Casey Stiehm

Do blogs actually make money? Part 1

2010-07-02T17:51:00.008-04:00

So, can you actually make money with your blog? Well, here is a screen shot of my AdSense account for you to see how much money has been generated since I created it (yesterday). Remember that this money was generated from everyone that came to read this blog. Someone clicked on one of the ads. Google AdSense keeps a log of these clicks and how much money it generates for you. Remember (as of the time I wrote this article) it has been up for less than 24 hours.

You will notice at the very top, I have not earned any money today. But look down in the bottom right corner and you will see that I have earned $1.81. Clearly this is not going to fill my retirement fund. However, as your blog becomes more popular, you will see more and more money rolling in. Think about this: if you earned $1.81 every day for 30 days, you will have made $54. Now multiply that by 12 months. Again, it is not enough to quit your day job, but it might be once you are generating $400 a day.

If you have read my blog on How to create a Blogspot account and make money with AdSense then you should already have an AdSense account. If you log into your AdSense account, you will see this same screen. Again, this screen shot does not reflect much earnings, but this blog is for educational purposes - but it still generated some passive income for me. I think we can all agree that making money while you sleep is a great way to bring in some extra cash.

Now let's take a look at those ads. This next screen shot shows you some of the ads that Google AdSense auto generated for my blog. At the top and on the side.

I will talk more about ad placement and size selections in a future article, but for now I want to focus on the reporting of AdSense.

Click here to move on to Part 2 of this article.

Do blogs actually make money? Part 2

2010-07-02T17:51:00.007-04:00

Click here to go back to Part 1 of this article.

Now lets keep track of our money! Go ahead and log into your Blogspot account. Once you log in, make sure you are at your dashboard. Your dashboard should look like the following screen shot below. From here, click on the "Monetize" link.

This is a very quick and simple look at the money you have earned with your blog. It is not as robust as the AdSense reports, however, it is a direct link off of your dashboard in Blogspot.

I hope this article has helped you and I hope you are following along with me through this series. Be sure to send me questions and also let me know about your success! I will even help promote your blog if I can.

Good luck and be sure to keep checking back for more tips!

Have questions or need help? Just send me an email at info@tekpros.us or add me as a friend on FaceBook at www.facebook.com/stiehm

Written by Casey Stiehm with Tek Pros

About the author:
Casey Stiehm is an IT professional and business consultant. He is the Vice President of Tek Pros as well as an IT instructor with Insyte Technical Training. His technical certifications include: A+, Network+, Security+, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, and others. He has taught and continues to teach these certification courses to individuals, government agencies, military personnel, non-profit organizations, and businesses around the world. For more information about his services, please visit www.tekpros.us or www.insytetraining.com.

How to create a Blogspot account and make money with AdSense: Part 1

2010-07-01T01:00:00.002-04:00

In the last couple of days, I created a Blogspot account. I then linked it to Google AdSense to show everyone how it works. I am going to describe this in a little more detail. I encourage everyone to create a Blogspot account and follow along with me.

Recently, I created www.CaseyStiehm.blogspot.com. I posted a blog for everyone to read: How to make passive income on the internet: Part 1 and Part 2. I later added Google AdSense. Now, I am going to create a new blog and show you how to link Google AdSense (with screen shots). Here we go:

1. First, create a Blogspot account by going to www.blogspot.com. Click on the “Create a Blog” button.

2. Next, enter your information to create an account. Be sure to check the box next to “I accept the Terms of Service” or Google will not allow you to create your account. Also, be sure to read the “Terms of Service”. Click “Continue” to move to the next page of the setup.

3. You should now get a screen similar to the one below which will allow you to pick a blog title and URL. Make sure to click on “Check Availability” to make sure the URL you want is not currently in use. Click “Continue” to move to the next page of the setup.

4. Now select one of the templates to use for your blog. Your template can be changed later. Click “Continue” to move to the next page of the setup.

5. You will get a confirmation that your blog account has been created and you can start blogging. Click on the orange arrow that says “Start Blogging”.

6. From this screen we could immediately start blogging, however, the idea behind this tutorial is to show you how to make MONEY with your blog. Let’s click on the tab that says “Monetize”.

7. Choose how you would like your Google AdSense ads displayed on your page. I personally like the first option, but feel free to select the layout that works for you. Click “Next” to continue with the AdSense setup.

8. You should now see a screen that say “AdSense is enabled for your blog”. Now click on the link at the bottom that says “AdSense Reports”.

9. You will now be redirected to the Google AdSense sign in page.

Continue to Part 2 of this article

How to create a Blogspot account and make money with AdSense: Part 2

2010-07-01T00:40:00.003-04:00

Continuation of How to create a Blogspot account and make money with Adsense: Part 1

10. Sign in with your Google account.

11. When you sign in, you will be on the “Reports” page. We can learn more about this page later and you should become familiar with it because it will give you information about the money you have earned from your page. But for now, let’s click on the “AdSense Setup” tab.

12. From this page, click on the “AdSense for Content” link.

13. For now, let’s just stick with the default settings to keep things simple. Click “Continue” to move on to the next page.

14. Keep the default settings for this screen as well and click “Continue” to move on to the next screen.

15. This screen will allow you to enter a name for your ad channel. Click on the link that says “Add new channel”. A pop-up window will allow you to enter the name for this new ad channel. Click “OK” when you are done naming your ad channel, then click “Continue” to move on to the next screen.

16. This screen is going to ask you to name your AdSense unit. As you can see from my screen shot, I gave it the same name as my new channel for simplicity of this tutorial. When you are done naming this AdSense unit, click on “Submit and Get Code” to move onto the next screen.

17. This page will give you the AdSense code that will be used on your site. This code will auto-generate the ads that will show up on your blog page. You do have options to modify the types of ads on your site, however, this is just an introduction to get you started until you feel more comfortable with your blog.

18. The “My Account” tab is where you can enter in all of your personal information such as your address so that Google can send you the money that you generate from your site.

19. Now head back over to your Blogspot site. Under the settings tab, make sure you are on the “basic” page. This is where you will enter in the information about your blog like the title and description. Be sure to include keywords so that your blog will be easily searchable by the Google search engines. Again, let’s keep the default settings for the rest of this page.

20. On the “Publishing” page you will see something similar to this screen. From here, you can click on the “Custom Domain” link which will allow you to use another registered domain name if you have already purchased one. When you are done, just click “Save Settings”.

Well that is it. Pretty simple. Be sure to play around with the different options and settings that are available to you on Blogspot and on AdSense. Now get out there and start uploading content to your blog so you can make some cash!

Good luck and be sure to keep checking back for more tips!

Have questions or need help? Just send me an email at info@tekpros.us or add me as a friend on FaceBook at www.facebook.com/stiehm

Written by Casey Stiehm with Tek Pros

About the author:
Casey Stiehm is an IT professional and business consultant. He is the Vice President of Tek Pros as well as an IT instructor with Insyte Technical Training. His technical certifications include: A+, Network+, Security+, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, and others. He has taught and continues to teach these certification courses to individuals, government agencies, military personnel, non-profit organizations, and businesses around the world. For more information about his services, please visit www.tekpros.us or www.insytetraining.com.

How to make passive income on the internet: Part 1

2010-06-25T16:47:00.001-04:00

Passive income, it’s what we all want. But how do you make it happen? Well, here is a quick-start guide for you. These are some ideas that can help you create passive income (well, not completely passive) by owning a content based website. First, let’s talk about blog sites. If you didn’t already know, blog websites are simple to open and they allow people to express their opinions, talk about their expertise, provide reviews, etc. Anyone can get one of these up and running in just a few hours. First, decide on a topic or a variety of topics you want to write about. For example, you might want to talk about “parenting skills” or maybe you are a wine connoisseur. Let us pretend we are going to blog about wines. Visit Blogspot.com and create an account (it is free), or create a blog site from scratch if you already know how. For example, our account on Blogspot.com is http://tekprosus.blogspot.com/. We also have a blog on our webpage at www.tekpros.us/blog. Let us pretend we created an account called “SimpleWineReviews.Blogspot.com”. Now you have to fill your blog with content. You can start off slowly and grow over time or you can immediately add various articles. The idea is to keep your readers interested in the articles you write about and have them want to visit your blog again. Loyalty is key! You could write up a quick review about a different wine every day. You could also write about different wineries. Be creative.
Another important factor to remember is consistency. Consistency can make you or break you. Be sure to add something new EVERY DAY! Why? Because this will help with your search ratings. Let me explain: When someone wants to find information about wines, they will probably use a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. These search engines are constantly checking websites for changes and for keywords. Every time you add a new article to your blog, the search engines make a note of it and the likelihood of your blog being found increases. You want to be one of the first sites that come up when someone types “wine reviews” into Google. Again, the only way to do this is by being consistent!
Now we need to help get the word out about your blog. You need to become familiar (if you aren’t already) with different social networking tools such as FaceBook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, LinkedIn, SumbleUpon, MySpace, and many more! Create accounts at these sites and read about ways to link them together and to your blog. For example, our FaceBook account, fan page, and Twitter accounts all update at the same time and have links back to our blogs. The different search engines will begin to see “SimpleWineReviews.Blogspot.com” popping up everywhere.
Another good practice is to link your blog’s site with other blogger sites. The more links to your blog, the better! Recruit your friends and family to help get the word out about your blog. They can also post links to your blog on their social networking pages (like FaceBook, Twitter, etc.).
GREAT! I created my blog, I opened various social networking accounts, and everyone I know is helping me promote it – but how does this make me money??? Click on the link below to continue reading part 2 of this article.
Continue to Part 2 of this article

How to make passive income on the internet: Part 2

2010-06-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

Continuation of How to make passive income on the internet: Part 1

Ah, the big question we all have! The answer is simple: through advertisements. Now the question becomes “How do I get companies to advertise on my blog page?” Well, it is not as hard as you might think. In fact, Google offers a free advertisement service called AdSense. You can incorporate AdSense on your blog through a simple copy-and-paste code that Google will provide to you. To learn more about how it works, visit this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEk1PHEXemQ. It is a very good overall explanation of this powerful tool. Once you feel you are generating enough traffic to your site, you can start selling advertisement space on your site to other companies (not just Google).

For more information on how to use these tools or if you have other techie questions, feel free to contact Tek Pros by visiting our website at www.tekpros.us. Also, be sure to add me as a friend on FaceBook to ask me questions directly or for regular technology updates. Find me at www.facebook.com/stiehm.

Written by Casey Stiehm with Tek Pros

About the author:
Casey Stiehm is an IT professional and business consultant. He is the Vice President of Tek Pros as well as an IT instructor with Insyte Technical Training. His technical certifications include: A+, Network+, Security+, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, and others. He has taught and continues to teach these certification courses to individuals, government agencies, military personnel, non-profit organizations, and businesses around the world. For more information about his services, please visit www.tekpros.us or www.insytetraining.com.