Are you a blogger with a smaller blog… looking to grow your revenue into something worth your time? Then consider this…
When you spend your time chasing “chump change”, then chances are that’s all you’ll ever make. Chump change is basically some amount of money which is insignificant.
A situation arose recently where somebody was trying to increase clicks to a certain merchant on a blog. The idea was that it was being monetized by VigLink, that this particular merchant seemed to be paying about 8 cents per click. And, so, the effort was to drop links to this merchant in blog content and see what happens.
Even with idealistic views of how many clicks could be generated, we’re still talking about chump change.
On PCMech.com, we sell a membership which costs $5.99 per month. Not very much money and we’re providing value to our members.
Let’s compare to chasing per-click revenue via outbound links….
With outbound clicks,
It would take about 75 clicks (at 8 cents per click) to equal the initial month of membership at PCMech.
75 clicks to a merchant in a blog post is a lot harder to pull off than one thinks. That is, unless you basically make the entire point of the post to drive clicks. And that’s spammy as hell.
To earn this chump change, you have to send people AWAY from your blog. That’s 75 people you’re sending away from your blog (after all the work it takes to get them there), and you only earn about 6 bucks.
Or, we use an in-house revenue model of the PCMech membership…
$5.99 up front.
$5.99 per month on a recurring basis for as long as they remain a member.
Being a member, we’re reaching out to them each week with a new newsletter. It keeps them “in the fold”, on our site, and in our community. We’re building our REAL audience this way.
Now, when you look at this from a strategic standpoint as a business owner, which option wins?
The answer is obvious.
And this is the same kind of calculation any blogger should be making who wants to make money. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about pay-per-click outbound links or traditional banner ads. In either case, you’re chasing chump change and you’re sending people away.
Now, if you have so much traffic that those ads are more than chump change, then by all means. 
But, most bloggers aren’t in that camp.
But, before I end this post, here’s another point about this…
If you focus your efforts on acquiring more revenue via the “chump change” method, then you’re going to GET more chump change. Because you get what you focus on. You’re thinking small, and because of that, you’ll stay small.
Think bigger. Think like a real business. What can you SELL which would be valuable to others?
As shown above, it doesn’t take big-ticket things to easily out-perform what most bloggers make via ads. One single $5.99 signup for the PCMech Insider program surpasses what most bloggers make in Adsense or with sites like VigLink.
So many more bloggers out there could make better money if they’d stop focusing on chump change and start focusing on building a real business.
If you want to start focusing on building a REAL business, consider joining the Academy. That’s my focus in there. For damn sure. 