Bloggers keep day jobs: A penny for your thoughts? Kevin Vahey has done a good deal better, turning a personal gripe into $1,000 a year of supplemental income. An interesting article in the Monitor about bloggers, contextual advertising and revenues from blogs. Darren is referenced heavily and there is some discussion of the breakdown of Google’s revenue from AdSense and the distribution of the money thereof. In related news, have you heard of the AdSense ‘Custom Placement Packs’ Program? From all the buzz in the advertising sphere, the 125×125 blog ad segment is about to heat up tremendously. This competition among advertisers and advertising service providers is going to be very good for bloggers.
I had the same contact from Google, but mine is for the 300×250 adblock instead of the 125×125.
Did you opt to participate? Do you see an increase in revenue?
yeah I did opt to do it and noticed my income almost triple over night (it was fast!) and I’m quite happy now. I’m going to continue doing this with other adblock units and place them above the fold to see if I can get the same effect as my other test.
I’ve been approached twice recently to add banner ads to my site, which has modest traffic volume but decent PageRank. From what I’ve read, the revenue potential is NOT worth the user alienation.
I’m wholly dissapointed in AdSense for blogger revenue…
Wow. If Jonathan’s assessment is correct, a lot of people might want to go that route.
$1,000 a year? That’s it? 🙂
Seriously though, blogging pays my server bills and still leaves some extra, but for the amount of time it takes it isn’t quite rewarding enough!
Joe–
AdSense on blogs generally shouldn’t be considered as a huge money-maker unless you’re really good at it and have a lot of unique content. I generate my revenue from content-driven sites that mostly aren’t blogs. One is a lyrics site and a couple are educational sites.
Mark–
Everyone will have different results, but I’ve been fortunate in this case. It’s worth a shot for anyone and if they don’t like it, just revert back to how they used to have it.
Mark & Everyone: As an update to this, I’ve noticed the specific channel where I put it above the fold and did what Google asked me to, I have noticed an increase from what used to be a 10 cents/click profit to an average of 30 cents/click and today I saw a 50 cents/click jump.
The difference is amazing and it’s proving to be very profitable for me.
Mark & Everyone: A big twist to Kevin Vahey and his blogsite: its been revealed that a few years ago, he stole thousands of dollars meant for a charity that helps children with cancer. His regular bloggers are demanding his response and he has yet to provide one. And speculation now is that he may have used that stolen money to create his blogsite. Too bad, he could’ve used the money he earned from his blog to pay back all his victims.