Miles’ Blog » 2007 » July

It’s awards time in Australia, with not one but two web awards in the next few months.

The finalists for the WA Web Awards were just announced this morning. I am so proud of the work which the Western Australian industry has churned out, and every year it just gets better and better. In the third year, the WA Web Awards, run by our own Australian Web Industry Association, are really the peak of accolades in our little state.

Hot on the heels of that announcement, is the nominations opening for the McFarlane Prize. This prize for excellence in Australian web design will be awarded to an Australian designer or team for a site launched or significantly upgraded between August 1 2006 and July 31 2007.

Winners for the WA Web Awards will be announced at a black tie event at the Duxton Hotel on the 17th of August, 2007. The winner for the McFarlane Prize will be announced during Web Directions South 2007 on September 27.

Go the gongs and celebrations!

Photo: Me speaking at WA Web Awards 2006.

Since starting to accept advertising back in April 2006, I have been amazed at the growth of opportunities which this humble blog has had. It took about 2 months for me to be able to afford that lunch per month, as I suggested in the original post, then within six months, I was selling enough advertising (mostly through Text Link Ads [aff]) to buy lunch every second week.

Now, fifteen months later, I’m making enough from advertising on here, that I can afford a eating out for lunch most days of the week.

So, how did I do it? Well, I certainly didn’t do it with any intention on making much money. I didn’t follow most professional blogger suggestions, and keep my blog ‘on topic’ or even post daily, I didn’t use any trickery with SEO or the like, it turns out that a few posts of mine got big in the blogosphere, and that created link bait, which took my in bound links from near zero to over 3,000 in a short period of time.

This created a Pagerank of 3 and advertisers using Text Link Ads [aff] started seeing the search engine benefits of a PR3 blog linking to them. That, and my link for sign ups through the $100 worth of free text link ads [aff] campaign, mean I get ongoing revenue from those who use my link to start selling text links on their blogs too.

I also have Google Adsense and Auction Ads [aff] unobtrusively in the sidebar as well, however they probably only bring in 10% of the revenue, compared to the text link advertising I get both directly and through Text Link Ads [aff], who pay not by click, but by month instead.

What would have happened if I had followed the advice, and designed the blog around revenue? I don’t know, but maybe I’ll try it with another blog soon!

Oh, and a big thanks to the advertisers who appear on this blog right at the moment, and keep me in lunches. They are;

• iPod Accessories
• Concert Tickets
• Discount Laptops
• office furniture
• Apple Notebooks
• Perth website design
• australian web directories
• backpacker jobs perth

So, do you make an income from your blog? What works for you, and how did you do it?

Image: RAIL road sign, Northam WA