Why does everyone only assume the only way to make money on a blog is asdsense. With all the brilliant minds that come to this forum, it is amazing how one track the mind set is . If you just crunch the numbers...adsense is the second lowest form of monetization on the web, next to parking. If you were to attract 400,000 visitors, why in the world would you limit your income to adsense. You have a marketing gold mine there that could make you thousands a day!
hmansfield you hit the nail on the head! Adsense is nice to see a little bit of constant income coming in, but the real money is made in CPA or selling digital products!
I will just say, it seems to me, if you are able to achieve that sort of readership and loyalty..getting those type of numbers, at that point, you have passed the stage of letting others rent out space on your site and taking a cut, feeding you peanuts, to having your own advertising medium that you should be running yourself. Much like a T.V. station, or billboard on a busy corner. If you have 400,000 readers, you don't need anyone to sublet out your space. You will be able to get your price. Especially if it is highly targeted! JMO
I agree but not everyone knows this. We hear about adsense all day long so that is the first thing people think. I know about azoogle, clickbank, blogads, chitika, affiliates, text link etc but since I am new at this, most sites I come across advertise or brag that they make money most of their money from adsense. So if this is what you hear the most, this is what you tend to focus on.
I totally agree, that was my view a while back. I started talking to some people who were doing affiliate marketing and advertising via google adwords. I realized that there was a ton of money in this area for the right people. It's competitive, stressful, risky but I love it! If you are looking for a good place to get CPA campaigns (CPA=cost per action, like sales and sign ups) PM me.
I agree completely.. My dream is to get to that level of traffic, and then run it myself. It's not all that hard to build. The trick is the traffic / viewers.. Then you're in the cat-bird seat.
cbolts - Help me out here. I went to your site and read it, interesting. However, I had 255 uniques yesterday alone, and my adsense is at a $0 !! In your Step 2, you say you had a goal of 500 uniques in a month. I have that currently every two days... What am I doing wrong? Many Thx
Are you planning to make $10K/day from your "how I made $10K/month" site, or by opening up other sites? If just from your how-to site, you're in for a tough road. There are VERY few sites like yours that have achieved that type of income stream in such a short amount of time. For example, neither Problogger nor John Chow make that from their home pages (although both easily make that per month from other sites and/or business ventures). The only site in your space that I know of that makes that type of $$$ is Steve Pavlina's (who's make about $30K/month). Here's a great article of his on how to monetize your blog by the way. This doesn't mean you can't hit your goals. You just may need to branch out and open some other sites. Coolest-gadgets.com (DCT's site) is a great example of a site that hit the $10K/month mark around 1 year in. But he also had a diverse revenue stream and a topic that could easily pull in hundreds of thousands of visitors per month. I have faith that you can do it, just be flexible and willing to open other sites to get there. Anita
Hey Anita! The blog is just a place to track what I do online. I am going to be trying different income sources and developing different sites which will, by the end of the year, add up to 10k per month (fingers crossed!). I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make the money, and am not restricting myself to just blogging by any means! Look for a more detailed outline on my blog in the next few days that will clearly state my mission. Casey
Casey - awesome! Sounds like you have what it takes to make great money online. Are you doing this full-time, or working on the side as well? Best of luck!
Ok I wrote a little something about you. No need to return the favor. Stay focused on making your money. I am rooting for you!!!
This is part time for now, until I get in to the later months when I can provide enough to live off (fingers crossed!). Thanks Ginene, I just read your post and I gotta say...it feels good getting that support!
While I agree with the "multitple streams will be required" piece, I also find focus to be a problem for me (and I'm only trying to get to $1k per month). I have three main things (a store, a blog registration site, and a group of blogs on my own blogging site). My hope is that these can help each other through cross referencing.. For example, I've been offering people free ads on my blog directory if they generate a certain amount of affiliate traffic for the electronics store... Likewise, you get a discount at the store if you blog with us... etc... My point - He's going to need many avenues for this type of revenue, but too many is also bad.. He might end up doing many things poorly. Which = $0 / month. My suggestion, spend an hour really thinking about the strategy and write the prime revenue directions on paper on the wall over the computer - limit of 4. Make certain they are complimentary. THEN, make certain everything you do on the computer is related to one of these 4 as you spend your time.
Try switching up your color scheme so the background and border of your ads is the same as your site. Also change the title color to a color that is in your site, or a complimentary color. I also think you could ad more units, possibly one below your search box. I did two quick chop jobs 1 2 Hope you boost your CTR, plus I really like your template! Opensource is baller these days!
Also, just try new color schemes and placement. If something isnt working you cant break it by trying something new! Be creative in your placement and color scheme, once its predictable users tune it out.