Monetization Archives - Page 4 of 5 - This Week in Blogging

3 Lessons Learned in Tracking Blogging Income for 400 Weeks

July 21, 2022May 6, 2022

If you ever have the ~~misfortune~~ luck to ever meet me at a conference, you will quickly find out that I am a data nerd. I love analytics, the technical side of blogging is my favorite part, and yes, I even enjoy SEO (something virtually no one anywhere ever says).

So it should be no surprise that when it comes to tracking blogging income, I have a spreadsheet for that and I update it every single week.

As it turns out, I recently passed my 400th week of tracking my blogging income (which for those who don't want to do the math is nearly eight years), and I thought it was time to share some insights I've learned along the way.

Some of these insights are helpful to bloggers outright, and others are reasons why you, too, should track your income at a set interval (if not weekly, at least monthly). So let's dive into them now!

The Glassdoor for Creators – F*** You, Pay Me

April 8, 2022April 4, 2022

Earning money as a creator feels like this man rolling a money rock uphill

We like to see creators getting their due when it comes to the content they create.

But apparently not quite as much as the creators of FYPM (F*** You Pay Me), a service which calls itself the “glassdoor for influencers.”

CPM vs RPM – What They Mean & Why They’re Hard to Compare

August 15, 2021August 2, 2021

One of the most common questions we see in many blogging groups is simply the following: What is your blog's RPM?

Many bloggers are happy to jump in and say that they earn $10 RPM, $50 RPM, or even $100+ RPM in some extreme cases and let that be that. But while $100+ RPM sure does sound exciting (okay, fine, it is exciting considering just a few years ago most blogs barely broke $10 RPM), simply sharing this number without any additional context is a bit meaningless.

The reason for that is that there are far too many factors that go into your blog's earnings such that even if two bloggers were discussing ad prices, even on the same ad network, they're really not able to be compared apples-to-apples in any respect.

So in this one, we wanted to break down a bit of the terminology you see (beyond our blogging acronym guide) and discuss all of the things that go into what makes up your blog's RPM.

Pretty Links Pro Review – Link Cloaking and Affiliate Monitoring

July 21, 2022March 15, 2021

Pretty Links Pro is an interesting WordPress plugin that is designed for a simple purpose- to cloak links.

While this premium plugin has a very niche use, for those who consistently use affiliate links that are, well, ugly, Pretty Links Pro helps solve a problem that has plagued our industry for years.

In this one, we wanted to dive a bit more as to why bloggers cloak links, when you should and shouldn't do so, and go into a bit more detail in how Pretty Links Pro works to solve this issue.

As a bonus, we'll also talk about a way you can do this without a plugin at all (but even here, we still pay for this one all the same and will share why as well)!

RYDE Review – Protecting Our Image Copyrights With Ease

December 18, 2022January 18, 2021

Update: RYDE was recently acquired and rebranded as VAAAM. Since then the service has switched to a model that requires a monthly fee for image tracking. While we would have liked to try this new service despite the high fee, the team at VAAAM has been unresponsive to our questions and therefore we have not been able to test the new set up. As such, please consider the below review out of date.

In the past, we have talked about protecting your image copyright with monitor tracking services like Copytrack. Unfortunately, as we have had some less than ideal experiences with that service we looked to others to help fill our needs.

RYDE (formerly KODAKOne) is one such entity that offers an image monitoring service using proprietary technology to catch when your photo copyrights are being violated on the internet. Then they reach out to infringers to invoice for damages and help you monetize your stolen work.

But perhaps the best part about this service is its ease of use- it is quite hands-off!

Disclaimer: We are affiliates of RYDE. By signing up for their service, we may receive a commission.

A Blogger’s Perspective into Advertising and Sponsorship Values

December 14, 2020December 14, 2020

Are you a PR representative or represent a brand in their marketing efforts and are looking to work with bloggers, social media influencers, or other non-traditional media and don't know where to begin? We're here to help!

We will be the first to admit that this field is quite murky as everyone looks at blog sponsorships and advertising differently. But as not all advertising is created equal, and to help you know what you're getting into, this guide was born.

So depending on what you're thinking of for your next campaign, the following outlines many things you need to consider!

Why Your Affiliate Marketing Stinks (And 3 Ways to Fix It)

December 15, 2020December 14, 2020

Affiliate marketing is a tough nut to crack, and I would know.

Three years ago, in my 9th year of blogging, I was barely making $100 per month on affiliate marketing, despite having over 150,000 monthly page views on my two sites combined ($0.66 on an RPM, revenue-per-1000, basis).

After many months of testing, optimizing, re-optimizing, and learning about best practices, I've overhauled my process to consistently make $1,500 to $2,000 per month in affiliate marketing on 225,000 monthly page views ($6.66 to $8.88 on a RPM basis- over a 10x increase!).

During this process, I learned the reason why my affiliate marketing sucks, and realized it is the reason why most blogger's affiliate marketing sucks. So today, I wanted to share more about this, and give the three biggest lessons learned in the entire process- whether you're a beginner looking for how to start affiliate marketing or are a bit more advanced and want to increase your earnings.

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers with Kayleigh Zara

December 7, 2020December 7, 2020

Affiliate Marketing Advertising Commercial Concept

It's difficult to imagine a blogger being able to turn their passion into a profession without harnessing the power of affiliate marketing. It's probably not the very first thing you think about when starting a blog, but once you start to gain traction an audience, then utilizing affiliate marketing in your content strategy is almost a no-brainer.

For those who may be closer to the start of their blogging journey, affiliate marketing is simply the commission you earn from promoting somebody else's product. This can be a product for a company, or for an individual, and the rates and agreement will usually be a little different depending on what it is you're actually promoting.

Of course, the larger your site is, and the more traffic you have, the more potential there is for your affiliate marketing partnerships to pay off. That's why utilizing SEO best practices is vital, as well as continuing to learn about blogging best practice from experienced bloggers.

We'll step aside and stop talking about affiliate marketing, so that we can let today's expert shine. Today, we're very fortunate to be joined by Kayleigh Zara.

Kayleigh is a 24 year old full time freelancer based in the UK. Her main blog can be found at Kayleighzaraa.com, but she currently runs and manages three blogs in total. She, like us, has the belief that with a little bit of guidance anyone can make money online. When she's not blogging, she's a PhD student, and really enjoys black and white movies, caffeine and martinis!

We like her style.

Mediavine Review – Optimizing Our Blog’s Advertising Revenue

October 29, 2025November 6, 2020

I've tried a number of advertising options on my travel blogs over the years, be it through Google Adsense, ad waterfalls with multiple networks (back when Amazon ads were a thing, at least), and private ad networks like Mediavine, all with one goal in mind- optimizing my CPM advertising revenue.

When I first started on Adsense, I was lucky to get $3 CPM (on a session basis). Now on Mediavine, I get between $30-$50 CPM depending on the time of year. With my two travel blogs often receiving 150,000 to 250,000 sessions per month combined, this increase in advertising revenue was a make or break difference for me in being able to turn my blogging career into a full-time job.

But I have to admit I was hesitant on joining Mediavine at first due to their exclusivity clause and traffic requirements (previously 50,000 sessions per month, but now at $5,000/year revenue for those who apply from Journey- which I estimate to be around 25k sessions per month), but after a few rave reviews from colleagues I jumped in and never looked back.

We should never have hesitated on this one. So let's dive down into a Mediavine review for more!

Note: While Mediavine requires $5,000/year annual ad revenue to join the “Official” tier, they have a newer product for smaller sites called Mediavine Journey that accepts 1,000+ monthly sessions! So be sure to read our Mediavine Journey review too if your traffic doesn't meat the entry requirement here.

How to Make $100,000 a Year With Your Blog and Why it is Difficult

November 3, 2020

Six figures a year from blogging. That truly is a dream we all aspire to, isn't it?

As we've found out in our quest to make a real income from blogging, there are many ways to get to six figures a year in income.

But while you can approach this question from many different angles, as we plan to outline extensively below, one thing is certain: they are all very, very difficult to achieve.

Even though it is entirely possible to make six figures from your website, you must be prepared to work your butt off for it. In this detailed guide we share why that is.