HotMama Mathe commented on my previous post and asked if I really do make money from my site.

Yes!

My money comes from my Kristen's Guide website at http://www.kristensguide.com (not so much from my Ramblings). First, go look at my site and notice where I've placed the ads and such (I would suggest opening it in a new tab or window for quick reference).

When I first started out, I was convinced that I wouldn't put any ads on my site because I didn't want to be a sell out. Well, guess what, no ads, no money. So step 1, be a sell out.

I started putting affiliate links on my site (pay per action links). That brings in a small amount of money on a pretty infrequent basis. But something is better than nothing.

Then I put some AdSense ads on the right side column. I earned a whopping steady $2.00 per month (woo-freakin-hoo!). Why? Because very few people pay attention to the stuff in the columns. People think that they're just pointless widgets and ads, so they ignore them. (Banner blindness.)

Then I offered flat-rate ads. Those only do well if you have good Page Rank, traffic, etc., but even if I only get one person to pay for a single month flat-rate ad per year (I used to charge $10 for a text link, now I charge $15), well that's enough to pay for the domain name registration for my site.

Then I learned that if you put ads around the content (which people are coming to actually look at), visitors will be more likely to see it and click on it because it reduces banner blindness. That brought me up to $20.00 (enough to turn a profit after paying for the domain name, electricity, and hosting).

So after moving all of my Pay/Cost-Per-Click (CPC) ads to the content area, I had freed up some space in the columns. So there I put in some Pay-Per-Impression/Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM) ads in those areas. So even if people don't click on those ads, I still earn money from them. That added another $5-$10 per month in income.

Then I noticed that CPC ads placed near areas where people already expect to click, like navigation, had the highest CPC rate, so I started putting them near such places. And if you blend your ads, rather than having them stand out, you'll get an even higher click thru rate (CTR). Eventually, that brought me enough income to start paying off my credit cards and paying my bills and such.

Then I started selling products of my own (and there's lots of ways to do this). This brings in a small amount of money, but every little bit helps.

I also added a donation button / tip jar, which gets me about $10-$20 per year in donations. (I love those tippers.)

Of course, the more visitors I have, the more money I make, so increasing my traffic is important too. I'm always trying new things. The stuff that works, I write about on my site. Click here to see how I've increased my website traffic.

Another thing I did to expand was to modify my site so that it's a site/blog hybrid. I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of the traditional blog style, looking at posts in chronological order. I like things categorized, so my site is categorized, but I also have a blog (through Blogger) that I incorporated into my site. So if you look at my home page, it's much like the home page of a traditional blog (items posted in chronological order) set inside of a static website. This allows me to get in "blog" communities as well as traditional "site" communities. Plus, it gives me lots of control over everything in my site (and I'm a control freak, so this is important to me).

Now with paid blog posts, I also make a bit of money from posting sponsored posts, but I do this on my Ramblings blog. I don't put paid posts in my Kristen's Guide Updates because I know that readers don't want to see that, and it will likely drive them away. They just want to know what's the latest update at Kristen's Guide, nothing else. (Whenever I put something non-update related on that blog, subscribers start dropping off like flies in a room with a bug bomb.)

I keep branching out into new things because DIVERSIFICATION is the key. The more places you get money, the more money you'll make, and the less painful it will be if one of those sources of income disappears. (Think about the wealthy people in the world. They all diversify.)

I'll be sure to create a more thorough article about all of this and post it at Kristen's Guide when I have more time, so sign up for the updates there.

Labels: Blogging and Websites