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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Earning Money from the Blog, Not the Ads

Some people earn from their blogs through the ads they put on them. I don't. But that does not mean I don't earn at all; it's just that my earnings don't come from the ads.

You might want to read on especially if you're a newbie and you want to monetize your blog but don't have the traffic to do it through ads.

Last July, I signed up for an account in Odesk. Fast forward a month later, after taking tests, writing what I thought were pretty impressive cover letters (apparently, the buyers didn't agree), and applying to multiple writing jobs on a daily basis ... still I didn't have anything to show for my efforts.

Not even a single interview.

Then it hit me. The buyers were not interested on high Odesk test results; at least not as much as they were on experience. They wanted to see something in my portfolio. The problem was, I had nothing to show. I wasn't a professional writer nor have I taken any formal writing lessons but I knew I could write. Not that I could churn out Pulitzer-quality outputs, but I knew I had what it took to write the articles required by most Odesk buyers. So I thought, how could I show them that my writing skills were sufficient enough to cater to their needs?

That's when I thought of putting up a blog. I figured that if I could show them at least three posts, that would give them enough to assess me on.

A few days after I started including a link to the blog in all of my cover letters, invitations started coming in. I added one more post and another and another. Now I have 12 posts at Steaming Open Cup. Not much, but enough to get me a steady flow of writing jobs from clients at Odesk.

Earlier this month, when I read the book written by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, Problogger - Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income (which I highly recommend), I realized I was headed in the right direction. In the book, Darren and Chris placed this approach under the topic Indirect Income-Earning Strategies. In fact, ChrisG takes it a step further in his blog: practically zero ads!

To date, what I've earned from writing jobs (which I still attribute to what potential clients see on Steaming Open Cup) far outweighs what I earn from the ads on my blog. To be honest, I haven't generated any substantial income from those ads yet. It's but understandable because I don't have sufficient traffic. Until I get that steady traffic, I'll just hone my writing skills, submit more posts, and hope those jobs keep coming in.

That's it. Thanks for reading this far. I hope to see you on the next post.

You might want to read Joy's post, A Not So Rude Awakening. In that post you'll get an idea why we ever thought of putting our hopes on an online job in the first place.

8 comments:

Joyce said...

You post is so true. I signed up with odesk and have yet to get the odesk team loaded on my computer. Meanwhile, I look at the job posts and realize I would get lost in the crowd as far as getting an interview. But to link your blog is an excellent idea! Good luck to you.

carolyn joy said...

Good luck to you too, Joyce! And thanks for dropping by.

Anonymous said...

Hi just saw your blog and notice that you are still using their adsense code. This is the ads on the top left side of your blog. Please check your codes.

Thanks

Talk2myCPA
http://talk2mycpa.blogspot.com/

carolyn joy said...

Oops! I just realized that now. In fact there are more on the page. I'll deal with this shortly.

BTW, I noticed you've got a post that I have found very useful and am linking to it here.

For those who are interested on
How to UPLOAD Ads-Theme-Template,
click on the link!

Stephen said...

Good tips from you. Thanks for dropping by too.

Stephen said...

Nice tips.
Thanks for dropping by anyway. :D

Anonymous said...

Chris G. can afford not to show up any ads on his blog because it's an "Authority Blog"!... he has gained the trust of his "readers/clients". he's actually into consultancy/coaching level already.

as for new bloggers, if you want to monetize your blog, there's no other way but to depend on "some" ads.

I'm currently using new advertising network to feed my blog some advertisement.Same like Entrecard wherein you earn credits or points when you visit another member's blog, BUT the difference is that on this network they convert your points to cold CASH at the end of the month and send you the payment on PayPal!

you may check my blog about it for more information at http://www.blogDeManila.com

cheers!
at your Service,
eric
http://www.blogDeManila.com

Anonymous said...

I had a feeling you were going to say Adgitize. I also use it on my blog.