The Money In Blogging

Some readers have criticized me for starting up The Strategic Planning Group.

They object to the fact that it’s a paid site, closed to non-members. One reader wrote, “It's a pity you did not find a way to finance it using advertising—I think you would have retained a larger readership, which in the long run keeps your profile higher.”

Not exactly a $ sign.

Well, see, at the end of the day, it’s not about keeping a high profile—for me, the motivation is to write whatever I want, and earn enough from it so that I can continue.

And that just doesn’t happen through advertising alone.

Let me make an example out of my own situation: My site is one of the more popular economics and finance sites on the web. To put numbers to that claim: In April, I had an average of 13,760 pageviews per day, and an average of 7,167 unique visitors. In May so far, I’ve had 12,850 pageviews per day, and 6,970 unique visitors per day. (At the bottom of this page, there’s a link so that you can verify my stats.)

According to Gongol’s EconDirectory, those figures put me in the Top 10 of econ and finance blogs—very impressive, you would think.

However, the advertising income I have earned from these numbers is nowhere near what would be commensurate with that readership.

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