Monetized Blogs

Monetized blogs have been all the rage for some time now. However, there are a few things you should consider before accepting the hype of making easy money by starting a monetized blog.

There are many books out there about the "easy money" of creating a free blog and simply sticking some Adsense or other ads up and making money. The true part is that, if you use one of the many free blog sites, at least you won't be out a lot of money for start up costs, but you could be out a lot of time instead. Yes, it can be "easy" as well. Just create a free blog, insert some ads or Adsense code and you're good to go. Unfortunately, this WON'T make you any money.

To make money off a blog by using Adsense, Adbrite, or any one of the many other ad publisher codes, you have to have massive amounts of traffic. The average click thru rate (CTR) for most blogs is very small at only a percent or two of your traffic. If only 1 person clicks on an ad out of 100 who visit your blog, then you've only made a couple of cents per 100 visits. Unless your blog becomes VERY popular, then you will only end up with making just that couple cents per day.

I've heard of people who compensate for this low rate by starting MANY blogs, of which they still only make a few cents each, but combined they bring in more. While this is possible, the problem is that if you create 10 more blogs, then you also have created 10 times more work for yourself, and you've still only made a few more cents (NOT dollars!) a day. Is this really worth it?

The amount of effort required to bring in more traffic to make a few cents more is enormous, as good updated content is what brings in the traffic, meaning that you can NOT just start a blog, put up some ads and forget about it. You have to regularily post and update to EACH blog you create. Many people abandon their blogs after they realize it's not as easy as they've been told.

If you've noticed, I do have Adsense ads as well, but it's for more of an experiment than for making actual money. I've never made the payout threshold, and I don't expect to...ever. I have other blogs as well that do not have Adsense and they focus on music and other topics, but this one is for online business topics, so I use the ads here to put things in context to see what works and what doesn't.

If you really want to make money with a blog, I suggest creating good, original content by writing about something interesting on a topic you like and then putting some affiliate program ads or product ads on it that have the potential of making you more than just a few cents. I blog for fun and research, but I offer legitimate online degrees as a Degree Broker to earn my money from them. Yes, you can blog for fun and profit. You just have to find the right balance before you can make it worth the time you must put into it to succeed.