Monetizing Isn’t Getting Any Easier

By jeffcMonetization

Darren Rowse of Problogger has published the results of his two month long poll asking his readers how much income they make by blogging. You can view his post to check out the results but here is something that stuck out to me:

So to this point we can say 70% of those who make money from their blogs make less than $500 a month and 30% make $500 or more.

I know Darren has a huge audience of bloggers and most of them are looking to make money online but it seems pretty bad that only 70% of those who voted are making less than $500.00 per month. Just that statistic alone makes me realize why Make Money Online blogs are so popular.

While the results of Darren’s poll are not entirely accurate, it’s interesting to note the discrepancy between the amount of people who made $20,000 or more in the month of October. I’m willing to bet some people voted $20,000 just because it felt good but I’m still curious as to who those elite bloggers are. Darren claims he knows a few people who make that amount, I personally don’t. If you do, tell me in the comments.

Back in May of 2008, James Mowery asked Performancing readers how much money they averaged per month from Blogging? 26% said less than $100 while only 8% said more than $2,500.00. An interesting point in this poll was that 18% of those who voted claimed they would make money eventually.

What I think all of this means is that, it is a real pain to make a decent amount of income by blogging. There seems to be a select few who have been able to turn blogging into a full-time job and have developed a major following by people who are looking to do the same thing. In 2009, I have finally bit the bullet and will be operating my own web property centered around WordPress. I’ll have my chance to try out different revenue generating opportunities and of course, whatever I learn through this process I’ll be sharing the information on Performancing. But again, it has to be said that Darren has turned this blogging stuff into a six-figure salary job and he has documented how he reached that point by means of Problogger and by writing a book. It would seem that even if you are given the ingredients to success, it’s not as simple as just mixing them together. Some of the ingredients to success come from you.

While times are becoming increasingly tough with regards to monetization, my hope is that with the reboot of the Performancing website along with the forum, we can help each other succeed by sharing tips, tricks and techniques. Thats what I’d like to see and with that, I wish everyone a safe and happy New Year!

16 thoughts on “Monetizing Isn’t Getting Any Easier”

  2. Nokia Middle East Nokia Middle East
    Mobile Applications Mobile Applications

    Nokia Middle East Nokia Middle East

    Mobile Themes Mobile Themes

  6. Establish my blog and branding first by connecting to my readers, do it as a hobby and the love of. If money starts to roll in, even better. I have adsence on my blog just in case, but it’s not what I am all about.

  10. Hi Jeff,
    Your post confirms my suspicions… bloggers are like lawyers. Most people think most lawyers make a lot of money, like the guys on LA Law (flashback) or OJ’s lawyers (the first time, not the second time). Truth is, most lawyers don’t make a fortune, and most bloggers don’t make a fortune, regardless of what they say. That’s not such a bad thing though, since the government would just take most of it anyway…
    ~ Thanks for letting me rant. ~ Steve, aka “trade show booths”

  11. Actually, he asked it a little differently this time:

    Just to qualify it – I’m asking about ALL blogging revenue that you can tie to your actual blog. Advertising, affiliate revenue, revenue that your blog might have brought in in terms of consulting etc

    Note also that he said “revenue”, not “profit”. I don’t keep track of what portion of my consulting and hardware/software sales are from my site, so I only included ad income and e-book sales but it would have been a much, much higher figure otherwise.

  13. I’ve tried so many monetization programs it’s ridiculous. And none of them have netted me more than $50 in any given month. Most months, it’s under $2. So yeah, making money from blogging is difficult.

  14. (Sorry forgot a point. Feel free to combine the comments.)

    Would be nice to make more than $500 a month as well. It is nice to know though that I make more than the average of responses though.

  15. Some months are better than others.

    What I would be interesting to know is the ratio of work it takes to make those bucks compared to what they make. Seems like the ones making the big bucks have 20+ blogs and spend most of their day working on them. At least that’s the impression I’ve always gotten.

Comments are closed.