Getting Paid to Blog: Which Advertisements are Best for Monetizing My Blog?

If you have a blog, you've probably considered placing advertisements on it.  There are a lot of different ad services out there, sone catering specifically to blogs.  Different ad sites use different systems of calculating pay, some in cash and others in credits which can then be used to purchase ads for your own blog.

Choosing which ad services are right for your blog depends on a lot of factors.  In order to Decide which site is right for you and your blog, you need to understand how each site works.

Google's Adsense advertising service is one of the most commonly used on the web, appearing on blogs and other websites of all kinds. Adsense scours the content of your blog and matches appropriate ads to your posts.

Adsense ads pay in two different ways. Some ads pay on a pay-per-thousand-views (PPM) basis, meaning that you can earn a small residual income from your page views. However, the real money at Adsense is in ad clicks. Whenever a viewer clicks a Google ad on your page, you get paid. The amount of pay per click depends on the popularity of the keywords in your blog posts.

They key to making money with Adsense is to use good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in your blog posts. Knowing how to use SEO keywords in your posts will translate to more relevant ads appearing on your blog, increasing the likelihood that visitors will click.

Perhaps the most daunting thing about Adsense is the $100 payout threshold. A small, casual blog that earns only a few cents a month will take years to reach the point of payment. However on a larger blog or across a network of smaller blogs, Adsense earnings can add up to a worthwhile amount.

Project Wonderful is an advertising network that stands apart from all others as a model of transparency. The site acts as a liason between advertisers and publishers, matching the two with a bidding-based system.

As a publisher of ads on Project Wonderful, you maintain complete control over your ad prices. You select the size and configuration of your ad boxes and set the minimum daily bid on each ad unit. Opening bids can be set as low as $0 per day and are broken down into four world regions; you can sell ad space based on whether your visitors are from the USA, Canada, Europe, or everywhere else. Approval settings also allow you complete control over which ads appear on your website. This structure makes Project Wonderful a valuable use of advertising space for smaller blogs. Larger, high-traffic blogs, however, will likely fare better with Google Adsense.

Bidders can view a detailed breakdown of your blog's traffic information before bidding. Ad information pages include charts showing now only where traffic has come from over the past day and week, but shows a 30-day history of your blog's traffic volume and bid averages as well.

The payout threshold at Project Wonderful is a reasonable $10, but the site does charge $1 per withdrawl to cover PayPal fees. You can also use the funds in your account to purchase ads for your own website or blog at any time.

Entrecard is a popular blog-only advertising network that operates on a credit-based system. Members spend credits to purchase 24 hours of advertising in your website. The more popular the website, the more credits it costs to advertise there.

You earn credits when someone buys an ad on your blog, when another Entrecard member clicks a widget on your blog (called a "drop"), or when you drop on another Entrecard user's blog. You can then use these credits to purchase ads for your own blog on other websites. Clicks generated by Entrecard, however, tend to have a very high bounce rate. Nonetheless, it is a good advertising solution for small-time bloggers who have more time than money to spend on advertising.

CMF Ads is another blog-specific advertising program. There are two types of ads on CMF Ads; site-specific ads and network ads. For site-specific ads, you set a per-month charge for advertising space. For network ads, you earn a small percentage of ad revenues.

The minimum cahsout threshold at CMF Ads is $1.00, but the site does charge a 20% fee on withdrawals to cover site operating fees and PayPal fees, as well as to encourage publishers to keep their advertising dollars within the CMF community.

To avoid the 20% fee, users can spend their ad revenue to purchase advertising on other CMF member blogs. They also offer a click-generating service called a "spike." CMF guarantees to generate a certain amount of traffic in exchange for a certain amount of money, such as 50 clicks for 25 cents. Other CMF users can view the available spike requests and earn a small amount of money for each blog link they click. However, like Entrecard, these visits have a very high bounce rate.

CMF Ads is a nice service for smaller blogs and those who wish to earn free advertising. It has the potential to generate a few extra dollars a month, but don't expect revenues from this site to pay the bills.

Adgitize is a blogger advertising network that pays cash to publishers. Payments are figured daily and distributed based on a point system, paying proportionate amounts of ad revenue based on how many points are earned.

There are several ways to earn point on the Adgitize network. Points are awarded for traffic; the more views your blog gets, the more ad impressions you have for the day, and the more points you will be awarded. Adgitize also awards a significant amount of points just for keeping your blog up-to-date, awarding points daily to members who make new blog posts. Finally, members can earn points by visiting the blogs of other Adgitize users.

Adgitize certainly isn't a website that will make you rich. With daily posting and an average of 100 page views per day, you can expect to make about 50 cents a month. At that rate, it will take a while to reach the $10 payment threshold. You can, however, link multiple blogs to one Adgitize account, so bloggers with more than one site could potentially see more revenue.