Comments on: Web Site Monetization - A Reality Check

By: Ted Murphy

Ted Murphy — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:53:44 +0000

I tried Adsense on what I thought was a useful financial website, but the payout seemed low.

So, I started a new way for a blogger to make money — direct payment from the audience on a per-minute basis.

Now, I’m advertising this new product using AdWords — and I’m paying an $0.08 CPM. I guess it wasn’t just me not making a lot with AdSense.

Extraordinary blog here, btw, congratulations.

By: MAC

MAC — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:00:58 +0000

Thanks for a great summary.

Personally I use Ads and found its performance varying. From my experience, it takes about 2-5 months to get some decent traffic.

By: Urban

Urban — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:52:58 +0000

Actually no prior monetizing options are good if your website doesn’t have content. Content is the first priority, the other is design and layout. If you have those you will get traffic and if you get traffic you can see a money flow.

By: The Happy Rock

The Happy Rock — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:02:19 +0000

At what point do you think it is worth thinking about monetizing a blog? 100 visitors a day? 500?

Adsense is not good for younger sites, what is the best option?

Thanks for the good information.

By: Robyn McMaster

Robyn McMaster — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:09:52 +0000

Char, thanks a lot for a really great post. I found it by originally clicking on Jonathan Phillips shout to your site. Nice work! I truly did not know there was so much to it.

By: Advice Network

Advice Network — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:00:16 +0000

I have a different take on this subject. I did not set up a blog that I am trying to monetize, I’ve set up a website, and my blog is to draw attention and traffic to my website, which I am trying to monetize.

As they say in India (or they did in the late 80’s when I was there.) “Same Same, but different.”

By: Don@AffiliateWatcher

Don@AffiliateWatcher — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 21:01:36 +0000

You hit the nail on the head. The reason many so called “guru’s” want to make monetization easy is to sell more ebooks or courses.

As someone who’s started several offline business’s, I’d say starting a successful online business or blog is just as time consuming and takes just as much knowledge and effort.

Thanks for sharing that post!

Don

By: Billy

Billy — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:12:44 +0000

Very concise write up of how new bloggers should approach monetization. It’s a lot harder than what everyone thinks, even when done right.

And blog software like blogspot perpetuate the ideas of easy blogging. Where most users put up one or two entries and call it blog. Which we all know is not even close.

By: KRG

KRG — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:12:27 +0000

I just started my blog and I am still testing some of the advertising revenues available out there. And you’re right, there are way too many factors to consider because not all blogs make money. I know some bloggers are making $10,000 per month and they are using a variety of monetizing avenues.

By: skarld

skarld — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:38:29 +0000

Affiliate programs have worked best for us. It is better to get 10% of one big sale, than a whole month of AdSense clicks.

There is monetized, and then there is optimized. The best advise I can give is that the Google and Yahoo heat maps of clicks work. Anything that you want read, or clicked, needs to be above the fold to have its best chance. in other words, no scrolling. The exception to this are single page websites that are online info-mercials.

One of the best blogs for monetization is doshdosh. It is all about traffic and money to the point it borders on greed.

“Do what you love and the money will follow”, is what you always hear. Let me add, if it doesn’t, at least you loved doing it.