PureBlogging

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always liked the idea that I could monetize my blog and make passive income. I’m going to write the content anyway, so why shouldn’t it make a bit of money? The trouble is, how do you decide which advertising system is best? Here’s what I’ve discovered so far on my blog advertising quest.

Adsense

I started out with Google Adsense. It was easy to get an account, and relatively easy to set up. In the few years that I’ve been using Adsense, ad creation has got even easier. However, it took more than 18 months to reach first payout. Why was this? Because when I started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I though I would stick some ads there and the income would roll in. I knew nothing about ad placement and hotspots. Heck, I was only just learning about blogging.

Adsense Placement

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about where to put ads so that people will see them and occasionally click on them. Depending on my blog theme, I may put an ad in the header (though usually I avoid this in favour of having information relating to my blog). I put a block in the sidebar, and I usually put some under the post title or above the comments on single post pages (not both, as I wouldn’t want the pages to look too cluttered).

What really made the difference to Adsense earnings was having the ads on a blog with great content. My first blog was fun, but had no identifiable purpose. With Get Paid To Write Online, everyone knew what it was about and the ad income increased quickly. Of course, Google keeps making changes and the income fluctuates, but it makes some nice pocket change. I don’t think I’ll get rich on it any time soon, though.

Kontera

That’s why I decided to try some alternatives. One that I’d heard a lot about was Kontera. Those are those hideous double underlined links that pop up all over blog posts. I have to be honest; I don’t like the look, but at least it means that they can’t be confused with Google ads. More people seem to click on the links and those ads are also bringing in pocket change.

Good features with Kontera are that it’s easy to make sure that the ads only appear in certain places. Although Kontera tells you how to do that with code, I find it easier to use the Kontera Integration plugin. I usually switch off the ads on current posts and switch them on again on old posts. After all, people still click on ads in the archives.

They’ve also got a new publisher interface which tells me which keywords attracted the most clicks in the last week, and which pages got the most clicks. In my latest report, it was a post on creating a writing portfolio. Incidentally, checking my analytics stats reveals that that was my second most popular post in the last week.

Affiliate Ads

Finally, I have also been experimenting with Commission Junction, Clickbank and others. So far, I am underwhelmed, but I know what I have to do to fix that. All the 125×125 ads bar one are for products and services that I have actually used. In order to get people interested, I need to talk about those services. Otherwise, why should anyone even bother to click? Some have, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the next one.

That aside, it’s also a question of finding complementary products. For a writing blog, that might include ads about writing courses, self promotion and blogging. I’m still searching for those that are the best fit for my site (suggestions welcome). In the meantime, I’m trying out Project Wonderful, which was recommended to me. I’ll update you on how that goes in a few weeks.

My conclusion is that no single company has all the answers. Perhaps I should pay more attention to private ad sales instead, as these seem to be more lucrative. If you monetize, what have you found to be most effective?

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