How to make money from blogging

AFR

Christchurch's Madeline Ezzy blogs as Lil Magoolie: Writing about children, interior design and crafts, she finds her own advertisers. Blogging is "not enough to live on".

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The internet is awash with people promising to reveal how to earn a six-figure salary from blogging. It's a tempting proposition – flexible, lucrative work that can be done in your pyjamas. But how easy is it really and what kind of money are we talking about?

The most obvious way is advertising. One-stop shops such as Google Ads can help. Or you may want to check out Kiwi firm f7Media, which is building a New Zealand-based blog advertising network. f7Media is still in beta but bloggers who are potentially interested can sign up for the beta testing.

Emma Watson, operations manager at f7Media, says they aim "to get more New Zealand businesses into online advertising by being easy to work with and affordable, and more bloggers into being ad publishers by providing the application, the creative and a useful level of revenue."

However, Watson also advises that some blogs can attract advertisers directly if they don't pitch their rates too high.

Direct advertising of this sort appealed to Christchurch-based blogger Madeline Ezzy. Her blog, Lil Magoolie (lilmagoolie.com), has been going just over six months and already attracts about 3000 visitors a week.

Ezzy says: "I've chosen to feature my own advertisements rather than going with a package because it gives me more control about who I feature and I can ensure the products or stores are relevant to my readers."

She admits that it's time-consuming and that currently the money is "certainly not enough to live on".

Affiliate programmes are another income generator. These allow you to promote a wide range of third-party products on your blog and you usually receive a commission of some sort. United States-based clickbank.com has a great explanation of how this works on its site and it is not restricted to the US.

Closer to home you could check out clixgalore.co.nz.

Products should be relevant to your readers. If you blog about mountain biking there's not much point in promoting cookbooks.

Other methods of raising revenue include product reviews and giveaways. Sarah Gauntlett, blogger and founder of online directory Kiwi Mummy Blogs says there is a trend for more integrated promotional opportunities.

She explains: "These methods of advertising aren't as 'in your face' and can be merged into your blog without looking like you have sold out or that you are only doing it for the money."

However, the problem with any kind of promotion is that you need a minimum number of visitors to make it worthwhile for the advertiser. A recent posting on this topic by a US blogger put this figure at 4000 visitors a day.

"That's a pretty high-end estimate but even among Kiwi bloggers nobody mentions a figure lower than 1000 visitors a week. Not many New Zealand blogs are getting numbers like that.

Also, if you blog in a popular topic area like politics you'll probably need a higher number to get any real interest from advertisers, because of the proliferation of political blogs. On the other hand, blog on a narrow niche topic and you may get advertisers with fewer visitors.

Sarah Gauntlett, of Kiwi Mummy, believes bloggers here face particular challenges when it comes to getting these stats up because of New Zealand's size.

Whatever method bloggers use, most admit to spending hours a day on their blogs and making only pocket money amounts in return.

- © Fairfax NZ News