Running a blog for income and other blog questions.

[EnduranceNinja]

Ok I have a few questions and figured I should group them up and present instead of doing a bunch of post. First, As for adsense what is the ratio of page impressions to clicks? I know you can't make people click your ads but what would be a rough guess on average how many page impressions equal a click. You see my goal is to get $1000+ a month from my blog and was wondering about how many page impressions would I be hoping for. Next, how many blog articles do you do a week? Does it vary? I am averaging 2 a week but, plan to raise that to 3 a week. And, do you think posting too many blog articles a week or month, etc could be counter productive. I figure you have too many blog articles posted good ones might easily get lost in the shuffle. And another question, how do you get a successful forum started? Does it take time like starting a blog. I set one up and only have one person who joined yet I know people are checking out the forum just not posting or joining. You know I feel I have forgot something, oh well. I do have to say my blog is finally getting off the ground with many visitors and even many vistors by way of finding my blog on search engines, at least three a day. It has been going great the last few months but I am looking for ideas to get more visitors.

Thanks for your time.

[Jarrod]

First, read blogs about blogging. People who are earning a living from blogging. A good place to start is Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger .

Second. Space your questions when you write a post, there is nothing harder to read and respond to than a block of text.

The answer to all of your other questions is:

It depends.

Different audiences click more often.
Different audiences read more posts per week. (I think consistency is important)
Different topics have bigger audiences.

There is a difference between running a blog for money and running a blog to provide value, but you also make money from.

As for the forum, I haven't set one up so I wouldn't know. But it would make sense to:

a) Have a lot of traffic (users) on your blog
b) Encourage (give a reason) people to use the forum. (atleast let them know it exists)

Good luck defining your purpose.

[coulls]

Originally Posted by EnduranceNinja

As for adsense what is the ratio of page impressions to clicks?

I've had varying successes depending on the type of site/blog in question. On one of my blogs I regularly clear 0% to 1% in clicks. On another I regularly hit between 3% and 8%.

Hope that helps.

[sysdomatic]

As the poster above mentioned, it depends.

The earning potential of your site (when it comes to Adsense) will vary greatly depending on the primary topic. A blog on personal finance will make much more money than a blog on your favorite movies. Personal finance ads pay more. So it depends on your theme.

Click through ratios depend on how your site is laid out. Do a search for "heat maps Google Adsense" and you will find some interesting information regarding where to place your Adsense ads on the page. This can make a big difference.

My CTR will range from 3% to 10% depending on the blog.

In terms of posting frequency, my sweet spot is one new post per day. I don't always hit this mark, but I find that my sites do the best when I am producing one fresh article per day.

Starting a successful forum is hard. First focus on getting that blog traffic, and then you can start pushing the forum.