I was doing some stat checking, logging into click bank and google AdSense to see how much money I made blogging in the last little while. I dont typically do the promotion run hype thingy. It isn’t me. You know bragging about the amount of money I make. I suppose it’s social proof and all that. But in my mind I dont really think you care and are more interested in how you can make money as a blogger

The main reason I really dont do that is because as garry conn said in a great post this week.

“The people who want to make money online (class one mmo bloggers) are naive and end up buying affiliate promoted products from the people who don’t make a lot of money online (class two mmo blogger) but act as leaders and teachers within the industry whom are enabling the people who create the bogus products and services (class three mmo blogger) to make the money”

And I really don’t want to come off as that sort of moron. I realize that this whole thing of blogging for money, making money blogging, or how ever you choose to call it is quite difficult and there are lots of wanna be’s (who knows maybe I am a wanna be) I don’t make a fortune.

My main goal with this blog making money blogging isn’t to sell you guys and gals the pipe dream and hyped up BS garbage or promote each and every frikken product that hits the market. As I am sure any of you can attest who subscribe to my feed or those of you who choose to sign up for my newsletter to get my blog posts in your inbox, I don’t bombard you with affiliate promos and sales copy cut and pasted from the latest IM “guru”.

Whats really funny is just as I am writing this courtney tuttle dropped a post in my feed reader, right along this train of thought, heres a snippet: from introduction to lead blogging

“If you have a commitment to provide people with true value, they are better off in your hands than they would be in the hands of almost everyone else. If you can’t make that commitment, you are probably destined to become a true rip-off artist if you start down this path.”

Unless I have found a great tool or book that makes sense and I think it might help you blog for money. Those quite honestly have been few and far between.

SO what recently has made me money blogging.

Product reviews.

I did a review of blogging for riches back in November when it was still in beta, and so I got to test and play with it and apply it. Look if you’re going to shell out your hard earned money for a product use it. Anyways I applied to a new project I was working on found that their system and methods worked so I did a review of what I thought about the product. Unlike many blogger who just an affiliate link for some product from clickbank or where ever and go find a review online and re word it. BS scammers. As a result of the blogging for riches review I sold a few of them.

Something I might ad about this whole process of reviews for products, there’s some responsibility that goes along with it. People coming to your blog or website will build up a level of trust in you. So isnt it your JOB to inform them and not just pawn the flavour of the week off on them.

Honestly though selling on your blog is all about trust, the more value you provide be it in content and honest reviews the more likely you are to be able to monetize your blog.

For example there’s a banner for host gator on my blog here. Did you know that host gator doesnt provide the biggest pay outs, blue host does at least as far as I am aware. So why I am not promoting blue host.

A.) I use host gator and have never had any problems. they have great support, you know like actually being able to talk to a real human being.

B.) Blue host just sucks, I dont care what the payout is. It is out right garbage.

Banner ads

Despite the fact that many people say banners are dead and what not. I tend not to believe them as I make money with them. Ive been running crazy egg on my blog for a just under a week now and it shows some interesting things, what people click on, length of time to click. and a whole bunch of other things about what visitors are doing when come visit this blog.

To be quite honest I am not the most technical savvy person around, and tracking clicks is still abit of a head scratcher. I’m sure there’s some great tracking software but up until now I haven’t been using it. Maybe some of you out there have some thoughts on what types of tracking tools there are that I could use.

The way I find banners work best if they are themed, the banners that is, to your blog. The majority of the time the regular visitors aren’t clicking on your banners , they’re there to read your latest post. But I have found that Organic traffic is clicking on banners and ads. I have found this out using crazy egg.

SO make sure your banners are themed to your blogs main theme, or if you are noticing traffic from specif keywords to specific articles, some more than others then choose banners that match the content and watch the clicks on them go up and the sales along with them.