BackLineMedia

It’s been said before - that one should depend on pagerank so much because it does change overtime. Good if you constantly get an increase in pagerank, but we all know that’s not always the case. Of late, the news is that there has been another pagerank update. Already, an update happened early this year (January 5, I think) brought my ranking from 4 to 2 and the last one, which happened just last week, brought me down to nil (as you can see… teehee!).

Whatever happened to my pagerank isn’t something I think about. Afterall, I did change this blog. But it’s also because I am not dependent on pagerank for my earnings. Adsense alone does wonders for me. As far as I’m concerned the downturn of my rank isn’t a slap from Google but just something waiting to happen since I haven’t been intent in promoting this blog. I think I was only able to actively promote it once this month and that’s due to this social network I’m putting up.

Which brings me to another topic.. why are people dependent on pagerank anyway? There certainly are other sources of income from the internet than just reviews. I mean, Adsense and other ad serving programs does wonders for you (if you have more than one blog) and if you actively promote them, they will be able to pay enough.

So anyway, afterall the updates, are you still dependent on pagerank?

Picture from BLaugh.com

Apart from the revenue sources enumerated in this article, which are my main sources of income, there are other ways for you to earn from the internet. I will be discussing each of them in my succeeding posts:

Paid Reviews (48%)
Basically, a paid review is an article you get paid to write. It’s often about products and websites that are already in the internet. I’d say the average amount you get for an article is $5.00, but some people can write for as much as $100 per article. The price range of your articles depends greatly on the amount of traffic your blog gets, so I suggest, if you wanna make a good career out of blogging, that you be certain to pull in as many people as possible.

Google Adsense (25%)
Ads are the coolest sources of income. People do check and click on them all the time, especially if you have a good site. Google Ads, aka Adsense, pays the most so I put them on the best of my sites. Unlike reviews, you don’t really have to do anything about it. They’re just there to bring you some money. Teehee!

Affiliates (15%)
Affiliate earnings are basically commissions you get for helping promote a product. There are practically thousands of websites out there that have affiliate programs. I have stuck with promoting only google adsense and other ad serving sites as well as paid review sites, and I can say they’ve brought me some considerable income. Not much when compared to the first two, but it does pay for something.

Others (12%)
Other revenues - design, consultation, seo services, development, domain selling, etc. It pays to know the geek stuff even if you only check it on the net the day you encounter the problem. People do pay for these sorts of things but it isn’t something I earn from on a regular basis.

Over the past few months, as I continued to earn money online, I’ve also been intent in getting family members into the fray. I think that as a full-time online earner, it was my duty to shower my parents and brothers some extra cash by managing their websites. Not to say that I’ve become a slave to them, I only go through the trouble of optimizing, design, codes, buying domains, and sharing my hosting - you know, the geek stuff.

Needless to say, it wasn’t easy to get my family into blogging. Having been used to the traditional ways of earning, they and the people I’ve tried to open this opportunity with could not anywhere grasp the idea that one can earn from signing up to ad serving sites (such as Adsense), or from getting clicks, or from writing reviews, or from being an affiliate. I mean, who wouldn’t question that, right?! Like many skeptics, my family had that “fact or fiction” question, which, as they know now, is just an eye-roller.

Most of us probably get into conversations like this, but where we already know the answer as FACT, I think we should focus more into the HOW. After all, people who ask such questions are often the ones in the dark about the industry. I think it is important to respond to queries modestly, and explain that the internet is only a good way to make money for those who work hard. And success certainly doesn’t come overnight.

Coz really, the promise of the internet is so huge that people can get lost in their own dreams of greatness, or their fuzzy-wuzzy feelings of fame, or their visions of mountainous cash.

That’s when it becomes FICTION.

People’s perception of a small business is usually a self ran stall, a small community store or a mall kiosk. It’s employees are between 3 -5 and has a capital of at least $10,000. It sells a variety of things - drinks, gifts, dvd’s, toys, accessories etc. And for such an investment, it should bring you about $2 - 5000 every month. Indeed, this is the traditional concept of a small business and is often under the buy and sell industry.

Then there’s the non-traditional small business. It rests in the internet and captures a global market. It earns from sharing information, or any sort of digitally transmitted data. It costs less than $20.00 to put up and has an income potential in the tens of thousands, even millions. This is the internet industry.

Blogging is a sub-sect of the internet industry. It rests not on providing services, at least not mainly, but rather to convey information. Much of blogging is simply text and can almost generate incomes as any other traditional small business. It has such potential that over the next five years, it is projected that the internet industry will cross the 1 trillion mark, a large chunk of which going to bloggers. In such regard, I can definitely say that blogging is a great small business.

Enumerated below are some other reasons why blogging makes for a good small business:

• free to low cost ($8.00/yr already gets you a [dot]com)
• does not require employees
• work at your own time, or as much as you want
• high ROI potential
• various revenue sources
• diverse markets
• not too many participants
• offers self-growth, fulfillment
• allows you to be creative
• not too many legalities to consider
• not too many liabilities to consider
• skill is a plus, but not much of a requirement
• good source of residual income
• it’s a small business that you can be proud of

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the internet has become a millionaire-maker, third from real estate and the retail industry, which are often headed by corporations. The internet has made millionaires more than any other industry for the common folk.

Several of the readers who read How to Make Millions from Blogging have asked me to be more specific about the road I took to becoming a full-time blogger (I am not a millionaire, but I am happy with my paycheck).

Today, I’d like to start a series on how to blog for bucks. This will also serve as a guide to what I would call “A Simple Way to Make Money From Blogging” and will cover the following topics:

The Introduction Part

• Why Blog?
• What is the truth about making money from blogging?
• How much do people earn from blogging?
• Is blogging right for me?

The Content Management Part

• How do I get started with blogging?
• What should I write about?
• What design should I have for my blog?

The Money Making Part

• How can I start earning money from blogs?
• What is Google Adsense?
• What are paid reviews?
• What is pagerank and why is it important?
• What is optimization and why is it important?

The Problems and Issues Part

• Oh, so that’s how easy it is?
• I’m not making money from Adsense, what should I do?
• I’m not making money from paid reviews, what should I do?
• No one is reading my blog, what should I do?

The Big Time Part

• I’m already earning. How can I make more money online?
• What is an affiliate, and how can I earn from it?
• What is a social network, and how can I earn from it?
• What is a tech-evangelist, and how can I earn from him?

Because this is a blog that tries to chronicle my way up the blogging world, I don’t really consider myself anywhere near these guys. But I do think this is a list worthy of an eye.

I caught it from a problogging blog and tried to confirm (knowing some of these are false marketing), but I couldn’t find any support. Anyway, don’t take my word for it but feel free to get yourself some inspiration.

1. Mark Zuckerberg [ Facebook ] 23 years old | $700M

2. Andrew Gower [ Runescape ] 28 years old | $650M

3. Blake Ross and David Hyatt [ Mozilla ] 22 years old | $120M

4. Chad Hurley [ Youtube ] 30 years old | $85M

5. Angelo Sotira [ Deviant ART ] 26 years old | $75M

6. John Vechey [ PopCap Games ] 28 years old | $60M

7. Alexander Levin [ WordPress ] 23 years old | $57M

8. Jake Nickell [ Threadless ] 28 years old | $50M

9. Sean Belnick [ Biz Chair ] 20 years old | $42M

10. Kevin Rose [ Digg ] 30 years old | $31M

11. Ryan Block [ Engadget ] 25 years old | $20M

12. Aodhan Cullen [ Stat Counter ] 24 years old | $18M

13. Tom Fulp [ Newgrounds ] 29 years old | $15M

14. Rishi Kacker and Matt Pauker [ Voltage ] 24 years old | $12M

15. Markus Frind [ Plenty of Fish ] 29 years old | $10M

16. Catherine and David Cook [ My Year Book ] 17 & 19 years old | $10M

17. Fredrik Neij [ The Pirate Bay ] 28 years old | $10M

18. David Hauser & Siamak Taghaddos [ GotvMail ] 24 years old | $8M

19. Jermaine Griggs [ Hear and Play ] 23 years old | $5M

20. Jay Westerdal [ Domain Tools ] 29 years old | $5M

This policy is valid from 03 December 2007

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

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