How I Make Money Blogging
01/05/2012 By 12 Comments
I’ve been asked several times by several people, “How do you make money blogging?” Most recently, Stephine from Dear Silas posed the question in the comments of my new years resolution post and it struck me that I’ve never really written about monetization before. It’s not that I’m trying to keep it all for myself or that I don’t want to share the information…I’m just 100% confident that I’m doing it all “right.”
First off, let me just say that I am in no way making a full-time income from my blog. I will simple say that I was able to pay for Christmas this year and I generally use my blogging money to pay for our “fun” incidentals throughout the month, rather than having to hit our checking account every time we want to eat out or go to the movies.
To quantify it a bit for you, according to PayPal, I have averaged a little over $500 each month for the past three months. This is cash only and does not include the retail value of the products that I receive in order to facilitate reviews. That is very little money compared to how much other bloggers are able to make when their blog is their job, but it’s a decent part-time income. Although, keep in mind that, given the number of hours I put into my blog, it’s not a very well-paying part-time job for the time investment. You have to really love blogging if you are going to spend the kind of time on it that is required to make any real money from it.
How To Make Money Blogging
Here is a quick breakdown of my income sources for the blog:
- Advertising Networks – This is a very small portion of my income. I don’t have the kind of traffic required to make tons of money off of advertising, but it all adds up eventually. It requires that I keep my eye on the ad network and make sure they are not putting any low-paying advertisements in the rotation and that I have a back-up network in case the primary network runs out of ads.
- Direct Advertising – This is different from an advertising network in that I sell ad space directly to companies for a fixed period of time. They can buy a 125 x 125 or 300 x 250 sidebar ad space in one month, three month, six month or one year increments. While this pays a bit better than the ad networks and is guaranteed income, rather than based on pageviews, it is also more difficult to maintain because I have to keep track of who has purchased space, when it runs out, what the cost will be and maintain contact with the company to negotiate renewal. Direct Advertising may also take the form of text links in the sidebar, but I generally avoid those as they just don’t look very good.
- Sponsored Posts - This is easily my number one income source. For a fixed price, companies can ask me to write a post that includes their links. This post may or may not be about their product or website. These are the types of posts that can leave a reader feeling “misled” if not disclosed properly. If I write a sponsored post, you will always find my disclosure image at the bottom of the post letting you know that I was compensated for writing the post. These posts are always 100% my own content and will always be clearly marked as sponsored. {If the post is written by the company, it is called an advertorial post and usually costs them less since I didn’t have to put forth the effort of writing the post. These are also clearly marked as sponsored content.} Sponsored and advertorial posts account for probably 80% of my blogging income, but also require the highest time commitment as I negotiate with businesses, write the content and seek out advertisers.
- Product Review/Ambassadorships – There is a fine line between an uncompensated and totally unbiased product review and a paid review. While you will always get 100% honesty from me in all of my reviews (paid or not), some companies do pay their product testers a fee for taking part in a blog tour. This is generally done when the product they want you to test has a low retail value (many bloggers won’t accept products that are not at least $25 in value, myself included, because they are not worth the 2-3 hours or more we have to put into the review) or if they are requesting you to go above and beyond a simple product review and act as an “ambassador” for the brand. These types of campaigns are usually managed by blogging networks like Mom Bloggers Club, My Blog Spark, Clever Girls Collective and Mom Central.
A Few Reminders
Those are the most common types of income-generating activities that take place on Lindsay Blogs. While there are a few other little income-producers, this is the bulk of it. I hope this helps you in your quest to monetize your blog, but please remember these two things:
- Blogging cannot be just about the money. If you don’t enjoy it, the time commitment is simply not worth the payout.
- Remember your worth. Do not undersell yourself just to get some money coming in. Make sure you know how much the advertiser should be paying for space on your blog and stick to your guns when it comes to negotiation. If they won’t come up to a price yo uare comfortable accepting, bid them adieu and move on to more profitable companies who are willing to pay you what you are worth.
Good luck!
Google Friends Connect Going Away – Google Plus Taking Its Place?
11/28/2011 By 16 Comments
Google recently announced that they will be removing Google Friend Connect from all non-Blogger blogs in March 2012. That means that there will no longer be a GFC widget on the sidebars of WordPress blogs like mine to allow you to easily subscribe to a blog’s RSS feed. Instead, you will need to click on the RSS button (
) or subscribe in some other fashion.
What if I already subscribe via GFC?
Although I have not seen an official response from Google on this, it is assumed that your subscription will remain unchanged if you already subscribe to a blog through the Google Friend Connect widget. Generally, when you subscribe via GFC, you are subscribing to the blog’s RSS feed so that it will appear in your Google Reader. This is how I follow 85% of the blogs that I read. It’s an easier way to maintain subscriptions and a very simple one-click method to follow.
However, with the GFC widget saying “Hasta la vista,” you are left to wonder how you will follow blogs from now on if GFC was your go-to method. It’s really pretty easy to follow a blog in Google Reader, even without the GFC widget. All you have to do is click the RSS icon () and then you will be taken to the blog’s RSS feed. It should look something like this:
To add the blog’s RSS feed to your Google Reader, just click the Google image in the subscription box. You will then be given the option to add the feed to your Google Homepage or the Google Reader. Simply select “Add to Google Reader” and you’re good to go!
Replacing Google Friend Connect with Google Plus
Google is pushing for non-Blogger blog owners who have been using the GFC widget to make the switch to Google Plus. The problem with this “switch” is that they are in no way identical services, nor do they even begin to offer the same features. Google Friend Connect was primarily a way to subscribe to a blog. Sure, it had some social functions built-in, but they were so seldom used that they were often completely forgotten by users.
Google Plus is 100% a social network. It allows you to interact with people and businesses much in the same way that Facebook does. Google’s social networking platform is clean, simple and definitely has promise. But it is not a blog subscription option. Currently, there is no way to auto-feed your blog’s posts into your Google Plus stream for those in your circles to follow. In a way, this is good as it requires you to actually interact with your circles if you want them to see you or your content, but it certainly does take away from the automation of the feed.
Why Google Plus?
If you are a blog owner, having a Google Plus page definitely has its benefits. It has been shown to increase search engine ranking to have your posts on Google Plus and, since it’s still a relatively new social networking platform, you can get in on the ground floor and really get to know the big dogs of blogging and social media who post regularly. I have seen quite an increase in my search engine traffic since I started really pushing myself to post more frequently on Google Plus.
Since the user base for Google Plus is still relatively small (approximately 40 million users vs Facebook’s 500 million) so you have the chance to really connect with people like you just can’t do on Facebook. Take this time while the user pool is still small to build connections with readers and build some real loyalty among subscribers. Get reader input and ask questions from bigger (not necessarily better) bloggers about how they manage to make it all work. Use Google Plus for what it was created: to connect with people!
I do have a Google Plus page for Lindsay Blogs and I do my best to update it with each post and with regular questions and discussions for those in my circles or following my page. I have even added a widget in my sidebar (to replace the, now dead to me) Google Friend Connect badge. It looks like this:
If you are on Google Plus, I would love it if you would help me expand my circles and add me to yours!
Getting the Google Plus Badge
Now that I have gotten rid of the Google Friend Connect Widget, I wanted to give readers an easy way to add me to their Google Plus circles, so that I can start to build up those relationships and really start learning from my readers and other bloggers who are always sharing information and tips. Adding this badge proved more difficult than I thought, however. I knew that Google Plus offered a badge because I had run across it before, but I couldn’t find it for my life. I’m going to break it down for you because I’m nice like that.
You can do one of two things: Either click here to go directly to the Google Plus Badge configuration or you can go to your Google Plus streams in page view (assuming you have already created your Google Plus page for your blog. If you haven’t, check out this tutorial from Eli Rose that spells out How to Create a Google Plus Page for Your Business.) and click “Get Started.” This will take you to a page with lots of options to promote your page:
From there, you can just click “Get the badge” and go through the configuration steps. You will need your page ID number, which you can find in the URL bar when viewing your page. This is what mine looks like:
Next Steps
Even though Google Friend Connect has been a part of the blogosphere for as long as I can remember, it’s departing is not the end of the world. As a matter of fact, it opens up a whole new landscape of possibilities for your blog. You now have a reason to set up that Google Plus page you’ve been meaning to set up and start learning how it works. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a major player in the social media game and it’s not going away any time soon.
Google owns the world. Might as well get used to it.
If you are on Google Plus, feel free to leave your G+ link in the comments section here and I will add you to my circles! I hope you will do the same.
