Friday 25 October 2013

My first Google Adsense paycheck! I definitely don't do this for the money...

People reading my blog would no doubt have noticed that I have some advertising on this blog.  However they are really limited  - I have a few Google Adsense banners, I have written one sponsored post (I have been offered others but they wanted to write the content of the post which I didn't want)  and I can potentially receive affiliate revenue if you click through one of my book review posts to one of the book sales websites that I link to.

  1. I don't really write this blog to make money - if I put the amount of time and effort into actually making money that I put into this blog I would have made significantly more
  2. I hate websites which over-advertise - we have all had the experience of websites which may have good content but which are just covered in advertisements.  It really distracts from the content and I really write on this blog now to help others out in the same way I have been helped.  Pop up ads are the ones that drive me insane.
Because I am not really willing to push the advertising thing (as mentioned above) I do not really make a great deal of money from this blog which I'm completely fine with - I'm looking to start my own business as a second income stream.

But...I do get a little bit of revenue and Google just paid me for the first time!!

I do get a little bit of revenue from this website (mostly when people click on the links to the advertisements but some for the people that visit the page) and it was very exciting when earlier this week I got a notification that I had been paid for the first tine. 

It was not a huge amount - about $130 (which works out to about $0.32 per post or $0.64 per hour...) but it was still pretty exciting to receive the notification for the first time!  I have had plenty of milestones with this blog - the my first reader, my first comment, first email, first time I crossed 1,000 visitors for the month, first time I crossed 5,000 etc.  This is my newest milestone - my first paycheck from Google.

If you are thinking about starting a blog...don't do it for the money

I know there are stories about people who make their wage from blogging full time however, unless you're really going to get out there and promote yourself and your blog constantly and really treat it like a proper small business - it will never make a huge amount of money.  

Blogging can make you money indirectly.  It can establish you as an 'authority' on a particular source of information which can then be leveraged  into a related business opportunity.  That is, the blog provides a good platform and entry for people to discover your business.  There are several sites which do this very well - for example many dating advice sites also provide 'one on one' coaching.  

Many people start blogging because they want to promote their business - this can provide a real monetary incentive to blog...but you really need to love what you are blogging about to get a blog which gets regular readers visiting each day.  I have gone down the other route - I blog because I love to blog about finance...and maybe one day I will be able to promote my business through this blog.

If you are thinking about starting your own blog and would like some tips (or things that I wish I would have done differently) then send me an email - I'd be happy to share.

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3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your first check! I clicked on an advertisement just to earn you an extra .3 cents for this post :)

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  2. Congratulations 90M, would be great to learn more about how to create a successful blog i.e. through web hosting, all about analytics and SEO as I'll be looking to start one next year

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  3. Thanks guys! I appreciate the help (and comments) ;)

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