“Ad-ing” your blog

Posted by on 15 November 2008 under Military, Philosiphy, Projects, Technology | 279Read the First Commenthttp://jake.roeckerfam.com/?p=279%22Ad-ing%22+your+blog2008-11-15+01%3A57%3A43

Are you a shrewd internet surfer? Can you list all 7 layers of the OSI model and tell me who developed demand access switching? Can you tell me what CSS does? Why the core coding for facebook is considerably superior to myspace?

If you can’t don’t worry. You’re not required to know the answer to any of these things to keep your blog. There’s not a whole lot of technical discrimination online these days. Nothing technical is genetic. Everyone has to start at zero when it comes to producing cool looking content online.

Tonight I’d like to talk about ad-ing to your blog. You’ve surfed around and seen other blogs have ads. I’m sure you’ve wondered if it’s worth the trouble to have them. Can you really make money on advertising? How hard is it to set up? If you go to the sites that want you to host advertising life gets a bit confusing.

Let me see if my formula helps you decide if this is a solution. My formula involves setting up two different ad accounts to compete for the best advertising on your site. Let’s start first with google Adsense. Most bloggers I’ve come across use blogger.com. This means they already have a google account. They just need to activate their adsense account. It takes a few minutes, they’ve got good screens to talk you through the process and when you’re done you should have some sort of code that will turn into an ad on you page. In blogger you can add this pretty easily:

• Layout–>Page Elements–>Add a Gadget–>(Scroll Down)Adsense–> “+”
• Sign in and select your ad

Really it’s that simple. When you look at your adsense reports you’ll be able to see how many times people saw your blog & ad. It’ll be in the “page views” column. If you’re a long-term blogger and haven’t done this yet, you might be suprised how many people are coming to visit your blog.

If you’re doing this in WordPress you’ll want to install the AdSense Manager plugin. Follow the instructions on the plugin and you’ll be in business in no time. Getting really creative? Try this one. Google has a competitor for advertising. It’s a company called AdBrite. Their business model involves a bit of bidding. If you’d get paid more from google, it shows a google ad. If you’d get paid more from AdBrite, it’ll show an AdBrite advertisement.

It’s pretty easy to set up as well. Visit AdBrite and sign up for an account. Create your ad unit. When you’re at the “Pricing Options” tab you’ll be able to input the code from adsense that you generated earlier. This maximizes you’re chances of making some cash. Now I know what you’re thinking: Can I really make some money doing this? The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. There’s whole college classes dedicated to making advertising more effective. I just don’t have the time to cover all the ins and outs here. I’m already aware that my posts are generally “too long.” We’ve all heard the concept that “Time=Money.” That being true, there’s the idea that anything you invest your time in, should have some financial gain. Don’t take me too literally on this philosophy. Family is waaaaay better than money.

You can make some money on this. Google will send you a check every $100 increments, and that may take a year or more depending on your site traffic. It’s a nice check when it does show up. I wouldn’t try to pay the bills from what you’d make, but it does make for some good splurge money. Some blogs I read are probably considerably more popular than mine.

I could imagine that if Emily posted some on her blog “Muskrat Love” she’d probably have a bit of cash flowing faster than this site. With a master’s English her blog is certainly more polished prose than what you see here. Her humor, whit, and timing match her skills in writing.  It’s definately one worth adding to your blog list.