Making money in blogging?

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MovieBlogger

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I don't try to make money on any of my sites---apart from donations. "Buy me a coffee" kind of stuff, which I only put up after 6 months worth of content on my sites. I did get my first donation on my main blog yesterday---which is a very cool feeling. And it indeed could get me a cup of coffee in Seattle, WA.

For me (and I know this has been debated on this forum before) I absolutely HATE those "Buy me a coffee" buttons. They are as annoying as embedded music. I think it cheapens the site, and in some ways, looks like a form of begging. People may be uncomfortable to read the site seeing it, and not become a regular reader.

Meanwhile Google Ads are easy to set up, are everywhere (even on this site) so aren't too obtrusive, and if you have enough traffic, or are patient enough, they do pay out.

One thing that I don't know if Darren mentioned it, but it is always good to start up advertising early. That way people don't get a shock when all of a sudden, ads start to appear. They don't want to them accuse you of selling out. If you sell out right when you begin, you can't be accused of that.
 

razibahmed

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I am not against the Donation button. I cannot set up one because I do not have access to Paypal or any kind of online transaction. I don’t think that it is begging. A beggar does not give anything to anyone. A blogger is giving service to the readers for free of charge. Often, you are looking for some information and then you get it from a blog. Unless you have daily at least 1,000 page views, it is very difficult to earn enough money even to buy a coffee daily.
 

Angela_785

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Interesting conversation. I've never considered the possibility of making money from my blog though a donation button. I'm not into the ad thing, because it clutters a blog, IMO and just isn't for me I don't think.
 

Manderley

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No, I don't make money from the blog and I don't intend to either. I'm not in it for the money, I'm in it for the karma.
 

Ava Jarvis

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For me (and I know this has been debated on this forum before) I absolutely HATE those "Buy me a coffee" buttons. They are as annoying as embedded music. I think it cheapens the site, and in some ways, looks like a form of begging. People may be uncomfortable to read the site seeing it, and not become a regular reader.

... geez frickin' louise. People asked for a donation button.

I do provide a service, and if people don't like my site, they don't have to do anything about it. My readership hasn't gone down since I added the thing, and it's at the very bottom of my sidebar. If you think I'm begging and not giving anything in return, go and look at my site and hit the blogging for writers category.

Thanks for being a jerk.


Edit: Sorry for the ad-hominem attack. It wasn't warranted, and your opinion is fine. I didn't like the way you stated it, but I had no business (a) responding the way I did or (b) calling you a jerk.


Meanwhile Google Ads are easy to set up, are everywhere (even on this site) so aren't too obtrusive, and if you have enough traffic, or are patient enough, they do pay out.

Whatever works.

I don't go out and blast people about ads, even though I don't prefer them for my site.

Again, thanks.


Edit: And this bit of snark was really stupid on my part.

Apologies. And I do mean that. I don't like to offend folks. Unfortunately sometimes I am just the stupid.
 
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veinglory

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Movieblogger did say "for me". Seems like we all get to have an opinion. I despise music on the blog but saying so isn't an attack against those who decide to use it. Any choice will gain you some benefits and loose others.

I advertise on several of my blogs but not on others. I have yet to try a donation button, it does seem like begging to me.
 

Ava Jarvis

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Movieblogger did say "for me". Seems like we all get to have an opinion. I despise music on the blog but saying so isn't an attack against those who decide to use it. Any choice will gain you some benefits and loose others.

I understand that's his opinion, I support people having opinions different from mine, and I know you win some, lose some.

I think he (and you) state your opinion in an offensive way, just as if I'd said "I think ads cheapen a site and take advantage of readers". I've learned that this is ultimately a way to offend people and that's not the point.

Edit: I'm still being snarky and dumb here. Opinions can be stated however they can be stated and if one takes offense it is one's own problem. Namely, mine.

And if this was a thread arguing the merits of one way of making money over another (as opposed to "do you do it?") I would never have mentioned the donation button at all, because I know that such a thing is fraught with debate. I suppose I shall never mention it again.

Edit: Snark again. Stupid of me, really.

That said, I over-reacted, and made an ad-hominem attack, which basically makes me the stupid person in the room and invalidates my opinion.

I advertise on several of my blogs but not on others. I have yet to try a donation button, it does seem like begging to me.

Try one sometime is all I can say to that.

I suppose people can block ads but not donation buttons, and therein lies their offensiveness. However, I put mine way at the bottom of the sidebar.

Maybe if someone made a Greasemonkey script to detect sites with donate buttons and block them is a good idea.

Edit: I'm going to go sit out now. Today I'm just too stupid for the forum.
 
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veinglory

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I think my feeling about them comes from how I first discovered donation buttons exist. for some time I had been reading a blog. The button came up with a post about how the blog took so much time and if we wanted it to continued we needed to pony up. I was a bit affronted as it took the interaction from 'fellow fan' to 'I'm doing you a favor here bub'. First impressions can be funny like that. I've never liked them much since. As a reader-suggested initiative the tone would be different.
 
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MovieBlogger

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No offense taken, Ava.

It is a matter of taste I guess, and sorry if it sounded like I was stating it otherwise. If you are making money from yours, great. I'm glad it is working.

It is just, I remember I used to read this one site. It was an okay site. I enjoyed it. But it got to the point the writer was putting a message in EVERY POST saying "Do you like this post? Buy me a cup of coffee!" It may have seen cute to them, but to a reader, to see that on every post, you get the feeling that they EXPECT you to pay. Since you don't, you are made to feel guilty.

What made it even worse was that it was one of those "How to make money blogging" sites where, you would think this person is successful and doesn't need to continually ask for money. They probably have more money than the readers do.

Oh and BTW, Ava, I checked out your blog and I like the way you have your donation button. No complaints from me about that.
 
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Ava Jarvis

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I agree that a donation button that shows up everywhere is pretty bad. One really should have ads if one is concerned about "coverage" (or whatever that person was concerned with).

To me, the whole point of a donation button is that it stays out of the way. Thus I made mine as unobtrusive as possible, where it's found only by people who do want to scroll through the content. (Also made it pretty to fit the blog theme, and not a glaring orange-yellow paypal button.)

I've found that if people really want to donate, they will look *all over* for the button or link so you don't have to worry much about placing it. :) Even if you put it in the footer they will find it. (It might even be easier for them to find it there.)

Who knew? I just kept getting emails to that effect. So I just put up the button at last :)
 

L M Ashton

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So I'm merging threads about making money in blogging and then stickying the whole mess. I figure it'll be easier than having a new thread on making money in blogging show up every week or two. :D

Please PM me with any other threads on the same topic that need to be merged here so we have a general compendium to be used as a resource for future posters. And of course, keep posting in here with more questions and comments about making money in blogging. :)
 

Leva

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Laurie, I don't have any experience with widgetbucks, but I know they're very controversial and have been in a fairly bad odor on digitalpoint. There's a lot of people who think they're a scam, and a lot more who claim they're legitimate.

Because they're not the only advertiser out there, I've elected to use others and wait to see if they're still around -- and have a good reputation -- in a year or two.
 

razibahmed

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In this thread, we have talked about Donation buttons. Well, I have posted an entry in my blog about donation: http://techblogbiz.blogspot.com/2008/07/donate-something-for-this-blog-without.html
Donate Something for this blog Without Spending any Money

Yes, I don’t seek any money from the visitors but I requested them to help me in some other ways. I have mentioned 7 ways that the readers can support me without spending a single cent.
 

silktwisteddagger

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For the UK users - trade doubler looks like it's our best equivalent for linkshare, and rpoints is pretty good too. I get about £30 a month in total from these - admittedly some of this is through buying cds etc myself!
 

Leva

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I just thought I'd add another possibility here -- Tribalfusion.com is doing well for me. They have a minimum traffic requirement of 2,000 pv/day which is a moderately sized blog but they pay better than Adsense. And they're reputable; they've been around for awhile.

I'm having issues with Kontera -- Adsense reports 3,000-4,000 pv a day on content on my site on an average day and Kontera reports less than 2,000. I suspect they might be short on ad inventory. And the cost per click is also way down. Once i get my next $100 check from them I'm dropping them.

-- Leva
 

MelancholyMan

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There's a rumor we're getting close...
Making money blogging? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
 

Ali B

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For me (and I know this has been debated on this forum before) I absolutely HATE those "Buy me a coffee" buttons. They are as annoying as embedded music. I think it cheapens the site, and in some ways, looks like a form of begging. People may be uncomfortable to read the site seeing it, and not become a regular reader.

I kind-of agree. The first time I saw one of those I went, "Woooooow, that's a little off-putting." IDK, just something I would never do personally, I guess.
 

Nick Russell

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I have had a blog on my RV website www.gypsyjournal.net for about 18 months now, and recently started a blog on my publishing website. I have Google ads on my three sites, not just the blogs, and my Google checks average about $550 a month. My best month was about $670. I spend about 30 minutes to an hour a day writing and posting to the blog. So it's a good part time job if nothing else.
 

L M Ashton

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Nick, that's a pretty impressive amount of Google Adsense earnings. Thanks for sharing - it's nice to know what can happen. :) Do you mind sharing how many hits a month you get for that kind of earnings?

And welcome to AW. :)
 

Nick Russell

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Laurie,
Last month was a slow month in terms of commissions. I only made about $450. Since my main website is the RV site, hits drop in the summer when people are out traveling and camping, and go up in the winter when they are at home more. In July we had 45,650 page impressions on the three websites combined, and 1,503 clicks on ad links. That comes to about 29 cents a click.

Today, as of 9:30 p.m. local time, we have had 1,229 page impressions, 85 clicks, and our commission so far is $31.88.

It is interesting that the clicks on the RV site pay the least commission, on average. Many are just two or three cents. Most are about 25 to 30 cents. Clicks on the motorcycle website average about 55 to 65 cents each. However, clicks on the self-publishing website average around $1 each.

If I give a seminar at an RV rally, ad clicks (and commissions) go way up for a week or two. Likewise if I do a self-publishing seminar or workshop. Last winter I put on a day-long self-publishing workshop, and commissions for the next day alone were almost $200. I’d love to have more days like that!

Again, I spend no more than an hour a day at this. I’m convinced that if I invested more time, the income would grow.
 

razibahmed

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Nick,
Thanks a lot for sharing all the information. However, I am afraid that you are not supposed to share this kind of specific information in public. This may cause you get banned from Google Adsense.
You can find more information here:
http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/05/15-common-mistakes-by-google-adsense-publishers/
“5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.”
I am not sure about it. I just thought that you may look into Adsense TOS again.
 

veinglory

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ToS tend to say all sorts of things but I have trouble seeing how one's own earnings would be effectively gagged.
 
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