As part of the first month’s goals of the Booming Business of Blogging Experiment, I’ve started dabbling in the different income opportunities for bloggers. My blog is now just under three weeks old and, as a mere baby, there are some opportunities that are not yet available to me as I’m quickly finding out. Here’s a quick run down of my experiences into the world of monetizing a blog so far.
Exploring blogging income opportunites
Google Adsense
The first program I signed up for, on Day 4 of this experiment, Google Adsense seemed to be the de facto standard for making money with blogging. Within a couple of hours I had received a welcome email from Google and started selecting the options for ad sets that I thought might work the best.
Over the last week or so I have played around with the layout and ad size and type and think that I now have something that looks pretty good. I’ll probably leave it as is for a couple of weeks at least so that I can build up some stats over time on how they are performing.
On Day 18, I finally installed the Adsense Deluxe Wordpress plugin and it definitely makes life easier. This is one of my favourite plugins and is great for including all sorts of scripts into posts and templates.
Amazon Associates
In one of my first posts, the Top 10 Running Quotes, I really wanted to provide more information with each quote rather than just a name. I signed up on Day 7 and have since added links to books on Amazon where I have mentioned a book or where I recommend a book for further reading.
Text Link Ads
As there is a limit to three Google Adsense ad blocks on a page, I also signed up for Text Link Ads at the same time as an alternative. On Day 4 I received an email thanking me for becoming a member and after activation I received another email congratulating me on becoming a publisher. It wasn’t until Day 15 that I submitted my home page to publish ads.
A day or so later I received an email with the title “Your inventory was declined”. There were a couple of reasons listed but basically they all boiled down to not having enough traffic yet. I guess it’s a matter of waiting a month or two and then trying again. In the meantime, I have decided to advertise Text Link Ads as part of their affiliates program with one ad on the home page.
It’s interesting to note that a search on Google for ‘text link ads’ does not bring up their site.
Sponsored Reviews
I like the idea of writing sponsored reviews and applied as a Publisher on Day 19. I was about to submit my blog address when I thought I had better read the fine print. Well, it seems that they don’t take too kindly to blogs under three months old so I guess this is one for later too.
Azoogle Ads
On Day 9 of the experiment, I signed up for Azoogle Ads and my application was approved on Day 12. Azoogle asked for a completed copy of the US tax form W-8BEN. I have researched this a little and while some bloggers say that it is not necessary (as I am based in Australia) and other bloggers don’t think there is any harm in completing the form. I must admit the form is still sitting on my desk. Completed - but not yet posted.
There are a couple more that I’m starting to read up on. For any other new bloggers, what have you found worked best for you in those first few months of blog infancy? I look forward to your comments.
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