So you blog to make money, eh?

If so, you have probably heard of (or used) Google's Adsense Program.

Well, there are good and bad experiences with it, if you ask the blogging masses...

If you're new to the whole "I'm gonna use ADSENSE and blog to make MILLIONS!  YAAAY!" I have news for you.  If you don't do your homework, you're not going to make any money.

And if you are too good, and make too much too soon, google will END YOU, like they did me (more on that below).

Here is an awesome infographic I found from Wordstream:

Source

If you're going to do it, do it right.  Optimize your site for maximum search traffic.  Advertise on blogs (like mine) to gain more viewers and followers.  And if you're blogging purely for the money, pick a topic that will yield a high cost-per-click (see above graphic).  Use social media to your advantage (remember my Stumbleupon post??  Yeah, like that) and keep growing as much as you can.

If you blog about everything, your ads are going to be about everything.  Google has tools that let you focus your ad material on more relevant topics, but be careful:  If they think you're playing their system, they can shut you off without notice.

I started blogging in January.  By the end of February, I had enough traffic to net me $10-20 a day via adsense.  About 1.5% of my viewers were clicking ads, and I was making roughly $0.78 per click.  It added up, and my first check from Google was almost $200.  They eventually cut me off (without reason, just "we decided to end your account") but it was fun while it lasted.

Most other advertising sites don't have the same monetary yield as google, so focus on adsense if you can.  Blogher's ads look like they may be decent, but I'm not going to go down that pathway again.  (and I hear Blogher is very VERY picky about who they let in...)

For those of you with adsense success stories, feel free to share them by commenting below.  I'm sure newer people to the game would appreciate it...

...oh, and have I mentioned you can advertise on my blog?  You know, just in case I hadn't already...

How do people find you?

Google is a powerful tool in the 21st century.  Hell, it's even a verb (have you goog'd lately??). 

 So naturally, when you manage a blog, you want to make sure your site shows up when people search for relevant topics.

What I would like to consider relevant to my blog:

• Humor
• Cultural Obervations
• Idaho (mostly making fun of it)
• Internet pop-culture (from time to time)

But how do people find my blog?  Let's look at some search results, shall we?

If you think god is a pimp, you'll get me.  If you're racist because you're white, you'll get me.

Um, what?

Some things make sense, like the '7th day Idaho' search, because of my post on Sundays in this town.  But other results just baffle me...

I don't ever remember doing a blog post on trying to lick my own junk, let alone providing pictures about it.

So, denizens of the blogosphere... what crazy search results pop up on your statistics?  Let me know.  I'd love to hear some of the best...

Sunday Silliness: SEO and Super Mario

I didn't even have a lot of time to celebrate hitting my 400th follower, because all of a sudden I blinked and was at 403.  This latest milestone made me smile.

A few people ask how I do it.  Simple, I network, and I make sure my blog can easily be found.

I have had dozens find me through google alone.  If you look at my traffic referrals, google is easily my overall #1 source.

One thing that helps a lot are my images.  I make sure to name my image files with clear and easy to find names now.   It took me a while to start doing this.  If you look at my first post, the image files are names 'images' or 'idaho2newlarger.jpeg.'  Not exactly things people search for.

Now, if people look for Charlie Sheen pictures with his army of assassins, or funny meth pictures, or 'derp' faces, I'm there.  Taco trucks, dj's, evil kittehs, I'm there.  And every little bit helps. If you look at more recent stats, you can see specific images that people find, and the broad keyword searches they use to find me.

To my first 400+, I thank you.  I look forward to growing with you, and hope to grow to 1,000 and beyond with your support.

Almost as an afterthought, here is the mandatory goofiness for the weekend.  The song seems appropriate, and this vid combines one of my favorite bands with one of my favorite video games.  Enjoy the show!

Thanks again.  Much love.

SEO

So I google'd myself yesterday.  I do this from time to time, because I know a little about Search Engine Optimization, and want to see if my blog is gaining any popularity on the search engine charts.

It doesn't help that I have a common name.  My Own Private Idaho is a song from the B-52's, the name of a movie, and a lot of people use it.  I have dabbled with more unique names (Spuds and Meth came to mind) but haven't found anything I really liked yet.

Yesterday was the first day I actually found positive results from google.  I typed in "Mormon Discrimination in Idaho" and I was on the first page, like 5 results down.  I typed in "Idaho Coffee Culture" and I was #1.   Granted, these aren't major searches, but it's nice to see your name in a list of search results, especially on the #1 slot.

That's when I noticed that my Valentine's blog helped get me google results as well.  People were searching for the Steve Irwin val:  "Crickey, you got me in the heart" and 2 people were referred to my blog because of it.  Woo!

I'm close to 275 followers now.  I was averaging 250-300 views a day last week, and now I'm down to 175-225.  I want to inject some life into this blog, and keep it climbing....

I ask you, my audience... What do you think of a name change?  I like MOPI, but something more original would help me climb the google ladder...  And do you work on improving your blog's search engine results?  I'd love to hear from you.