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(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)
If you’ve been following the series in order, we can assume that your blog(s) has valid HTML, is well organized, has informative links and article names, is updated regularly (at least daily, remember?), has good spelling 
, and is now indexed / listed on all the major search engines and blog directories. What now? Well, maybe you’d like to earn a bit of money with it. Maybe you’d even like to become, one day, a professional blogger (and there will soon be one or more parts of this series about exactly that), blogging 8-10 hours a day and feeding yourself and your family just from doing it. It’s possible, but not easy, and takes time – but I’ll leave that part for the near future.
Now, first things first. Do you really want to do it? If you think it’s “evil” or “unethical” or “greedy” to make any kind of money or material gain from something you do for fun, well, feel free to skip this part. If you don’t think that, or are unsure, read on.
There’s a difference between creating a blog just to earn money (those tend not to be successful, because readers can spot it easily) and earning money with something you do for fun, or to be helpful. Without wanting to turn this blog into a philosophical one, earning money, by itself, is not something unethical at all – much the opposite, it shows drive, effort, intelligence, spirit and imagination. So don’t be ashamed of being successful, and if people enjoy your blog and, as a result, sometimes click on ads they find interesting, or buy something you talked about through an affiliate link, there’s nothing wrong with that.
But don’t forget: your blog(s)’s content should always be your main focus, not the money-making part.
Notice that I already mentioned the 2 main ways of earning money from your blog(s): advertisements, and affiliate links.
The first can be of two kinds: dynamic banners from an ad service (like Google’s AdSense), or “manual” banners. The first you probably know of already (and will be the target of several parts of this series); the latter are basically someone noticing your site is successful, and offering to pay you to have their ad there. These are rarer, because your blog will probably have to be a big success already before someone makes you such an offer.
Affiliate links only really make sense in some kinds of blogs (although many people don’t care about that and innundate their blog/site with them): mostly “review blogs”. For instance, if you have a blog where you review the books you are reading, or the movies you are watching, you could have affiliate links for your readers to buy them in a store such as Barnes and Noble or Amazon. If they follow those affiliate links and buy something, they don’t pay a cent more than they would if they got there on their own, but you, yourself, earn a small commission. A really successful site can mean a lot of money, but it’ll also mean a lot of work – reading and/or watching, writing good reviews, and, of course, all the other parts related to promotion, optimization and so on.
Next: About AdSense, and then AdSense: the basics.
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Thank you very much.
I have already taken lessons on making more money on AdSense and I am making some dollars from all my sites.
My major blogs are going to make record making profits very soon. They are all pilot projects as at present.
One of my blogs will hit the 1,000.000 visitors mark before the first anniversary in June 2006. And visitors will subscribe to qualify to win cars and holidays and other great things. I want to give away a brand new car on the first anniversary of one of my seven blogs. I mean to subscribe with only $50 per annum and qualify to win a new car that is worth $15,000! That’s a good bargain!
My site is not quite a blog, as I write one entry daily and don’t have comments. I’ve been doing it for 3 years and 3 months and have never used ads. I’m one of the very few ex-Americans (can’t help where I was born) writing from Portugal. I’ve lived here 10 years and now that the economy is at its worst, I would like to make a little money with ads, but have never investigated the process.
How does it work in Portugal? Does the money have to be declared? My husband is Portuguese and I’m on his IRS because I don’t work and before I’d do this, I need to know how it works.
Sorry for the sloppy writing. I’m tired. I get up at 2 am and it’s now 17:04.
If you can find the time, please email me with more information about ads in this country.
Hi, Brenda.
As far as I know – and don’t take my word for it – it’s like this: if you have a normal job and earn a little extra money from blogging, you probably don’t need to declare that.
However, if you begin to earn “real” money, enough to quit your job, and you do so, it may be a good idea to declare it – otherwise, having a Porsche and being “jobless” would look suspicious.
But being married, it may be different (I’m divorced, so I don’t know about that).
Hi Im new to blogging and have only posted a dozen blogs but I wish I had read this article 1st:(.. anyway thanks for this infomation, i have a question which i havent had much luck researching. I have signed up to adsense and i have checked my accounts and i can earn revenue when i get only a few “clicks” but im wondering if its possible to earn some extra cash if i get lots of page impressions as i had 234 page impressions and havent received anything! and i was wondering do i need to have at least a 1000 “impressions” to earn anything?, and how much on average should it be as im really doing blogging for the money, and if this was the case then id add more imput like you mentioned to make sure i get at least a 100 day, as above apologies for my bad grammer but will be getting “word” very soon,, thank you..
mark
umh mark, I use adsense and yes you have to reach 1000 impression to get a tiny amount of money.