How Bloggers Make Money Online
ADVERTISEMENTSThe most common way bloggers seem to make money online is via Google AdSense and most of them even make the mistake of just depending on it alone.
Inorder to make money online as a blogger you should not depend on just AdSense or any one revenue source alone. The trick to make more money from your blog is to add more revenue sources.
To make it easier for you, I have listed the common Ad programs that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.
- AdSense: AdSense is a contextual advertising program for which publishers simply have to add a piece of code to their sites that helps Google analyze what your page is about so they can serve Ads on that topic. AdSense also allows you to earn money by using Google Search on your site that will display relevant Ads when visitors search on your site. AdSense also has a referral program that allows you to earn by recommending various products like Firefox toolbar, AdSense, Adwords, etc.
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Text Link Ads: Text Link Ads will help you sell simple text links on your site easily. The monthly link price will depend on factors like your Google Pagerank and Alexa rank. As a new Advertiser on Text Link Ads you are eligible for $100 in FREE Links.Text Link Ads has an affiliate program that will pay you $25 for any referred visitor that is accepted into their publisher program and installs the advertising script on their site for seven days. If you refer an advertiser who purchases an advertisement, the referral will appear in your affiliate account within 24 hours.
For more info, read my Text Link Ads Review and my post on how to make money online with Text Link Ads.
- Tribal Fusion: Tribal Fusion’s payment is calculated based on ad impressions (CPM). So the higher your web site traffic is the more money you will earn. To get accepted though you will need a minimum of 2000 unique visitors per day.
- Kontera: Kontera’s ContentLink is a double underlined contextually relevant keyword on a web page that upon mouse-over opens a small bubble like box that displays and links to an ad from one of Kontera’s advertisers. When a visitor clicks the in text advertisement, they will be taken to the advertiser’s web site and the publisher will make money online. With ContentLink, advertisers reach their targeted audience on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis.ContentLink requires your site to have a minimum of 500,000 pageview per month, but I have seen them accepting new sites with lower pageviews.
- Vizu Answers: Vizu Answers helps you earn money from your site by placing interactive Polls on desired topics. They pay you based on CPM (Cost per thousand impressions), and you even get to set the minimum CPM rate for each poll you put up on your web site.
- ReviewMe: Pays you to review products and services on your site. You control what you review.
- Chitika eMiniMalls: Chitika eMiniMalls is a cost per click advertising program that will perform particularly well for product related blogs.
- Intellitxt: This is an in-text advertising program just like Kontera, but is harder to get accepted into.
- : FAN adds CPM ads to your feed. You may need around 500 RSS readers to get accepted.
- BlogAds - BlogAds lets you set the price and helps you find advertisers for your blog easily. To perform better with BlogAds, place it at a more prominent position on your blog.
You can also make money with direct ad sales and through Affiliate programs like Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction (I have not tried these affiliate programs, but know that a few bloggers use them). Text Link Ads, ReviewMe and Aaron’s SEO book also offer affiliate programs that many bloggers use.
There are many more affiliate programs, you have to choose the one that matches your blog. Check here for tips on how to improve your Affiliate earnings.
Guest blogging on other blogs seems to be a new way of making money for bloggers these days, but some bloggers guest blog just for a link back.
I hope this post makes bloggers realize that they should not depend on just Google AdSense. May be in the beginning stage of a blog AdSense will do enough, but as your blog grows you should keep adding more revenue sources if you really want to earn from your blog. But also keep in mind that overloading your blog with Ads can make you lose readers.
To find more ways to make money online, check my make money online page (this list will be updated often) and make money online category (this is where you can find more tips to make money online).
Let me know if you want to add any more common Ad programs (used by bloggers) to the list. I know there are a lot of ad programs that allow bloggers to make money online, but I just want to mention the most common ones used by bloggers to prevent confusion for new bloggers looking for ways to make more money with their blogs.
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Posted on May 3rd, 2007 | Category: Make Money Online |
Online Technology
May 4, 2007 at 12:23 am
A good list for mid-bloggers. This will give a clear idea of some of the most commonly used programs
SEO blog
May 4, 2007 at 12:44 am
Don’t forget Yahoo also has an ad network. Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) is basically an Adsense competitor and should at least be tested against adsense to see which fits best for each individual site.
Alex
May 4, 2007 at 1:10 am
That is quite a good list there John for new bloggers, I also like the description and advice for each one of them.
Philip Seyfi
May 4, 2007 at 1:23 am
Kontera ContentLink accepted me even when I had only around 10000 visits per month and with only a few words per page lol
They don’t really check it…
Alex
May 4, 2007 at 1:26 am
Seyfi: I think they check it, because just after I signed up with them I received some tips to have a good CTR on my site, like ads colors and some other stuff
They even provided a good specially for my blog.
DotNetNuke
May 4, 2007 at 1:50 am
Nice article,most of them does not support localized content.
shashank
May 4, 2007 at 2:13 am
Hi John great post..Kontera is now finally accepting new
sites with low pageviews also …
egon
May 4, 2007 at 3:52 am
I use RightMedia along with AdSense and YPN, I just started it so I don’t know how well it works, but the idea is great. It’s best suited for blogs with a somewhat high readership.
For text links, I use TLA and Linkworth as well as direct sales (which yield the most.)
“Pay for a post” ads: ReviewMe and PayPerPost are the best, but there is also Sponsored Reviews and LinkPost, which is LinkWorth’s latest product.
As far as in-text ads like Kontera and IntelliText ,I despise them and will never, ever degrade my blog with them. johntp.com is one of the few blogs I will still even visit with these ads, and I’ve noticed myself coming here less and less because they’re so annoying.
Techie Buzz
May 4, 2007 at 6:12 am
Hey John,
Yes this definitely helps making more money from blogs, I am picking up these tips and hopefully will make more money out of the blog.
Thanks for all the advice.
Keith
Nirmal
May 4, 2007 at 9:32 am
This is a good list of ads. I’m using 4 from the list. Adsense, Chitika, Kontera and Text Link Ads.
I guess Blogads are only by invitation.
Madhur Kapoor
May 4, 2007 at 2:21 pm
This is a good list John . Currently i am using Adsense , Kontera , TLA . Going to try Vizu now .
shashank
May 4, 2007 at 3:51 pm
How is chitika going with you guys is it worth …
Online Technology
May 4, 2007 at 6:06 pm
: Right Media has one problem, It shows ads which are really offensive which include partial nudity sometimes. Some of my friends reported to me when they came on my site.
Nirmal
May 4, 2007 at 6:22 pm
@ Online Technology,
I had the same problem with auction ads. They show some semi nude like photos.
Alex
May 4, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Well I never tried them but I guess won’t in the future
egon
May 4, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Technology: You can filter out an types of ads you want. It’s a really long list too, I spent 30 minutes going through and checking/unchecking what I want displayed.
Paul
May 4, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I made mine through adBrite… in fact now I have more than 50 adBrite ads waiting to be approved!
Ronald
May 4, 2007 at 8:45 pm
We can placement the ads by auction ads beside the google ads and that’s not impinge with adsense TOS and also do not forget to set keyword/target ads. its better if we use the general keyword likes “phone”, “laptop” but if you need to use the specific keyword, you can use “,” that same with operand OR example : nokia gsm cell phone, nokia cell phone, phone also can use “-”/NOT example car -honda. and “;”/AND example car;motorbike. Also we can create an auction ads page on our blog because they gave no limit ads for us.
Thank’s
Ronald
May 4, 2007 at 8:49 pm
John - I’m still confused with blogads, how to start to make money with them?
Online Technology
May 4, 2007 at 8:53 pm
: Blogads need invitation.Its not a direct entry point.
: I think I will wait before again trying for rmx…I dont want to fill my site with ads. Moreover blogads pay better than RMX
Ronald
May 4, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Online Technology - Oh thank’s for your explain. It’s clear now (for me). May John could invitation us, because i saw on this blog has got blogads invitation
egon
May 4, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Well with RMX you just sort of replace your Adsense or YPN ads with the RMX code. If RMX can pay more than Adsense or YPN for that ad request, they display an RMX ad block *instead* of the Adsense. If they can’t pay more, your Adsense block is still displayed.
I haven’t really had much luck with Blogads personally, but I know others have. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, haha. I’m not a huge fan of AdBrite either, but I should give them a try
subhash
May 4, 2007 at 10:44 pm
these poll based advertisements are seen a lot on site these days..
egon
May 4, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Yeah I’m considering putting polls up on my site, they seem pretty cool. How much do they pull in, in comparison to other revenue streams?
Byte of Technology
May 4, 2007 at 11:19 pm
, how is RMX??? Is it paying good??? Recently it was acquired by Yahoo I guess…
Online Technology
May 4, 2007 at 11:31 pm
: RMX is good but then there are certain drawback, Its not easy to get control over type of ads. Even in adbrite I have seen instead of filtering out, pron kind of ads show up. Even my friends reported this. Another reason is the script is heavy plus some of the services payout is like 90 days and more. I would trust google more than RMX
egon
May 4, 2007 at 11:38 pm
: I just started RMX, and so far it’s just okay. Adsense pays quite a bit more than the other advertisers are willing to pay, so it rarely replaces the AdSense ads. YPN is a different story. It seems to be bringing that up a bit, but so far not much. I’m going through a redesign soon which will accomidate better ad sizes, so hopefully that will help too.
Tech: Like I said above, RMX does allow you to filter out pr0n ads and pretty much anything else that annoys you or you don’t want shown on your site. You can filter out drugs, guns, flashing ads, spy/adware, false/misleading ads, all that.
Online Technology
May 4, 2007 at 11:44 pm
: I have used RMX for a month in Jan. I am aware of the complete process including the filtering process.Still I faced these 3 problems
1. Annoying ads were still showing up. Emailing the RMX support resulted in same thing which you said.
2. The script was heavy. It takes longer time to execute as in case if no ads are shown from RMX it has to get the Adsense script from the RMX server and execute here. hence making the site slow..
3. The payout is very long. With the amount the payoff it takes longer time. Moreover iyts a bidding process. Too high CPM submitted will result in low ads to be show and too low will result in cheap ads showing up, even though the filtration is on
egon
May 4, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Good points Online Tech, you’re correct. It’s certainly not for everybody, and I’m sure I will have my issues too. Like I said though I just started a couple days ago so I haven’t had much time to find the flaws so far. I just hope it doesn’t dip into my earning too much if it doesn’t work out.
Byte of Technology
May 5, 2007 at 12:05 am
& Online Technology, thanks for your response….
, YPN is only for some approved sites…I think they are not approving all blogs
egon
May 5, 2007 at 12:24 am
: You’re right, I forgot I had to get accepted into it. To be honest though, from my experience, you’re better off with something else. AdSense yeilds a MUCH higher revenue stream for me. YPN isn’t very good at contextually matching ads to your site, and it’s not very customizable, at least in terms of comparing it to AdSense.
egon
May 5, 2007 at 12:29 am
Which other contextual ad systems do you have to get accepted into, btw? Does BriteAds do that? I can’t remember.
JohnTP
May 5, 2007 at 1:25 am
Online Technology - I may come up with a post for new bloggers too.
SEO blog - Since AdSense is the most used, I decided not to include it to prevent confusion for the new bloggers.
Philip Seyfi and shashank - I have seen Kontera accept many sites with low traffic. They are not as strict as InteliTXT.
shashank- Chitika works best on product related sites, trying it on other type of sites will not get you much.
Ronald - I don’t have any BlogAds invitation, I will give out when I get.
egon- Your Vizu earnings depend on your site’s traffic and the CPM price you set.
The Thinking Blog
May 5, 2007 at 1:42 am
This is a really good list.. bookmarked!
John Derrick
May 5, 2007 at 6:40 am
Good to know. I also like that you “practice what you preach”, because I see the companies that you recommend on the very blog that you unrecommended them on!
Thanks,
John Derrick
Online Technology
May 5, 2007 at 9:39 am
: If you can break it into series will be good. I havent seen any guide which guides blogger step by stpe to which service should be used when. Bloggers signup just hearing the name and they dont make out much from it unless they are successful in terms of traffic and PR
Ronald
May 5, 2007 at 11:26 am
Online Technology - I agree with you, may John can make it like a online workshop
shashank
May 5, 2007 at 5:31 pm
that means i wont get fruits out of chitika …and textlinkads are incompatible with blogger so i am only left with google and kontera others are not viable options unless u have a high traffic.
shashank
May 5, 2007 at 5:33 pm
and hey where from Thinking lady comes in from nowhere ..to
to top place in commentators list ,seems like competition is getting hot here..
welcome Ilker
Cars Lovers Space
May 5, 2007 at 6:37 pm
great. mark it.
thanks for sharing your experiences.
Abhishek
May 7, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Nice tips for new bloggers.
Court
May 8, 2007 at 2:27 am
John, would you mind letting us know what percentage of your earnings come from Adsense? It might be interesting and most bloggers depend solely on it, which of course is a huge mistake!
Garry Conn
May 8, 2007 at 10:33 am
I have this saved… nice work. I know that you worked hard on this one!
Techie Buzz
May 9, 2007 at 1:13 am
Hey John,
Do you use Kontera, I wanted to try it out, so could you tell me how good it is?
Keith
egon
May 9, 2007 at 1:39 am
No Keith, DON”T DO IT!
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/s.....vertising/
Rose
May 9, 2007 at 7:23 am
Yes I agree! It’s a very good list of affiliates. Even though a lot of them have a minimum requirement of the number of visitors to one’s site - like you said - you can work your way up.
Atul
May 11, 2007 at 8:30 am
You have listed best listed of programs , but now most of the bloggers i think are not using adsense and moving towards review me and payperpost after getting few good rankings .
DotMySpot
May 11, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Same goes here
good info.. i like these money making opportunities..
Steve S
May 19, 2007 at 5:02 am
What I would like to see is a step to step guide to building up enough traffic to be accepted into these networks.
Daniel Becher
May 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Google AdSense still is best and the more income-producing system of monetização.
Hugs!
Culebro
June 13, 2007 at 2:56 am
Very interesting, the real question is how to drive massive traffic to your blog /site? Once you have that one figured out, determining which of all these to choose is a relatively easy.
Abhishek
June 19, 2007 at 3:07 pm
For earning money from any blog, the basic requirement is high traffic. Then all the tools that have been mentioned above are useful.
Webmaster Money
July 9, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I think once you have good PR than TLA is best for the ssite with less traffic.
Balinese
July 31, 2007 at 6:41 am
Have anyone heard about crispads? It seems like promising network but i haven’t tried it.
Make money online witha 12 years old kid
August 18, 2007 at 4:59 pm
well i use only adsense on my blogs because i dont know any other adserving programs
Pearly
November 12, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Hi John,
Thanks for sharing and even after 6 months of learning blogging, I still have lots to learn. I have use adsense so far and now I know where I can improve, thanks to you.
God bless ya!
yosax
March 21, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Interesting tips…
Thanks
successfuljoe
June 18, 2008 at 7:48 am
You guys should also try Adbrite. It works wonders. Even better than google adsense. can jump up to 200$ daily if your really work and have good strategy.
http://webcashier.blogspot.com