My fellow blogger Deb Pang Davis sent me a link to recent New York Times article in which a handful of apparently successful bloggers, who are already making good money, try to convince readers that blogging for money is a waste of time.
I read the article and was annoyed but not particularly surprised. Could it be that these established pro bloggers are worried at the thought of the growing competition? Or maybe the New York Times are grabbing an opportunity to take a swipe at the biggest threat to their power base. Here’s an example of their so called advice,
Don’t expect to get rich. You can easily place automatically served ad banners from Google or AdBrite onto your blog. It is as simple as signing up with an ad service and placing a snippet of HTML code into your blog. Many of the ads will be specific to the topic of your posts and the service will credit your account whenever a reader clicks on one of the ads. You get a check only if the account builds to a set amount, $100 in the case of Google.
But Philip Kaplan, president for products at AdBrite, cautions that only one in six blogs draws even 500 page views a day. At that pace, you would make at most $45 a month, even if the site were decked out with full-page ads. Mr. Kaplan estimates only 3 percent of active sites make more than $1,000 a month from advertising.
“In 3.5 months we made $9.47,” complained one blogger, who yanked the automatic ads off of his site.
Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.
Google ads, AdBrite and other systems like them are a waste of time if your serious about making more than a few bucks a month. Attempting to put off potential bloggers by using that as an example is, frankly, a joke.
Making money online with blogs isn’t the impossible dream that the New York Times wants you to think it is. On the contrary, it is something that anyone can do despite what you might read in the press.
Believe the hype. Blogging can make you rich. And, while the internet keeps turing, that situation isn’t going to change.
Huh. While I can’t disagree entirely with what you’re saying, I have to say that many many people (like myself) start blogging with the idea that they’ll soon be rich and famous. The simple fact is, they probably won’t be.
It’s not that you can’t make money blogging, but it require a great deal more traffic than the average person’s likely to get within even a few years. I’ve not read the article you mention, but the points you quote sound completely reasonable to me.
As to the Google Ads and AdBrite point, I’d be very interested in knowing what you advocate. Those surely aren’t the best programs on earth, but I know of nothing that works without a substantial amount of traffic.
my predicament is unique because I never wanted to use ads. maybe its my pimped out, super-anti-ad version of firefox 3. Maybe its my host block which kills ads, but i don’t see many sites with ads up. but i know you guys are making bank. I have 4 ads on the very front page of Real Sports Bloggers. They’re very small text link ads which make me about $100 a month. I do the paid posts and reviews. I use Linkworth, and I’m finally showing a profit. The issue that I really don’t know much about using my blog site to make money. I allow my bloggers to post ads if they chose to and keep that money; but i’m not very much help. Thats why I come here.
My site is every bit as powerful as wordpress.com. In fact, it has MANY more features than that site and we use the same software platform (WPMU). I have a HUGE theme upgrade upcoming. If anyone you know is jazzy and wants to make a few bucks, tell em i’m looking for something Sharp 2.0. I’ve got some mapping ideas. well, i won’t spill the beans, but maybe you could do some consulting for me and help me tighten up my ideas into something profitable. my people will call your people.