Make money blogging

I’ve been running a project called the Tweak Adsense Project, which focuses on making more money using Adsense. Subscribe to my blog for more info. http://blog.perfectspace.com

I just started focusing on it. If you want to read what I’ve done to increase my income 2x so far, and how, keep watching my blog. http://blog.perfectspace.com

I’m working on a project that’s nearly done but haven’t forgotten this, my main goal. I need to make money from having something online, preferrably a blog.

I’ve already started pointing people to my webpage as much as possible. Mostly people from gaming forums I’m on, etc. It’s sorely in need of a redesign, but it is what it is right now. Stop by! www.sunnypad.com

Here are my ideas:

Non-blog:
1. Make a top-100 list. List of games, list of technical tools, something like that. Pop some ads on it and get the list out there to start generating some revenue.

Blog ideas:
I’ve had two blog ideas. Would appreciate feedback on which are better ideas:
1. A regular ol’ technical blog. Pros: people like them. I do. Cons: there are a bazillion of them out there. What will make people want to come back to mine regularly?
2. A knowledge-type of blog. Kind of a learn-with-me thing. I take a subject that I don’t know anything about and just start learning about it and blogging. Anyone interested can learn along with me.

Problems with blogging: People like me use news aggregators. I only go into the blog entries if they hold my interest or have more information that I want to see. People that skim links in an aggregator won’t bring in revenue for me.

Another thing – what will make someone want to read my blog? I have a bazillion feeds in my aggregator. But which blogs make me want to rush to them first? Also there’s not enough time in the day sometimes…even the things I’m dying to keep up with, I just can’t. So the updates are piled up in my newsreader. I’m sure I’m not the only one having this issue.

Things to think about and tackle.

For anti-spam (a HUGE problem I’ve had on my personal Wordpress blog, which I actually stopped using because it was so time consuming cleaning out all the spam) someone suggested that Akismet http://akismet.com/ is great. I plan on installing this on any future blog.

I set up adsense on my site, www.sunnypad.com, in August, I think. I’m getting closer to my first $100 check that will come in. Google just sent me a PIN number on a post card last month. I guess they wanted to check my address and all since it’s getting close?

I haven’t spent any time really on this since then, but I figured since I was making a little, maybe I could make a lot more if I tried.

I’m not going to have much time to work on this in the next couple of weeks; I have a contracting project I’m working on that will make me a little actual money today :D but after that gets cleared I’d like to concentrate on this goal.

I’m signed up for all of them. I’m starting to make a little bit of money from the blogads group I belong to, but I’ve been signed up as an Amazon Associate for about 2 years and I don’t think I’ve ever had a sale. I know no one has contributed money through Amazon. I haven’t heard anything from AdSense, either.

I think my readership is always going to be limited because of the POV, even though I write primarily about politics.

Oh, and in case you didn’t notice my comment on Stargazer’s post, performancing.com is an awesome new resource I watch consistently.

I recently updated my ad placement, which effectively increased the number of ads on my site. I really wish I could make money blogging without ads on my site as I am part idealist as well. But, alas, for now, this and affiliate memberships are the only things I’ve found paying.

So far, updating my adsense placement based on the Adsense heatmap. I’ve also been including some kind of Amazon affiliate product that I’m currently reading, reviewing, or commenting on. It keeps the images flowing on the site, which is always nicer than just a bunch of text. The adsense optimization has actually boosted my average per day 1600% in the short term. I highly recommend it. I haven’t seen a huge dollar value through the Amazon affiliate system yet, but I only do about one a week, so I don’t expect a ton.

Any other monetization methods you guys use?

Increasing Your Blog Readership: Lots of Short Entries?
by Joey deVilla at 04:08PM (EDT) on June 13, 2005 | Permanent Link
Tristan Louis has been looking at the “A-List” of bloggers: those people with blogs who get the largest readerships, in order to determine what made them so. In analyzing some of the most popular blogs - BoingBoing, Instapundit, Engadget and Daily Kos - and one thing that many of them have in common is that they post short entries several times a day.

Posting often works because there’s a strong correlation between frequent posting and repeat visits. The short-entry format works well for blogs that are “linkers”: blogs that consistently point out interesting things online and link to them before most people have even heard of them. These blogs tend to function as news services for people who like to keep up with interesting developments. If you’re new to blogging and are looking to build your readership, the short-format/post-often approach is the easiest way to do so.
by Joey deVilla at 04:08PM (EDT) on June 13, 2005 | Permanent Link
Tristan Louis has been looking at the “A-List” of bloggers: those people with blogs who get the largest readerships, in order to determine what made them so. In analyzing some of the most popular blogs - BoingBoing, Instapundit, Engadget and Daily Kos - and one thing that many of them have in common is that they post short entries several times a day.

Posting often works because there’s a strong correlation between frequent posting and repeat visits. The short-entry format works well for blogs that are “linkers”: blogs that consistently point out interesting things online and link to them before most people have even heard of them. These blogs tend to function as news services for people who like to keep up with interesting developments. If you’re new to blogging and are looking to build your readership, the short-format/post-often approach is the easiest way to do so.

http://www.problogger.net/