Around the first of March, Chris and I decided we’d do a little testing with each of our domains - seeing if we couldn’t make a few dollars with some of the domains we have scattered around the web. I never really put a whole lot of faith in advertsing programs, because it seemed just too easy - ya know? Money never comes easy, does it?
For reference, we’re using the following programs for advertising in various different spots on our various different domains:
I’ve tried not to make the ads too obtrusive on the sites that we own. Just a few here - a few there…scattered about. Since I put the ads up mid-March - I figured a good, solid idea of how well they are doing was to wait until the end of April to see what the figures were. Now that we’re just about to the end of April - I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with the results (even though we still have 3 more days to go in April):
Google Adsense: $595.82 for the month of April.
Text Ad Links: - $269.54 for the month of April
AdBrite: $174.56 for the month of April
BlogAds: - $146.54 for the month of April
Crisp Ads: $98.67 for the month of April
Aprils grand total for advertising: $1285.13
Also, this doesn’t count the hard coded link ads I sold from direct contact with the advertiser on a few domains for $450.00 early on this month . . add that to the total and we’ve got $1735.13
I’m thinking our experiment in advertising was productive. Not bad for a few links scattered here and there.
Some folks don’t like advertising on blogs - and I can fully understand that point of view. I personally don’t mind it - I don’t even mind visiting blogs that have advertising. I think that if folks develop their sites and domains to the point where it is considered to be valuable ‘real estate’ for advertisers - then it’s not a negative thing for that site owner to make a few bucks off a few well placed ads.
Heck - I even click ads if I see ones that I think might be interesting.
Our little experiment in advertising was to really find out if people can make money off their websites by simply advertising. Many people will say that it’s all hype - but I’ve found that it’s not true.. it can be done. Now, I don’t think you’ll make a fortune and certainly it’s nothing to retire on - - but a few dollars can be made, for sure.
A few things I’ve found to be of some importance to advertisers willing to purchase space on your blog:
- Google Page Ranking on your domain. Advertisers seem to be happy with sites that rank between 5-10. This site ranks 6. Most of my other sites and domains rank 5 or 6
- Alexa ranking - this link is an example of alexa’s rank on one of my domains
- Page Views per month for your domain
It’s all a game, really. This month could be great - next month could be nothing. It’s a crapshoot, really… at least I think. We’ll see how we do in May.
at last an answer to my problem… Ive started having...
11:54 pm on April 27th, 2006
[...] I found this post quite impressive. I’ve never seen anyone actually be willing to share their ad revenue from blogging, but Lisa tells how she’s brought home some major bacon during the month of April. [...]
12:05 am on April 28th, 2006
I found this amazing too. I can’t seem to generate any revenue. My hits keep going up but the revenue from them just gets lower and lower. Any secrets?
12:13 am on April 28th, 2006
Not too many secrets, really. I should disclose that we have these ads spread across about 6-8 different domains and sites - - each with specific content.
I do find, however, through using Google Adsense channels - that placement of the adsense seems to make a big difference. My largest revenue producing site from adsense gets most of the clicks of the ads placed within the post. It’s rare that the Google Ads in the sidebar of the site get clicked. That site is pretty content rich - with over 146,000 indexed pages - - each page has google ads within the content of the page. Those are the ones that do the best, in terms of click through rates.
Hope that’s helpful
1:32 am on April 28th, 2006
Thanks!
1:56 am on April 28th, 2006
really interesting. i mean that.
thanks for sharing. i mean that,too.
7:00 am on April 28th, 2006
Those are very awesome stats. I make such a negligible amount, the ads seemed pointless for me. With those numbers however, I can see why you have them.
11:50 am on April 28th, 2006
Thank you, Jeanette - I really mean that
11:52 am on April 28th, 2006
Hi C - I used to be the same. I had google ads up prior to March of this year - - but I didn’t have them optimized, really. I did a bit of research on placement of ads, and the amount of ads on one page… once I situated the ads where I thought I wanted them in March, that’s when the click through rates really changed quite a bit for me. Good luck!
3:36 am on June 5th, 2006
$ 1285.13 from Ads
That’s quite massive bucks
6-8 domains for blogs? or regular sites?
I found that earning google adsense ads from blogs is not as easy as from regular websites (i.e not blogs .. dont know how to name it)
.
11:57 am on June 5th, 2006
Hi.. theupstair.. thanks for stopping by. All of the sites I run with ads and adsense are blogs, not ‘regular websites’
I would think just the opposite about adsense on blogs. By their very nature, blogs are constantly updated with new - keyword rich - content on a pretty regular basis.. assuming the author of the blog keeps it fresh and new.
10:16 am on June 11th, 2006
Yes, but I think (I may be wrong) with a blog, your visitors procentage is a ‘loyal visitors or regular visitors’, hence they will very ‘fluent’
with your site/blog layout and tend not to click the ads by mistake..
Correct me if I was wrong
And, this is a very very very cute blog, a compliment from the deepest heart