Earning Money from Blogging

July 30, 2008 – 1:14 pm  

What are your feelings on this?

Hmmm… there’s a loaded question! I’ve said it before on this site but my audience is a lot larger now, so I’ll say it again: I want to make some money off this blog.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not solely motivated by dollars and cents here! I truly enjoy writing for the sake of writing and helping out my fellow MMORPG gamers, but if I start getting lots of traffic, why would I turn down the opportunity to make some coin for doing what I love?

I’m not going to get into the justifications too much here, but it’s fair to say that this hobby consumes MANY hours of my time per week and when I start providing services like guides and game advice, it only seems fair that I should get some sort of compensation. I’m not looking to get filthy rich off this scheme, but $50-250 per month would be nice! Obviously, it would be a profit-share with other collaborators of The Greenskin as well.

The trick is, how do I do it so that it is the least intrusive for my readers? I don’t want to annoy you guys with poorly placed, non-contextual ads or turn this site into a flashing billboard. I also don’t want to be sneaky by hiding links within posts or writing sponsored reviews.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately:

  1. Google AdSense - Difficult to customize the exact products or services I want to display and I think most people have adapted their eyes to simply skip over these ads anyway.
  2. Chitika - A bit more flashy and customizable than AdSense, however, it’s still difficult to get exactly what I want except for generic keywords.
  3. Sponsored Ads - This would be great but a lot of maintenance and upkeep from my end and I’m not actually sure if there would be enough decent goods or services out there that would want to sponsor this site anyway.
  4. Donations - I’ve donated to several other sites through PayPal, but I just feel dirty asking people for money straight up (no offense to those of you who do)! It could work if people were feeling generous though. Unfortunately, you’d probably have the same few people continuing to support the site as other view it for free, which isn’t really fair.
  5. Cafe Press / Greenskin Merchandising - This might be cool too, but I’m not sure how many people would walk around in Greenskin thongs drinking from Greenskin coffee mugs. Earning money here would only happen if people bought a product rather than the traditional pay per click or pay per impression advertising model.
  6. Amazon Affiliate Program - I think this would actually be the best choice, but similar in payout to the merchandising idea. The customization would be absolutely awesome and I could create a mini Warhammer Online store on this site linking to extremely relevant products (e.g., software, fiction books, guides, DVDs, etc.).

What do you think of that list? Any preferences? Anything you’d like to ad(d)? Do you have experience with advertising on a blog? Please share!

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  1. 26 Responses to “Earning Money from Blogging”

  2. That is a tough one. Amazon has a nice program and more importantly, are reputable. It can never hurt to put up affiliate links, so long as the content is good. Just making it easier for folks to go buy what your talking about.

    Greenskin merchandising would be interesting, as you do have some artistic talent. I’m not sure if what the legal issues are with GW/Mythic though.

    By Werit on Jul 30, 2008

  3. I actually have several friends who have commodotized their blogs to varying degrees of success and have dabbled in it a bit myself.

    Google AdSense is popular but takes a decent amount of clicks/impressions to actually get anything out of it. Direct/sponsored ads are great if you can get them, and affiliate links for various things are also good (and you could pump both the miniatures-side of Warhammer as well as the gaming side). My friends who support the costs of their blogs plus a little extra make it primarily from a small number (2-3) of successful articles which have good affiliate links in them, and then (occasionally) get an AdSense check also. Merchandising would likely be good if the stuff was quality and creative.

    I think one problem with adsense is just that most readers are so used to the little bar that not only is it not intrusive, it’s practically invisible when a reader scans the page and just disregards it.

    Probably the most annoying ads are the ones that randomly/contextually highlight links in the body of articles for ads — what a pain for a reader.

    Here’s a link from a blog I read which breaks down some of the value and other considerations when starting to put ads on a site:
    http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000893.html

    By Sithlet on Jul 30, 2008

  4. Greenskin thongs ftw !!

    By singlemalt on Jul 30, 2008

  5. That things idea is pure Imperial gold, friends. :)

    Have you also thought about Project Wonderful or something like that?

    And I see nothing wrong with earning money from blogging, personally.

    By Steve Saunders on Jul 30, 2008

  6. errr… things idea = thongs idea

    Typing is both my enemy and yours, it seems.

    By Steve Saunders on Jul 30, 2008

  7. Threaten to stop blogging unless Mythic Entertainment pays for Warhammer advertisement ;-)

    In all seriousness, Google Adsense isn’t all it’s cracked up to be unless you’re a smaller operation. Look around at standard banner and “large image” advertising services so you can pick and choose relevant, attractive ads; throw up a page with site stats and contact info for advertisers; and don’t hesitate to write ME about the valuable service your website provides to the ME community. At the very least, they could feature some of your better articles on the main site and get you more page views.

    One thing that would help is customizing the sidebar on your single post and single page templates to show only an ad on the side(s) rather than things like the blogroll, which really should only be on one page (Main Index or separate) in the entire site.

    That one modification helps search engine optimization tremendously — fewer irrelevant links means less PageRank drained — and draws the reader’s attention to the unique sidebar and ad.

    By Drugstore Space Cowboy on Jul 30, 2008

  8. Wow, amazingly helpful comments, Sithlet and DSC! You definitely gave me a lot to think about! :)

    By Snafzg on Jul 30, 2008

  9. Be classy and don’t release cafepress shenanigans.

    By Railith on Jul 30, 2008

  10. I don’t know, a shirt with his tin can Orc would not be bad at all.

    By Werit on Jul 30, 2008

  11. You’d be far better off going to work for a site like Warhammer Alliance and writing for them. Just an idea.

    By Garthilk on Jul 30, 2008

  12. Interesting proposal! ;)

    By Snafzg on Jul 30, 2008

  13. This will probably not work, but what if you and Syp and Keen get together and ask Mythic to throw you a kickback for every person signing up for War through (or coming from) your site? I’m sure you guys are responsible for convincing quite a few people to try out War.

    By Lske on Jul 30, 2008

  14. Best person to ask would be Brent over at Virgin Worlds.

    He’s got a whole podcast collective going that is run by user donation.

    By Isanox on Jul 30, 2008

  15. I was going to say possibly moving to Gameriot.com, but it seems that they are strictly WoW now. You might be able to shake some limbs and expand it to more, but that could be a lot of work.

    The idea of a central repository of blogs is appealing, though. Of course, working for Garth wouldn’t be so bad, either. :)

    By Aikau on Jul 30, 2008

  16. Your best bet is probably Greenskin-related merch, and Affiliate programs, and including links where appropriate for both. They won’t pay dividends, but they might be a little extra pocket money. At the height of popularity for the last site I ran, I made a cool $40 - $60 a month. Whoo!

    Adsense really isn’t what it’s hyped to be and is too much trouble. Impressions and other ads need enough clickthrus to pay off - maybe more than you’re willing to put up.

    Cafepress-ing is a good way to start, but I actually have a buddy of mine who works in the merchandising/awards biz and who can really come up with some neat stuff beyond what they have to offer. Email me if you’re interested, as he’s extremely good at what he does and would probably cut you a break on production cost.

    By BC on Jul 30, 2008

  17. Nothing wrong with making money! I think like others, Amazon and Cafepress seen quite simple ways to go. I wouldn’t mind some adverts - it’s your site and the content is good so good luck for making something from it! I also think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a paypal button. you don’t have to draw attention to it but to be honest, it is often my favourite way of showing appreciation for a blog or podcast that I really like.

    By scruff on Jul 31, 2008

  18. Interesting that you mention this, I may have an affiliate scheme in the next few months, related to warhammer online, with nice commission, will let you know when it’s finished.

    By Warhammer Tv on Jul 31, 2008

  19. Sounds cool guys, thanks! I had an interesting chat with another site owner who is far more experienced in advertising matters than I, so I think AdSense and Chitika are pretty much out of the equation. Sponsored ads are also unlikely given my site traffic (about 1500 views per day currently) and they’re also insanely difficult to manage.

    That leaves the bottom half of the list, unless someone can think of something to add.

    One thing that’s encouraging is that my site traffic has doubled each month for the past 4 months. Next month should hit 100k at this rate! :)

    By Snafzg on Jul 31, 2008

  20. Well, how much do you want to earn with your blog. Check out sites like Admoolah to find out how much you could possible earn with AdSense before you try. I’ve read that even large sites don’t get more than $0.3 CPM. I don’t know how many visitors you are getting, but my blog has about 80,000 per month, and would just earn me $24 per month at $0.3 CPM.

    And Adsense has the unfortunate disadvantage that while you can block specific companies from advertising with you, you can’t block for example “every gold seller”. So as there are more gold seller companies than you can block, AdSense on a MMO site will mostly display ads for gold sellers. And even if you don’t mind, some of your readers will. Are you willing to compromise the perceived integrity of your blog for $24 per month?

    Better go with the Amazon option.

    By Tobold on Jul 31, 2008

  21. Yep, that’s pretty much what my conversation came down to last night. At the best of times, AdSense or similar ad network CPM would be about $0.50, which means that at 100k views per month, I’d be looking at a max of $50, which really isn’t worth the hassle to my readers to be honest.

    I’m definitely leaning more towards the Amazon option because it will be the most useful way of bringing quality ads to the audience. I can get 100% control over what is shown, which is the biggest selling point.

    The merchandising idea could work too if I can get a nice brand going on for this site. I’m pretty sure copyright won’t be an issue if all the artwork and slogans are original. Also, I’d only be interested in quality merch, so likely it will be custom. Watch out guys… you might just see me modeling a GS graphic T in the sidebar of this site one day! *runs off to do some push-ups*

    I this donations could work too, but I’ll leave that as my last option if the other two don’t work out.

    By Snafzg on Jul 31, 2008

  22. “Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs the T-shirt. Spaceballs the lunchbox. Spaceballs the coloring book. Spaceballs… the flamethrower! Kids love it. And my favorite, Spaceballs the Doll — me!”

    By Werit on Jul 31, 2008

  23. Werit… “I see your schwartz is as big as mine. Let’s see if you know how to use it!”

    Hiiiiiya!

    By Snafzg on Jul 31, 2008

  24. How about getting a real job, and not hoping to make maoney off some bogus “blog”?

    By Warzen on Aug 3, 2008

  25. @Warzen - That’s fair enough. I actually have a job that pays pretty good money, however, I’d like to offset hosting costs if possible. And heck, if this blog can provide me with enough cash to upgrade my PC every year, that would be sweet too! Then the wife can’t complain as much! :P

    By Snafzg on Aug 4, 2008

  26. Well, I use a mixed bag on my site - please have a look and let me know if you think it’s to much. Mostly it’s Google Adsense, and although my traffic is probably not where yours is right now it’s decent and I do make some coin off the clicks - for the most part enough to pay for the hosting anyway which was the goal. So doing what I love didn’t actually cost me.

    I also am a fan of the Linkshare network as you can pick and choose what ads you put up on your site through them. I use the Direct2Drive program through them often but honestly I don’t make nearly as much as through Adsense, so I started minimizing the Linkshare ads, but if control is what you want have a look at them.

    By Blackwings on Aug 5, 2008

  27. plz tell me how to make blogs…….and how ti earn money from them……..

    By abad on Aug 10, 2008

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