The Work At Home Experiment - Monetize Your Blog !

Here we go ! The big tab is of the utmost importance ! The "Monetize" tab in your Blogspot.com or Blogger.com blog "Dashboard".

First you have your AdSense Overview. this shows your payment history, or at least what your estimated earnings should be for the current time or both. It will show you what kind of money making program you running with AdSense, like "AdSense for Content" and the "Affiliate Program". I think you can choose both, but right now, I'm just interested in the AdSense for Content program.

The reason I am just going with the Content program is because it allows you to make money with visitors to your blog or site to just click on the ads. Nobody has to by anything. The ads change all the time depending on what Google's algorithm has determined they should be by what you are writing in your blog or the content overall for your site. If I were talking a lot about boats, I'm pretty sure you would be seeing ads related to boats or boat accessories. Then you, the reader of the blog, would click on those links if you were interested, and I would get credit for it. The credit is a certain amount determined by the several factors, including what the advertiser is paying to Google, and even if Google GOT paid. Google analyzes all the clicks or hits to make sure they are legit. If they are, you get paid for them.

I also have my blog set for image ads and/or banners. If I have this right, and I think I do, you can also get paid for the number of impressions, or the number of times a banner ad happens to show up on your site. I think the banner ads don't even have to be clicked. You are getting paid for them because the content you were writing about lured the banner ads onto your site, and since they are taking up space and have the opportunity to be displayed on YOUR site that you control, your getting paid to advertise for those companies. I think that's pretty cool, considering you can have a very high traffic site that gets lots of impressions. And it is less intrusive to the customer and easier on you. To me, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Especially at this stage of the game. I don't want to wait for someone to buy something to get paid. It might be a bigger commission, but to me it is still a gamble. I'll do it later when I have even more traffic coming to this site.

The "Google Affiliate Program" is just that. You get paid for what people buy, but that is what they have to do...BUY ! Again, I'll do this later since a buck is a buck, but I am reserving my space for the easier buck at the moment.

Now, the "AdSense Overview" shows the stats for both those programs, like the number of page impressions, how many cliks you have, the page CTR, the page eCPM and the earnings, or rather your "estimated earnings".

So what is page CTR ? Google defines it as Page CTR (Clickthrough Rate): The number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions for the page of ads that appears when a link unit is clicked.

And what is page eCPM ? Google defines it as Page eCPM (Effective Cost Per Thousand Impressions): Calculated by dividing earnings by number of page impressions and multiplying. This makes it easier to compare multiple sites to see which are performing better.

This is the only report I have seen so far, probably because I just got started. But you can get other reports in links below that go straight to your the login for your Google AdSense account. And maybe I failed to mention that as well. You have to sign up for the AdSense program. But no worries. You can do that right through the blog site dashboard when you get to it. It is one more thing you use your Gmail email account for.

The other sub-tabs for the Monetize section of the "Dashboard" are AdSense for Feeds and "Amazon Associates". The feeds, I believe, are for the RSS style of feeds and AdSense can add links to it. Haven't done this yet myself, but I will let you know when I do and tell you all about it. The other part is the "Amazon Associates" tab, and this is the one I am having trouble with. That pesky "associates ID". You would think that Amazon would have made it little better to understand, since you have a blog ID and a Google ID. I just can't seem to get things to connect yet. And I DO want things to connect because I want to get credit, and cash, for the things I am promoting on my blog. Otherwise, why bother, right ?

That is about it for now on this subject. In the next couple of posts, I want to talk about other affiliate links and adding PayPal to your site.

So watch out for the "Amazon Associates" tab. Go to Amazon first and explore their affiliates program info first to get acquainted with terms and what to look out for and see how the relationship between Amazon and Google and the blog site works. I didn't even know, when I was starting the blog in the first place, that I would have the opportunity to do anything with Amazon. Otherwise I would have done the same thing I just told you to do. Maybe I will get it straightened out, maybe not. Either way, I'll let you know what I did and how it turns out. That is about it for now on this subject. In the next couple of posts, I want to talk about other affiliate links and adding PayPal to your site. Just proceed with caution when you get this area, and if YOU get figured out and know what they are referring to, let us know here and comment on it. I could use the help on this one !

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Source: http://trytoworkathome.blogspot.com/2010/01/work-at-home-experiment-monetize-your.html