Every time I post a new recording breaking earning reports, there will be comments and speculations on how high the blog income can go. I really like the one comment that took my 1 year blog income growth and extended it for another year and concluded that I’ll be at $300,000 a month by January 2009. While that would be really great, the reality is it can’t happen with the current setup of the blog.
How High Can It Really Go?
The mistake new readers make when they read that the blog went from zero to $30K in a bit over a year is assuming the blog looked the same back then as it does today. I had Unique Blog Design give this blog a complete makeover back in September so I can accommodate more private advertising.
Today, private advertising accounts for half of the blog income. All the ad spots are almost always completely sold out so there is really is no way to increase that unless I add more ad spots or increase prices. This blog is pretty ad heavy as it is so adding more ad spots really isn’t an option. Also, it would require another blog redesign to do it. Increasing ad prices will be the most likely course moving forward. However, I doubt I can increase prices enough to make $300K a month.
My ad prices are on the cheap side at the moment. The Cow next door charges $200 for a review. I charge $450. On the surface, I seem to be more expensive but I have over 10 times the readership Cow has. This helps to explain why I get so many review orders. $450 divided by 15K RSS reader works out to less than 3 cents per reader.
Make Number Two, Number One
The future growth of the blog will come from its second biggest money maker; affiliate commissions. The reason for this is many of the programs I participate in offer residual income potential. For example, Kontera gives me a percentage of the income from the sites that I sign up to them. This is not a one time payment. It’s an on going thing. The more sites I refer, the more money I make. TTZ Media, DealDotCom and many other affiliate programs I promote offer this type of compensation plan.
The advantage of this kind of setup should be obvious. As times goes by, affiliate income should overtake direct advertising as the number one money maker. While there are limits on how much ad space I can sell on this blog, there are no limits on how many sites I can refer to other ad networks. I may make $15,000 a month for selling direct advertising, but I much rather make 10% of what John Chow dot Com readers make for life. 
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