blogs makes money

Casting the digital equivalent of a message-in-a-bottle into the Internet’s vast sea of content, many people start Web sites or blogs hoping that they will find an appreciative audience for their precocious parrot videos, cupcake recipes or pithy commentary on everyday life. The dream, of course, is that they will develop a large and loyal following — and potentially profit from it.

While most of these self-publishers don’t attract the attention of anyone other than indulgent family and friends, there are those who find wider recognition and some income. What the successful have in common is a passion for their subject and a near-compulsion to share what they know. Advertising, merchandising, offline events, book deals, donations and sometimes sheer luck also play a part.

“My advice is to choose a topic you’ll never get tired of,” said Stephanie Nelson, 47, of Atlanta, a homemaker who founded CouponMom.com in 2001 to share tips on saving money by using coupons. “The first three years I made no money at all, so I had to love what I was doing to keep going.”

Ms. Nelson said her Web site now has more than 3.8 million visitors a month, and the income it generates supports her family of four — allowing her husband to retire early from his corporate job five years ago. “I’m still not tired of it,” Ms. Nelson said.

Half of the site’s revenue comes from Google’s AdSense service, and the other half is from companies like Groupon and LivingSocial that buy ads directly from her. AdSense generates text ads based on the words that appear on Web pages. For example, if a blog post is about dogs, ads for dog food or dog grooming might appear beside it.

Many of the Google ads generate income only if people click on them — usually yielding a fraction of a cent per click. It’s also possible to get paid every time a Google ad appears on a page. Rates are determined in part by advertisers bidding in an online auction.

Other companies like BuySellAds.com and BlogAds allow self-publishers to determine what they want to charge for placing an ad on their sites. They then match sites with eager advertisers for a percentage of ad sales — 14 to 30 percent is typical.