Your Blog Sucks! You'll Never Make Any Money Online Like That!

Are you having trouble making money online? Of course you are! That's why you arrived for another installment of "Your Blog Sucks" Week on Source Blogger.

Perhaps you've never heard of Source Blogger or visited us before? If not, we welcome you. What is our secret? It's pretty simple. We provide you with the tutorials, resources, and direction to make you a better blogger. We have fun doing it and we make it easy. No one does it like Source Blogger. Don't take our word for it. Look around. Then, come back to Source Blogger. Subscribe to us. And let us start proving it to you.

If you're just joining us, in the middle of "Your Blog Sucks" Week, we should pause for a brief recap.

First, we started with the week by calling out bloggers to recognize that there were aspects of their blogs keeping them from the success they deserved on Your Blog Sucks! No Traffic! No Comments! No Subscribers! No Money!

We followed that up with Your Blog Sucks! - Site Design, a revealing look into your reader's frustrations in regards to your site's appearance and function.

As input from other bloggers came pouring in, you witnessed a "never before seen" look into the heart and soul of your blogging peers on Your Blog Sucks! What Other Bloggers Are Saying About You! Ladies and gentleman, it was brutal. Source Blogger gave it to you raw. I tried to contain them. Criticisms came through loud and clear. In the end, we all took a lot away from that.

Today, we're going to analyze one of the biggest concerns for many bloggers: "Why am I having such a hard time making money online?" and/or "How Do I Make Money Online?"

We have a set of new bloggers  anxious to get a crack at you and your blog. They think your blog sucks too.

Let's see what they have to say and what we can do start making money online, shall we?

Your Blog Sucks! You'll Never Make Any Money Online Like That!  

1) Who told you were an authority on "making money online?"

You just launched this blog a month ago an you're an expert? You were aware that some of the high revenue bloggers might come across your blog and expose you, right?

You have a few Adsense text blocks littered across your site with an Alexa Rank of 8,200,000? What am I missing here? You have no traffic. No content. No subscribers. At this rate, I can help you predict how much money you're going to make...nada.  

Do you think you can just talk about money and the checks will miraculously appear in your mailbox? Do yourself a favor, request a refund for all those "money making systems" you bought off of ClickBank. You're making money...for someone else.  

Source Blogger: Ouch. That was a good start...Next!  

2) Popups

What was that?  A popup? A full-page, Adbrite ad? An interstitial ad?  

Are you trying to run off the little traffic you do receive? And for the sake of what... .003 cents per CPM? I know you want to make money, but is it worth it? Do you think a reader will return for you to throw another net over their head? I don't think so...

You have to read: How To Get Paid From CPM Advertising Without Annoying Your Traffic!

3) Poorly Targeted Ads

Your blog is about making money and you have shopping ads for women's lingerie and cool t-shirts? Who were you expecting? This isn't some keyword-oriented eCommerce site. How many conversions are your going to make with this approach?

4) Junk Drawer

My Blog Log, Networked Blogs, Adgitize, CMF Ads, Entrecard, Blog Catalog...

Have you ever turned down a blog widget? Not only are you distracting you readers from your content, the massive amount of blog real estate you carve out for these blogging communities and traffic exchanges is generating pennies.

While real money-makin' bloggers are juggling sophisticated ad networks, conversion techniques, and affiliate strategies... you spend hours chasing a nickel.

There are hundreds of ad networks offering free tools and resources. Research them.

5) Take that stupid pic down!

That close-up of you holding a check for $2.64 is embarrassing. Is that real money to you? And it took you what...3 months to get that "big payday"?

Are you a blogger? I ask because you occupy your days being the "Chief Clicker" of the traffic exchanges...and doing surveys the rest of the time.

Snap out of it, come back to your blog, let's optimize for SEO and work on improving your content.

6) You had about 6 blog posts last month.

I'm not going to lecture you on your posting frequency, that's Source Blogger's job. My question is what were you doing the rest of the time? And you claim to want to make money online? How many blogs do you have? How many affiliate sites do you own? How many reseller sites do you run? Do you own any eCommerce sites?

Many of the people making money online use multiple methods of generating online revenue. (And no, not traffic exchanges or surveys!)

Do you know what making a commission is? What is an affiliate? What is a referral?

Get answers to these questions first.

"Source Blogger, how are we doing?"

Source Blogger: "Well, not as vicious as the bloggers in the last article, but some good points. I'm next.

7) That row of empty ad spots

How are you going to sell eight 125x125 ad spots on your blog?

That's a large area of your blog not making money. May I make a suggestion? Cut it down to three. Place your own 125x125 ad in this space along with the 125x125 ad of an affiliate you are working with or a fellow blogger. Leave the last space open and focus the attention of your blog traffic to the fact you have only one spot left. It will work.

Read this if you want to know more about selling the 125x125 ad space on your site.

8) Google AdSense or bust!

Google is a nice starting point. But, your monetization efforts should not begin and end with just AdSense.  There are some sites that work better without AdSense.

If your site is not getting enough clicks, let's look at other AdSense alternatives.

Here are a list of some of the more popular networks. Remember, you do not want to go too far down the "food chain."

Among a list of many different criteria, you, at least, want an ad network that:

1) Attracts a consistent supply of advertisers that "bid up" the price to advertise on your blog

2) Competition is healthy and leads you to higher payouts. You worked for it, when the clicks (or impressions) come, let it be worth your while.

3) You need an ad network that attracts a truly diversified range of advertisers in order for you to target your ad campaigns to your anticipated traffic demographic.

I want to provide you a short list of advertisers that we have had success with:

1) Click Bank
2) AdBrite
3) PepperJam Network
4) WidgetBucks
5) Chitika

If you are looking for more resources, check out the left and right sidebars of Source Blogger. You can't possibly begin to develop revenue strategies until you can fully evaluate the many resources at your disposal. These networks all have something in common, they love blogs like yours.

"Anticipated traffic demographic? Source Blogger, are you showing off? Can I cut in?"

Source Blogger: "Be my guest."

8) Take that PayPal Button down!

No one is going to "buy you a beer" or "buy you a coffee." Your blog has not matured to the point that a high volume of loyal readers are interacting with you and have little reservation in clicking your PayPal icon, has it? Otherwise, you look sort of pitiful asking for donations. Who are you anyway,  the Salvation Army?

If you're going to use the PayPal button, place it on your advertising page to facilitate the processing of selling your ad space. It looks professional too.

Source Blogger: "I'm going to wrap this up with one last point of my own".

9) Converting Unsolicited Traffic

Let your goal for 2010 be developing link building strategies in order to enhance your SEO efforts.

Let your goal for 2010 be to entice readers with better "static headlines and titles".

Promise yourself that you will do "whatever it takes" to attract unsolicited traffic with the highest probability of converting your advertising efforts into a sale.

It's that simple.

If you want to know more about the type of traffic your blog needs, you should read this.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this article. There were a great deal of resources that were mentioned in this post. Bookmark this page if you need to. Also, I want to know what ad networks made a difference in your revenue strategy?

Next, we'll close "Your Blog Sucks" Week with a look at why your blog traffic is not converting to more comments or subscribers. Speaking of subscribers, it's time to become a member of the Source Blogger community. We want you to become a Source Blogger subscriber.