Twanna A. Hines @ FUNKYBROWNCHICK.com | sex. dating. relationships.

How To Make Money with Your Blog

[I typically do these "How To" updates during the weekend only, but I've decided to do one during the week in order to answer the question a reader named "K" asked about making money via blogs.]

You may have seen the word “monetize” making its way around the internet over the past few years, and you’ve probably heard that some bloggers make money from their blogs. How do they do it? To “monetize” a blog is to convert it from a page that simply provides content to a page that provides content *and* adds a few extra quarters to your piggy bank. If you’re a blogger who would like to earn money with your blog, Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger is a must read website. I think he’s great. He writes very good, simple, straight-forward pieces about blogging. In particular, you might be interested in his post titled: “How Bloggers Make Money From Blogs“. See what I mean? Simple. Straight-forward. He’s great, right? And, now, in case you were wondering how I make money on FUNKYBROWNCHICK.com, here’s the scoop:

Google AdSense: The sidebars in the left include ads and links to websites that may be of interest to you. In general, these are automatically chosen to match the words that appear on my website. (If an ad appears that seems totally random and inappropriate — like the advertisement that once appears for a plastic surgeon who provides nose jobs especially for black people — I go into my site and manually take it down.) These links and ads are called AdSense. Google’s adopted tagline for the service says it all: “Earn money from relevant ads on your site.” With AdSense, every time a reader clicks on an ad that is of interest to them, Google sends the blogger who owns the site a couple of pennies. I don’t have the site traffic that Dooce, Kottke, Scoble and other probloggers have, so Google doesn’t pay me that much money. Seriously, some days I earn like two pennies. But, still, over time, it helps me buy software to upgrade my blog, pay for some of my DSL expenses, and do other things that make FUNKYBROWNCHICK.com a better site for you.

RSS Advertising: If you read “How To ‘Subscribe’ to a Website”, you know know how to subscribe to a site’s RSS feed. My feed includes Google AdSense similar to the ads on my blog.

Amazon Associates Program: Just like with AdSense, the Amazon Associates program allows readers to support bloggers without paying them a dime. However, unlike AdSense, Amazon doesn’t pay bloggers for clickthroughs. Get the difference? Google pays for clicks. Amazon pays based on dollars spent. The next time you shop on Amazon.com, if you use this link Amazon will kick a few referral / commission pennies my way for every dollar that you spend. Need suggestions? I’m currently reading She’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission by Rachel Kramer Bussel. It’s a great read. Check it out. Want other suggestions? Try one of the dating books listed in the right sidebar. Recently, FBC readers have purchased: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, that book Into the Wild, The Tipping Point, and other products such as electronics. You can buy anything you like; Amazon credits me just the same. (In case you were wondering, your purchases are completely private; Amazon tells me what people bought, but they don’t tell me who bought it.)

Linkshare Affiliate Marketing: I’ve signed up with this program for Match.com, Lavalife and iTunes. The links are in the sidebar, but I’m not sure that I’m going to continue with this affiliate service.

Freelance Writing & Blogging: Ooh, ooh, ooh! This is the fun part. If you’re a blogger who likes a particular thing and you’re good at doing that particular thing, the chances are pretty good that someone somewhere will actually pay you for your talents. I swear, every day, I hear a new story about one of my favorite kickass bloggers getting some sweet deal to do something they love. Angry Aussie loves to broadcast really funny angry shit on his blog and on YouTube. Guess what? People noticed. He just got back from filming a TV pilot of some sorts in Los Angeles. That’s the Aussie. Over in England, when blogger Andre Jordan created really sordid (but funny) doodles on his blog, the BBC noticed. They recently commissioned him to do a weekly series of drawings and doodles for their site. A blogger known as “The Assimilated Negro” is now a successful freelance writer who writes for just about everyone and everywhere. Comedian/blogger Baratunde Thurston recently got a job at The Onion. What about me? What do I love? When I got my BS and an MA in sociology, I chose to do it in that field because understanding how people relate to each other really fascinates me. And, not to mention, I’m somewhat of a neurotic exhibitionist when it comes to my own life. So, when I started FUNKYBROWNCHICK.com, I started writing about my own relationships and my life here in New York. I never expected to become a freelance sex/dating/relationships writer, but I’ve very happy about the opportunities that I’ve been given. Seriously. I could place big, fucking huge, drippy kisses on the lips of everyone at Nerve and the other magazines who have recently given this funky brown chick (the Funky Brown Chick) an opportunity to do her thang — for pay, no less. So, getting back to the point of this post, I guess that’s the key to making money with your blog. As trite as it many sound, just do (and blog about) what you love. The money will follow.