How to Make Money From Your Blog - Tip #1

[Sunday, March 23, 2008 | 0 comments ]

For many people blogging is a way to express themselves online for the rest of the world to read. Usually it’s about a specific topic or if it’s a personal blog, then the blog posts could range from anything like your latest trip to Europe or how your dog just had puppies. Nevertheless, blogging is easy for anyone with a computer and internet access to use.

So for those who enjoy writing and spend lots of time doing it, why not make some extra money from it? It doesn’t cost you anything and only requires a little bit of time to setup but the return could be well worth it. That’s the beauty about online advertising programs — they work 24/7 even when you’re sleeping. Talk about a nice passive way to earn some extra money each day!

My first tip is probably the most popular method (and easiest) way to get started with making money from your blog. It’s a program called AdSense from a small company you’ve probably never heard of called Google. Knowingly or not, you’ve viewed hundreds of Google’s ads online and probably even clicked on a few since they were relevant to whatever topic or website you were reading at the time. That’s one of the great things about this program and I’ll talk more about it further down this post.

Use Google AdSense

Google adsense logo Google’s advertising program is free to sign up and you can usually be online within an hour or so (assuming your application is approved quickly). Then adding AdSense to your blog is easy especially with Blogger’s new AdSense widget (it’s quite simple with WordPress as well but I’m going to assume WordPress users already know how to do this since it’s just cut and pasting html). Once your application is approved, just log into your account, customize your ad unit, and copy and paste a block of HTML code into your blog. I’ll give you a walkthru of this process.

Step #1 - Sign up for Google AdSense

First you need to create an AdSense account doesn’t take more than a few minutes to do. Once you’ve got your account setup and approved, go on to step #2.

Step #2 - Add the AdSense Page Element to Your Blog

The nice thing about the new Blogger is you can easily add Google AdSense to your blog using their built in page elements. Login to your Blogger account, navigate to “Template” => “Page Elements” and then within the layout area, click on “Add a Page Element”. From there you’ll see this screen where you want to select the “AdSense” Page Element and click on “Add to Blog”.

Next you’ll see another screen where it will ask you to login (if it’s the first time you’ve tried to add this AdSense Page Element before). Just enter the email address and password you used when setting up your AdSense account. Once you successfully login, you’ll next see the ad configuration screen. This is where you select the ad format type (leaderboard, banner, text ad, etc) with many different sizes to choose from. Now remember to keep your site visitors in mind when selecting an ad format. You don’t want the ad to dominate your entire blog page which would annoy your readers. I’d recommend starting with a small rectangle or horizontal row format before going too crazy.

Don’t forget to also select a nice color scheme that matches your blog. Statistics show that the more blended in your blog ads are, the better change people will click on them. Remember to abide by the Google TOS though which I encourage you to read before breaking the rules by accident. Now once you’ve got the exact color scheme and ad format ready to go, click on the orange “Save Changes” button to add it to your blog.

Step #3 - Save and View Your New Ads

You should now save your Page layout and view your blog. The ad unit should be in place and ready to start making you money! Sometimes it takes a little while before ads start showing up and even a couple of days before relevant ads are displayed. This is usually the case if you’ve got a newer blog and Google isn’t familiar with your blog’s content yet. Google will then crawl your site and identify it’s general topic so it knows what ads to display. Pretty cool eh? Here’s a picture of the end result. Notice the red highlighted ad unit now displayed on my blog.

Bonus Tips

Now a few tips and a warning before you get too giddy about all this money you’re going to start making. First, never (and I mean never) click on your own ads. Google will know and they will ban you from the AdSense program. It’s not worth it! Secondly, don’t expect the big bucks to start rolling in right away. It’s a numbers game. The more traffic you get to your site, the better chances you have of somebody actually clicking your ad. Typically with ads, you can expect a 2% - 4% click thru rate (CTR) assuming your ad is in a good spot which means for every 100 page views you get, expect 2-4 ad clicks. Translation — keep writing great quality blog posts and your traffic will increase over time and so will the ad clicks which equals money in your pocket.

Other Reasons to Use Google Adsense

It’s a very simple and proven solution that hundreds and thousands of blogs and websites across the world use today.
AdSense is by Google which is reliable and trustworthy. Once you have earned money from Google, they will pay it to you.
The ads will be contextual, which means they will be relevant to the content of your blog. Targeted ads = happier visitors, higher click thrus, and more money for you.
You get paid on the click which is far better than on a conversion.
Google provides free reports so you can see exactly how many clicks and how much you’ve earned! You’ll find yourself using that report every day just to see how much money you’re making.
The ads are so well-matched to your site’s content that your readers will actually find them useful.

So go sign up for your AdSense account now and you’ll soon be able to start making money from your blog! If you’ve got any problems or questions while setting this up, please post a comment below. We will do our best to answer any questions you may have or at the least point you in the right direction.

Please make sure to click on the AdSense links provided in this article as the sign up referral helps support and offset our expenses for maintaining this site

Also Read How to Make Money From Your Blog - Tip #2

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