Booya. I finally get to have a blog post titled “I make money blogging.” I’m pretty excited about that. I’ve read a bunch of articles from UBER famous bloggers who all share their journey through adsense, affiliate networks, and site traffic. They use fancy words like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), metatags, keywords, and about a billion other terms I’m unfamiliar with. One thing those people don’t really share, though, is numbers. And let’s be real, you are nosey, and you want numbers.
Background:
According to Quicken, I have made a little over $2,100 this year from PDITF. Looking back at my blog archives, I have wrote 199 articles YTD. That works out to getting paid about $10.55 an article. I’m rich baby!
While my goal for Punch Debt In The Face has never been about making coin, I’m hardly one to pass up “free” money. Even though I’ve made a few thousand dollars, I want you to know my content has NEVER been influenced by advertisements. It’s actually quite the opposite, my content influences what types of ads appear. If I’m writing about weddings, then it’s likely there will be wedding ads up on the page. If I wrote about student loans, there will probably be ads for student loan consolidation. Google scans each blog post and uses keywords to determine what ads best fit. They do the dirty work, and I make a little money. It’s a beautiful relationship.
Over the next few days, weeks, and months I plan to do some experimenting with blog monetization tactics. I haven’t put one ounce of effort in to monetization thus far, and am curious too see how much influence I have over my blogs earning potential.
So what does this mean for you, the reader?
Probably nothing. You might be annoyed by the location of some ads as I experiment with different placements throughout the blog, but I doubt it will really be that much of a bother. And if it really bugs you, to the point you are about to quit reading my blog, please let me know and I’ll look in to making some changes. You shouldn’t worry though, I wont turn in to Spammy McSpammerson with popups and all that annoying junk.
Why the change now?
I’m a big fan of setting goals in both my personal life and in my blogging pseudo-life. My first PDTIF goal was to write five times a week. Then it was get 100 visitors a day. And most recently it was reach 1,000 subscribers (which I just accomplished this week). Now I’ve set a goal to monetize. With a lot of “behind the scenes” hard work, I’m gonna try to make $10,000 in 2011. Will it happen? I have no freakin’ clue, but you gotta have a goal right?
Final thoughts:
One thing I look forward to doing, is sharing any progress or setbacks I have in the process. I like to be open and if you all have any questions throughout the process I want you to ask. If you want to know how much I made in the month of October, ask me!!! I’m an open book baby. I’m excited to not only have PDITF be a place where I share my PF journey, but be a significant contributor to that journey as well.
So now that I’ve made my intentions clear, do you think I’m a sellout? Do you feel dirty knowing I’ve made some money off you? Do you want to be updated on any new revenue I make, or could you care less?
p.s. A few have inquired about blog stats. Here is a screenshot of my stats over the last year…
