I want to give you a critical SEO tip that most people over look – blog commenting for SEO.

Blog commenting – the process of leaving valuable comments on other people’s blogs to drop backlinks to your own website (and boost your search engine rankings) is a very solid SEO technique.

However there is a way to really maximize the impact this has on your search engine rankings.

The first thing you need to do is to define your target keyword terms – those keyword terms that you’re looking to rank highly for in the major search engines. You should have at least 5-10 of these – the more you have the more related blogs you can find.

Having said that, you don’t want to dilute things too much with a lot of terms otherwise the time cost to benefit reward ratio starts to fade. So you’ll need to factor in how much focus you
want to put on the technique as a whole (and seriously think about outsourcing it) and expand a keyword list from there if required for greater depth and reach.

Now I’ve mentioned this a few times because it is the most critical thing when it comes to high search engine rankings (whether you’re building backlinks via blog commenting or any other technique). If you want to come up in the top results for a specific keyword term, the hands down BEST and MOST valuable backlink you can ever hope to achieve is from a website (or websites) that is already ranking well for that term.

So if you have a “making money” website and are looking to rank high for the term “making money”, the most valuable link you can get is from one (or more) of the websites already ranking well for that term. Generally the top 10 existing websites but you can extend this out to the top 20-30+ (keeping in mind that the further away they are the less value they will have). If you can manage to achieve just one such link (but the more the better) nothing is going to help your search engine rankings improve like this can.

Read that again. It’s very VERY important SEO wise if you’re struggling.

Furthermore, and just as important, is to have a link to your website from the SPECIFIC PAGE of the website that’s showing up in the results for the term (if it’s different from the home page of the website).

Why? Quite simply because this is the website that Google already sees as being THE MOST related to the term in question. If that website then links to yours it’s passing that strong theme relevancy to your own website. You’re basically “piggy backing” off of their existing theme relevant authority.

I hope you enjoyed this user submitted tip.

What Is So Important About An Invalid Click and How Will It Affect Me?

More than anything, an invalid click is a big no-no and it will get your account terminated faster than anything else. Having said that, an invalid click is when a publisher clicks on their own ads to add to their earning potential . It’s also when a publisher asks others to click on their ads just to raise their revenue. It also raises the advertiser’s costs and Google won’t tolerate this. Google Adsense has state of the art technology and they know what’s going on.

Invalid clicks also happen when someone uses robots to click on ads or automated software. It is any deceptive practice used to click on ads.

Invalid clicks are also unnecessary as there are plenty of money-making opportunities with valid clicks. With an optimized website, useful content, and attractive ads, there’s no reason for anybody to even entertain the idea of using invalid clicks.

Having Control Over Your Adsense Account

You the publisher, have complete control over the advertisement that runs on your site. You can choose to run only image ads, only text ads, or a combination of both. Google recommends that you choose a combination of both to maximize your earning potential, but the decision is yours.

When making your ad decision, you also have the freedom to choose which type of ads run across your entire account (image or text) or you can narrow that decision to what type of ad might run on a particular page.

As of right now, you are not able to differentiate your image ad click rate from your text ad click rate. You can of course, differentiate your click rate from one site as opposed to another site. Say, for example, you run only image ads on one site and only text ads on another site. By setting up channels to track both sites, you can see which site has the better click rate. Of course, you have to take into consideration there would be more factors than whether you were running text or image ads. The content, the placement of the ads in general, even the color could make a difference.

Refer to the Google Adsense Support Site for specific instructions on how to enable or disable image ads.

Remember, it’s all up to you!

If you are an avid internet user, you likely do. Social networking websites are online communities that make it easier for internet users to meet and communicate with each other. If you are an internet user who enjoys using the internet to meet new people, there is a good chance that you already belong to a social networking website.

What about an online blog? Do you have one of them? If you do, do you know that you could use your social networking website to promote your blog?

Promote your blog?
Why would you want to do that? Honestly, if you have to ask yourself that question you probably shouldn’t even have one. The whole purpose of a blog is to document your thoughts, views, and opinions on a particular topic, issue, or subject. What good will your blog do if no one reads it. In addition to sharing your thoughts with the rest of the world, did you know that you could also make money from your blog? You can signup for affiliate programs or other programs like Google Adsense. If you are using your blog to make money then you will defiantly want to promote it.

When it comes to promoting blogs, there are many blog owners who decide to let the search engine do the work for them. Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN use special techniques that reads the content on your website. That content is then used to rank your website with particular keywords.

This means that you run a blog on graduating from high school in New York, there is a good chance that your blog will appear in searches done on New York high schools. Although many blogs are successfully ranked in search engines, not all are. That is why you are advised against relying solely on search engines, when it comes to promoting your blog.

As previously mentioned, if you love meeting with or talking to people online, there is a good chance that you belong to a social networking website or community. The individuals that you talk to and that are in your community are likely the individuals that you wish to target. Since most social networking websites work to connect internet users who have the same goals and common interests, there is a good chance that your online friends will enjoy reading your blog. But, before they can read your blog, you have to let them know that it exists.

When it comes to promoting your blog on social networking websites, you have a number of different options. Your first option is to include a link to your blog in your community profile or profile page. This will allow other community members to checkout your blog, only if they wish to do so. The other way is to inform your online friends of your blog through private messages.

Once you join a social networking website and create or join a network of friends, you should easily be able to communicate with those friends. Sending each of your friends a private message with information and a link to your blog tends to be more effective than just placing a link in your profile or on your profile page.

Although there is a good chance that you are already a member of a popular social networking website, you may not be. If you are not already a member, but would like to become one, you will need to find a social networking website to join. This can easily be done with a standard internet search. In your search, you will likely find a number of popular network sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, and Orkut. Before becoming a community member at one of these networking sites, you may want to first examine the website to ensure that it is everything that you want it to be.

As you can easily see, there are a number of different ways that you can go about promoting your blog on online social networking websites. You never known, but, in addition to promoting your blog, you may also make new friends along the way.

RSS feeds are generally being utilized in blogs or news sites, though any website wanting to broadcast and publish information can use them. Once new information is sent, it will contain a headline, a little bit of text, and either a rundown or a brief review of the news or story. A link is needed be clicked upon to read further.

So as to accept RSS feeds, a feed reader is needed, called an aggregator. Aggregators are widely and freely available online, and all that is needed is a bit of searching, you will be able to locate a certain interface that best interest you. What’s more, RSS feeds can likewise be read and retrieved from cell phones and on PDAs.

Once you encounter upon a website that you want to add or insert to the aggregator, the process can be done in two ways. Almost all sites offering an RSS feed displays an “RSS” or “XML” button in their homepage and with one click, it promptly add that particular feed to one’s aggregator. Some aggregator however, requires the need to copy and then paste the URL of the feed unto the program.

Whatever the method used, you can be certain that the feed will be accessible soon as you have inserted it, likewise, in just seconds, the next update can arrive. In the event that you do not anymore would want to accept or take in updates, you may simply delete or erase the feed from the aggregator.

Through e-mail subscriptions, you can receive newsletters. RSS feeds on the other hand, can be more convenient in keeping up with newsletter updates since they are prompt and available in an instant; you no longer have to wait for a scheduled time or day to obtain a news summary, plus, these news will never be detained through a spam filter.

RSS feeds are widely used everyday by individuals who understand and appreciate the accessibility of fast reports and news that can be readily read and only read certain updates that appeals to them.

Aggregators
Aggregators are popular use of feeds, having several kinds. Web aggregators or portals as they are sometimes called, create this view which is then made available in a Web page. Also, Aggregators have been incorporated into e-mail patrons, users of desktops, or dedicated and standalone software.
Offering a collection of special features, such as combining more than a few related feeds in just a single view, hiding certain entries or statements that has been already viewed, and classifying entries and feeds, the aggregator is a versatile component.

Why make a feed available?
You will have more viewers, since now, your viewers can conveniently see your site without even going out and looking for that certain site. While at first, it may seem corrupt, it will in fact enhance the visibility of your site; this is so because users can easily keep up or keep tract with your site, to allow them to view in a way that they want to; it’s more probable that guests are aware should something that is in their interest is available or accessible on your site.

For instance, every month your website broadcasts a new feature. Having no feed, your viewers will always have to keep in mind to go to your site in a certain time to see if they discover something new; that is, if they can remember, and if they still have the time. However, if you supply a feed for your viewers, they can just point to their aggregator and it will instantly provide them a link along with a description of happenings or events at your site immediately.

What format to choose?
Syndication is very confusing as it uses a lot of formats that can usually be come across in the web. However, this can easily be solved as in general, syndicated libraries are used by aggregators which conceptualize a particular format that a feed is in, in order that they can utilize a certain syndication feed.

With this, whatever format to pick is just a matter of personal preference. RSS 1.0 is far reaching, and practical should it be integrated into Semantic Web systems. RSS 2.0 is very easy and simple create by hand. And atom is an IETF Standard, does it brings constancy, stability and a natural and accepted community to support its usage.

Our friends over at Unique Blog Designs have just announced a premium wordpress theme called UBD Moneymaker, and its free!

That’s right, 100% free.

The UBD Moneymaker Wordpress Theme is not just any ordinary theme – it has special functionality that you tend to only see in premium Wordpress themes.

For example, the UBD Block Ad Plugin is built-in – you do not need to install it separately. This is also true for the social bookmarking functionality and several other sidebar plugins.

Not comfortable editing your theme’s source code? Fear not! The theme also features a built in “Theme Options” panel which allows you to integrate Feedburner, MyBlogLog Recent Readers, and the 468×60 in post banner ad. You can edit all of this stuff without ever touching a single line of code! How is that for ease of use?

A Theme Options panel makes theme enhancement much easier for people not comfortable editing source code. We are happy to announce that all future UBD Designs and Wordpress Themes will feature the Theme Options panel for maximum ease of use.

UBD Moneymaker Theme Features & Benefits

• Fully Widget Compatible (drag and drop your preferred selection of sidebar elements)
• Built-in UBD Block Ad Plugin (manage and automatically rotate your 125×125 banner ads)
• Additional ad management for the in-post 468×60 advertising banner

Theme Options panel allows you to integrate Feedburner and MyBlogLog recent readers code – all without touching a single line of source code.

• Built-in social bookmarking functionality
• Search Engine Optimized and cross-browser compatible
• Wordpress 2.5.1 compatible
• Free to use on as many sites as you would like!

Usage Agreement: This theme is free to download and use on as many sites as you would like. That being said, UBD would appreciate if you left their credits in the footer.

You can download a copy of the Theme here!

If you run a small company, you may find that the world of blogging for business owners is a world that you want to be a part of.

Blogging is a great way to get the word out to consumers about your product or service, and it can even be useful for inspiring employee loyalty and helping you keep your workers at peak morale. If you are looking for a way to take your business to the next level, consider what starting a blog might be able to do for you.

Blogging for business owners has a lot in common with all other types of blogging, but it has its own unique pitfalls and strengths.

The key to having a successful blog as a business owner is keeping your goals clear and concrete at every step of your blogging adventure. It can be all to easy to get sidetracked, especially if you are just learning about the exciting possibilities of blogging technology, but if you want your blog to succeed you need to stay focused. Write up a plan for how often you will update, how you will promote your blog and retain readers, whether you will feature photographs or video, and other aspects of your blog, and then stick to it with the same kind of determination that you used when you built your company.

There are two major types of business models that entrepreneurs use to make money blogging.

The first and most common way to turn a blog into a profit making machine is to sell advertising to different companies and brands who want to reach that blog’s readers.

The second kind of money making blog is one that helps a single brand improve its image by creating positive associations between the blog and the product in the mind of consumers. Both kinds of blogs can make a lot of money, especially if the creator has a keen mind for marketing.

If you are blogging with the goal of selling advertising, there are two basic ways that you can go about recruiting sponsors who want to put ads on your site; you can let someone else do all of the legwork, or you
can do the work yourself and keep all of the revenue.

Within the first group, many people make money blogging by selling space through Google’s AdSense program. The advantages of this program are numerous, as it requires very little effort on the part of the blogger or webmaster to begin raking in profits.

However, most people discover that they make less money through this method than they had hoped that their blog would earn.

Selling advertising directly to companies who want to put banner ads or sponsored links on your blog can take quite a bit of time, but it is often fairly lucrative. If you have a lot of contacts in industries that are related to the topic of your blog, you may want to try to go this route. People who have a strong background in sales and are experienced at pitching proposals can make quite a bit of money by renting blog space to interested companies.

The most serious problem with this model is that you often have to build quite a sizable readership before you can attract advertisers, which can mean that you have to do several months of work before you start to make money blogging.

As blogging becomes a more and more lucrative business, a lot of established companies are considering how they can get into the action. One way that companies are capitalizing on the blog movement is by having blogs that provide a kind of friendly face for their corporation. Often, a company will employ an
established blogger to create a weblog designed specifically to appeal to that company’s customers and to create positive associations with the brand in consumers’ minds.

More than one writer who never even dreamed that he or she could make money blogging has been approached by a company and offered quite a pretty penny for this kind of gig.

Mobile blogging is an exciting phenomenon that is sweeping the blogosphere.

One of the reasons why a lot of bloggers are attracted to the medium of blogging in the first place is that they enjoy being able to make frequent updates and posts that keep all of their visitors up to speed with current situations.

Mobile blogs, or “moblogs,” take this to the extreme by allowing users to post things literally as they happen. This new wave of moblogs and mobloggers keep web surfers up to date with good and bad events of importance as they occur all over the world, helping to make international communication faster and more accurate.

Many people feel that the limitations of blogging have a lot to do with geography. After all, there is only so
current that a blog can be when you need to run home and boot up in order to update it.

However, mobileblogging marks the beginning of an thrilling new era when web-based communication can happen spontaneously from any location. Moblogging devices mean that there is almost nowhere on the planet that remains off-limits for bloggers.

Mobile blogging is still in its infancy because the technology that makes it possible has only recently hit
the global market. The first moblog technology became available over a decade ago, but it is only the past two or three years that mobile web devices have become user-friendly enough to appeal to most consumers.

As camera phones and other mobile technology become more popular, more and more bloggers are getting away from their desks and are hitting the streets.

Moblogging is becoming much more widespread that it was even a few months ago, and mobloggers are quickly attracting a lot of attention with the blogging community. It is not yet clear whether moblogs will become the dominant kinds of blogs in the years to come, but the current trend seems to imply that moblogs are here to stay.

Mobile devices make it possible to blog from the sites where current events are unfolding, which is one of the reasons why mobile blogging has so much thrilling potential to revolutionize the blogosphere.

A moblogger with a camera phone can post blog entries from, say, the foot of the podium at a presidential speech, or from the stands during the final moments of the world series. This enables bloggers to experience the same real time thrills that live television coverage provides, but in a more democratic medium.

The combination of mobility and individual control that moblogging provides certainly places mobloggers on the cutting edge of today’s communications technology, and it is hard to imagine that the number and prestige of moblogs will not continue to grow in the coming years.

Blogging has been around for a few years now. Most people use blogs to record their thoughts and lives, while the select few use them as a free way to make a fortune.

One guy who uses this to his advantage is Rob Benwell. Last year he dished the dirt on the tips and tricks to making a fortune using blogging. But as time passes the old systems become obsolete and new techniques are required. This is where his brand new, fresh off the press blogging to the bank 2 system comes into play.

For those who know who Rob Benwell is like me, you’ve probably made a killing using blogs.

For those who don’t, he’s the story:

Back in 2005 he was struggling to make any profit online, had dropped out of college and was getting deep into debt. He was trying all the techniques the gurus tell you and wasn’t getting anywhere fast. All of that went in the bin and he started using his own techniques and started making more and more money using simple blogs. In early 2006 he shared this with the world and had a great ebook called blogging to the bank. Tons of people got rich from using these techniques (including me). He then spoke at Online Marketing Legend Yanik Silver’s underground Seminar where he revealed even more of his underground strategies.

But as I said earlier, the techniques used in that ebook are now showing there age. Some of them are not even working in the slightest! This is where blogging to the bank 2 comes into play.

It’s full of great new techniques that work online right now! Everything’s explained in plain English with all the fluff cut out. I got hold of an advanced copy of the book for a much higher price than what it actually sells for and it has been worth every single cent! I got it in the afternoon and by the evening I was creating new profitable blogs. Within a couple of hours of them being active I had made a nice little profit.

Blogging To The Bank 2 teaches you Robs new step by step blueprint to creating highly profitable long term niche blogs using the newest optimization techniques. There’s even a section on advanced Search Engine Optimization. Most people think SEO is difficult but Rob explains this nice and simply so even the blogging newbie will understand it.

Blogging To The Bank 2 is a breath of fresh air and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to make easy money online. Click below for more information about this system

http://apottz.bttb1.hop.clickbank.net/

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Scott is giving “the first 100 bloggers who do a blog post about this issue to voice their demand for serious research to stop the aging process, and who write me to give me a link to their post, will each earn $20 paid via Paypal.”

By his own admission, Scott has become particularly passionate about longevity research — not just the idea of living longer, but the idea of biologically living as a 20-something indefinitely without experiencing age related disease or decay.

Admittedly, I’m out of my league when it comes to this types of discussions, but every little bit of awareness helps, so here’s my little contribution to bringing more attention to the Support Longevity Research efforts from around the globe.

For those who are interested here’s some more resources for you to look at:

• Life Expectancy Of Yeast Extended To 800 In Yeast Years
• The End of Aging? Inside the New Hunt for a Cure to Growing Old
• Aubrey de Grey thinks he knows how to defeat aging, live to 1,000.
• One Big Step For Geron: Stem Cells Enable Paralyzed Rats to Walk
• Rare Gene Mutation Plays Role in Longevity
• The Next Big Thing? (Stanley Bing, Fortune.com)

It’s been years since blogging has been practiced. But it’s just recently that it has been considered as one of the addicting fads. Many teenagers have resorted to blogging as an outlet for their emotions, a little online nook where they can blurt out whatever just bugs them or whatever makes them feel elated. Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that won’t cost you a cent.

What exactly is blogging?

Blog is the widely used term that refers to web log. Basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog could be set up to no cost at all, and can be used for just for the fun of it or for business reasons.

Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to boost the visibility of your products and services. Here are a few ways to boost your internet advertising with the help of a blog:

1. Make your clients or customers abreast on your website’s alterations. Your new products and affiliate websites could also be announced through your blog.

2. Keep track of your business objectives and plans through open writing. Your blog content can be easily stored through archives. What could be better than searchable information that could be easily accessed by anyone browsing the web, right?

3. Air your opinions, advice or reviews on specific services or products that are related to your business. Publishing is a very easy process with blogging.

4. Include links that will fetch back links and subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. This could be better executed through putting well-written articles in your website. Affiliate links could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.

5. Collect response through the ability of blogs to fetch comments from your blog readers. You can learn and improve your products and services through with the feedback from your readers.

6. Connect easily with other bloggers. When other bloggers notice that you have something good in your blog, they will put you in their favorite lists that will automatically link you to their blogs.

So, how do you set up a blog?

Here are some of the options you can make use of to take advantage of this fun way to advertise your Internet business.

Either you load a blogging software or let a blogging hosting service do it for you. Host services such as LiveJournal and Blogger.com are the most popular in this field. Those hosts will provide you with easy instructions on how to put up your blog.

One of the best (and hottest) income streams in the blogging community is Text Link Ads.

Essentially, you get paid for having text link ads on your site.

New to link buying? No Problem, as Text Link Ads is the perfect tool for any linking campaign, and they’ve put together a starter kit that will help you hit the ground running.

Ok so your sitting there asking yourself – how does it work?

Well, you need to visit the Text Link Ads website, and sign up to be a publisher or an advertiser if you want to buy ads on other sites or blogs.

But, be patient as it approval process can take a few days to complete. If (and when) your approved, you then get to configure your ads to your own liking.

After all the configuring has been done, select your site’s blogging platform, and follow the instructions – simple!.

If you’re a Wordpress blogger, there’s a simple widget plugin available that can be migrated into your sitebar section.

Take advantage of their $100 in Free Text Link Ads promotion, and you’ll be running successful linking campaigns in no time!

Here’s a list of their current plugins:

• MaxBlogPress Home Page
• Different Posts Per Page
• BlogRush Click Maximizer
• MaxBlogPress Unblockable Popup
• MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer
• MaxBlogPress Stripe Ads

My favourite plugin is Stripe Ads. A new non-obtrusive way of displaying a single line of advertising message, a special note or other information right at the top of your blog.

We’ve all seen them around on a few of the better known blogs this cool little ad stripe is placed on the top of blogs as shown below, and usually contains some form of advertising.

MaxBlogPress has offered a way to easily ad the stripe without any coding on your part.

Just go to the Stripe Ads plugin page, download and upload to your wp-content/plugins directory and you’re set.

Just put in whatever text you want to show in the stripe ad and you are ready to go and watch the money start rolling in as this is another great way to earn money from your blog.

• No commissions taken by greedy middle men
• Full control over what and how you sell
• Keep 100% of your earnings

How does it work?
Select between using a stand-alone sales platform, or our hosted version. Either way, you earn 100% from every sales you make. Then let everyone else know you’re in business using the marketplace!

• Can’t use the plugin, then try our hosted version
• View the Roadmap to see where we’re going
• Create and share your own modifications

What can I sell?
The sales platform offers webmasters a number of options, all of which you can view at a glance here. To allow for the greatest flexibility, you can sell directly from your site, any combination of the following:

• Sell links, reviews, inline & banner ads; even custom services
• Inbuilt affiliate program enables your readers to get involved
• The most flexible sales platform around, anywhere

How do I signup, and what will it cost?
Signing up to OIOpublisher will cost you nothing. There is a one-off charge to gain access to all our services, of $37.00. After that, regular listing of your website at the marketplace is also free, whilst premium listings (that appear at the top of categories and searches) are $19.95 per month. Any sales you make go directly to you – OIOpublisher takes zero commission.

Start taking back control of your sales today!

Signup to OIOpublisher today!

I came across this story on BusinessWeek and thought I’d share it with you guys as it makes for very interesting reading.

How Top Bloggers Earn Money

Cat pictures, gossip, tech talk, politics—there’s lots of ways to rake in the dough online
By John Tozzi

From cat pictures and celebrity gossip to tech news and politics, the stars of the blogosphere earn plenty of dough, regardless of subject. Some bloggers start their sites intending to make big profits. But most of the bloggers we talked to had more modest expectations, and saw their blogs unexpectedly turn into businesses as traffic picked up and ad dollars rolled in. Here’s a look at how some of the most popular blogs make their money.

All traffic figures and revenues are self-reported, unless otherwise indicated.

BoingBoing
boingboing.net
Launched: January, 2000
Revenue: Over $1 million a year

BoingBoing, a “directory of wonderful things,” might be the king of moneymaking blogs. Always at the top of Technorati, in June the site garnered 22 million page views from 2.6 million unique visitors. Advertising costs range from $350 to display a small button ad for one week to between $2,000 and $3,000 for the minimum 170,000 impressions on banner ads, all sold exclusively through Federated Media. Frequent posting—the four authors update the site 20 to 40 times each day—drives high traffic to the blog, which Mark Frauenfelder and his wife, Carla Sinclair, started as a print zine in 1988, to write about comics, science fiction, computers, and technology. “BoingBoing’s viewers just continued to grow and grow and grow, for reasons we still don’t completely understand,” Frauenfelder says. “Now it’s at the point where it actually becomes a business.” And a good one at that: BoingBoing’s ad sales top $1 million a year.

I Can Has Cheezburger?
icanhascheezburger.com
Launched: January, 2007
Revenue: Estimated $5,600 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

This blog, consisting of silly photos of cats, and even sillier captions, rocketed to the top of the blogosphere a few months after a Hawaii-based pair started it on a lark. Since its launch in January, Cheezburger’s traffic has doubled each month, and the blog now gets half a million page views a day, accounting for a third of the traffic on the WordPress blogging platform, according to Eric Nakagawa, aka Cheezburger. “If you hit a niche and you can build a community, you might not have a $1 million idea, but you might have a $10,000 or a $100,000 idea,” says Nakagawa, who gave up his job as a software developer to play Cheezburger full-time. (His partner, “Tofuburger,” still has a day job.) A week of ads on Cheezburger, via Blogads, starts at $500 and tops out at $5,400 for a premium position. The site also sells through Google AdSense and AdBrite platforms. It recently ranked No. 26 on the most-linked-to blogs list on Technorati.

ShoeMoney
shoemoney.com
Launched: October, 2005
Revenue: $12,000 a month

What better way to make money online than to write a blog about making money online? Jeremy Schoemaker, a 33-year-old Web entrepreneur, did just that. The half hour he spends each day writing ShoeMoney attracts 20,000 unique visitors daily, brings in $12,000 a month, and gives him a platform from which to launch his own Web products. His other Web businesses—AuctionAds, which displays ads for live eBay auctions on relevant sites, and NextPimp.com, which sells ringtones—are his main ventures; the blog accounts for only 3% of his company’s revenue. Other companies selling to businesses find a ripe audience of aspiring Web entrepreneurs reading ShoeMoney, which consistently ranks among the 100 top blogs on Technorati. Schoemaker had no ads on the blog until January, 2007, and the five spots sell out quickly. “We’ve never had an open advertising spot,” he says. “We have a waiting list.”

Overheard in New York
overheardinnewyork.com
Launched: July, 2003
Revenue: Estimated $8,100 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Software developer Morgan Friedman and five editors work part-time, running Overheard in New York, a collection of anonymous comments submitted by readers that range from the hilarious to the outrageous. Started in 2003, the blog is profitable, but Friedman says revenues can fluctuate by a factor of 10 over six months. A small one-week buy on Blogads costs $375, and an ad with Flash in a prime space costs up to $6,000. Overheard draws 6 million page views a month and gets 100 submissions from readers each day, says Friedman. A book was published last year, and four more blogs in the same vein now make up the Overheard network: Overheard at the Office, Overheard at the Beach, Overheard Everywhere, and Celebrity Wit. The site’s core audience, Friedman says, is young women and gay men—tastemaking groups that advertisers covet. Although Overheard brings in cash, he says, “I’ve always approached it more as a community than a business. I want to make enough so we can invest more to grow. I’m not trying to build a Web 2.0 company that I can sell for millions of dollars.”

Kottke.org
kottke.org
Launched: March, 1998
Revenue: Estimated $5,300 a month based on ad rate

Self-taught Web designer Jason Kottke hosts a single ad on his design blog, which he bills as the “home of fine hypertext products.” The ad is sold through the Deck, an ad network that offers limited buys on 18 premier design-oriented sites. Kottke began blogging in 1998, on 0sil8, a site he built to profile his design work. The blog moved to its current domain in 1999, and now gets 250,000 to 300,000 unique visits a month—enough to pay him a monthly salary of around $5,300 before the ad network’s cut. He ranks in the middle of the 100 most-linked-to blogs on Technorati. As one of the earliest blogs, with a committed audience interested in design, Kottke attracts advertisers looking to reach Web professionals and creative types. And he wants to keep his niche appeal, rather than try to maximize profits by littering the site with ads, and changing the content to boost traffic. “I’m doing a lot of things to deliberately limit my income,” he says. “Providing a good site and a good service for a smaller group of readers is really what I’m shooting for.”

TalkingPointsMemo
talkingpointsmemo.com
Launched: November, 2000
Revenue: Estimated $45,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Political reporter Josh Marshall grew his blog, which he started during the 2000 election recount, into a small media company with a Manhattan office, three spin-off sites, an editorial staff of six, and a reputation for digging up stories that major papers ignore. The shift from a blog of mostly commentary and analysis to a network of sites more focused on original reporting began after the 2004 election, Marshall says. He started accepting ads at the end of 2003, when Blogads approached him. Now ad sales are a mix of site-specific direct buys and mass buys through third-party bureaus. (All political ad sales are through third parties, to avoid conflicts of interest.) Sales bring in tens of thousands of dollars a month. “The challenge for a very small business like ours is to be able to monetize and support our original reporting, to make it work in business terms,” he says. High traffic—weekday page views approach 500,000—combined with a desirable audience helps. “If someone advertises with us, I guarantee you that a substantial number of people in every big-city newsroom around the country are going to see it,” Marshall says.

Perez Hilton
perezhilton.com
Launched: September, 2004
Revenue: Estimated $111,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Celebrity gossip wag Perez Hilton revels in his role as one of the most-hated figures in Hollywood. He may also be the hardest-working blogger making fun of show business, with 24 posts on an average day—and as many as 40 on a day with talk of a Britney Spears meltdown. “Advertisers come to me because I get a lot of traffic. I get a lot of traffic because I work hard,” says Mario Lavandeira, Perez’s creator. By “a lot” he means as many as 4 million unique visits a day, according to Lavandeira, although independent estimates put his traffic much lower. How much does that translate into cash from the Blogads on his site? Lavandeira stays uncharacteristically mum on the subject of exactly how much cash he rakes in, but Blogads lists a one-day “takeover” (all three banner ads on the site, plus a custom wallpaper) for $40,000.

Gothamist
gothamist.com (and 13 other sites in the “-ist” network)
Launched: January, 2003
Revenue: Monthly average of $50,000 to $60,000 over the past 12 months

Gothamist, with estimated monthly revenues of $250,000, evolved from two friends writing about New York City to a full-time news operation and a network of local blogs across 14 cities on four continents. Publisher and co-founder Jake Dobkin, who owns the company with co-founder and editor Jen Chung, sells ads direct to maximize revenue. They’re on the verge of hiring a full-time ad sales director to complement their team of five full-time editors in five cities, part-time associate editors, and paid contributors. Together they generate 20 to 25 posts daily on their most popular sites, and draw 7 million page views a month. Advertisers like the demographics: young, educated, and often wealthy readers. A real draw for the city-based sites is the ability to target online ads geographically: “It’s a benefit that some of the other independent publishers or blog networks can’t offer,” Dobkin says.

TechCrunch
techcrunch.com
Launched: June, 2005
Revenue: $200,000 a month

Another blog that always tops the Technorati list, TechCrunch became Michael Arrington’s full-time business in 2006, with $200,000 in monthly revenue from job boards and ads. Arrington began blogging about startups two years ago. The blog has since spawned a network of spin-offs for gear, mobile technology, and sites for Britain, France, and Japan. Federated Media handles ad sales for the sites, which get a total of about 5 million page views a month: $300 buys a small text ad for a week; banners start in the thousands. “Our advertisers are people who want to reach a tech audience and an early-adopter audience,” Arrington says. “It’s a targeted audience that spends a lot of money.” In addition to ad revenue, the company has sponsored parties, and in September plans to host TechCrunch 20, a conference in San Francisco, where 20 startups will launch their products and a panel of judges will pick one to receive a $50,000 prize.

Go Fug Yourself
gofugyourself.typepad.com
Launched: July, 2004
Revenue: Estimated $6,240 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Last year, this blog, devoted to ridiculing celebrity fashion, made enough money through ad sales that its two authors, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, quit their television industry jobs so they could mock full-time. The Los Angeles-based duo insists that the blog’s title uses the verb form of “fantastically ugly,” their term of art for stars’ over-the-top outfits. The mechanics are simple: They take celebrity photos from a wire service, add snarky comments about the getups, and click “publish.” The result? Some 3.5 million unique visitors a month, a book coming out in February, and two full-time jobs. All the ads are sold through Blogads. One week of a bare-bones text ad starts at $60, and deluxe banners top $3,000. Cocks says what started as a goofy joke between friends three years ago has become a successful company: “Suddenly our inside joke was turning into a business, and it caught us completely by surprise.”

Mashable
mashable.com
Launched: July, 2005
Revenue: Estimated $166,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Pete Cashmore started Mashable two years ago, to write about the emerging trend of mashups, which he defines as “the fusing of multiple Web services.” Now it’s more than a full-time job. “Bloggers don’t get much sleep,” he says. Mashable, a Technorati favorite that ranks in its top 15, focuses on social networking and other online trends. With 4 million monthly page views, Cashmore says it’s the most-trafficked blog on the subject. But he didn’t expect to make a living from it when he began. “The idea that top bloggers would be making large sums was laughable,” Cashmore says. “The folks who held on, however, are doing pretty well these days.” Mashable uses Federated Media for its ad sales. Text ads start at $100 per week, banners at $2,000.

Problogger
problogger.net (multiple sites)
Launched: November, 2004
Revenue: Over $100,000 a year

The top question people ask Problogger author Darren Rowse is how much money he makes from blogging. He doesn’t disclose the details, but across the many blogs he writes, he clears six figures a year from a mix of private ads, affiliate deals, and ads sold through platforms such as Chitika, Google AdSense, Text Link Ads, and Amazon Associates. An Australian minister who discovered blogging in 2002, he has written sites devoted to religion, digital photography, camera phones, the Athens Olympics in 2004, and, of course, blogging. “Like most small business operators, I fall into the temptation of doing more than a full-time load from time to time (it’s tempting when you love your work, and when you work from home),” he writes in a FAQ on his site.

Michelle Malkin and Hot Air
michellemalkin.com and hotair.com
MichelleMalkin.com launched: June, 2004
Hot Air launched: April, 2006
Revenue: NA

Between her eponymous blog and her video blog, Hot Air, conservative author and columnist Michelle Malkin gets more than 220,000 visits per day, but says her sites still operate at a slight loss. “We’re doing what few other blogs can do. We serve up terabytes of bandwidth,” Malkin says. “I’m shelling out for gold-plated servers. That’s expensive, and we want to be able to withstand huge traffic surges.” Hot Air, a group video-blog, in particular needs the bandwidth to stream videos. The rest of her ad revenue, which Malkin declines to detail, supports a small staff and a basement studio to produce original video clips. Malkin also sees the blogs as promoting her print media, and vice-versa. “Blogs have been the most recent development in my career, but my bread and butter has been the newspaper column that I’ve had since 1992. The integration has been really interesting, and I think that attracts people as well.”