Make Money Blogging : Who and How Much?

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Let’s face it: gone are the days when blogging was considered a novelty.

No matter what you are looking for online, many of the top search engine results have been taken over by blogs.

The new trend these days is not whether to have a blog or not; it’s how to make money blogging.

Nobody wants to write about their pet snake Fluffy any longer; we all moved to “bigger and better” things hoping that one day we do find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Do I sound pessimistic?

I really don’t mean to.

Making money blogging is an absolutely viable way to make some moolah; I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. (What, you thought I am here because I have so much free time on my hands? )

And to show you exactly HOW MUCH money, below are income “statements” of some of the top bloggers, originally published by Business Week and expanded upon by Silicon Valley Blogger.

Note that these earnings are a bit out of date by now, so expect the present numbers to be a lot more than shown.

Either way, their successes are quite inspiring and do show that it’s entirely possible to make money blogging.

BoingBoing.net

Launched: January, 2000

Posting Frequency: 20 to 40 times a day by 4 authors

Stats: 2.6 million unique visitors and 22 million page views in one month
Advertising Rates:

• $350 for a small ad button for one week
• $2,000 to $3,000 for banner ads sold through the Federated Media ad network

Revenue: Over $1 million per year

BoingBoing, a “directory of wonderful things,” might be the king of moneymaking blogs. Mark Frauenfelder and his wife, Carla Sinclair, started it as a print zine in 1988, to write about comics, science fiction, computers, and technology. “BoingBoing’s viewers just continued to grow and grow and grow, for reasons we still don’t completely understand,” Frauenfelder says. “Now it’s at the point where it actually becomes a business.” And a good one at that: BoingBoing’s ad sales top $1 million a year.

I Can Has Cheezburger?

Launched: January, 2007
Stats: 500,000 to 1.5 million page views a day
Advertising Rates:

• $500 to $5,400 a week through BlogAds
• Unknown earnings from Google AdSense and Adbrite

Revenue: $5,600 per month
Behind this site is Eric Nakagawa, another software developer turned accidental entrepreneur. The blog allows you to submit cute pictures of furry animals and other critters, with fun captions. For the number of page views this site has, I believe their earnings are vastly understated. Plus, according to the Wikipedia, some investors “acquired” this site for a cool $2 million around a year ago. Is that for real? Just ask their nine salaried employees.

ShoeMoney

Launched: October, 2005
Stats: 20,000 unique visitors a day
Revenue: $12,000 a month

Okay, Shoemoney’s blog revenue accounts for 3% of his company’s total revenue, given that he does a lot of other online ventures. How we all want to be this guy! Being such a big name in the internet realm, he’s worked on a program to help others in their quest for online success. You may be interested in checking out his his ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Tools to give your internet business an edge.

Kottke.org

Launched: March, 1998
Stats: 250,000 to 300,000 unique visitors a month
Revenue: $5,300 a month from a single, exclusive ad

Jason Kottke hasn’t monetized his site much, but I read that he’s also receiving donations from “micropatrons” in order to devote himself full-time to his site.

Perez Hilton

Launched: September, 2004
Stats: 4 million unique visitors a day
Post Frequency: 24 posts on an average day, 40 posts on a very active day
Revenue: $111,000 a month based on ad rates

Perez Hilton aka Mario Lavandeira is a celebrity in his own right — I’ve seen him featured in a number of shows (Janice Dickinson, anyone?).

TechCrunch

Launched: June, 2005
Stats: 5 million page views a month
Ad Rates:
Revenue: $200,000 to $240,000 a month

In our very own backyard is this premiere Silicon Valley blog that introduces us to new startups 24/7.

“When I started the blog, it was just a hobby,” says Arrington. But, after a while, “It was pretty clear that I could make more money blogging than from anything else.”

Go Fug Yourself

Launched: July, 2004
Stats: 3.5 million unique visitors a month

Ad Rates:

Revenue: $6,240 a month

These lovely ladies are making great money with their blog, but with their traffic, they can probably make a lot more

Problogger.Net

Launched: November, 2004
Revenue: Over $100,000 a year

The original problogger. Out of the entire list, Darren Rowse’s blog is the one I keep coming back to….for good reason.

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As you can see, the possibilities are endless.

Most of these bloggers happen to be “accidental entrepreneurs” - it was not their original intention to make money with their blogs, which leaves room to believe that ANYONE can do it.

Look, no matter what niche you are in, be interesting and inspirational, take care of your readers, and they will eventually take care of you. Maybe not today or even tomorrow, but they will.

Last thought: I am going to publish a post on ways to make money from blogging and I am looking for your input. I need some fresh and inspiring ideas that very few people know off, not a bunch of the same blah-blah you can find on every other blog online.

If your money-making idea makes it into my post, you’ll get an in-content link to the URL of your choice (if it’s not spam, of course:). Deal?

You are right: you don’t have to comment or retweet, but do it anyway; I love hearing from you!

PS For more no-nonsense traffic generation and conversion tips from Ana, fill out this short spam-free form:

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