When I started blogging, I never dreamed that it could earn me money. It was just something that I liked to do! Nobody was more surprised than me when my blog started getting readers. You could have knocked me over with a feather the first time I got asked if I would accept hard cash money in exchange for a bit of ad space.
I've struggled with accepting ads. I declined the first few ones offered, just because I felt weird promoting frugality, but advertising products on my blog. But I've changed my thinking a bit since my initial reluctance. While I did not set out to earn money blogging, I love the fact that I can actually earn money by doing something I love. Getting paid to write is awesome. Finding a way to get paid for doing something you love anyway...that's the advice that's been given to me my whole life. So I do accept ads. I do a (very few) affiliate things. I've started to really investigate other ways to earn money on my blog that are not too time intensive or too contrary to my personal philosophy.
Here's some things I've done to earn money simply because I'm a blogger:
Google Ads: Blogger makes adding them really easy. It's pay per click. I don't really mention them often, and they have not been too intrusive on my blog. I don't earn fabulous amounts, but I've earned more than I ever expected from a few little click ads. I have not had many problems with offensive ads popping up, but I've heard that's a common complaint.
Blogvertise: This is a new thing I'm trying. I can't report back yet on my success, but it does not seem too difficult and I know of a few other bloggers who use them. Go here for more info.
Associated Content: I've mentioned them before a few times. I don't spend much time writing articles specifically for them, but every so often I go through and copy/paste a few things I've already written for this blog. I submit non-exclusively. This does not usually get me more than 3-5 dollars per article, but hey, I'd write it either way. May as well snag a few bucks for it!
6 comments:
I read you via Bloglines so miss all the ads.
Sorry :-}
No need to apologize- I love my readers more than I love my ads. :) Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for this post, it reminded me to check my Google AdSense balance where I learned that I've made a grand total of 21 cents from my blog since adding the ads to it, LOL!
So, I just clicked on one of the ads. Does that mean you made money?
Naomi-
Yes, I made money because you clicked on an ad. The amounts vary from two cents to nearly a dollar per click (usually in the two cents per click range.) Google does not pay up until you accumulate $100. It's been about a year since I started, and I'm just now almost there!
FYI I just found out about Helium (http://www.helium.com) - which sounds very much like Associated content. I'm still learning about the company - they posted a job today on Craigslist that I'm thinking of going for.
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