blogging for money?

 

 

Well, when I started writing this blog on February 19,  I came up with several goals for myself.  The first was I had to figure out how to put up my own website, which I accomplished.  I still am an infant in the “website development” world, but my blog is up and running, so mission complete.  Second was to figure out how to make money blogging without selling anything.  OK, do you consider an average of $1.12 a day making money?  I am totally laughing right now as I write this because it is so hilariously ridiculous .  I mean I know it is actual money, but really what can I buy with $1.12?  Truth be told, I haven’t made any money because I spent about $500 to get my blog up and running.  To host the site in a secure manner it costs me about $30 a month but you have to pay a year in advance.  The server companies have learned to get their money up front, clearly lots of blog and websites die before the year mark.  In addition I had to buy the cute child theme to make my blog super fancy for $80 and I had a buy a security certificate and some spam protector.  So I am currently in the negative for  about $452.00 after my $48.00 earnings thus far.  Oh my!

 

Now, I did read lots of articles on blogging and it appears that you needs lots of visitors to your site everyday to make money.  So for those you who don’t understand how the process works let me explain.  I opened an account with Google AdSense and they put ads on my blog site.  I pick the size of the ads based on their recommendations and they give me a code I then put on my website either through a widget or a hook.  Then based on what my blog is about for the day ads magically appear.  I don’t request or deny any specific ads they just show up based on keywords in my blog.  Now Google pays me per visitor and they also pay me big money if people click on the ads.  By big money I mean between 60 cents and 1.00$ per click. Ha ha….. Actually, it is big money if you consider I am averaging 1.12$ per day.  So you are probably wondering how many visitors I have to my site each day if I am making such a pathetic amount of money?  I am averaging about 240 visitors per day.  Now clearly that is not enough traffic.  My personal goal is 10,000 visitors per day.  Now the good news is that once I have that many daily visitors I could sell ads on my own and not have to go through Google.  At least that is what I have read the savvy bloggers do to make money.  Or you can do both.  Have Google ads and have sponsors.  But no one wants to pay to be a sponsor if you only have 240 visitors per day.  With my magic number of 10,000 I think, rather I hope, I can make about $2000 per month.  This is based on rather thin evidence but I think it is accurate.

Still, considering most people reading this live in California, we all know $2000 per month isn’t a ton of money, but I would be super happy with that since I love writing this blog.  You may be thinking if you love writing the blog, why do you need to make money from it?

Well, I have spent lots of time getting it up and running and sometimes I have to write at night after Louie gets home, or on the weekends when he is off work.  Before the blog, I would just be cooking or cleaning and would sit down with him at 8:30 pm once everyone was in bed, but now I sometimes have to finish writing.  Louie, is the most understanding man in the world and he knows I always have to be focusing on something or I go crazy but he likes me to pay attention to him.  We like to sit together on the couch at night and he rubs my feet or I give him tickles.  So if  he is going to continue to be patient indefinitely I need to promise him a financial reward, I don’t really have to but it would be nice.  Lets be real. Who doesn’t want to make money?  The recession has not been kind to our family and I would love to help get rid of some debt that I helped accrue.

So to recap, I need more visitors to my site.  I am not being super patient because I have been told it takes a very long time, like maybe a year or more, to get that many daily visitors but I feel as if I am getting a little complacent, so I need to do something more to get things moving faster.  So I have decided to start a weekly, well hopefully weekly, give away to help increase my numbers.  I think people like free stuff?  I do.  As long as the free stuff is good stuff.  No junk.  Anyone who subscribes to my blog by email will be eligible to win.  Just go to the picture of B. toffee and click on the link and follow the directions.  Super easy

I will close my eyes and randomly pick a winner from all my email subscribers who liked B. toffee’s Facebook page next Thursday.

Good luck!!!

Have a great weekend …