Talk about unintended consequences, all I wanted to do with “A Review of My First Year of Blogging” was provide some factoids about my blog. However, this tidbit became quite the topic:
Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve tried several times during the year to get my snail mail PIN so that I can get paid, but I’ve never received it. I don’t mind Google getting the float…)
Guy Kawsaki talked about a few things in his Year in Review and mentioned his most popular posts and his favorite post (that got missed). In the middle of all that he mentioned how he always stayed as one of the top 50 bloggers on Technorati but even with his traffic he only earned $3,350 over the course of the year.
2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day.
That’s a lot of traffic for that little of money. I think there where a few things that I felt need to be addressed, so I posted this:
As one who has only stumbled upon your posts at random times a few things I could suggest about your article.
It’s been mentioned before but disappearing posts can be “fixed” a couple of ways. One is to have related posts linked. With wordpress it’s very easy to have that. Another would be have an Archives page. You have a Top Ten postings, which I assume are posts that have the top ten amount of comments. But how about adding your Top 10 Favorite articles. Also I get a lot of action from Google sending people searching for particular articles. So I’d have a guy look at your keywords, and perhaps either have customer keywords for each post, or at least make sure the blog posts are tagged in some way. I use categories as tags of sorts, and it works out pretty well on the search front as well as someone who is interested could find related stories that way… but that’s sort of built into Wordpress so it’s easy. It also helps the search engines find and list each of the articles.
As for amount you earn on adsense… I don’t see any ads in this article and truthfully on the front page. So it may be a case of placement. Not seen means not clicked. You don’t need to clutter an interface, but make it blend in some and be part of the template helps. I get hirer CPM (don’t make as much though) and though I try to keep it out of the way, I make sure it fits. And if you are doing this for fun, then sure throw it off to the side, and ignore it. But I suggest having it as part of the template, not as an addition.
Now after the fact it was commented that Guy put in Federated to fuel his ads needs, and removed the Google Adsense.. Which I think he should of used both. All the articles always mention, never putting all your eggs in the same basket. But since he blogged for fun, not profit it isn’t a huge deal. It’s just sorta surprising that Advertising with adsense wasn’t paying that much. But all the reasons posted in the comments where probably true; Ad Placement, adsense setup, the tech focus, ad blocking where probably all contributors. But I’d focus on adsense setup and placement. They didn’t need to be obnoxious in where they where, they just needed to be in the design, and flow with the site.
The only other huge issue was the “lost posts”, and in that case like my post above, I think switching to Wordpress would pay for him. Just because the SEO stuff, is sorta built into Wordpress, making it just a case of still being easy for him to post and write about what he likes. But the traffic drivers would be there to make sure posts aren’t forgotten and lost.
PS - I’m going to have to beg off about writing more, I’ve come down with a head cold over the weekend, and it even hurts to think.
Tags: Advertising, Blogging, Financial, Google, Interesting, Wordpress
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