Picking Up Extra Money From Your Blog

Be sure to check on The Redhead Riter community on The Blogfrog. That is how I improved mine and increased my traffic. In less than one year on there, it has become a much better blog. Redhead Riter writes a post every Sunday on her blog that gives you instructions on how to do different things to improve your blog and bring more traffic. You can read past posts if there is something in particular you want to do and don't know how. She is very helpful to everyone.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

Wonderful! Thanks for the tip - I am just now trying to make my blog "better" because now I am thinking of writing more for content itself rather than just a glorified diary. I will definitely join there... thanks

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Uncle Dutch Farms
Blogging from working city mom to homesteading housewife.
Rural Living Today
Encouragement for the Urban-to-Rural Transition
My review of the Piteba oil expeller

Cool. Added a "like" button from facebook after creating a facebook page. Learning something new everyday down this rabbit hole!

can i double dip on Blogvertise and Sponsored Reviews IOWs use the same review for both?

do they send you samples or goodies to review free stuff rox .. even better is getting paid to take free stuff

No, you can't use the same review for both. What Blogvertise does is send you a email with the company that you are reviewing. It will have some keywords that you have to link to. Has to be permanent links that stay on your blog forever. They want 3 links in about 2-3 paragraphs. You will need a FDA Disclosure on your blog somewhere. I have a separate page for mine. In 30 days usually, the money goes right into my paypal account.

Sponsored reviews I am not that familiar with. For me to do them and put a special post up with links like that, I won't take cheapies. I refuse any that are less than $15.00 now. But in the beginning I did them starting at $8.00.

I also do sponsored tweets but they are little bits of money here and there. You have to constantly do them to make any money. But hey, every little bit adds up over time.

What kind of a blog do you have? Mommy bloggers get a lot of free products to try and have giveaways with and get one to keep too. One friend of mine gets free tickets to events to take her 3 kids (teens) to. Like the circus, Ice shows, museums, concerts, etc.

There are a lot of opportunities out there. I learned about them on the Blogfrog.

katlupe

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

I had no idea there was such potential to making money with a blog. mine is very new. I do have a facebook page, but I dont go to facebook much. I did go to sign up for networked blogs, but I cant figure out how to do it. I put networked blogs into there search bar, but it doesn't come up with that, and I also tried clicking on networks, but it doesn't say anything about blogs. can you help?

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www.infowars.com
www.angorafiber.com
Licensed ARBA Registrar

http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/editblog.php

Go there and you should come to the page to register it at. If not, let me know and I will see what I can do.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

Top Earning Blogs (just a bit dated) - I'm posting this as more of a motivator than anything. Keep in mind, these are estimated monthly earnings. Most of these "blogs" have evolved into full-fledged companies with full-time employees. Some started with just a simple idea. The more you learn...the more you earn. Depending on your personal interests, you've probably come across their websites before. If not, it may help some to study what they do if you intend to take a stab at blogging for income. Adsense also publishes Success Stories and a few more here. I enjoy following the progress of sites and blogs more than anything. Guess I'm just weird that way.

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My How To blog - Happy Homesteading!

That is an interesting bit of info! In the link to the top bloggers, most of the bloggers I am connected with follow Darren Rowse the most. He is pretty helpful to us. Of course, he is only 17 on the list. But $40,000. a month is nothing to sneeze at! I have been to many of them but not all.

I am not trying to make my blog a business where I would have to hire employees. I don't want to be that successful! I am trying to make just enough to properly care for my critters, hubby and me, and finish remodeling our home. Pay our bills and have enough money to buy what I need, but I will always be a frugal minded person.

I don't have any adsense on my blogs as I just don't care for their ads. I never make any money on them. I have started to make bits of change on Amazon links but not much.

I'd rather make the money on my own products. I have ebooks for sale, one I am updating and I have ideas for more. Plus I write a fictional blog that I am making into a regular novel.

And the other idea I am presently working on is some tee shirts. I have to admit, as far as products go.........nothing beats the information products that are downloadable. That is the best!

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

I always appreciate your insight Kat.

Thanks for the post and heads-up on Darren Rowse.

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My Adventure

Our Adventure

Kat, how do I get blogvertise to send me offers that work for my blog ?
Despite countless emails they only send me offers from Texas businesses or gardening websites that sell $40 trowels.
Considering that my blog is about fugal urban homesteading in New York I just wanna laugh.

~~ pelenaka ~~
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/

You want a laugh? They sent me one yesterday that they said had asked for my blog specifically...........get this......to post about the benefits of artificial turf.....in other words fake grass!!!! Like I would put that on my blog!!!! I turned them down first on account of the money (not enough), then after I read it I knew I would never post that.

I believe we have to stand up for what we believe our blogs are about. I have posted a few that I wasn't thrilled about.......well, I am not thrilled about any of them. As I increase my views, I think I may be able to attract advertisers on my own.

With blogvertise what I have done is refuse anything that is less than $10. and lately I have been requesting $15.-$20. None of that $8. business. I don't do very well with the affiliate stuff either. But if you look at my blog now, I have added buttons I made for "Rent This Spot." So far, I have one regular advertiser that pays me a monthly fee. No writing a post for them or anything. Easy and it is for grain mills which falls into my niche.

Maybe an idea would be if other homesteading businesses that want to increase their traffic could pay us bloggers to write a post about their business, farm, book, products or they could pay for a link on our blogs with their banner or button??? It is cheaper than pay per click or Google words or paying for SEO.

Another way to get traffic is tweeting. I know this because I tweet my products on a regular basis and those are the ones that get traffic. On Bonanza all the sellers tweet each other's products just for the fun of being nice. Working together seems to help everyone.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

Thanks for the answer. I don't feel so bad then if u are getting offers on astro turf.
I'm not really having an issue with traffic just people clicking the adsense buttons.
Lehman's turned me down flat as did Realgoods via Linkshare. No doubt due to posts that describe how to make your own hometeading tools on the cheap. I've had TS also without any true orders.

I like the idea about other homesteading biz buying ad space on our blogs. What would be a fair starting price $5 per month?

Drives me crazy when I read about blogs making thousands of $ a month when I would be thrilled with just a few hundred. A few hundred would cover the electric & grocery, or 2/3 of the mortgage. Sorry whinning ...


~~ pelenaka ~~

I've had a few offers from Blovertise like that. I just decline it, and since they want to know why, I just say that the subject is so far removed from my blog material, I just can't accept the offer.

Never had a problem with them about declining.

One thing I do find strange is I have yet to ever find a Grab Bag icon like they say I should. When I emailed them to request a pay increase, they agreed right away and said they also increased the amount of Grab BAgs per day I could grab.

I've never seen one! Has anyone else?

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Shipping Naturally Grown GARLIC Canada Wide!

Free Knitting Patterns

Livin the good life in BC http://www.countrylivinginacariboovalley.com/

A lot of it has to do with ad placement. You might want to try placing ads in the body of your posts. That may turn some of your regular readers off. If you don't like that option, you could at the very least move your ads from the bottom of the sidebar up towards the top.

You'll most likely get the majority of your clicks from ads showing "above the fold". Above the fold means simply the portion of the website/blog showing in a browser window when the page initially loads. If you moved one of your ad units above your labels category, your ads would be showing above the fold. Some of your image ads are cut off in my browser, just FYI. I'd personally try some text ads above the labels category and see how that works out for ya.

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My How To blog - Happy Homesteading!

When you login, it should show a page that says:

Alert: We noticed you have "grab bag" blog ads available that match up to your blog. Click Here and look for the grab bag icon. Click on the grab bag icon next to your blog to view the offers.

It is located on your "home" page.

I have never used them. One of the grab bag offers is for Vista Print. You can go sign up with them on your own, and get more $ than you'd get from blogvertise. That's what I did.

Another thing many of those grab bag offers are for guest posts than someone else has written and I won't accept them. I will never have someone guest post on my blogs.

I never do any of the grab bag offers because they just aren't the kind of offerers I'd like. Lots on insurance stuff and I will never put that on my blog either.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

I understand what you mean! I wish I could make a few hundred a month on it. Maybe I will. I am really working on it. Improving it. One thing I have been doing this month is trying to post every day. So far, I have.

I have people asking me questions and you know a lot of them are not homesteading in the least but they really want to. There are tons of people who live in the city and cannot understand how to get started. So our blogs are really valuable to many people.

The one ad I have is paying me $4.95 a month for his ad. He came to me and asked. He gave me that idea. So I am trying to make a decent ad to put out for others that may want to do the same. I mean my stats are showing I get a lot of views and I am increasing my followers. That is social networking that gets me those things and it takes a lot of time. If I could make $ on it, then it is my job.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

I just wrote a post on my blog about advertising on homesteading blogs.

And your post here yesterday made me think, I know why Lehman's turned you down! Emergency Essentials
turned me down too........because we live in NY state! It is a tax issue for affiliates. Many companies will no longer use NY or CO affiliates due to the tax issues.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

Tax issues - hadn't thought about that.
But I still think that in my case it's also about encouraging peeps to make instead of buy their homesteading tools.

Going to read your post now.

~~ pelenaka ~~
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/

So I just signed up for Blogsvertise.. I haven't really thought about making money off my blog until recently.
My blog is just about our family: Military family that is trying out homesteading. We're not exactly new to gardening or farming, but this is a little different I suppose. We don't exactly have a lot of money either. My husband really likes online gaming and technology, but so do I, so we're trying to integrate that in, as well as scrounging money and materials for chickens, shelters, fencing and things like that.
I have been in a slump of sorts. I used to craft A LOT, but still new to juggling a baby, housework, taking care of the animals, etc, so I'm using the blog as an outlet for now. I hope this year will be different and I can post more and get more readers and support in my endeavors.

The Idle Jackalope
www.theidleidol.wordpress.com

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Jessica White
army wife and mom, wannabe homesteader
Jackalope Farm - Nigerian dwarf goats www.jackalopefarm.webs.com