Femme Power

Posts Tagged ‘passive income’

I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from friends about the earning potential of blogging and how it works.  I figured that I should finally write about it to spare my friends from my usual lengthy monologues.  Hence, the next time someone gets curious about blogging again, they could use this post as a reference to (hopefully) help them start a blog and monetize it in the long run, if they choose to.

I’ve been blogging for almost two years now and it’s been giving me a steady stream of extra income while doing what I love - writing.  However, sorry to burst your bubble but blogging doesn’t offer any get-rich-quick sort of game plan.  It can pay for your utility bills and your groceries plus some not-so-expensive wants (I was able to buy two camera phones, some clothes and shoes, among others).  For the most part, it’s going to eat up a considerable chunk of your time and depending on how you view it, it could either be draining or rewarding.

So here’s the list of questions I usually get from some blog-curious bunch:

How do you earn from blogging?

1) Paid posts - There are many ways to monetize one’s blog but in my case, I’m comfortable about writing paid posts.  I choose the topics and sponsors that I write about. I don’t accept offers to write about products and services that I don’t believe in.  Average rate per post I get is $10.  If your blog is more popular, chances are you’ll get more and higher offers because advertisers put weight about your Page Rank.

2) I also earn from Adgitize by simply displaying their ads and clicking ads displayed in other members’ blogs. This way, members not only earn revenues but traffic as well.  Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!  And this is the only program I know that pays you to advertise and rewards you for updating your blog.  Click on the link to sign up for free and see your traffic rise when you participate actively.

3) Other bloggers earn big from Google Adsense (web-based, content-sensitive marketing) depending on the number of ad clicks and page impressions on your blog.  Meaning, it is primarily dependent on traffic hence the more traffic you have, the more moolah you get.  But if you don’t have much visitors in your site, then Adsense is not for you.  In my case, I still haven’t reached my pay-out target of $100 but I don’t wanna remove it just yet.  I’ll wait till I get there however slowly. You may also try other alternatives like AdBrite, Bidvertiser, Kontera, Text Link Ads, CMF Ads, and several other alternatives.

How do you generate traffic to your blog?

I get traffic mostly from Entrecard, Adgitize, and other social networking sites I joined including Facebook.  I also get traffic from curious surfers who search for keywords that are found on my blogs.

Who will pay us to blog?

If you want to get paid for writing posts, below are the programs you could sign up with.  You can find a lot more in the Web but these are the programs that have actually paid me since I started monetizing this blog:

1) Blog4Reviews - Established by Filipinos Janette Toral and Gary Viray, this is one of my favorite pay-to-blog programs because it is country-specific as to the sponsors and target market.  Hence, I’m more familiar with the products and services and can relate to them much better.  They also pay through PayPal two weeks after your post is approved.

2) Blogsvertise - They give out 3-4 tasks in a week, depending on your level of participation. Register your blog and once you get accepted, you’ll start getting tasks. You may accept or decline the tasks. Write about the tasks any way you want according to your own editorial perspective.  You may either write a review about the advertiser’s products and services or simply mention them in your post or better yet, relate them to your own personal experiences.  Create at least three links to the advertiser’s website and then submit it within the time frame allotted to you.  They pay through PayPal 30 days after your post has been approved.  Yeah, it’s quite a long wait but it’s better than nothing.

3) Payperpost - I liked the old version of it because I didn’t have to wait for tasks to be assigned to me. I could take on any available opportunities from my dashboard, choose the advertisers myself, then write about their products and services.   But now that they’ve changed their platform where advertisers choose the bloggers and then negotiate the price, etc, I rarely log in to it.  Most leads that I’ve been getting lately wouldn’t match well with my blog or simply not the kinds that I’d want to blog about.

4) Blogtoprofit - This is the program that gave me my first blogging income almost two years ago.  They give out assignments in bulk and pay you through PayPal or your bank account in two weeks.

Other programs that have paid me to blog were Sponsoredreviews, ReviewMe, Buyblogreviews but offers from these three were scarce.

One thing is for sure, it’s not a walk in the park if you intend to blog for money or to put it bluntly, if money is the only or main reason that you’re blogging.  Blogging is a fun outlet to express one’s self.  Sometimes, even if you have wonderful people around you who are willing to listen to your thoughts, it’s quite overwhelming when you’re able to express yourself in writing and drown yourself in words.  Sometimes the writer in you just comes out, whether you’re being paid or not.

So if you love writing, go on, start a blog and if you choose to, monetize it.  It’s a matter of choice.  The most important thing is, be truthful to your readers and to yourself and you gotta love what you’re doing.