Since I’ve moved to Costa Rica, I’ve met more people in person who read my blog than ever before. I don’t know if people in the Old Country just didn’t care, didn’t mention it, or didn’t read blogs or use the internet much. Or maybe it was Facebook that outed me when I began sharing blog posts there.

Invariably, the subject turns to the ads on my blog.

“Do people really click on those?” 

What they really are asking is:

“Can you make money blogging?”

Yes. With a caveat…

The caveat is you have to generate a ton of pageviews! A TON.

I’ve been writing for a variety of blogs/websites for seven years. GoingLikeSixty.com is the blog that most are familiar with since I write there under my own name.

However, I have also written (or am currently writing) for:

• Trendhunter.com (as GoingLikeSixty)
• Examiner.com (currently as Mark Leevan I have five accounts with them)
• DogsWithCones.com (former co-owner with St. Todd DeCubbville, site was sold)
• BBQandBourbon.com (formerly owned by me – sold)
• RobinMeadeBlog.com (ditto)
• RobinMeadeBlog.Blogspot.com

My primary source of making money on these blogs was by serving ads from Google via Adsense. (Examiner.com serves their own ads and pays according to pageviews not ad click through.)

From December 6, 2006 when I first went to work for Sergy and Brin at Google until today my income has been almost $16,000 from just over 8,300,000 page views. Ads served on pages that I generated have been clicked on almost 63,000 times. For those blog-geeks that converts to .75% click through rate, substantially above the average of .1-.3%

So the answer to the question: Do people click on those ads? is Yes. Not very much and not very often, but readers do click on ads on blogs. (hint, hint)

There are other ways to make money blogging and I do them all:

• Text link ads: Notice how some of the words are underlined and if you mouse over them an ad pops up? Aggravating as hell I know, but I get paid for those. If you click on one of those ads, I get paid more.
• Direct placement ads: Some advertisers are looking to target Baby Boomers so they contact me directly to place ads.
• Pay for post: Advertisers sometimes approach me to write about them and link back to their website to give them some Google Juice.
• I also do some work for people who don’t want me to go public.

If you’re just starting out with a personal blog, don’t do it for the money.

If you’re a freelancer thinking you can hook up with GigantaBlog, don’t do it for the money.

If you just enjoy sharing your thoughts and hearing from lots of interesting people from around the world, then go for it.

If you need some help, write me. I pay it forward because this guy got me started and this guy taught me all about Google Juice and this girl encouraged me.