Know What Pages Your Readers Are Viewing

If you have signed up for Google Adsense or have sold advertising space on your blog, then the next step is to find out what pages your readers are viewing. You can do this in Adsense by enabling Channels, but there are other ways, too. My favorite is some free software called FEEDJIT. There is a premium version that costs money, but the free version is quite sufficient. By customizing, copying, and pasting a few lines of HTML code into your blog's sidebar, you can have a widget that calculates your most popular posts/pages each day, records what post each visitor looks at, what search engines are finding your blog, and what websites are referring traffic to your blog and where visitors go when they leave your blog. You can also see the locations of visitors as pinpoints on a world map. And, as if that isn't enough, FEEDJIT can increase your blog traffic by promoting popular posts. Information like this can help you decide where and how to display ads on your blog, how much to charge for ad space, and more. Knowledge is power.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Just remember to use the "options" link in the widget to tell it to ignore your visits! Unless, that is, you want it to record your every visit!
Good Luck!
--Mia

The Best Guide to Making Money Blogging

Buying a reading a book may not be at the top of your to-do list as a blogger. After all, there is plenty of information online about blog monetization, right? Not exactly. How to Make Money with Your Blog: The Ultimate Reference Guide for Building, Optimizing, and Monetizing Your Blog is the quintessential guide to monetizing your blog. Authored by a marketing professional and a computer technical writer and published by the well-respected publishing house McGraw Hill. Click the icon above for more information and to order your copy now.

Whether you re an experienced blogger or an absolute beginner, you can make money with your blog. Simply follow the step-by-step advice of two expert bloggers and industry insiders who have launched many successful sites of their own. They ll walk you through every step of the blogging process, and they ll even share their most profitable tricks of the trade.

• Generate income using various types of ads
• Tap into the power of other blogs
• Maximize searches for more hits and more money

Where Should I Place Google Ads On My Blog?

One of my readers recently posed this very good question. After all, ad space in general is limited, but in a blog it's even more so. As a result, every millimeter counts. Don't waste space on ads where nobody will notice them. Obviously, your content needs to have first priority, or there is no reason for people to visit your blog. So, if you only have space for one or two ads on a blog, where should it/they go? Below is the answer from Google Adsense Help Forum. I have also posted previously on making optimal use of Adsense in blogs. I hope this all helps! --Mia

The best location for Google ads varies from page to page, depending on content. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when considering where to position your ads: What is the user trying to accomplish by visiting my site? What do they do when viewing a particular page? Where is their attention likely to be focused? How can I integrate ads into this area without getting in the users' way? How can I keep the page looking clean, uncluttered and inviting?

Certain locations tend to be more successful than others. This "heat map" illustrates the ideal placing on a sample page layout. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). All other things being equal, ads located above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold. Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page. While this heat map is useful as a positioning guideline, we strongly recommend putting your users first when deciding on ad location. Think about their behavior on different pages, and what will be most useful and visible to them. You'll find that the most optimal ad position isn't always what you expect on certain pages. For example, on pages where users are typically focused on reading an article, ads placed directly below the end of the editorial content tend to perform very well. It's almost as if users finish reading and ask themselves, "What can I do next?" Precisely targeted ads can answer that question for them.

Ad Formats Best For Blogs

From the Google Adsense Team:

As a rule of thumb, wider ad formats tend to outperform their taller counterparts, due to their reader-friendly format. Readers absorb information in thought units (that is, several words at a time). The wider format lets them comfortably read more text at a glance without having to skip a line and return to the left margin every few words as they would be forced to do with a narrower ad. The wider ad format also lessens the likelihood of readers leaving the ad unit altogether.

If positioned well, these ad formats can increase your earnings significantly. The formats we've found to be the most effective are the 336x280 Large Rectangle, the 300x250 Medium Rectangle, and the 160x600 Wide Skyscraper. Keep in mind that while these ad formats typically perform well, you should use the format that best complements your pages.

Tip for making the most of a little ad space: Try one of our streamlined link unit formats, shown below. These formats are lean, mean, and versatile enough to fit in locations normal ads don't.

Blogging and Donations

Many bloggers add a donation button to their blogs asking readers to make a monetary donation to keep the blog going. Donations are sometimes solicited with clever taglines such as, "If you like this blog, why not buy me a cup of coffee?" If you decide to add a donation request to your blog, just keep it in line with your personal style.
The logistics of adding a donation request to a blog are really very simple. The easiest way is to sign up for a PayPal account, then paste the HTML code for the donation button into your blog's sidebar. The donation link (pictured above) leads your readers straight to PayPal where they can easily make donations. More information can be found HERE.

4 Easy Ways to Monetize Your Blog

Monetizing your blog means that you’re looking for ways to start to earn some money from all of your blogging efforts. Going overboard with monetization can turn away readers and damage your integrity as a blogger. However, the best kind of job is the job you love, so there is no shame in wanting to make money from maintaining a blog all about your favorite subject. Here are 4 easy ways to get started. For even more ideas, check out 101 Ways to Monetize Your Blog.

Affiliate Networks: Affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, ConnectCommerce, Linkshare, ShareASale, etc. offer opportunities to do business with major retailers. Some programs require you to apply, other programs you’re in from the get-go, but either way you can become an affiliate of a major retailer (e.g. Amazon.com, Ebay.com, Overstock.com). Once you’re an affiliate, you can run banner or link advertising. When someone clicks on a link and makes a purchase, you get a small commission.

Advertising Networks: There are several established advertising networks that you can sign contracts with, and they will take your advertising inventory, sell it as part of their network, and then ads will run on your site. Advertising networks take large cuts of the revenue, but this is just an easy way to monetize your blog without having to sell your own ad space.

Participate in Google AdSense: Sometimes you’re not ready for an advertising network, and Google AdSense is one of the easiest ways to start running some advertising and see what kind of money you can make. It’s easy to sign up for, even easier to run, and you can track your earnings daily using your Gmail account.

Sell your own ad space: It doesn’t have to be for huge amounts of money, and you don’t have to be an agressive salesperson. Assuming that you have access to your site's html code, put up a dummy ad that says “Ad Space Available” or “Your Ad Here,” set your rates, and wait for someone to inquire.

What are "Freemiums"?

The “freemium” model is a huge and growing trend in online income. It's basically the old membership program, but in blog or website form. What you do is provide plenty of quality content for free to your audience, and also provide a premium-level program to those willing to pay for it. You charge a monthly membership for people who want access to the "premium content", providing a steady income stream. It should come as no surprise that online porn sites make the most use of this business model. If you are considering using the "freemium" model to monetize your website or blog, be sure to have a contract in place that your members agree to by signing up for your service. Still not sure what I'm talking about? Well, Amazon Prime is another example. There is no membership fee to shop on Amazon.com, but customers who pay a small annual fee get free 2-day shipping on all of their orders. It's sort of like the next level of service.

More information and examples can be found at this FAQ.
Also, don't forget to consider affiliate programs such as Google Adsense!