Monetizing Your Blog - Part I

You’ve been working hard to produce good-quality, original
content on your blog and you have attracted a decent amount
of traffic by doing so.  However, money is not going to appear
out of thin air just because you have traffic. You have to turn
your traffic into money.

There are several ways to generate profits from the visitors to
your blog, and Google’s AdSense program allows you to do so
with ultimate ease.  First, visit their website at
http://adsense.google.com/  You’ll find out more about their
advertising program there, but here’s some extra information:

- Google’s AdSense program is a really useful way to monetize
your blog because when users finish reading your newest post,
they are ready to move on, but if your AdSense advertisement
block is visible on your blog, they might see advertisements
relevant to their interests and click on them (to exit your blog).
Cha-ching! You’ve just earned your first virtual cents!

- Yes, your profits will only be cents if you don’t “do it right”.
This involves placing your Google ads in the right places and
ensuring they blend in to your site so that they appear more
like links rather than advertisements to your visitors. Consult
this page:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html
to see the “heat map” of your blog. The “hotter” a certain area,
the greater the chances of someone clicking on the ads.

- Once you get a Google AdSense account, you can change the
color of your advertisement text and links. You will want them
to match the colors of your blog. If your blog’s text is black and
the links are red, do the same for the ad blocks too! It’s that simple.