Written on November 30th, 2007 at 05:11 am by Darren Rowse
How Much Money Do Bloggers Earn Blogging?
Earlier in the month I asked readers to share their blog earnings for the month of October. As usual this poll was a popular one with 3054 responses. I’ve run this survey previously so will compare the results between this and last time I ran it below.
Of this number 857 said that they did not earn any money blogging (28%). This is either because they don’t try to - or they try but fail (next time I’ll ask for clarification around this).
Of those that do earn some money blogging the breakdown of earnings into different earning ranges was as follows:
For those of you interested in the percentages - here’s a pie chart.
Keep in mind that these figures are just for those who earn something from blogging (and don’t include the 28% who don’t).
49% earned under $100
23% earned over $1000
16% earned over $2500
9% earned over $15000
Comparison to last time
So how do these recent results compare with previous times that we’ve carried out this same survey of readers?
In mid 2006 I asked exactly the same question with the same earning ranges and I think you’ll see below that the percentages are remarkably similar:
One last note. When I’ve asked readers to respond to how much they earn from different ad networks (AdSense and Chitika) the shape of the graphs has always been the same. While the percentages vary slightly the results are always quite similar.
So - what can we conclude?
For me the most striking ‘lesson’ from these surveys is that while there is significant hype around the idea of bloggers making money - that the vast majority earn very little (or nothing). A quarter of those who earn something make less than 0.33 cents per day. If that’s not a reality check then I don’t know what is.
On the flip side - a smaller group of bloggers are making good to great amounts of money. While I’m sure there are some votes that are put in the highest category falsely - I do believe that there are an increasing number of bloggers who making significant part time income through to full time income from their blogs. That top category is significant and seem to be growing.
121 Responses to “How Much Money Do Bloggers Earn Blogging?”
Terry Ng
November 30th, 2007 5:42 am
It would’ve been nice to see how many bloggers are millionaires from blogging alone! ;)
Opal Tribble
November 30th, 2007 5:44 am
I didn’t participate in the survey but it looks like I fall in the 16% range for October. I did better this month.
However I make the majority of my money from affiliate marketing. Initially I started monetizing a few of my personal websites because I wanted to make some pocket change after a while I started making more than pocket change and started taking monetizing my personal websites as seriously as my regular business.
It’s taking me a lot of work but I’m enjoying it immensely.
Ivy
November 30th, 2007 5:45 am
This is the time when you really have to ask yourself that question again - would you still blog if you will not earn money from it.
On another point, I would be interested to know how long the respective bloggers in the different income brackets have been earning. It would be interesting to do a cross check, and also what percent of time they spend promoting their blog. However, that would require a full blown survey than a simple poll…
Ivy
November 30th, 2007 5:46 am
Oops, I meant how long the respective bloggers in the different income brackets have been BLOGGING.
Mido
November 30th, 2007 5:47 am
Hi Darren,
Well… why most bloggers don’t make much money? I think it depends on the traffic ( Source, attitude..etc) and how much they spend to promote their sites. It need hard work to achieve more than $1000 earning from blogging.
Thank you
Brian Purkiss
November 30th, 2007 5:53 am
What’s the average?
Mike Goad
November 30th, 2007 5:58 am
It’s interesting and it’s encouraging to see that some folks are making quite a bit of money. It gives me hope that I might be able to do better in the future if I keep plugging away.
fucc
November 30th, 2007 6:00 am
well…i’ve gained in september about $1200 from blogging thanks to 8 different “post providers” (i’ve worked about 1,5h hours a day to achieve this result)…bu this month just $200 (spending the same time, expecially for finding work!!). This becaose my pagerank…dropped from 4 to 0 (and i don’t use textlinkad and no direct connection to payperpost. Or better…on my blog there is no reference to paid reviews, just a little in the disclosure).
Adele
November 30th, 2007 6:13 am
How very interesting. Although not many people are making a significant amount of money, it’s encouraging to see that some people do.
Just this week I put adverts on my two-year-old blog for the first time.
I’m on about $1.40 a day on average so far. It doesn’t seem like much, but considering I’m getting real money for something I’ve been doing for free anyway, it seems like mana from heaven right now.
Onwards and upwards.
Famous Quotes
November 30th, 2007 6:35 am
It will also be interesting to know how the heavy hitters do it and how long have they been blogging to reach such heights.
LiveCrunch
November 30th, 2007 6:45 am
I earn $0 because I don’t have any ads on my blog and it will probably stay so. My blog is new but has already over 50 visitors per day and that is good for 2 week blog!.
Advertising in early stage of blogging is bad, first you will turn your visitors away
1. you are new
2. don’t have much content 2 offer
3. you are new again
I think that majority on your graph that answered they earn more then $15K are lies.
I am very satisfied with the outcome tho from last and this year.
~Viva La LiveCrunch~
Jason Burns
November 30th, 2007 7:02 am
I am still in the larger group at around $2 per day, but it’s been rapidly growing for me. 3 months ago I was around $0.25 per day. Already now I am seeing $4-6 days becoming more common. I am not sure how long it will take to trend to real money, but hosting is costing me nothing now, and It’s a nice little bump to get a check for what most people agree we would do anyway. You’re right Adele, Onward and upward!
Joe
November 30th, 2007 7:03 am
I’m starting to ramp up… but it’s still low to say the least. I guess I’ll have to keep reading here until it happens! :-)
Heelcandy
November 30th, 2007 7:20 am
Hey Darren,
I think a good idea to further this article and make it more helpful, would be to get an average ECPM that everyone is getting.
For example I have two blogs, one gets approximately 10x the pageviews of the other yet, because I’ve optimized the smaller one it makes a significantly higher ECPM and therefore actually more revenue per month.
I think this would lead into an interesting discussion on how to better monetize the blogs you currently own, and get some sort of scope on if you are leaving any funds on the table.
Anyhoot just my two cents,
Sara
The Opinionated Blogger
November 30th, 2007 7:31 am
It doesn’t surprise me there was a large gap in between the under $100 and $15,000. It seems like a lot of bloggers make quite a bit a month or not nearly enough each month. Then you have the ones in the middle aspiring to the top. I personally have never had success with making money from blogging.
ProBloggerForum
November 30th, 2007 7:41 am
Great info. you should have categories above 15k just to know how many earn more than 50k :-)
Paul
November 30th, 2007 7:47 am
Mine has unfortunately dropped by about 50%. It was never all that high, but now it’s sitting on just $28, mostly due to Google’s pagerank changes, I believe.
Tanya Ryno
November 30th, 2007 7:49 am
It would be nice to list examples of sites from each income level so that we can compare income with design and/or subject matter.
Does higher income come from websites covering the same subject matter or is it divided equally between well designed and well written sites?
theblackactor.com
November 30th, 2007 7:59 am
Hi Darren. Thanks for running this poll. It’s interesting — and informative. Yes, when I voted I needed clarification about the matter you mentioned - not making money because one is not trying or not making money because of failure — or even the newness of the blog. Despite the figures, I remain hopeful. :)
lawfirmbitchfest.com
November 30th, 2007 8:02 am
No money made here because there is no advertising — given the “adult” nature of the site. (It’s profanity-laden). But I recently discovered that there are indeed advertisers for “adult” content sites. They probably mean porn and not profanity. But I will be looking into this. I’d like to monetize the site. The poll was very useful. Thanks, Darren.
RobG
November 30th, 2007 8:12 am
Well I do not make much blogging, but hey I have been doing it for 4 months and things are picking up. All the money I have made I have rolled back into advertising.
Guillermo
November 30th, 2007 8:23 am
I make 1 dollar a day average!! Yeah!! Take that 33 cents a day!! Ha!!
mmj
November 30th, 2007 8:35 am
I am being patient since my blog is relatively new. Hopefully, in another year, I can be in the $100-499 per month category. That is my first goal.
stagueve
November 30th, 2007 8:56 am
i make 2$ to 3$ per day (40$ in october) and “the 9%” make me dreaming…
John
November 30th, 2007 8:57 am
I’m thinking about putting adsense on my blog
sabrina
November 30th, 2007 9:07 am
Paul: When I went to your site all of your google ads were for carriages and carriage rides when your site seems to be about independent travel. Maybe that’s why your income has dropped.
I think the sites that have the best opportunity to make money are those that are in a very small niche.or are discussing some type of consumer product (handbags, makeup, cars etc.) where the reader has a natural affinity to want to click on an ad on that page because they are already interested in the content.
Daniel Stern
November 30th, 2007 9:35 am
I would be curious to find out if there is any correlations between blog earnings, and the blog host site / inde-blog. Would you mind including that in your next survey?
The Jaded Monk
November 30th, 2007 9:54 am
I’ve been blogging for a few years on different blogs and only recently decided to focus on a niche (although the “self-improvement” niche is, of course, already pretty competitive).
While my newest blog is brand new, I admit that I do hope to eventually earn some money from the blog; but to earn anything I have to put ads, links to products on Amazon and AdSense links in my posts which, I feel, unconsciously influences how and what I write . This is especially true because of AdSense, which seems to often display ads that are completely irrelevant or sometimes embarrassingly contradictory to the content. And I make, literally, pennies on it.
It feels like blogging is the new Internet Gold Rush and that, ultimately, there will be too many “top ten tips” blogs, or blogs about gadgets or celebrities — or even blogs about how to make money blogging where, like software companies or search engines, only a few will be the most popular and the rest will be imitators.
If the number of blogs is growing, will there be anything unique about one or another, over time?
dukeofweb.com
November 30th, 2007 10:31 am
Sabrina makes a great point. I have a music site that pulls Adsense ads for Psoriasis. Go figure. I’m going to play around with exclusion tags. I’ve had varying amounts of success with them.
Sean McGoldrick
November 30th, 2007 10:31 am
I made $72 this week from blogging. Last week, my best week, I earned $150. The bulk of that is from sponsored posts though and Google just took cut the PageRank on the blog I use down to zero. That may have an effect on my earning power!
Joseph
November 30th, 2007 10:41 am
Looks like Digg likes this story: http://digg.com/tech_news/How_much_do_you_make_blogging_Problogger_Poll
Jay Thompson
November 30th, 2007 11:33 am
If I’m a real estate agent, and I use my blog as my primary marketing tool for attracting clients, how am I supposed to answer this question?
Do I count the real estate commissions earned as “making money off my blog”?
Or are we talking strictly ads, paid reviews, etc.
Mike King
November 30th, 2007 11:37 am
I think you need to spread out the upper bracket more evenly as I find the results in the highest category hard to believe. Its more likely lies. If you estimated a spread out according to the reducing numbers as you move up the upper bracket, the distribution really isn’t even at all. You would have one very LONG tail in the distribution if it continues to drop, bracket by bracket as you move up in earnings.
I don’t think you can trust these responses but the distribution in the lower brackets is definitely more even and believable as far as the normal figures for money earning goes. I’m not planning to make significant money, but its nice to earn some and always have from other static websites, so a blog can obviously just add to those earnings.
chloe
November 30th, 2007 12:38 pm
me, i am still not earing..
A Blog about Nothing
November 30th, 2007 12:58 pm
I think amount of time blogging has a huge deal to do with how much a blogger earns on a monthly basis. Darren your own posts about income incrementally growing month after month when you started out confirms this.
I’m sure there are some new blogs that make serious money right away, but I’m willing to bet the operators have some experience if not with blogging then at least with general website optimization.
Deborah Robinson
November 30th, 2007 1:47 pm
Thank you for posting this. I for one really appreciate this glimpse into a topic that is more often than not, shrouded in mystery. I would be interested to know what the highest earners blog about and what types of income steams are most successful for bloggers in general.
David Scrivner
November 30th, 2007 1:53 pm
These numbers are still encouraging if the over 15k category were only half true even. I do aspire to make a living off of my blogging, but it is slow going. I don’t understand how some have been able to make $2 a day after only a month of blogging. That is very impressive to me. I really like this poll and can’t wait to see the next one. I hope I am in a much higher bracket next time. Keep up the good work Darren.
LaShon James-Major
November 30th, 2007 2:40 pm
Thanks for providing the data. I just started trying to monetize my blog; I hope it starts to pay off soon. It would be a great passive income.
Dana
November 30th, 2007 3:09 pm
It would also be nice to know how much people expect to make. Someone who puts a few affiliate links in the sidebar of their hobby blog will be quite happy with $100. Someone who actually is trying to make money will not.
My only goal was to pay for my daughter’s homeschool resources, and so I’m quite happy with my monthly amount.
Michael
November 30th, 2007 4:24 pm
I want to make some money from blogging, but it’s not a specific focus of mine for my blog. I mainly do it because I enjoy sharing what I find on the internet.
Currently I barely make enough money a month to become rich, or to be called a part-time income, especially as my blog has been gaining in popularity in the 7 months that is has existed.
But currently my blog is self-sufficient. My money I gain from advertising is currently enough to pay for my hosting, which is a milestone for me !
dukeofweb.com
November 30th, 2007 5:07 pm
Inspiring, to say the least. I will continue to build my blog on the philosophy that “content is king” with the hopes that enough people find it interesting enough to keep it afloat until I have a solid core audience. It’s very slow going to gain readership for a new blog, let alone revenue, so I say do your homework and understand the science, but ultimately….write because you love it.
johnCard
November 30th, 2007 6:00 pm
does anybody know where to go and download a free pie chart?
Heelcandy
November 30th, 2007 6:01 pm
To David:
On making $2 a day with a relatively new blog. Like Darren always says, to really make it in the blogging biz you have to be in it for the long haul. Asides from the obvious reasons that more great content means more readers, google searches, etc, the real value is how much you learn. You will learn how to optimize your site, how to pick niches you really enjoy yet also have good monetization outlets (think Chitika), and how much research you should really put in before starting a blog.
Long story short, it is possible. I’ve had blogs make $5/day after posting for a year and have had blogs make $5/day after posting for 1 month. So good luck, and when all else fails just keep writing.
Joe
November 30th, 2007 7:57 pm
I currently get just over 3000 uniques a day to my 1 year-old blog yet I would be lucky to make more than a dollar most days. Still make enough to pay off server costs luckily. Still trying to find a way to monetize my site, I’ll get there one day!
Gilbert
November 30th, 2007 8:20 pm
It’s interesting to see the spike in the graph around the $100-499 per month mark.
Do you reckon that this is becuase a lot of schemes have a $100 dollar pay out limit?
That may imply that a person that earning $100 this month didn’t earn $100 the month before. At the lower end of earnings, a blogger needs to think of what they earned since their last pay out as this may not get a cheque every month.
Also if you’re thinking about expanding the survey it’s be interesting to see earnings in relation to time spent per week.
I wonder if Widget Buck will have an influence on future survey figures as they have a $50 payout threshold.
TheAdsenseConsultant
November 30th, 2007 10:06 pm
I also have a similar poll on my blog too and I’m getting the same results as your poll in that the majority of people say that they are earning nothing to less than $10 a month.
I have to agree with you that they are just not trying hard enough. I know that it would be great to think that if you just put up a site or blog that you can start making a lot of money with it but it just doesn’t work out that way. It’s not a case of build it and they will come.
You have to work at it. So far this year I have managed to earn at least the $100 minimum needed to get an adsense payment the next month but that isn’t because I just made a site and then did nothing else with it - I constantly work on my site. And the fact that my site doesn’t generate millions of visitors each month should show that you don’t need that amount of visitors to make at least the minimum amount of money needed to get a payment the next month.
I have now come to the point where I have to pay taxes on my adsense income (of course that also means that I can take/claim some deductions as well).
I think that the majority of blogs (or websites) have the potential to make some adsense money. You just have to work on optimizing your site for adsense and you can do that and remain “true” to your blog (or site). You just have to work at it and that “work” doesn’t have to be all unpleasant.
Since I am an Adsense Consultant I have to show by example and that is exactly what I am doing with my (and my clients) sites.
MJ Ray
November 30th, 2007 11:48 pm
PLEASE stop abusing bar charts like that! Use a histogram! (I’m sure I’ve made that comment before on these polls.)
Pachecus
November 30th, 2007 11:54 pm
I started my blog 10 days ago. One day i received more than 6000 visits from StumbleUpon. Wow!! really good you can think.. but I have earned $0. I tried Adsense, Affiliate products, etc, and nothing.. $0..
you can see my stats here
http://www.pachecus.com/i-have-received-6165-visits-in-1-day/
Thank you Darren for your blog
Wayne Liew
December 1st, 2007 12:11 am
The more we stay on the blogosphere and the longer we try to make money, the more the money we earned.
That’s all that I got to say.
Broker
December 1st, 2007 12:19 am
wow, nice stats, i wish i could be a part of the the bloggers who earned over 15k :) really nice, one day i am a part of this blogger :)
matt
December 1st, 2007 1:51 am
could the changes from year to year results reflect a change in readership?
akshay jain
December 1st, 2007 2:19 am
i m not earning anything ryt now…suggest me sumthing gud to bring traffic my site has gud content related to computers and internet
Pchere
December 1st, 2007 2:51 am
The most amazing part is 9% earned over $15000! That should provide enough motivation.
Mommy Poppins
December 1st, 2007 4:15 am
What this chart says to me is that it’s relatively easy to get to the $100-500, but then a lot of people hit a wall and the numbers decline significantly as the amounts get higher. The question is what are the people making serious bucks doing differently that they not only got past that wall, but obviously hit a jet stream. Is it their niche, their investment of time/money, their monetization scheme…
Has anyone else found it’s hard to get past the $500 number? Any thoughts on what the others are doing right?
Mike
December 1st, 2007 4:53 am
In order to be able to get in those 9% earning more than 15.000 you need these things:
- a great idea
- great skills in a niche
- lots of money to invest in the first months
- a great idea
It’s that simple :)
Ken
December 1st, 2007 5:01 am
I, too, am grateful for this peek “behind the curtain.” I’m not surprised that so many of the respondents are stuck in the bottom rungs of income level. Having often been stuck there with my blogs, I can say that there are three main causes for this: too little traffic, too little traffic, and too little traffic! Once you have decent traffic, monetizing it is a simple matter of experimenting with various programs (AdSense, affiliate programs, and so on) to see which gives the best earned CPM.
And the early stages are SO difficult! I, and I’m sure many readers, would appreciate advice on how to first break out of that terrible zone of 0-20 visitors per day.
The Married personals blogger
December 1st, 2007 5:35 am
It’s definantely not a get rich quick scheme, that’s for sure! It’s HARD WORK, you need to have passion and be very dedicated to it! Months of work with little income, don’t qwuit your day job until you reach at least $3,000 per month.
Dana
December 1st, 2007 6:33 am
I agree, Mommy Poppins. That is why it would be interesting to me to know how much these people would be interested in pursuing. I make in that range, but I am not particularly trying to make more. I know that takes an investment of time that I do not have, so I am quite content with the fact that what I earn from blogging covers extra expenses of homeschooling, like more books and a microscope!
Laymybet
December 1st, 2007 7:04 am
89.9% of stats are made up ;-)
Wellington Grey
December 1st, 2007 8:03 am
Throwing my own site into the mess, http://www.WellingtonGrey.net/ I’m pulling in about 100-200USD a month. Very interesting to see the raw numbers, but I agree with a poster above that it would be useful to see ‘typical’ sites for each of the categories.
Natalie
December 1st, 2007 9:12 am
I ran a blog for six months last year and earned a grand total of $3.12. I stopped it last June, due to lack of time, and i took it offline.
A few weeks ago, i got a new day job which allows me to be home at 4.30 and blog for one hour so i decided to start a new blog. The topic of my blog is the same (songwriting and music recording) and in the last 3 weeks, i have earned almost $15!
Far from being enough to make a living off it, but it is very encouraging - my goal is to make a part time income from blogging, to complement my part time income from music/writing, which would allow me to focus all my energy on music and writing (i consider blogging to be a form of writing - when working on a long term project like a novel, it’s quite refreshing to be able to write short pieces and deliver them to an audience right away).
The main difference between my new blog and my old one? I am more selective in terms of content - i only write one post a day but the quality of it is higher than in my old blog, for which i wrote 2 or 3 posts a day. Also, i blog regurlaly - i schedule all my posts for noon (UK time) every day and i have noticed a peak in traffic around that time, from regular readers checking my new post.
Lastly, i spend a lot of time brainstorming ideas for posts - i make a list of 20, write a few then weed one the not so good ideas from the list, and start brainstorming for the next batch. So i always have a few ideas in store but i also force myself to brainstorm new ideas once a week - it helps maintain the quality of the content.
Planet Berry
December 1st, 2007 9:53 am
It would be very interesting to see what level of traffic they all achieved in those bands of income. We are seeing about 150 vistors per day (fairly new site only 5 months old) and our Google Adsense is at 50/month. We were at 5-20/month until we broke through 100 visitors per day.
Thoughts? Come and visit!
Evan Hadkins
December 1st, 2007 1:45 pm
There is a book called something like The Winner Take All Economy. Sorry I forget the author.
Their point is that in particular markets there are big winners and lots of loosers with very little in between. These are the kinds of markets where there is little upper limit to what is regarded as fair pay. These markets are things like celebrities.
So Pavarotti was paid a squillion and led to the demise of opera in Italy. All the mid-range companies that were good. People now went to see Pavarotti once every year or five instead of going to the local opera house every month or year.
Other examples are sports and movie stars.
I think this is a good description of the blogosphere too.
I think it is likely that there will be a shake-out over the next decade. The magic will be getting attention - and I hope that Rich Schefren is right, when he says that it will be by providing high quality content.
Other thoughts people?
Yosi alexia
December 2nd, 2007 5:02 am
great Daren. I need this so long time… but its valid data?
Pierluigi Rotundo
December 2nd, 2007 7:03 am
It would be useful to do a regression and estimating the real factors contributing on earnings…that data need to be analyzed accurately!
Pierluigi Rotundo
PS: However, it is a great survey! Thank you for all your work! I’m starting loving to blog thanks also to your advices.
Andreas
December 2nd, 2007 11:06 am
Interesting but I doubt there that those numbers apply to Europe (especially Austria).
I think that over here the number of bloggers who earn ZERO is much bigger.
Tony Warne
December 2nd, 2007 12:30 pm
I would assume that the satisfaction one gains from the blogging, would be almost as much as the financial gains and for many people, actually worth more.
Imparting ones knowledge and exposing thoughts and feelings to the general public, can surely be a daunting task.
More Blog Money
December 2nd, 2007 8:08 pm
It would be interesting to have the percentages further broken down to see which niches these blogs belong to. I imagine certain niches like the make money niche where there’s tough competition, most blogs earn make very little.
I’d love to be proven wrong.
cheers
mbm
akshay jain
December 2nd, 2007 8:51 pm
https://www.paytreck.com/?rid=akshayhack0123
signup here and get 1$ free…..its a paypal like site….offers support with e-gold e-currency etc….
Personal Development for the Book Smart
December 2nd, 2007 11:51 pm
I foresee that the changes in adsense ads are likely to affect bloggers’ earnings significantly in future.
Ian Eltringham
December 3rd, 2007 12:22 am
These statistics are very intriguing and very motivational when you consider 16% of everyone who took part in the poll earned $1000 or more.
Much higher than I was anticipating.
analogstuff
December 3rd, 2007 1:25 am
Really good idea to compare the income made from blogs. I personally make around 150$ per month from adsense alone,I really want to know how people are making $15000 per month. I wish i will be there at one point of time. I started blogging around 7 months back. Initially first 3-4 months i used to make around 30$ per month, now it is increased but i dont know how to improve the number further. Any one has any ideas on any better optimizer for adsense so that i can get more CPC.
analogstuff
December 3rd, 2007 1:28 am
I am sorry, i concluded my earlier comment, but the question what i had in mind is that is this sample has any statistical significance as the same is not too big. Any one who is good at statistics can throw more light into this. Thanks in advance.
whathisname
December 3rd, 2007 6:21 am
I believe that most of the people who earn under 10 dollars either don’t try at all or, in most cases, they try too much.
When I first hear about bloggers earning good money I started too look for information and did everything they told to do. Did’t help… I wondered what I did wrong.
Later I realized that I had ignored the most important part, the content. The essence of anybody reading blogs.
So I left the idea of earning money and started to write for fun. And the earnings started to grow steadily.
So not trying may not be so bad after all ;-)
Sharoni
December 3rd, 2007 1:27 pm
I just started my blog back after a two year hiatus. I was going to change the dates on my posts to make them more current, but that doesn’t fool the RSS readers.
In one week, at one post a day, I have made a whopping $2, which I was paid $1.08 for. But considering it’s only a week, that’s not too bad.
Since the blog has been sitting for two years though, it is kind of already established.
I hope to grow my traffic, and am looking to learn how to social network to my advantage.
Dan
December 3rd, 2007 6:50 pm
I need som clarification. Just see the expected decline in number as income is increasing and then all of sudden there is a spike in number of people earning greater than $15000. Is it becuase of long tail?
Sam Freedoms Internet MArketing Controversy Blog
December 3rd, 2007 6:50 pm
Ever occur to you that some of those who aren’t earning money weren’t trying to earn money?
Y. S
December 3rd, 2007 10:01 pm
I’m one of those whom voted for less than $10/month. My blog is quite new but can someone with experience please have a look at it and let me know what I’m doing wrong?
Thanks in advance.
http://prep4md.blogspot.com/
Natalie
December 4th, 2007 4:45 am
Dan wrote “Just see the expected decline in number as income is increasing and then all of sudden there is a spike in number of people earning greater than $15000. Is it becuase of long tail?”
My personal thought is that most of those people were lying/taking the piss. $15000 a month is a lot of money - i SERIOUSLY doubt that many blogs earn that much (eg yearly 6 income figure). Your thoughts Darren?
Evan Hadkins
December 4th, 2007 9:00 am
To Y.S
I too am on less than $10/month. I guess you’d prefer comments from those on $15000.
Looking at your blog the presentation is good - nice and bright.
I’d change the line about it being ‘just another’ medical student blog to something like ‘one medical students journey’ or some such.
I’m not a smoker and don’t eat junk food much so there’s not much reason for me to go back.
Like me you tend to share information rather than being more personal. I am trying to write more personally and know it is difficult for some of us (it is for me). This is what takes me back to most of the blogs I like - a sense of connection with the blogger. So I don’t feel there is much on your blog that answers, “What’s in it for me?’
Finally, I don’t think some of the popular blogs are all that much better than all the rest. It may just be luck. It may be better marketing.
Hope my impressions help.
whathisname
December 4th, 2007 4:21 pm
Y.S:
I found your blog quite interesting because I’m preparing for medical school as well.
One tip I can give is that re-consider the colors. The greens make me think of vegetables, not medical school.
Antti
jfeole1
December 8th, 2007 6:32 am
With this info how does one get into the 7% of bloggers
Justin - PPC Man
December 9th, 2007 6:48 am
Well for me I’m not that suspicious! I think the stats are not fake, but I’m sure SOME people dind’t respond 100% accurately! It is GREAT to see some people making good to great money blogging! This is what I aspire to be able to do in time. I think it takes incredible patience and diligence to achieve this. We shall see. Only the strong survive and don’t give up kind of thing, eh?
My PPC Advice Blog
DNYL in Budapest
December 11th, 2007 1:44 am
Many thanks for this brief diagram, now I can see what is my target percentage :).
A quick question: The survey is international, from all over the world, or just from US?
Thanks
Free XBOX 360 Elite
December 24th, 2007 10:50 am
It looks like bloggers either get into it a little bit and just toss up a few ads because they can and aren’t really expecting to earn anything, or they are trying to optimize for their adds and make a couple hundred bucks. Then there are the crazies, that have a real knack for blogging, like professional athletes, their a different breed
Buddy
January 13th, 2008 9:33 am
After joining a new blog network I hope to join that 9% making over $15,000!
chatlinecash
January 13th, 2008 4:00 pm
We have some bloggers that are involved in our affiliate program. We offer Mainstream, Adult and Alternative lifestyle messenger systems where we pay out 50% commissions on all new and rebill payments.
One of our bloggers finds news articles that are associated with nudism, lesbian, swingers, etc and remarks on them, including our nutsworldwide.com website address, with a remark, interested in the nudist lifestyle, try this link. When a person posts a profile and if that person ever makes a purchase or their purchase rebills monthly, they are paid 50% commissions. One of our website has an annual membership figure of $90 USD, earning the referring blogger $45 USD. When this person’s subscription rebills a year later, that person earns another $45 USD. Monthly rebills are at $14.95 UDS earning the member $7.47 USD Monthly.
On mature websites, don’t be afraid casually mentioning an adult website, you can mention it in humor and still reap the benefits. Relying solely on adwords/adsense will not make you steady income. Think outside of the box to gain other avenues of revenue for your blogging time.
I was meeting with one of our affiliate bloggers last March and he commented that his web log earned him $240,000 US dollars in 2006, a very believable figure.
Remember, Millions of people are running adsense, as we do run adwords. Our adwords click payout monthly is minimal. It is so hard to write a fresh, catching ad in three lines, that will catch a persons attention and result in a click. Many of your visitors have seen the same ads running for years and will never click them. The amount of views versus the amount of actual clicks is astronomical. It is almost free advertising, branding, without having to pay for the clicks.
I just wanted to add insight to the conversation from a different point of view.
chatlinecash.com
Airsoft Maniac
January 19th, 2008 7:34 am
I haven’t made any money off of my blog, but now that my blog is awaiting admission for some of the revenue sites that Darren suggested, I hope to soon be competing with the top writers of the blogging community.
m07
January 19th, 2008 8:41 pm
i will be in the slot above 10$ /day.
tillie
January 30th, 2008 7:00 am
I make around $10 to $20 a month. I would like to know the website that make more over $15,000 in blogging alone.
Brisbane SEO Guy
February 4th, 2008 10:17 am
It would have been interesting to get a “cents per visitor” figure. Based on some very rough calculations from scant data, I calculate the average blog gets about 1.4 cents per unique visitor.
See this post:
http://www.searchtempoblog.com/index.php/blogging-for-cash-the-awful-truth/
Slim
February 7th, 2008 7:49 pm
I’m on about $1.40 a day on average so far. It doesn’t seem like much, but considering I’m getting real money for something I’ve been doing for free anyway.
You can earn a lot more if you combine your blog with an informative website!
Glen
February 11th, 2008 1:02 am
I just started to get interested in the concept of making money by blogging. Couple of questions for you who have done so, even if you made only one cent.
1) How exactly do you get the money after people click on your ads? Do you get a check for $0.03 cents?
2) How do you actually report your earnings on tax forms? That is, do you have some documentation?
3) I live in Japan, but have accounts there and in the USA (my homeland). Anyone else in a similar situation and can explain how to pay the taxes?
Fee Online Link Analysis
February 17th, 2008 12:54 pm
In answer to your questions:
1. You’ll either get a check or PayPal credit once your earning reach a certain level. For example, I think the trigger point with Google is $25. Once you reach that, you will get paid that amount plus any amount before the cut-off calculation date.
2. If you are paid by PayPal, you can use that credit on your statement as the documentation to prove your earning. if not, then you will just have to keep records of payments and declare that income when you do your tax.
3. I live is Australia and can’t really help you. I suggest come tax time you ask your accountant. There are probably some rules about foreign sourced income.
BicaraTeruna
February 18th, 2008 12:14 am
Hmm.. I dont get much really.
Damn you 15k bloggers!
Michael F
February 23rd, 2008 3:59 am
I am new to the blogging world; however, I generally have a good grasp on concepts.
I agree with everyone else, that those who do not make much, don’t work hard enough or choose not to put adds.
Finding a niche is very important; however, your income does not have to come from a niche. For example my blog University Scholar is, and will be, targeted towards college students who are involved on their campus and very academic. However, all college students enjoy fun. My blog may be 90% college stuff, then 10% fun stuff. The college stuff pulls in the traffic, but the fun stuff gets the revenue because the ads may be better.
seoreef
March 18th, 2008 5:16 am
These numbers must be bogus. Otherwise I can’t explain the difference between the number of people earning 10-15k and those earning over 15k.
Daniel
March 20th, 2008 4:56 am
I know this may be a stupid question, but where does the money you make go? You have to have a bank account. you have to setup the blog, people click on adverts, but where does the money go.
Frustrated. very very frustrated. I think I’m missing something, but what?
Thank You
Darren Rowse
March 20th, 2008 9:41 am
Daniel - it depends upon how you make money. For using a tool like AdSense if someone clicks an ad then an advertiser pays AdSense (Google) and then at the end of the month they send you a cheque for all the clicks. In most cases there is a middle man that collects the money and sends it on to you.
sdenterprise
April 21st, 2008 6:28 am
The money is flying in!
kız oyunları
April 26th, 2008 10:33 am
These numbers must be bogus. Otherwise I can’t explain the difference between the number of people earning 10-15k and those earning over 15k.
Darren Rowse
April 26th, 2008 10:38 am
kiz oyunlari - I agree that there are probably a few people who just ticked the highest earning category for ‘fun’ but I do think that there are quite a few bloggers earning this kind of figure and it makes sense to me that it’d be bigger than the 10-15k amount as there’s no upper limit. ie it includes those earning 15-20, but also 20-25, 25-30 and onwards.
So yes, skewed - but I’m not sure it’s badly skewed.
UkbuildingsInsurance.blogspot.com
May 14th, 2008 2:34 pm
It would be very interesting to see a blogging survey conducted on most popular monetization efforts plus revenue/traffic ratios. Such a survey could shed some light on the fact that a quarter of those surveyed who can earn something make less than 0.33 cents per day.
led display
May 24th, 2008 7:30 pm
I also want to know the cucsses maker money blogger ,
how many hours there spend on blog every day?
NikSan
June 11th, 2008 7:46 pm
I had only heard / read of people earning thousands of dollars just from their blogs! Thanks to all who shared their blog income with Darren. This makes me believe that it is possible to make good money from blogging.
george tomas
July 2nd, 2008 9:32 pm
Look at my site I’m on about $25 a day on average so far.
Pete
July 9th, 2008 9:37 pm
Another interesting stat to collect would be how long the blog has been going, then you could report something like “of the blogs earning over $15k/month, 87% had been running over 2 years”
Finn
July 21st, 2008 11:41 am
im only getting about $3 a day with 500 visits and 1500 page views a day , im only running a week or two tho.
Intelligent Speculator
July 27th, 2008 8:53 am
Your charts are probably pretty acccurate except for the people who claimed to make over $15,000. That is obviously skewed. The percentage would continue to go down for this category and would probably be more like 0.1 percent.
print ads
August 28th, 2008 4:29 pm
There are some sexy $$ earners there!!!
Fleur Brown
August 29th, 2008 9:11 am
Most people I talk to make $50 - 100 per month from click revenue. I guess like in most industries the top 1% make most of the cash through skill, hard work, luck and time.
gout
September 4th, 2008 6:11 pm
yach…good idea, I am one with little money erning…very sad
Liz Micik
September 11th, 2008 2:03 am
I would like to know if most of the respondents answered based on running one blog, or if they answered with a total from all the blogs they are running. I have recently started a small blog network in a very tight niche and if I am able to build my income to around $500 from each of them within 6 months to a year I will be very happy.
Also, I have seen other surveys similar to this where the answers could be sliced another way. How much do you earn from Adsense, how much from an Ad Network, how much from affiliate sales, etc. Again, a relatively small income from each of those sources would add up nicely.
Kos Cos
September 27th, 2008 11:02 pm
Thanks, These stats were just what i was looking for!!
Dayboro Accommodation
September 28th, 2008 9:06 am
I suspect a lot of people were interested in these stats and are now rethinking any notion of getting rich quickly from blogging :)
I think 1.5 cents per unique visitor is a good rule of thumb.
gout
October 5th, 2008 7:10 pm
now ….my earning more better than my first time I read this posting……heeeee
t-luck
October 7th, 2008 5:03 pm
Impressive figures..
How long does it take to see any money coming in, regardless of their amount? after you’ve blogged continuously for about 4-5 post a week, put up some ads, etc…
Steve
October 17th, 2008 2:49 am
There’s a few sites out there that pay you upfront for the articles you write… seems to be a much easier way to make money then blogging. Checkout http://www.brighthub.com I believe they pay $10 for each article you submit and also pay you 80% of advertising revenue.
mysapce
November 10th, 2008 4:36 am
Search engine traffic is better, with blogging you can never go wrong.
Rodney@Blogging with WordPress
November 22nd, 2008 5:44 am
Very interesting, but like one of the previous commenters I was very surprised and not a little sceptical at the number of those earning more than 15k per month!
Ben
December 2nd, 2008 3:57 am
I’ve been blogging for 2 years and tend to create about $50 a month from my efforts.
The second month into putting ads on my site, I earned over $100 and was very excited, thinking that an increase in page views would translate to higher ad revenue, but this has not been the case.
The correlation between visitors and income earned is a bit all over the place - very frustrating to me at first, but now I just keep trying new things and see what happens, and tweak it from there.
I would really love to move beyond the bracket I’m in now into the $100+ a month bracket.
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