Making Money While Walking In Austria (Hopefully!)

I'm off on a break tomorrow for about 15 days to Austria where I'll spend my time, with my wife, walking/hiking in the mountains. It's a great way and place to unwind.

Holidays, vacations, or whatever you call them, can be a bit of a problem to overcome for bloggers. They can have an effect on certain blogs.

Okay, it's possible to have guest writers or to even update blogs when away but personally I like to forget everything on holiday - no phones, computers or newspapers.

When I went off to Spain for a couple of weeks in February I wrote that it didn't make much difference to my money making with blogs.

This time I have an added advantage in that, with Blogger, it's now possible to schedule posts for a period ahead. Though I haven't done this with Mike's Money Making Mission, because of a lack of time, I have managed to do so with a few of my other blogs.

For my Celebrity Insider blog, for instance, I have completed posts in advance for fourteen days. I'm hoping this will keep things ticking over. It's not ideal as posts are usually about celeb news, which I can't really anticipate, but at least it shows the blog is up and running.

Where I've scheduled posts I've done this on the blogs which produce the most income. As I have said before I believe it's necessary in any business to play to your strengths.

I know one of the first things I'll do as soon as I return - after a decent cup of tea - will be to check my blogging stats, post box and my PayPal and bank accounts, with fingers crossed.

See you soon.

Good luck,
Mike.

Money Making The Grown Up Adult Way

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Money Making Experiment Yields 46% Increase

As I mentioned a few post back I have been experimenting with Google Referrals.

I have tried out various Google Referral ads and in different positions and sizes to see if this would increase my Google monthly income.

To be honest I didn't really notice any improvement but then by doing something else I did.

I went back to the normal AdSense ads but this time I used them as a big header size and placed them on this and also one of my celeb blogs. I also changed the colours to what you see above.

A strange thing happened. Since doing this my AdSense daily earnings have increased 46% over the average earnings for the last six weeks.

Now this might be just a freak, or maybe the format will lose it's effectiveness. I can't really say for certain. I thought, however, it may be of interest to other bloggers.

I must admit that I don't really like these big 729x90 header style ads and would prefer not to run them but I'm out to make money. So if they work, they'll have to stay.

I think the lesson I have learnt is that it's worth experimenting with ads, colours, sizes, positions and so on. Though Google offer advice on ad placement etc. it's good to discover strategies for ourselves.

All blogs are different. As I see it, what works for one may not work for another but a little experimentation might just make us more money - and that's the name of the game.

Good luck,
Mike.

Subscribers: The Status Symbol - But It's Not Everything

A while back Darren Rowse wrote an informative post about ways to find new RSS subscribers.

I'm not going to repeat what he said but subscribers are of value, not only because they read your blog often, but also because they are a kind of status symbol that will impress prospective advertisers.

I found that once I placed information about how to subscribe in a prominent position on my blogs the numbers went up. This probably sounds obvious but a lot of bloggers seem to just tuck the subscriber info towards the bottom of a side column or somewhere similar.

The fact is that we are all a bit lazy and won't bother to search out a blog's subscriber details but, if we can't miss it, then we might just 'sign up.'

Another way to promote RSS feeds is to use the URL on forums and other such places instead of the blog address. This way readers can see what your blog is all about and can also subscribe at the same time.

A little thought can bring more subscribers.

But don't just think subscribers, it isn't everything - we also need regular new blood if we want to make money.

Good luck,
Mike.

Subscribe to Mike's Money Making Mission
Subscribe to Celebrity Insider - Photos & News

The Money Making Blog Numbers Game

I think a lot of bloggers, especially newer ones, wonder how they are getting on traffic wise compared with other blogs.

They sometimes believe that the average blog is getting hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of hits. After all, more established bloggers shout it loud when their traffic hits new heights. Must admit I've done this myself.

This can cause newbies despondency when their own blogs perhaps aren't attracting as much attention as they had hoped.

So lets have a reality check!

These are figures based on my own personal research (you are welcome to disagree). Anyway, this is how I see comparative traffic figures.

Supposing there are 5000 blogs picked at random. To be in the Top 100 you would need around 850 visitors a day, but to be in the Top 500 you'd need only about 100 and for the Top 1000 just 50.

At the bottom of the list would be blogs with just 1, 2 or 3 hits.

You see the truth is that the majority of blogs are far from successful and most don't make much money.

This fact shouldn't put anyone off blogging because with just 100+ regular hits you'll be in the top 10% of the blogging elite.

Below are some traffic figures, plucked out of the air, showing where they would place a blog in a random selection of 5000 blogs.

To be in ...

6th position would need about 7213 hits (per day)
13th position would need about 4782 hits
21st position would need about 2687 hits
45th position would need about 1898 hits
65th position would need about 1422 hits
70th position would need about 1296 hits
75th position would need about 1110 hits
80th position would need about 858 hits
94th position would need about 844 hits
108th position would need about 593 hits
279th position would need about 193 hits
393rd position would need about 166 hits
370th position would need about 145 hits
480th position would need about 131 hits
506th position would need about 104 hits
622nd position would need about 70 hits
687th position would need about 81 hits
703rd position would need about 73 hits
819th position would need about 62 hits
907th position would need about 43 hits
3563rd position would need about 3 hits
5000th position would need about 1 hit

Does all of this really matter? Nope, not a bit. With money making blogs it's about how much money you actually make, whether this is with 100 visitors or 10,000 hits.

The truth though, as I see it and keep mentioning, is that it is all a numbers game. The more traffic you can attract to a blog the more money you'll make.

With say Google AdSense you may well need 10,000 page impressions to make $10. If you, therefore, have 10,000 impression a day you'll make $3650 in a year but if you have 100 page impressions a day you'll only make $36.50 a year.

Traffic is therefore virtually the most important thing needed to make money with blogging.

Yes there is good and bad degrees of traffic, quality is important, but ultimately if you attract the right amount of traffic - any traffic - you'll make money.

It's the same as a salesman talking to people at random. If he talks to some people he'll make some money, but if he talks to a lot of people he'll make lots of money.

If a guy at a formal dance asks one or two girls to dance he'll get one or two dances, if he asks lots of girls to dance he'll get lots of dances.

If a ... you get the message!

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. John has emailed me that his latest Proven Earners Carnival is now published.

Zimbio Can Bring Money Making Blog Traffic

One of the things that all of us bloggers want to know is how to get more traffic to our blogs.

Something that is still working okay for my celebrity blogs is Zimbio.

Actually I feel a little guilty as I've virtually done very little, okay hardly anything, but they send me regular referrals.

How many?


As you can probably just see from the above stats, I've had 355 referrals in the last seven days, that's an average of 50.7 per day (see also yellow section in pie chart, percentage of all visits). So it's a reasonable amount, not massive, but a useful contribution.

Plus the good thing is that the referrals are relevant to the niche. This, of course, means that visitors might just find something to click on which will make me money.

Now I'll say straight away that Zimbio doesn't seem to work for all blogs. It doesn't help with Mikes Money Making Mission for example but there again, as I have said, I have virtually put no effort into the program to make it work. Maybe if I devoted some time on their site it might work for MMMM as well. I can't really say for definite.

I guess though that Zimbio is worth a try as it costs nothing.

How can I promote my blog on Zimbio?

In their words:

Add your blog URL to your profile so you can import your articles and post them to any wikizine. Each post will include a link back to your site. Even better, select "Promote My Blog" and we'll automatically post your articles to related wikizines.

All I've done is: (1) Join (2) Entered my URL's (3) Used the automatic option so they post my posts to relevant wikizines ... and that's it.

Now like most social style websites I'm sure that better results can be obtained by interacting with other members and joining in fully.

No promises that it will work for you but, as you've seen by my stats, it's done okay for a couple of my blogs.

If you've got the time give it a try.

Good luck,
Mike.

Voxant Newsroom: Money Making Update

As long time readers will know I have previously been full of praise for the Voxant Newsroom. This is where you can get all sorts of videos to embed on your blog or website and get paid for doing so.

I use Voxant on a couple of my celebrity blogs and have made some reasonable money from them. I think the most I received in a month was $401.75, which was very acceptable.

I made the money by having the videos play automatically when someone goes to the blogs. Okay, this may annoy some but I'm out to make money!

For this the rate varied month to month but was about $3.50 to $4 for every 1000 plays. I thought this to be fair.

I've now only just realised that the rate for June autoplays has been slashed to just 50c per 1000. So that's a 75% pay cut!

For videos, where readers have to click to watch the video, this is still at $3.50 per 1000 for June. Of course this is less profitable as visitors have to click and watch the video/ads to be included in the 1000.

Another move they have made is, to quote their blog:

"Therefore, moving forward, we will only be compensating you for impressions that come from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand."

This I can understand - advertisers wishes have to be met.

The slash of the autoplay rate I'm not so happy about.

May well have to look for a replacement programme to compensate. But that seems to be the way of making money with blogs. It's about keeping up to date and moving around when necessary.

Good luck,
Mike

Voxant World News Feed

Google Referrals: Are They An Improvement On AdSense?

Like a lot of bloggers I have been using Google AdSense on my various blogs virtually since I started. It's worked okay for me so I've left well alone. Plus they pay on time every month direct into my bank account, so no real complaints.

I noticed, however, over the last six weeks that my percentage of clicks has dropped so I have been looking at different ways to correct this.

Until the last few days I haven't used what they call 'Referrals', though they have been around for a while now, but I can see these as being a way forward.

Why? Simply because you can choose the exact ads you want on your blog and match them to your niche. There are 26 different categories so there should be something to cover most subjects, alphabetically it ranges from Animals to Travel.

The ads come in various sizes from text to banners.

Against each ad it's clearly indicated what sort of money you can make. For example if you want to say promote Website Design the conversion values range from $3 to $150.14.

Sometimes they are much less. For the banner example I've used at the head of this blog for blogTV the conversion values range from just $0.01 to £1.35. (Note: I have now changed this banner as I'm trying out Google Search in the same position - experimenting!) It all depends on what you think will attract clicks plus this can be balanced beforehand with the potential revenue. This is something you can't do with basic AdSense ads.

I can see this being a step in the right direction but time and results will tell.

So how many Google Referrals can you publish on your blog? Their Programme Policies state:

"AdSense offers a number of ad formats and advertising products. Publishers are
encouraged to experiment with a variety of placements, provided the following policies are respected:

Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.

A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.

Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.

Up to three referral units may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes and link units specified above."

That's my underlining.

All in all that's quite a few possibilities.

Google Referrals must be worth a try - if you aren't already dabbling. If you are: how have you got on?

Good Luck,
Mike.

All Change To Make More Money

A while back Darren Rowse asked his readers what their 'tipping point' was. In other words what was it that made them realise they were getting somewhere with their blogging.

I was thinking about this myself yesterday as it was the end of the first year of publishing my Celebrity Insider blog.

Starting in the celeb world I think was my tipping point. I was at the time doing okay with Mikes Money Making Mission but felt it wasn't quite the money maker that I had hoped for.

I needed to get into another niche and chose celebrities. Since then my blogging business has taken off and I have expanded my range of blogs. Some have been successful and some not so but, by trying new things, it expanded my knowledge and experience.

Celebrity Insider I feel has done reasonably well. As at today, which is now one year and one half a day, the blog has had 1,059402 visits including reloads and 702832 unique visitors - and this was starting from blank or nil.

First Year Celebrity Insider Visits
It's the total number of readers on all of my blogs that has increased my earnings to something worthwhile. To my simple way of thinking this is what money making with free blogs is all about: visitor numbers.

On one of my other blogs, on one day, I had over 40,000 hits and I couldn't believe how much this made me from the likes of AdSense, Voxant and so on. Unfortunately this was a one off but it struck home the massive potential.

I think there comes a time with blogging when you have to ask yourself if things are going well enough - or is everything much of muchness. If you want better earnings sometimes it's necessary to move in a slightly different direction or to find novel and new ways to increase traffic.

It's a fun business and once you've had some good days it reinforces what can happen and what can be achieved.

Sometimes though it takes a little extra effort and imagination - and perhaps change.

Good luck,
Mike.