Blogging for Adsense Bucks - Is it Worth Your Time

The internet is brimming with articles, ebooks and hype about using blogs in conjunction with Google’s Adsense program as a means of generating revenue. The formula for success, it seems, is simple. You blog, you place ads, you get traffic, visitors click on the ads and you get paid. The question many people have about the whole process is whether or not the end result will really be profitable considering the time and effort that is required to implement the strategy.

This question has been difficult to answer, in large part, because of the Google Terms of Service for Adsense users. Although the terms have recently been loosened somewhat, users were long prohibited from sharing personal information regarding their success levels and other key statistics that might have provided prospective for-profit bloggers from developing a clear perspective on the profit potential available.

If you are curious about whether or not you can make blogging with Adsense a legitimate moneymaker, it is worth conducting this relatively simple exercise. The results can give you an idea of whether or not it is worth your time.

First, determine how long it will take you build your blog. Consider the set up time and the time necessary to do initial promotion and to write at least ten to twenty starter posts. We can term this variable ST, for “start-up time.” For our hypothetical, we will say our ST is twelve hours.

Second, estimate how much ongoing time it will take on weekly basis to do additional promotion and to add at least two new posts. Multiply this figure by 52 (the number of weeks in a year). We will term this variable MT for “maintenance time.” For this example, we will set MT at 104 hours (2 hours per week).

Third, add ST and MT. This will give us an idea of the total time required (TT). In this case, TT is 116 total hours.

Fourth, investigate the average value of an ad click in your niche. You can use the Overture bid tool, easily found online, to get a reasonable idea of the value of each click. In order to make your projection “safe,” reduce that number by half. This yields PPC, or “pay per click.” Let’s say the bid tool says clicks related to our keyword are worth about fifty cents. Our PPC is .25.

Fifth, determine how much your time is worth. Do you feel your blogging time should generate at least $10 per hour? $20? This is a matter of personal preference. We will term the resulting variable DR for “desired rate.” We will assess the value of our time at $15 per hour for this exercise.

Sixth, assume a click-through rate of five percent. This is a low figure, as many blogs can generate click-through rates approximating 25%. Click-through rate is expressed as CTR.

Now it’s time to perform the critical calculation. One needs to determine the required number of visitors necessary to produce enough money to make process worthwhile. If we express that number as V, the equation will look something like this:

V x PPC x CTR = DR x TT

This translates to:

V x .25 x .05 = 15 x 116

Or
V x .0125 = 1740

Thus, V must be 139,200. In order to make the process pay, you will have to drive 139,200 visitors to the blog over the course of one year. That translates to approximately 391 visitors per day, on average. Obviously, that is a very “doable” number based on the amount of time we have set aside for the process.

So, for our example, blogging for bucks with Adsense is a winner.

Perform these calculations based on your unique circumstances and you can determine the viability of earning money with a blog and Adsense.

Learn more about blogging at http://www.blogging.internetdiscussionforum.com

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David hobson

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Cashing in on the Blogging Community

Blogs are, at their heart, nothing more than websites featuring a solid content management system allowing for the frequent and easy addition of new material. However, if you approach a blog from this purely “clinical” perspective, you may be missing out on some great opportunities to maximize your blog’s profitability.

Blogging grew as a means of communication, community building and online journaling. These very personal sites created a larger blogging community that continues to increase in population every day. This spurred the creation of several services and opportunities unique to blogging that traditional static sites cannot utilize.

Blogging gives one a chance to grab a great deal of traffic that is often unavailable to traditional sites. We all know that traffic is a critical component to profitability. The more people you get to your blog, the more moneymaking chances you experience. Thus, it is important for any for-profit blogger to understand some of the unique ways they can improve their numbers simply by virtue of their sites structure.

One example is the blog directory. There are search engines and directories that service blogs exclusively. These sites can be well-visited and can supply a healthy stream of traffic that other sites cannot access. Some of these blog-only opportunities, like Technorati, can drive huge numbers to a blog.

Blogs also have the unique opportunity to “ping” these directory sites. A ping is the equivalent of advising the search engine or directory that your blog has been updated. By pinging, one can increase the visibility of their blog and the traffic it receives.

The blogging community also created the commenting system embraced by most blogging platforms. Blogs can be structured to be a community exercise and comments are welcome. Bloggers tend to visit those blogs that visit them, and comments on a blog are likely to read by its visitors. Thus, one can take the time to make high-quality, relevant comments on other blogs as a means of creating visitors to their own offering.

This kind of community participation can do wonders for search engine placement, too. That’s because bloggers are notoriously generous when it comes to providing backlinks. Bloggers are prone to add other blogs of interest to their list of links. These links do generate traffic directly, but perhaps even more importantly, they also provide backlinks the search engines interpret as a sign of an authoritative site. Your blog is thus rewarded with higher placement in search engine results.

The effect of these links is amplified by the structure of most blogs and blogrolls. The list of links becomes part of the blog’s overall template. They are reproduced not only on the main page, but on each of the individual “post pages.” Although many of those individual pages will lack powerful page rank, the sheer number of backlinks produced can be incredible.

By tapping into the legacy of the blogging community, one can increase the profitability of their blog. As traffic goes up, so do profits, and blogs offer some very handy ways to nab visitors!

Learn more about blogging at http://www.blogging.internetdiscussionforum.com

Kind regrads
David hobson

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Topic Selection - A Key to Profitable Blogging

Blogs may have originated as a means of online journal writing and community building, but the use of this model won’t accomplish much for the online entrepreneur. Unless your cats are far cuter than every other bloggers’ or unless you are an amazingly interesting person with some tremendous writing talents, your personal blog will get lost in the chorus of voices that crowd the world of blogs. In order to making blogging profitable, one must select a good topic upon which to focus.

Topic selection is at the very root of blogging success. The idea is to choose a topic area in which you can be competitive. Optimally, you can find a blogging niche that is underserved yet has a high level of interest. This will allow you to attract a great deal of visitors more easily which, of course, translates into higher profit levels.

There are a few factors to consider when choosing the subject area for a “money blog.” First, one may want to attempt to find a subject area in which they have a personal interest, especially if they plan on writing their own content. This is because successful blogs require regular updates and it can become difficult to regularly produce quality information if one has no real interest in a topic. If someone opts to hire a writer to produce their blog posts, however, this is a far less important factor.

Second, one should strive to find a topic area in which interest is at least relatively high. You may be able to rule the search engines on the topic of “17th century wooden paperweights,” but there are so few, if any, people with an interest in the subject. Thus, that number one ranking in Google will not produce the kind of traffic stream you will need to turn a healthy profit. It may be more difficult to enter a more competitive marketplace, but the potential rewards are far greater, too. The key to this element of topic selection, however, is not just writing a blog on a hot topic. It is finding a field from which a healthy number of visitors can be culled.

Third, one will want to find a market that is underserved. Basically, you are looking for a strong disparity in the number of interested parties and the amount of readily available information. If you can find a topic in which many people are interested but that is not well-covered online, you will be sitting upon a potential blogging gold mine. It is perfectly acceptable to build a wonderful blog and to expend the effort to compete in a more crowded area, but this does require much more work. Finding an underserved niche and filling a hole in the marketplace is a much easier way to produce blogging revenue.

Choosing a topic for your moneymaking blog can be a challenging process. This first step, however, is probably one of the most important. The choice of a topic not only establishes the nature of the blog, it also (in large measure) determines its potential for success.

Learn more about blogging at http://www.blogging.internetdiscussionforum.com

Kind regrads
David hobson

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