Anyone make money blogging?

[Huntmo1]

Just curious if anyone has made a few bucks off of a blog or website that they started? I've been looking into how to set one up for fun and was just curious if anyone has any first-hand experience with things like affiliate marketing or other things like that.

[katlupe]

I make some off mine. I have affiliate links, but the ones that I make the most off are the ones that go to Amazon products, even though they pay the least. It seems most people are comfortable when shopping there and will click those links.

I also make money off blog posts I do once a month for a local grocery store. They give me a gift card for writing a post that has links to their store. It is not about their store, but I tell that is where I bought my ingredients.

Blogsvertise is another way I make some money. You can list your blog on their site and people will pay you to write a post. If they offer you too low of an amount you can hold out for more. I won't do it for less than $10. and have had many post that I got paid $20 and more. Sometimes I refuse them because the company just does not go well on a blog about living off-the-grid or homesteading.

[sisterpine]

There must be someone making money off blogging or else folks would not be paying for the information on how to do so....wait ....that is maybe how they make the money off of blogging!

[Whistle Pig]

There are lots of ways to make money blogging and there is always room for blogs with great content out on the web. Amazon affiliate links, sponsored product placement, paid advertisements are just a few of the ways you can make money on a blog. We blog within a group called The Village Green Network and our blog is www.whistlepighollow.com. I recommend looking through some of the bloggers from VGN as some of them make extremely good livings. Best of luck!

[MichaelZ]

Yes, you can make money, but it is getting tougher and tougher. If you can come up with a website or blog that features content that is of value to others such that your site gets lots of traffic via search, you can make money with contextual advertising. It is analogous to TV - a program is created that attracts viewers and the program producers are compensated by advertisers. But before you quit your day job, realize that this can be a formidable task, given so many people have websites, blogs, youtube videos with the advent of quick and easy publishing. Whatever you do, don't fall for one of the "get rich quick and easy" scams - the only ones making money doing this are the ones selling their "system". Best to write about something you are passionate about that has a fair size audience yet is not already written about extensively. Crafting would not be a great choice since there are a zillion craft sites out there already, but an example of what might perhaps be a good choice would be a site about some specific, yet popular classic auto that you collect or rebuild. To check out what is already published, the most direct way is to simply do some internet searches yourself on Google.

[Ernie]

Back when I was doing the "Bunker Index" on my blog, I was raking in about $20 a day there at the height. By adding in popular (and politically scary) stories, it would attract a lot of people who were googling for those news items.

Of course you might get 10,000 views and make 3 cents, or get 10 views and 1 click and make $2. It's an incredibly random system and Google Adwords (my affiliate) doesn't seem to have a lot of transparency into the system. Or maybe they do and I just didn't find it.

Anyway, blog is down to about five cents a week now that I don't really post politically relevant stuff.

BUT, the Facebook/Blog/Youtube combination is earning me some revenue now by channeling those people back to my knife shop.

It's the difference between advertising and marketing ... when you sell diapers, you advertise. As a small craftsman, you market. By marketing you are essentially selling yourself and your lifestyle. The social media is good for showing people who you are and how/why you do what you do and then channeling them to your products so that they'll open their wallets.

That's the best way to make money in blogs, I think ... do something REAL and create a product, then use the blog to sell your own product.