do i have an existing passive income opportunity??

[rei]

i started a blog a while back that is mainly spiritual content and some occasional emotional outpourings. i will still get emails for comment notification - if people comment on the emotional outpouring, my thinking is they could relate and maybe didn't feel so alone in that then-current emotional state. and if they comment on the spiritual stuff, well, they had a resonance effect i suppose. basically, i was reading another thread in this subforum and it suddenly hit me that this blog had been developing a little bit of a 'following' and then i just quit writing. but if i still get trickles of interested parties, i'm thinking it might be a worthy endeavor.

so anyway, if i am getting those comments even now when i haven't updated the blog in months, i am wondering if i could revisit the regular entries, providing value, and add some type of revenue options. here's my questions...

- how to make money from a free wordpress blog? (is that possible? do you have to convert it somehow or make a lot of advanced html alterations?)
- is adsense the only option in a situation like this?
- what resources would help me if i decide to act on this (links, tips, etc.)?

by the way, i'd like to say my main goal here is to get back into the regular posts based on confirmation from visitors that it was valuable to them, and is still valuable even though i haven't posted in a while. if i can make a little extra money, that's icing on the cake. but i am not really familiar with how to convert a blog into a source of income, however small the income may be at first. (no, i'm not trying to turn a single blog into my only source of income.) so while i'm thinking it would be a good service to both self and others to begin posting again, i'd like to find out about potential modifications i'd need to make first, rather than interrupting the content later.


thanks in advance for your insights.

[Vanessa]

Originally Posted by rei

i am wondering if i could revisit the regular entries, providing value, and add some type of revenue options. here's my questions...

- how to make money from a free wordpress blog? (is that possible? do you have to convert it somehow or make a lot of advanced html alterations?).

The short answer is yes it is possible to make money with wordpress sites without having to do lots of code changes. You are less likely make money with the free subdomain wordpress.org since they have stricter rules about advertising products on their site. however, your own self hosted wordpress site doesn't have those limitations and you're free to monetize it in any way you see fit.

- is adsense the only option in a situation like this?

Adsense and other click based revenue is an option, the amount that you make through this depends on 3 things: how many people visit your site (traffic),how many leave your site through advertised links(click thru rate) and how much you're paid for that link (Cost Per Click).
Other options include: affiliate marketing products that you believe is related and worth sharing to the people who get value out of your blog content. This is usually done through banners in the sidebar, promoting an offer after delivering value to your email list, or through articles that end with affiliate links to the product you think will benefit your readers.
You may want to set up a donations button for people to donate a small amount if they felt the content was outstanding. I think the no fuss wp plugin is called 'buy me a beer/coffee'. That one is on the set and forget side.

- what resources would help me if i decide to act on this (links, tips, etc.)?

The first thing to commit to is what you will be writing about, (your niche). You can use the comments and feedback from your old posts and see what got the most responses and use this as an outline of possible things to focus your writing around. You must consider the time you are willing to commit to for writing and getting word spread about your blog (marketing).

For example if your site is about spiritual growth, make a list of the different topics that have gotten feedback and compare those with the Google Keyword tool to get an idea of how popular this topic is. Some small subset of that number may find your site if you have enough quality related content and other sites start picking up and talking about you (backlinking)
You'd be amazed at the niches where you can monetize a blog.

The question to consider now is what commitment do you want to make toward developing a following on your main topic and continually putting out new content. From there all things will follow.

[Curtis2011]

Obviously Adsense is not the only monetization option.

Look at Steve's site. He doesn't even have adsense any more. He reviews products and joins their affiliate program to make a % of the sale.

[rei]

thanks Vanessa and Curtis for your responses.

Curtis, wouldn't the route Steve has taken only be feasible if or once a person has built a sizable reputation/brand?

for those who aren't being pursued to review a product, wouldn't Adsense be the main option?

i don't know how affiliate marketing works... business and finance are not really my thing... if anyone has a link or wants to explain the basics of this process i'm listening and will appreciate it.

[Oddity]

A simple Google search turned up this.

I also know of a service called Project Wonderful.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by rei

thanks Vanessa and Curtis for your responses.

Curtis, wouldn't the route Steve has taken only be feasible if or once a person has built a sizable reputation/brand?

for those who aren't being pursued to review a product, wouldn't Adsense be the main option?

i don't know how affiliate marketing works... business and finance are not really my thing... if anyone has a link or wants to explain the basics of this process i'm listening and will appreciate it.

The thing about Adsense is that out of every 100 visitors per day, anywhere from 1-3% will click an ad. That can be $0.01 to $1.00+ per click. Usually around $0.40 per click (on average) in my experience.

The only way to make a sizable income with Adsense is by getting massive traffic. Once you set up your website, its design will consistently get the same % clickthrough rate on your Adsense ads per month, almost 100% consistent. After you discover your clickthrough rate, there are only two clear ways to increase your income:

1) Increase your traffic.

2) Tweak your website to increase the average % clickthrough rate. But be careful: Even things you think make it better could make it worse! (so always keep a copy of your web design and its % clickthrough rate for comparison. I overhauled my website, thinking it would improve the % rate, and the rate went down by about 0.6%).

If you are going to go to the work of building content that gets massive traffic, you might as well do it on your own website rather than someone else's (ie a free wordpress blog).

[Gene]

rei,

In my opinion you do have the possibility even probability in making passive income from this. I am unable to give accurate advice on how to proceed with a blog hosted at wordpress.com. I do know a similar blog hosted on self hosted at your own hosting account could make money in a number of ways. AdSense is one of the easiest and most popular ways to monetize a blog.