One of my goals with Debt Prison, besides using it to convince consumers to stop using credit, is to generate some revenue so that I can pay off my debts as well. Some bloggers complain about an average of a few cents per ad click for their site. My average revenue per click is much higher, and I suppose that’s largely the result of the type of companies that advertise on my site. Many of the ads appear to be offering debt settlement or debt consolidation programs. These companies are seeking readers to sign up for their program, where they stand to make thousands of dollars in profit, performing a service that the consumer could be performing themselves.
I achieved 140,000 visitors for the 2008 year. I think these numbers are good, considering this is the first full year for my blog, and I was completely web illiterate in September 2007 when I began. I wish you could have seen the slow process, as I read the html code for a wordpress template, and proceeded to edit the template. It was laborious but I finally got wordpress nailed.
Another important aspect of blogging was security. It’s hard to keep a website up, 24 hours a day, for 365 days a year. Either through a security breach or a wordpress update - my blog was down for about 5 days this year. It could have been worse.
In regards to adsense revenue, it seems that the revenue is proportional to the number of visitors. Sounds easy enough; the more visitors the more revenue. In the above pic you can see that March 2007 was a good month for my blog. However, the spike in traffic was the result of a picture of a muffler shop billboard mocking the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The webpage was stumbled (stumbleupon.com) and drove traffic results to 32,000 visitors for that month. However, at the time I had a poor ad layout. But even with a good layout I doubt my adsense revenue would have increased. This lesson taught me that adsense revenue is driven largely by readers who are seeking information that your blog provides. A picture that makes stumblers laugh isn’t likely to cause them to stick around and click on your ads. However, readers desperate about their financial woes, having found a good article, are likely to spend more time on your site - and more time reviewing your advertisers.
When I first read “How to make money from your blog” by Steve Pavlina, I thought to myself, “Maybe I can do this”. But it’s more than just ability. Blogging is writing. And you can’t write day after day on a subject unless you have passion for it. Steve Pavlina says, in order for a blog to be successful, all you have to do is focus on helping people. That was a summary of his advice and I think rightfully so. I’ve tried through Debt Prison to focus on the consumer, the broken shopper of the American Economy. The ones who, in the financially challenged 2008, found themselves faced with more trouble than they could remember.
I think with Debt Prison I’ve been able to help many people. By providing informative and educational articles on collection agencies and debt settlement - many readers have left my blog feeling like maybe their lives are better than they thought. I also take the time to answer comments and emails from my readers, even if it requires research on my part, to try and help them find a solution to their financial problems. With 2009 expected to see record defaults, this blog should continue to be relevant to the American consumer.
