks at creating websites around affiliate products found on sites like Clickbank. If you want to know more about the process then read this long blog post I wrote which covers the topic in more detail.
You don’t have to just build brand new websites that get traffic from search to make money through affiliate marketing, though. In fact, many blogs make tens of thousands of dollars per month through promoting affiliate products. Whilst having your own product can mean that you get thousands of people promoting you for free, there are advantages to promoting affiliate products as well.
First of all, you don’t actually have to create anything. You can make a lot of money literally just by sending people to another website. If your blog starts to gain any type of traction then I guarantee you will be inundated with requests from people to have you write a review of their product.
Before you jump at the chance to make some money, make sure that you’re promoting something that is relevant, of high quality, and something of value to your audience. You may be able to make a quick buck by promoting a mediocre product, but you’ll probably never make any more money from that person if they realise they can’t trust your recommendations.
Instead of reviewing products, another option to take is to release a free guide or email course which provides relevant value to your readers. In the guide you could talk about products or services that you use and link to them with an affiliate link. Similarly, at the end of an email course you could provide an affiliate link to something relevant if people want more information on the topic.
Sell In-line or Text Link Ads
Relying on blogging income from inline ad networks like Infolinks or text link sellers like Inlinks or Text Link Brokers is only a strategy I would recommend for blogs that don’t offer much value. In line text ads are probably one of the most annoying things online (picture below) and they would probably turn away most of the audience who comes to your site to read your content.
Before I talk more about this, I do want to say that Google look down on sites selling text links. I’m almost certain they’ve never said they will ban your site or lower your rankings, but your PR may drop and if links are clearly sold the “weight” they pass will be removed.
Example of Infolinks
I have a very old and deserted blog that I haven’t updated for two years which still makes around $250 per month thanks to Inlinks. The reason it makes this money is because the pages on the site have a high pagerank. Advertisers simply enter words that they want to buy anchor text links on and they are shown a snippet of text around that word and the pagerank of your page.
They do not get to see the actual domain until they purchase the link, which helps protect you from companies like Google finding out if you’re selling links. The whole system is automated – you simply install a Wordpress plugin – and you can make a good recurring monthly income if you have a lot of pages with good pagerank.
Another way to sell text links on your site is to offer in-content, review, or sidebar links on Webmaster forums. This is similar to the suggestion I had for getting more advertising sales, but this time for selling links. A large forum like Digitalpoint, for example, has a whole forum dedicated to helping people buy and sell links.
If this post helped you, please help someone else by sharing it using one of the links below.
Two things I want to clarify that would have just added clutter to the post:
- Glen
Glen,
I found your site through Christian Russell, at Next Level Blogger. Great stuff, my man. I have you on my priority bookmark list.
Also, I don’t blame you one bit for not revealing your sites. No one says you have to give away all the goodies. Take care and thank you for a fantastic resource.
Anthony
Gotta agree that the consulting part works. Broke the $5k month mark through this area. It’s through my blog that they got to me, so I guess that counts as making money through a blog.
Congrats Daniel,
What are you consulting on, exactly?
On getting sites started and ranked on the first page of Google?
Hint: I don’t do competitive keywords.
Another great post. Thanks for sharing so much information.
Hey Max,
Thanks and you’re welcome!
Hey Glen!
Another very cool post. You always go into so much detail, yet I find it easy to follow.
For now I have no ads on my blog but will start selling ad space in the sidebar soon (maybe when I get 2k readers). As for affiliate marketing, just like you experienced on pluginid, even with an audience of hundreds of readers it is hard to make a handful of sales of someone elses product, but once you create your own product it can do very well (cloudliving) or not so well(reality switch).
Cheers for writing (I always learn something from you posts, honest
)
Hey Diggler,
I recommend you try out BuySellAds once you hit that level and see how it works out for you. Then again, there are a lot of advertisers in this space who I would contact if I were you.
I believe you, honest
Hey Glen,
Great article. I read it for the blogging tips but now I’m also interested in knowing who some of these other advertisers are. Buysellads is cool and the founder Todd seems like a neat character but I did want to know if you had any other recommendations on other advertisers. I’m interested in putting out a blog+product combo in the programming/API space (e.g. internet fax software) and I wanted to find other advertisers or strategies to get better positioned in that market. Any advice would help. Thanks man!
-Glenn
Great post Glen. We have recently released a FREE SEO WordPress price comparison plugin that allows people to earn affiliate income from their WordPress site. We currently have 1 UK mobile phone module with a video games price comparison module due by 1st May but are always interested to hear from affiliates who have price comparison data they might like to offer via the system.
Hi Andy,
Please stop leaving your link in the comments. I removed it from your original because you didn’t join in the discussion to the post, you just seem to want to promote your plugins. Feel free to tell us more about them though, rather than company updates…
Apologies coming across spammy Glen. Of course I am fully prepared to get involved in your discussion but didn’t understand why the standard link to the plugin was removed from my name when I commented when other people’s names had a link back to their site?.Anyways, moving on…
This is a great site and from a look around contains some great posts. I am glad to hear that at least 1 person from Newcastle is living the dream
I (fellow Geordie) travelled around the World a few years ago with a laptop and mobile (cell) phone as the modem updating some niche sites I created from the ground up and working whilst travelling and expanding your mind is the simply THE best way to live.
I also believe WordPress and blogs in general are the best way to create a quick and SEO site which with a lot of hard work you can genuinely turn into profitable income streams. I also 100% agree with your general advice that you need to have an interest in your chosen niche or target market and work damn hard commenting on blogs and writing guest posts etc.
It still leaves me in wonder reading this. First of all, I do appreciate you revealing some stunningly great ideas. Secondly, it seems possible to do, yet try as I might, I cannot seem to do it. I’ve got to go back to the drawing board.
Thanks, Glen
Where are you struggling, Anne?
Interesting article Glen, and I have read alot of your various posts over the last year or so.
I am sure you will agree though that having a name out there and already being heavily involved and known in the blogging history helps for all of your blogs, both now and in the future? Especially when it comes to the ‘community’ and other blogs for mentions and links?
For those starting off from day 1 (as a second job), unless you stumble across a great niche, taking in 5K a month within 9 months is possibly an unachievable target?
I was an absolute nobody when I started PluginID. I had been in the IM space for a while but that did not help me at all. Nobody stayed in touch from the IM industry and followed the blog, to my knowledge.
The people that link to me are people I’ve never spoken too, usually. I don’t know one blogger from the ‘old days’ who’s mentioned ViperChill or help me promote it.
No, it’s achievable.
Although I’m not sure where you got the 9 months figure from?
Oh, and the blog making over $10k per month. It’s 5 months old
5 months? 5 Months?! Thats insane, I have had sites sandboxed by google for 3 months. The best I have ever done with a site is grow it to 800 usd in 2 months. Id like to shake that persons hand who ever created a blog then built it up to a 5 figure sum then sold it to you in under 6 months time.
Cheers for sharing so much info Glen. Truly an inspiration every time I visit Viperchill.
The share-or-not-to-share is a problem that’s had me thinking really hard recently. I’ve got a handful of what I hope to be really insightful posts just waiting to go live, but I’m always worried that they might just empower my competition whilst failing to benefit me at all.
How do you personally decide where to draw the line between posting useful insights for us to consume, and keeping critical info close to your chest?
I mean, you must know that 80%+ of your readership are plotting and planning their way to earning passive incomes… you’re essentially blogging to the next wave of competitors!
Some people think that revealing my sites would help a lot, but if they’re just going to copy the same model then it won’t help them at all. I succeeded online first and foremost by building websites around what I love (I failed for 3 years by trying to copy other people). Only in the past year have I started using it as a place to invest my money and automate the process.
I share as much as I can without giving away URL’s. There is absolutely nothing missing from this post that you would learn from seeing the site itself.
Thanks. If ever you get chance to write more about sharing vs. not-sharing, I’d love to read more.
Glen, love what you put out here. I think a lot of us feel bad if we want to make money from our blogs. Luckily for me, I’m getting over that hump and hope to implement a lot of changes to EIP in the next couple of months.
I think the biggest hurdle for me was that I saw everything as impossible. Where once I saw limits, now I just see steps that I have to take. I’m pretty damn excited for it all.
You bet I’ll be going over this post a couple of time before I implement any strategies.
P.S. Glen, when I started I wanted to look at exact examples and copy. It doesn’t work that way and if I were you, I wouldn’t divulge any info on the niche or products. If you’re going to succeed in this arena, you’ve gotta be willing to learn all these strategies, implement and experiment on your own and modify.
Another high-quality and informational article, Glen. But, of course, all your articles are such, which is why we eagerly await your latest articles
Just wanted to come in an offer a suggestion. This statement you wrote: ” I simply don’t need the income and it’s partly what makes me stand out in this niche. ” – maybe you don’t need the money, but what about providing once per week or once per month ad for a specific charity on your site? Maybe other people can use the money that such an add would generate, if you wanted to provide a way for your readers to give back. It just seems to me that having a site about passive income which has tons of traffic should be used in a positive way. You could even make a case study out of how much you were able to donate from this site for ABC charity (or whatever organization you deem appropriate, if you personally don’t need the money). It would also provide you with a sense of meaning by giving back to the larger community where it can do some good.
Just an idea.
Karen
Were you inspired to write this because of David Risley’s post on Problogger? I read your response to him their, very impassioned. Cheers, -David
No, I wrote most of this article on Thursday night.
Great post Glen. Was the private site the domain that you bought for $550?
Nope, that is not a blog, as such. Thought it does run on Wordpress.
I talked to you on skype a long time ago just a little bit I was searching themes, I started my blog there is some visitors, I think I will build more and an mail list before going monetary.. I still love my little internet space.
Im curious tho, wich one are your other blog?
Hi Marcus,
The first comment here should answer your questions.
I think you left one out…Flip that site.
Did PluginID sold for about 44K this last weekend?
Something like that. I’m not allowed to say, sorry.
Yep, another amazing post Glen! I know you said you purposely don’t monetize this blog but seriously you should be getting compensated big time for all the great information you post here. I would love to know what the 10k per month blog is but I totally understand why you don’t want to reveal it. I rarely reveal my killer niches too because it just creates a lot of new competition.
Glen, been reading up on your posts this year a fair amount and want to know your thoughts on out-sourcing. Maybe a blog idea for your next post?
Cheers
Henry
Great post. Under the make money section, I do all the same things… I’ve tried a lot of stuff, but I can say that those items tend to work the best. Even a relatively small blog can do well with private ads, affiliates and selling their own product.
I like how you boil the concept down to the most essential components
Thanks Jimmy, good to have you here!
Hi Glen– thanks for this. I’m really appreciating your continuous awesome work and transparency.
From your analytics screen-shot i noticed some massive spikes, including one a couple days ago where you spiked from around 5,000 visitors to 15-20,000 in a day. One thing you don’t go into here much is your work with Adwords, though. Just curious how much of this search traffic is organic, and how you’re pulling it in!
- Cheers, and all my best
Its all organic. The last time I played with PPC was about 2 years ago.
Hi Glen,
You are absolutely fabulous! I’ve been reading your blog for over a month and every post is filled with great information … yes, I’ve read all your posts
You are generous and you are a blessing to your readers!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Aileen
Thank you Aileen,
I really appreciate your support, and welcome you to the site!
Another great post Glen, thanks. Food for thought.
I’m still working out how I’d like to eventually monetize, I decided against Adsense, as even at the suggested places you mentioned in your Adsense post, it still looks out of place to me. Although I might try that tip on the search pages. I’m only getting about 10% of my traffic from search at this point (based on GA stats), but it’s getting better.
Warm regards,
Cori
Hey Cori,
Glad you liked the post! That’s normal I think; Adsense certainly isn’t for everyone. I hope this article helps you find a better solution
Hey Glen,
Thanks a lot for keeping the blog up. I’m back in the Netherlands and getting back into this, your blog is a true goldmine. Thanks for the print option by the way, great!
Niels
You’re welcome Niels, good to see you back buddy!
I had quite a few requests for that so I was happy to implement it
Hey Glen, thanks as always for the super in-depth post. You’re an inspiration when it comes to providing value for your readers. Viper Chill has become the blog with the most-looked-forward-to new posts for me. Congrats on all your success.
Hey Corbett,
Thanks for the support. it’s great to see Think Traffic growing so quickly as well! I’m sure you’ll catch up to me in no time.
Whenever I see one of your articles in my reader, I set aside 30 minutes and make a good cup of coffee. Thank you so much for all the info you share. Just by trying bits and pieces along the way, I’ve doubled my adsense income and taken the plunge on an affiliate mini-site (no nibbles yet, but I’ll keep you posted). You really are a mensch for giving all this info away.
Wendy
Hey Wendy,
That’s awesome! Really great to here.
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.
Glen,
Your blog is one of the only which every time I see a new post appear in my RSS reader, I actually get a smile and jump right into reading.
I had to wait to get home before I had a chance to comment, my phone is nice but I wanted to better collect my thoughts.
Although I know many of these ways to monetize a blog, your writing and examples really add value to the entire post. It’s hard to find a blog which offers so much information without holding back, you aren’t teasing us with mere concepts – you’re actually going into detail how they work, I appreciate that.
You keep writing and I’ll keep reading.
Hey Muxx,
Awesome domain name by the way. It’s good to see that people actually want to read what I write
I’ll keep going for as long as I feel like I can help people, which could be a while.
And now I’m gonna ask the tough questions…
How’d you come up with such a cool name such as ViperChill?
Hey Drew,
Damn…very tough
Sadly there’s no cool story behind this one. I was 16 and just thought chill was a cool word so used it in most of my domains. Then I stuck another word I thought was cool in front of it…and there we go.
- Glen
Oh how I love it when I get that email letting me know that ViperChill has a new post out
! I even started reading this one on my BB while waiting for my computer to reboot.
Awesome post as always! So much to learn – thanks for sharing all those valuable pointers with all your loyal readers!
Glen – I’ve got 2 questions for you – if you don’t mind:
I have my job title and very (VERY) brief description of what I do in the about page of my blog. Would you suggest I make a separate section or maybe put an ad somewhere on my blog about the services I provide instead of in the “about me” page? The good thing about what I do, is that it’s closely linked to my blog itself. I write for a living (Copywriter) and offer consulting services in a related field. That’s why I figured it may be interesting since people can somewhat preview my work – but in a much different way of course. Anyways, would love to hear any suggestions that you may have!
also – in your opinion what is a good (adequate) number of viewers that a blog should have before someone would be interested to advertise with them? So far, I’m not too interested since I’m not anywhere near having the stats it takes. But Just for the future. Plus, I’m sure the relevancy of the ads themselves will play a role – Again – that’s if I ever do start to sell ad space.
Thanks a lot
!
Will be looking forward to your expert feedback and your next article of course
Ciao
Hey Ingrid!
To the first question I would create a separate page, but then link to it from your About page. That sounds like the best option to me.
There’s no exact amount, but I would say around 300+ visits per day is a good start. The more the better, of course
I hope that helps.
Interesting stuff, Glen. Happy to receive your knowledge on this subject.
Hi Dj,
I’ve been reading your book and very excited about getting started. I’ve got 7 RSS subscribers now from 2 posts ( I am very excited, its a start somewhere..) but I struggle to find a good template for my website. This may be weird as there are so many (free ones) out there but I am between professional vs Simple reading. It has to represent myself but also good for reading and to show related posts, and easy to navigate.. What are your reasons for picking a theme?
ps. I can’t program at all
To be honest, I just pick something I like the look of. I’m a huge fan of the themes at ThemeForest.net so if you haven’t started there, definitely check it out.
No offense but this post is rather poor compared to the usual quality you post up here on Viperchill.
Take it or leave it I guess… It’s not a personal attack so don’t take it to heart.
Then why leave your comment anonymously? Cool
Because I knew it wouldn’t be popular. The entire post feels like a recap, you know… like those Simpsons anniversary specials (which i hate!).
I don’t watch TV…but I get your point
It’s all good. I’m happy that people can be honest here.
I can understand why you would say that if you’ve read most of the posts here. If you’re a new subscriber, then I would be surprised.
Hello boy wonder:) Well you’ve probably had enough of the endless fawning and profuse thanks so I’ll try to hold back on that this time! Certainly for me making money from a blog/website does seem dirty. I help other people do it but even the very name “monetizing” a blog sounds down right dodgy so I do have a big hurdle to get over. Mainly I think about making money from my blog and try to work out how I can do it without coming across as money grubber:)
Here’s a question though. How much should people pay for an ad on a blog? Is there some rule of thumb like $10/month/unique visitor or whatever. That would be a lucrative ad I know. I was thinking of going directly to people who represent my brand well but am not sure what would be a fair price to suggest for everyone. I don’t want pay-per-click though. Then you get a whole load of ugly ads and potentially no income from them…
Hey Annabel,
I like to think of a rule of thumb that for every 30,000 visits you get, you charge an extra $50-$100. PluginID upped the rates from $50 to 75$ I believe as the traffic was in the 60,000 uniques per month range.
Check out BuySellAds in your niche to see how much traffic certain sites are and how much they’re charging for ads. This should give you a good idea for pricing, based on your traffic.
I came to comment because I usually read articles in mah email (Don’t know why – there’s usually good value in the comments, particularly here!) but I noticed up the top for that update, it said you’ve got a little print button now. I thought on the off chance the commenters/readers who were interested in such things might see this, I’d mention something I found useful (not spammy, I promise – it’s completely free, the website doesn’t even feature ads and I won’t even link directly to it). But I get eye strain from reading long articles and those are usually (sadly) my favourites. I found a bookmarklet called readability which has been very helpful in cleaning up pages and making them more, well… Readable
As per usual Glen, good value here. Very good. I have paid for products that have delivered less detail and less worthwhile information than this single post and I think, paritcularly when you’re discussing things like stumbleupon, which are tempting because they look so damn shiny in your stats… That you’ve done a good job reminding us that the best traffic is qualified traffic. People who are interested in signing up, buying, whatever
Cheers!
thanks for sharing this article. As i’m new to viperchill i must admit that it is always an easy task for you to make money online. Although i’m providing my own services and recently got the job of seo consultant. But still i’m not making as mcuh money as i thought of it. Can you help me out so that i could make more money from my.
I know seo tips and tricks and knowing them i got the google page rank 2 without having a single article on it. Still not been able to get the few bucks of money in my pocket. Figuring out where i lack need some valuable advice from the masters
hope i could get?
SEO consultant? Try the “shift” key when typing the pronoun “I”. Good luck making as mcuh money as you can!
I can attest to the uselessness of SU for niche blogs. At different times I’d gotten 1000+ additional visitors for several days from SU. They didn’t convert into subscribers or buyers (or commenters even).
Maybe the secret is getting 10k+ new visitors and THEN converting a percentage (still a small one, but from a larger total new volume of visits)?
This was a valuable post Glen – for motivation (if for nothing else ).
Y.
Hi Yavor,
One suggestion (if you setup a specific page to *catch* SU visitors) if to offer a free download, e.g. 25 Tips for StumbleUpon Power Users.
Many folks like the idea of being a power user and will sign up for it.
What you do after that depends on your creativity, I guess.
Honestly, I didn’t set up a site to catch users
I just write valuable posts with catchy titles, then just favorite them on SU. Not sure how to be a SU power user – but I see your idea – i.e. offer the SU users something they’d like.
Cheers,
Y.
Hi Yavor,
I just meant that there’s prob some way to add these folks to the sales funnel.
Sure, I know that
Though, I’ve heard the ROI from SU is pretty low. Shoemoney covered this a while back.
Hi, Glen,
You asked where I was struggling.
Briefly, I have Google adsense that only make pennies. I have Amazon ads that don’t convert into anything. I’m a writer, so I mainly concentrate on writing articles of substance. I have 4 helpful, informative blogs. One about relationships and personal development, and one to help *brand new* bloggers write better blogs (among other things). For years I’ve been concentrating mainly on creating and helping. I feel that the time has come for me to get something substantial in return. I have okay traffic, and outstanding articles, especially on my relationship blog. I struggle with the earning parts as I’m not short of ideas, writing experience or talent. There must be something I’m not doing right.
Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.
Hi Anne,
I had a look at your site. You’re doing nothing ‘wrong’ BUT your target audience (i.e. writers) don’t tend to spend much online. Most books they buy are at the weekend in bookstores.
So, what do you do?
One suggestion is to laser in one a specific area, e.g. writing white papers. See how Mike Stelzner has done this.
http://www.stelzner.com/copy-HowTo-whitepapers.php
The more specific you can be, the more you’ll earn.
PS Glen, not trying to hijack your site just wanted to give my 2cents. Off to Japan now, see you folks in May,
Hi Glen,
As everybody else I’d like to say that you keep doing great work with your posts and insights and it’s real pleasure to read.
Very recently I removed all ads from my blog. I had couple of AdSense ads, one AdTaily (that’s Polish advertising pay per day of displaing banner system, nevermind) and one affiliate banner for my bank. But none of them bring any money and on top of that, AdSense pumped ads completely versus my main topic which is getting out of debt and living free of any kind of debt burden. As you can imagine AdSense promoted banks, credits, credit cards and so on.
So I removed all of ad-related stuff, I also made my blog more minimalistic and you know what? Now I like it better that way. I know that page is loading fast, I know that my readers don’t have to feel obliged to click any ads. I have my constant 100+ rss subscribers and I hope that number will go up and I already received positive comments about changes I’ve done.
Maybe in the future I will try again to monetize traffic at my blog but for now, when I’m relatively young at blogging, I think it’s more important to write good articles and provide value to readers. As you said in your post better small group of loyal readers than huge traffic just bouncing off of your site.
Ivan, thanks for your time and help. I appreciate it. I had a quick look at the site, but once I’ve finished my editing duties for today, I’ll have a more in-depth browse around. I see what you mean. My topics may be too wide. Maybe targeting writers was not such a good idea.
I know this is pushing it, but I’ll dare to ask. Do you think I’m doing the same thing on my relationship/self-improvement site? It’s called, ‘The Relationship Supermarket.com’ (Sorry Glen. I tried not to put the link, but I have to say the name).
Thank you.
Anne
Hi Ann,
One thought is to narrow the focus, e.g. zoom in on a specific market segment such as gender, race, age, sexuality.
This area is getting super crowded so servicing a micro-niche may work best.
Also, look across industry sectors, e.g. target people in sports or politics (lots of opinions here) or alpha moms.
Go narrow, not wide.
Fyi Glen, I’m sure, will have an angle on this as he’s the main man in this area.
Thanks for the info, Ivan. I think you’re right. I have to sit down and work out what will work best, based on what I know and love. You’ve given me lots to think about here. Am a bit overwhelmed at the moment, but will have to think this through clearly.
Cheers.
Man you nailed it on every level.
I like that you say what works and what works if you want to build a community on your blog.
New bloggers need to know it is very hard to do both build a strong community and grow Adsesne money.
Great post.. bookmarked.
Hi Glen, just wanted to say i’ve been reading your blog for a while now and its the one i check and enjoy most regularly (Along with some of Yaro’s work). I’m currently in the process of monetising my website, it’s the first site I’ve tried to do this with and I’m interested to see how it goes. As you and other top bloggers have said (I know you don’t strictly class yourself as a blogger but you know) I’m focusing on providing my readers with quality content then gaining the traffic to get a finantial reward from my efforts. It helps that it’s a subject I’m passionate about so i have a good feeling about it. I was wondering, have you plans to release any of your own products for this site? I know you’ve Cloud 9 I think it is but I’ve already done a lot of micro niche website research & got other ebooks on the subject so didn’t feel the need to buy it. I know you’re an expert on gaining traffic and i need a bit more help with that, so if you ever come out with a related product let me know
keep up the good blog.
As a ‘newbie’ to blogging, I have become a loyal reader. I find posts such as
http://www.viperchill.com/internet-marketing-toolbox incredibly informative. Thanks for the mentorship!
I’d like to know how much of the 10k/month you spend on outsourcing and/or other expenses. Not to knock your figures, but to give people a realistic expectation of what they’ll need to invest in their business.
I know you invest heavily, but I get the feeling that many don’t want to do that.
I wasn’t going to respond, based on your totally inaccurate and drama-seeking comment to me on Problogger, but I don’t hold grudges
Hosting: $100 Content Creation: $500
That’s it
Hi Glen,
As usual, incredible value in your post mate – great work.
I did laugh though, having read your comments above on Sell In-line adverts, I jumped over to a very-popular-productivity/tips -blog to see what was new there, only to find they have stuck Sell In-line in their posts! Interesting times…
Cheers
Rich
Thanks for the post. I think I learned a bit about setting strategies and couple it with the right tools to get an income.
I have plenty of drama at home, no need for any more…just didn’t appreciate the pointed attack.
Anyway, we don’t have to agree. Thanks for the reply.
I’m guessing you spend 5-10 bucks per post, so that’s at least a post per day, which sounds like one of the reasons it does so well. Lots of content = SERP -> traffic -> revenue
Am I close?
Hi Glen,
Yet another fantastic post!
I read your comment on ProBlogger the other day after seeing what you said on Twitter about it. In your other articles, I’ve heard you discuss the importance of having great content so I’m definitely focusing a lot of time on this.
Like another person mentioned above, I really look forward to reading your posts when I get them via e-mail. I was thinking to myself the other day that this is exactly how I want people who visit my blog to feel about what I write. I want them to really look forward to reading the posts. In my opinion, this is worth far more than all of the other blogging tips out there. People always spread the word about great content, so if you write awesome material, good things are going to happen.
Also, you have inspired me to write longer articles. My last two were around 2000 words and 1500 words. Of course, I make sure that the content is what I think is high-quality. And I can only do about one per week since it takes so much out of me. But I think this is the type of material that people will really want to read, so I feel good about what I am doing.
I have one question for you…
I’m realizing that creating an eBook is probably going to be my best option. However, my concern is coming up with content in the eBook that isn’t already on my blog.
Frankly, I put everything I have into my blog posts. And while I know there would be a lot of value in packaging lots of material together into an organized format, I’m concerned that people MIGHT have a problem with paying for something that they could have basically gotten for free on the blog.
Do you have any thoughts about this?
Thanks again for everything. And as always, have a fantastic day!
Awesome post. Figures like this always motivate me to do more. Thanks Man!
Hey Glen, I just started a new site that I am dying to have go viral (obviously)
You mainly use plugin ID and your private sites as an example. Would you consider doing a post outlining your strategies with a few different types of sites?
I own cloud living and have implemented a lot of your strategies but I have to admit I am still very frustrated with the lack of growth I am experiencing on my newest blog. As a fellow blogger I know how much time it takes responding to everyone and I am not asking for that. Rather, a post dedicated to strategy beginning to end?
Kind of another random question…but…
Do you spend any time on forums? If so, which ones do you find valuable?
Glen, I have to say that you have hands down motivated me to try everything in my power to succeed at making money online. I just have to finish up all my projects for friends and family and get my ideas going. Instead of helping others make money I am going to help myself. I am taking a semester off college and making blogging and affiliate marketing my sole hobby after work.
Keep on blogging man. I recommend your website to everyone I know. So far everyone of those people has thanked me for recommending your blog. You rock brother.
I can say that this is really one helpful and useful post. One that deserves being bookmarked and getting back to whenever possible.
nice post as usual Glen:)
Once more a great post and – as usual – an inspiration to move my a..
Thank you for this article! I am new to your site and have been having a crazy hard time working out how to monetize my blog. I think I am in an extremely difficult niche to break!
I tried signing up to BuySellAds and they didn’t accept me sing I am not a “technology” themed blog.
I am super stressed out and wonder if you know what type of person I could maybe hire to do something like you talk about.
Thanks again for sharing all your knowledge with us.
Hi Glen, found this post on Life Without Pants blog… Very interesting stuff…
I have experimented a little with adsense on my blogs. Currently, I make a few dollars a day if I am lucky… I am not a good writer, so my content sucks big time. I can’t expect much with 400 page impressions a day… But hopefully it will improve…
I am glad to know that you are doing fabulously by sharing your knowledge and expertise with your visitors. Keep up the great work mate…
Cheers!
Hi Glen, your blog was recommended to me by a friend on a forum. Great stuff here, I will be checking your rss feed regularly. Just 5 months for the newly bought blog ! amazing. Hope you learn a lot from you
Hey Glen,
Just wanted to say a thanks for putting the print option up as I requested. The fact is (without sounding like a kiss ass) you do have useful content that people do wanna keep a record of. You have no affiliate links so you don’t have anything to loose by providing an easy option to print.
Thanks again. Big Smile
This is the prettiest website in the word wide web. Te amo.
WoRd wide web?
Te amo.
Hey Glen,
Thanks for a great post. I’m just getting into all of this(blogging, WP, IM) and the information you provide here has become a go-to resource for me.
I’ll be back often
Wonderfully put except, you don’t “make money” you earn it!
The only people that make it are people who work in a mint or are counterfeiters!
This concept of marketing and earning money on the World Wild Web with social media is nothing new or earth shattering, oh what a wicked web we weave.:P
Making money is a far more popular saying that earning money, at least online. I can guarantee that there are lots of sayings you use everyday that don’t make logical sense.
I’m not sure what your last comment has to do with the post? Necessary?
Great post.
Thank you so much. I am a new blogger, your entry is very helpful for me.
Glen, you can really write.. great post in great details.. i have lot to learn from you.. shall do my best to keep up with your stuffs, thanks for the great share!
Hi Glen,
I just wanted to say thanks for such a useful and informative post.
All the best,
Mike
[...] $0-$5,000 Per Month: How to Make Money With Blogs [...]
Hi Glen
Your blog is really great.Appreciate it.This is full of a complete guidance to all the newbie,learners,readers and beginners.You have just done a tremendous job to share your ideas and experience.It is really helpful and informative.Nice work Glen.Keep it up and all the best.
Outstanding post. This is a must read post for anyone serious about making money online (specifically with blogging). Keep up the great work Glen.
God bless..
Lady J
What if you’re not writing a blog that offers a “service”, necessarily? How do you monetize that? Such as a mommy blog (god I hate that phrase) that’s been online since 2006 and still isn’t getting squat traffic?
Wow, this makes loads more sense. Ive read about 20 books on ways to make money online. And they all say the same thing, nothing I understand. So thank you for taking the Bull out of it and braking it down to how you make the money, and why. Oh ya and im probably your youngest and newest fan.
Aaron