October marks the last month that I’m doing all this part time as I will be giving up a very well paying job for this! However, I’m happy to report that it’s been another record setting month on the income end! Hopefully with more time, I will earn more money as I will be experimenting more, writing more articles and spending time marketing my blogs (something I desperately need to do).

Blog Income

• Market Leverage - $228.85
• Rocket Profit - $578.85
• Neverblue Ads - $20.50
• Commission Junction - $35.00
• Pepperjam Network - $90.00
• Private Ads - $3014.72
• Text Link Ads - $942.64
• Link Worth - $392.52
• Adsense - $491.22
• Ebay Network Partners - $50.30
• Newstex - $10.09
• Blog Consulting - $47.75
• ADSDAQ - $30.76
• ValueClick - $14.16
• Total - $5,947.36

I’m one happy guy right now! Let me give a breakdown:

Affiliate Marketing - $953.20
This month was a little weak in this area as expected because I didn’t really spend much time on this. I did have many things to take care of before I leave my job but there’s no excuses. It really shows that hard work pays off so I will try to spend more time in this area this month!

Private Ads - $3014.72
This totally exploded this month as many people contacted me for ads etc! This area is totally tied to the popularity of the industry and my respective blogs so I really look forward to more growth in this area!

Ebay Network Partners - $50.30
This was a nice surprise since I didn’t update the blog that had all the eBay links at all. I believe that the increase (from less than $10 every month) comes from the fact that people are just buying more during the holiday seasons.

CPM Ad Networks - $44.92
I’ve had it with Value Click. While I still made some money with them, I stopped using them mid month because I’m fed up with the system automatically adding low cpm ads (think less than $0.10). On my blogs, I currently run ADSDAQ (where I set my own price) and have affiliate ads as backup for times when the spot isn’t sold.

Final Thoughts
Every month when I prepare this post, it feels like a dream because I would never think that something like this was possible. The interesting thing with the Internet is that unlike the real world, you are rewarded with your brain (your writing, your dedication, your hard work) instead of your looks, your race, nor your sex. As long as you put in the effort, you will have a great chance of succeeding!

Wow another record month!  I’m so excited and feel fortunate of the progress I’ve made this year with everything that’s happened to me and my blogs.

Blog Income

• Market Leverage - $294.60
• Rocket Profit - $649.35
• Commission Junction - $62.00
• Pepperjam Network - $60.00
• Private Ads - $1996.63
• Text Link Ads - $1029.60
• Link Worth - $456.08
• Adsense - $398.60
• Ebay Network Partners - $3.88
• Newstex - $9.31
• Blog Consulting - $358.65
• ADSDAQ - $31.81
• ValueClick - $16.29
• Total - $5,366.80

As I inked a couple multi-month private ad deals, this month was amazing!  Here are some of the highlights.

Affiliate Marketing - $1065.95

This is pretty amazing as I had $0 just 3 months ago.  The CJ and pepperjam income was very surprising as all I did was put up some banners on my site when the cpm networks didn’t fill that particular ad spot.

Rocket Profit and Market Leverage was based on hard work promoting the sites but this month’s projection is going way down because many of the offers I was promoting expired and I haven’t had time to work on this much.  Once I truly quit my day job (starting in November), I will definitely be focusing more effect on this end as this can grow much quicker than all the other revenue streams.

Adsense - $398.60

Google ads continue to perform and it is going up month after month.  It helps that the traffic to my blogs are growing but the main reason for the increase is because of higher paying ads.  I hope that this keeps up as some of my fellow bloggers are getting even higher eCPM than what I’m getting so there is definitely room for me to grow!

New Additons - $57.41

As you can see, I started adding CPM networks into the mix (ValueClick and .  So far, they aren’t performing that well but it’s like free month so those will probably stay.

Final Thoughts

I’m extremely pleased with September’s income!  Even though I doubt that October will be as high as September, I really hope that it will continue to make new highs month after month!  I will keep you posted!

One of the greatest benefit of the web is access to information.  Back in the days, there was IRC and Usenet (anyone remember those?) which were fantastic. Google then gave us relevant searches and revolutionized the way people perceived the web. These days, there’s twitter for us to ask questions and blogs which added personal opinion.

These tools are great to find information on pretty much any subject, but with lots of information most definitely comes with conflicting ones!  Just to give an example, I was at the blog world expo the other day when Jeremy from b5 media said:

advertising clients now believe unique visitors are much more important than page views

Then within a few days, Skellie’s guest post on Problogger start out by saying:

When selling advertising spots on your blog the metric that advertisers value most is page views, or ‘impressions’.

I’m not even talking about two “no name” bloggers making conflicting statements. These two people are credible sources in the blogging world who we naturally listen to. So who should we listen to?

Why This Happens

To help us figure out how we should handle these conflicting messages, it will help us to discuss why this happens.

This is What I Encountered
As with any advice that anyone ever gives, it is usually based on personal experience. Jeremy probably talked to several advertisers who gave him the feeling that unique visitors were the most important while Skellie looked at all her revenue sources and came to a different conclusion.

You Can Go Your Way, But I Know That Way Leads Me There Too
As with anything else in life, there is no right path to success. What worked for problogger might be different than what’s worked for me or you. As it is impossible to make a 100% fair comparison of going both routes, different opinions will naturally arise.

Making Sense of All This

If you are still trying to figure out who is right, then stop now because it doesn’t really matter. Here are more things to consider:

Do Both
In the above example, unique visitors and page views are both important. Do as much as you can to drive visitors to your blog and then work on increasing the page views per visitor by keeping them from leaving your blog!

Test, Test and Test Again
Become an expert yourself and form your own opinion. Test out all the methods and come up with your own assessment of who’s right. Whether you end up driving more visitors or increasing the page views per visitor, it will only help your blog anyway so test out every method out there!

Takeaway
There’s always some merit to what everyone writes about, so try to absorb the lesson behind the actual words. Rather than reading the words and follow the statements that someone makes, try to figure out the blogger’s mindset through the words and learn that instead. Once you have the same type of mindset as other successful bloggers, you will make more money. This I guarantee.

I got an email today from someone who wanted to find a network of 50 people who will intentionally click on each other’s Google Adsense ads.  My first reaction was to email the person back and kindly decline, then let him know that it is against Google’s terms and conditions and wish him good luck.

As I read on however, I was shocked by what he wrote:

… I have already clicked on you ten of your Google ads. You can check your Adsense acct.

This was definitely something I did not appreciate! I logged into my Adsense account and sure enough, the click rate was on the high side. I immediately went to the help center and emailed support of what I noticed in my account and I will await their resolution.

Something I also noticed was that although it shows more clicks, my earnings were actually lower than usual.  Perhaps Google’s automated system already flagged those clicks but hopefully my account won’t be disabled because of this person!

Tips to Keep Your Adsense Account in Good Standing

1. Don’t click on your own ads!
2. Don’t ask anyone else to click on your ads.
3. Don’t show a popup at all for your site that asks users to download or run special software.
4. The pages with Google ads should never be showed on a popup from anywhere.
5. Only show Google ads on sites without prohibited content (check out the program policy for details).
6. Google trademarks cannot be tampered or altered, nor can it be shown to artificially build your site’s credibility without Google’s prior consent.
7. Don’t change the Adsense code
8. Sites with Adsense should provide value for the user in some way.
9. Anything Google deems deceitful for the user is prohibited.
10. The site should be presented in a way that advertisers will want to place ads on the site
11. Publishers should be responsive to emails sent by the Adsense team (this is a little funny because the Adsense team is not always responsive to our emails :))

This is taken from Google’s help center.  For the original list, click here.

For those that are new to the blogging world, I strongly advise not to try gaming the Adsense system!  At the end of the day, this is just a waste of your time as Google is very good at catching people who violate their guidelines.

As mentioned last month, I will be focusing on affiliate marketing much more and so far so good because I was able to pull in about $600 with the first full month! My goal is $1,000 this month and $2,500 by year end!

I started with Market Leverage and also began to push some products with Rocket Profit. I highly recommend joining those two networks because there’s definitely money to be made! Affiliate marketing is definitely the future of my income so I will keep everyone updated on my efforts on this front.

Blog Income

• Market Leverage - $513.60
• Rocket Profit - $82.20
• Private Ads - $1670.20
• Text Link Ads - $1006.30
• Link Worth - $475.00
• Adsense - $307.55
• Ebay Network Partners - $8.85
• Blog Consulting - $280.05
• Total - $4343.75

I was extremely surprised that I blew by the $4,000 mark by quite a bit. It goes to show that as long as you work hard and just keep plugging away in the online world, good things happen!!

Many people add advertisements to their blogs and try to monetize the site as soon as it is up. The time when there are practically no visitors and hence no money to be made. The temptation is obvious. We don’t want to leave money on the table.

When we should start adding ads is one of the most asked questions online today. Everyone wants to know the perfect time to take this step. We want to leave ads out of the blog because we know it may turn off certain visitors but we know that eventually, it is something that has to be done.

Most of us read income reports from other bloggers and then quickly sign up for adsense. We spend hours tweaking and making sure it look perfect on our blog and then we proceed to make $0.02 in the next 30 days.

An Experiment to Illustrate

Last month, I added an adsense unit on two of my newest site. The result, a combined total of $1.69 in earnings. The rest, $177.70 to be exact, came from another 2 sites. At the current pace, I can afford 100 months of adsense-free advertisements on the two new blogs if I’m willing to forgo one month of earnings on two higher traffic sites.

So in my particular case (one that is typical for all new sites), leaving ads off the new sites was an easy choice.

Patience will be Rewarded

There is really no rush to put advertising on a blog. During the first few months of your blog’s life, the focus should be about driving traffic because money will not come unless there is decent traffic and a developed brand.

Notice on BusyBlogging Dot Com that there are no ads yet. This is not because I cannot find advertisers but because I intentionally wanted it to be clear of ads for the first few months to attract as many visitors as possible.

I know that once I start to develop a following by writing good blog content, advertisers will come knocking on my door asking to put ads on my site. Waiting for this to happen will make the decision to put ads onto the blog much more natural, instead of forcing it on the blog just because I cannot wait.

Putting ads on prematurely doesn’t make you money, so hold off and build your blog first.

When it comes to your blog, branding should be of the highest priority.  Potential clients always have options, as there are many alternatives in the marketplace today.  If you make money by selling advertisements, your brand will help attract advertisers.  If you sell services, then your brand will help you qualify and generate leads.

Even if making money is not in the plans for your blog, building a brand will help bring in more traffic and readership! Therefore, it is important to start focusing on building your brand. If you never thought about this, the time to start is now.

Get Started

Here are a few pointers to help lead you in the right direction.

State the Facts
As a blog, the articles we write form the foundation in which our brand is based on. It is crucial that we state the facts and not guess.  Readers will quickly spot the bloggers who know the facts versus the ones that just type without reference.

Show Consistency
Eventually, there will be readers who follow your blog.  Show integrity and consistency by continually giving messages that don’t conflict with each other.  If the writing and mindset changes from article to article, it is impossible for people to build trust.

Be Unique
Be it the blog design, advices written or delivery method, there should be a level of uniqueness in your blog.  As I said earlier, there are alternatives out there.  Don’t just aim to be a “me too” blog.

Better to be Interesting to Some than Mediocre to Everyone
In order for people to come back, there should be a reason to come back. Don’t try to tailor to everyone because it is impossible. Instead, make sure that there are people who will love your blog so you can capture those readers. Give people a reason to come back, even if it’s at the expense of some others.

Be Coherent
At the end of the day, it is a blog you are writing on. Although you don’t need to be an English major, your readers will need to be able to understand your writing. Once you are done writing the article. At least read it over once to make sure it is understandable by someone other than you.

It is also not a bad idea to ask someone else to read your article and then tell you what the article is about. This will give you insight into how someone else perceives your article for you to make changes if necessary.

Be Yourself
Not that it is impossible, but it is too hard to pretend to be someone else. Your articles should reflect your true feelings and beliefs in topics you write about.

One Last Thing to Note

Be patient with brand building as it is a long (in fact never ending) journey. Keep the above points in mind and your brand will be developed, traffic will come and money will be made.

July’s been a pretty good month for blog income.  I’m excited to report that I spoke with boss about transitioning myself out of my current position so I can pursue my online presence full time.  This means that I will have much more time to devote to this side of the business which will only mean great things about my blog income.

So far, the biggest part of my blog income is with private ads and it will probably stay that way for a while.  I’ve been trying to diversify my income stream the last month and have found some places that shows promise.  As I familiar myself with these new methods, I’m sure good things will happen!

During the last 4 days of the month, I also started playing around with affiliate marketing and it is a very exciting as I generated $50.05 in a couple days alone!  In the coming months, I will definitely be starting to focus more on this area and see where it will take me.

Enough rambling on.  Here’s the breakdown for July:

• Private Ads - $1908.36
• Text Link Ads - $830.23
• Link Worth - $546.25
• Adsense - $179.39
• Affiliate Marketing - $50.05
• Ebay Network Partners - $12.24
• Amazon - $1.84
• Total - $3528.36

Not earth shattering numbers but I enjoy what I do.  I didn’t start long ago so as I put more time and focus into this, I am sure the income will grow!  I will keep you updated!

How 125×125 Ads Became Popular

Google’s dislike for text link ads was made clear when they publicly announced that websites selling text ads will be penalized in terms of search engine rankings.  Since then, the text link ad industry took a huge hit as many people pulled all text ads off their sites.

With the lost of ad revenue, site owners started looking at other advertising methods much more aggressively.  At this point, the 125×125 ad started to attract advertisers from all over.  Some of the reasons this type of ad was popular included (but not limited to):

1. It fit at least 2 ads side by side on the sidebar comfortably, thereby increasing ad revenue
2. Small enough so even novice graphic designers can design something that look good
3. Loads fast enough so many can be populated without affecting site’s load speed

As more and more sites started utilizing this type of ad, bloggers who run popular blogs likeJohn Chow and Problogger started to notice.  It was coincidental that both of these blogs were redesigned around the same time to include this type of ad, which created a huge buzz around the blogsphere on not only the importance of blog designs but also the popularity of 125×125 ads.

If those two blogs put 125×125 sized ads on the runway, Entrecard gave this type of ad the fuel it needed to jump off the popularity charts. This online ad exchange system’s model was based on traffic exchange through 125×125 ads.  As Entrecard explored in popularity, 125×125 sized ads came along for the ride.

This is where Performacing Ads step in.  Cutting through the bells and whistles, it is basically a middlemen that helps you sell 125×125 ads.  Websites who want to sell ads sign up as a publisher and put the sites up for display; advertisers looking to advertise sign up to buy ads.

How Performancing Ads Make Money

As with all middlemen, they make money by taking a cut off your ad revenue. Performancing Ads is no different, taking at most 40% (meaning you keep 60%).  There seems to be a tiered system where they will take less commissions if your ads are performing well but it is not documented well enough for me to explain further.

Thoughts on the Ad System

What I Like
One thing I like about Performancing Ads is that I can customize how many spots I want to sell and how many groups (called regions) of ads I have on each page.  This gives me quite a bit of flexibility because I can sell 4 spots on the side bar and another 6 spots on the footer for example as long as I set it up that way.

Another benefit is that I can put my own ads up within the system, so if I have direct advertising relationships, I can use the system to put them onto my site without anyone taking a cut, which makes management convenient.

Installation
For those of us using Wordpress, it is very easy to install.  After you activate the plugin which is downloadable off the website, all you need is to add a line of code at where you want the ads to appear.  For example, my ad code was

perfads('regionid');

What Needs Improvement

Exchange Ads
When I wanted to book my own ads, I was asked to create a 125×125 ad.  Once I was done, I booked it without problem.  Then, I created two more ads in the ad exchange section for a total of three.

No problems right?  However, when I click on exchange ads now, I only see two and not the one which I originally created!

Where the third one is stored is a mystery.  Perhaps someone can let me know how this could be fixed.

Lack of Control in Managing Ads
In the brief time that I’ve spent using this system, I didn’t see an option to cancel ads. You can argue that this is done on purpose but I should at least be able to control my own ads right? I tried to see what would happen if I added the same ad in the system twice, and the results are self explanatory.

I’ve since contacted them to resolve this issue. I didn’t expect them to get back to me right away as I emailed them late at night but hopefully they can get this rectified in a timely manner.

Final Thoughts

The success of Performacing Ads will lie on its ability to attract advertisers, as new publishers will join the network if everyone in the system is having good results.

Despite the minor issues that I’ve found, this system is easy to implement and as 125×125 ads become more popular, Performacing Ads will be a good source of advertising stream.

How often we should post on our blogs for maximum effectiveness is always a question that I get asked. There are many people that think posting multiple times a day is the way to go while there are equally as many people that think posting once a day is the optimal.  Here are the common arguments on each side.

Posting Multiple Times a Day

• Google likes your blog more and will send you more traffic when it’s updated often.
• Visitors will always have fresh content when they come to your blog, even if they come multiple times a day.
• Posting more frequently means there are more posts in the archives for readers to search.
• Most high profile blogs do this, I don’t know why but it must be better!

Posting Once a Day

• Consistency is always a good thing.  It sets your readers up with an expectation that you are posting regularly but not excessively.
• Posting once a day gives you a chance to feel fresh and write good content.
• As each post is up at the top of the page for longer periods of time, it tends to get more participation.
• More participation lends itself to more links from your fellow bloggers

So what should we do?  The answer lies in blog popularity, monetization scheme and the time you have for your blog.

Posting Frequency Depends on Your Time
Let’s talk about the last one first - Time.  Other than a select few of us who are lucky enough to do this full time, most people still have at least a 9 to 5 day job to keep up along with our daily lives!  Let’s face reality here.  We just don’t have time to write multiple blog posts a day and keep up with this long term.

Consistency is really important for your readers, so rather than posting 4 times a day for a week and no posts for 2 weeks, schedule the posts out!

Posting Frequency Should Be Tied to Blog Popularity
One of the most important aspects of a blog is its interactivity.  When readers come to a blog, they want to not only read great content but also great comments!  Your readers absolutely add value to your posts when they comment.  Not only will they sometimes add different perspectives to the topic you wrote about, they also send a message to your other readers that your blog is a great place to come back to.

Unfortunately though, comments are much easier to come by on high profile blogs because of the sheer traffic that they get.  If you need proof that it’s not just about the content, all you need to do is submit a guest post to a high profile blog.  Once it’s posted, you will see the difference.

Those that are starting out should post high quality articles but spread them out.  I suggest posting only 2-3 posts per week so each post stay at the top of your blog for a longer period of time.  Once you get more participation on your blog posts, you can tighten the posting schedule accordingly.

Posting Frequencies Depends on Your Plan for Making Money
If your blog makes money solely from Adsense, traffic from search engines is absolutely key to success.  In this case, you will want to post more frequently so Google will send more traffic your way.  However, if you are running ads that are charged on a per month basis, then quality of the articles should come before anything else.  Write because you feel passionate about a topic, not because you have to.

Advertisers buy ad space because of the perceive value of your blog and how it will translate to help their own business.  I will take one visitor from ProBlogger over ten visitors from another site that gets lots of traffic because I know people coming from ProBlogger are most likely bloggers who are interested in the topics I write about here and not some random visitor that was sent to his blog that then clicked through to my blog.

Advertisers have to constantly pick where they spend their advertising dollars.  A blog will be perceived to have a high value when they have:

• Steady posting schedule
• Great participation in terms of comments
• High number of links to your blog posts

Think about all those, and you will have a clear decision of how often you should post.