Building a successful online business requires plenty of hard work.

Just like in the offline world.

Go figure, eh?

With this in mind, I ask the question… “can you really make easy money blogging?”

I ask this because someone recently suggesed I could easily supplement my income to the tune of $1,000 per month. This simply by joining a pile of paid blogging networks (eg., SponsoredReviews.com, PayPerPost.com, Smorty.com, Reviewme.com and Blogsvertise.com) and posting “reviews” and “advertorials” on my blog  over at UltimateFatBurner.com for a fee.

Riiiiiight.

To make matters worse, I’ve heard similar things said by other folks who mean well but have absolutely ZERO practical experience generating revenue online.

So here’s why it’s an incredibly dumb idea for me to implement this monetization option, and why it’s not going to be a viable option for most people…

First and foremost…

In order for advertisers to be interested in paying more than a few pennies for a “review” or a recommendation on your blog, it needs to have some real substance. It needs to be credible, reasonably-well trafficked, and – if you’re factoring an in-pointing link into the equation as well – respected enough by the Search Engines to have earned some decent link juice.

Banging up a simple Word Press blog, populating it with some automated content (and maybe some Private Label Rights stuff as well) and then expecting advertisers to shower you with cash… well, it just ain’t gonna happen.

So in order to earn some real cash from your blog, you’re going to have some blood, sweat and tears invested in it. For example, UltimateFatBurner.com’s blog has had near-daily updates made on it since March 2008, with posts going all the way back to 2006. It has a Page Rank value of 3. It has a loyal readership, and receives decent traffic.

In short, I probably could earn some extra by offering to post “advertorials” for a fee. Problem is, nothing will squander away our hard-built credibility and alienate our audience faster than posting a pile of paid “reviews.”

So what you’re left with is the proverbial double-edged sword; in order to have the sort of blog advertisers are going to pay decent money to featured on, you need have to have a credible resource. But if you start posting paid “reviews” and “advertiorials” on it, it won’t stay one for long.

There’s another problem too; even if you decided you wanted to go this route, you would have to be incredibly selective with what you could feature, since any post is consistent with an endorsement. I, for example,  couldn’t take payment for the promotion of any product or service I wouldn’t feel comfortable actively promoting to my audience.

Depending on your niche, this may dramatically reduce the number of advertisers you are willing to work with.   

And, since an “advertorial” is an endorsement, why bother earning a few dollars for one when you can much more by presenting your audience with relevant, quality affiliate products for which you will earn a commission?

So is there absolutely no money in “pay-per-post” blogging opportunities?

Of course not.

If you have a quality blog in any of a wide range of niches, you will be able to squeeze in the odd, targeted advertorial or two. How often you can do so will depend largely on your audience, the web sites / products / services you choose to promote, and how naturally you can implement these “discussions” into the regular flow of your blog. I hate to flog a dead horse here, but as I’ve already said umpteen times…

You cannot post paid reviews or “advertorials” too often or you will destroy your credibility.

Bye-bye faithful readers.

So for most people, I have to say I’m sorry; there’s no easy money in blogging. For most bloggers, the payout will likely get you a half decent meal out once or twice a month. It certainly won’t cover anything substantial… like the monthly payments on the newest Porsche 911 Turbo, for instance.

Initially, I placed a small (468 X 60) ad directly below the H1 heading on 10 top-performing pages on UltimateFatBurner.com and tracked the data for a month. The results were uninspiring (no difference in CTR or eCPM) although not entirely surprising. The Chitika representatives I have communicated with have always emphasized the importance of using a larger sized ad format – in a prominent position – if one is to expect a dramatic increase in ad metrics.

That said, I repeated the experiment, but this time using a much larger (550 X 120) ad format. Once again, I placed the ad prominently at the top of the page, just below the H1 heading tag.

The results?

Although I can’t report specifics (I don’t want to run afoul of Chitika’s Term and Conditions and jeopardize my account in any way), here’s what I can tell you…

1) Click through rate (CTR): Increased by approximately 350%.

2) Earning Per Thousand Impressions (eCPM): Increased by approximately 350%.

3) Average Cost Per Click (CPC): Increased by just over 13%.

Pretty cool, huh?

Of course, my numbers still are not fantastic (and not yet on par with Google’s Adsense) but they are getting there. And I’m not arguing with a three-plus-fold increase in Chitika revenue. In fact, in the face of these results, I’ve begun a rollout of similar Chitika ads (480 X 180) on the Body Building subdomain of UltimateFatBurner.com. Although I don’t have enough data to accurately assess their performance yet, it certainly appears that they are converting visitors at a similar rate to the slightly larger ads used in this experiment.

I’ll be doing a similar rollout through the remainder of the site over the next few months.

What about my concerns that these large, “top-of-page” ads are intrusive, and infringe on the visitor’s surfing experience?

So far, there has been little real evidence to indicate that this is the case. No one has e-mailed me to complain, and Google’s Analytics software doesn’t show any change in the “Bounce Rate” or the “% Exit” data for the pages included in the experiment.

In other words, placing large Premium Chitika ads prominently on UltimateFatBurner.com does not appear to have any negative effects.

My conclusion, therefore, is straight-forward. When the correct sized ad is placed in the appropriate prominent position, ad metrics are dramatically improved.

And that, in my books anyway, counts as a WIN.

The results?

Almost identical results to the site’s overall statistical averages (which were pretty lackluster if you remember, and one of the main reasons I embarked on this experiment).  There was absolutely no increase in CTR (click through rate) or average CPC (cost per click) through 60,000 ad impressions – certainly enough data from which to draw conclusions.

While the results are a little disappointing, I can’t say I’m surprised. Here’s why…

1) While placing an extremely targeted ad at the very top of your page ensures your visitor is going to see it, it seems to me a qualified visitor (who is arriving directly from a SE search query, remember?) is going to want to read at least a portion of your article before she is going to be interested in purchasing anything.

People arrive at UltimateFatBurner.com largely because they are researching products-something they do before they buy. So to me, having an ad at the top of the page is counter-intuitive – at least for my UltimateFatBurner.com site, given the way people use it.

It would make more sense to place a targeted ad at the end of the article. When people have finished their research, they are in a better position to make a purchasing decision and may be more likely to respond positively to a targeted ad.

2) I used a small ad size (468 X 60), only able to deliver a single advertising option. My Chitika account representative advised using a larger ad size, but I decided to start off with a smaller one because I don’t want to bombard my visitors with intrusive advertising.

So what’s next?

Obviously, I haven’t given up on the Chitika Premium ads. To me the next steps are obvious…

1) Run the exact same test again, except increase the ad size – as recommended by my account representative (I’m going to use the 550 X 120 option). I will implement this test immediately following the completion of this article.

2) After that, run a new test where a larger sized ad is displayed towards the end of each page, where a visitor is more likely to respond positively to a targeted ad. If I were a betting man, this is the option I would guess would fare the best.

Let’s see what happens. I’ll check in with you in a month!

Chitika has been offering content publishers an Adsense-compatible ad solution (originally called “eminimalls”) since 2005. I’ve been using Chitika ads in the “eminimall” format on UltimateFatBurner.com pretty much since their inception.

And, while I never found the ads to perform exceptionally well (to be fair, they always played a secondary role on my site, with Adsense occupying the ideal advertising “real estate” positions on my pages), they didn’t interfere with Adsense revenue, and stuffed a few extra dollars into the pockets of my jeans each month.

Now, eminimalls are “old school”; Chitika’s main offering is its “Premium Ads” service. It’s a pretty cool concept; these are “collapsible” ads that deliver extremely targeted advertising to visitors who arrive to a page directly as a result of a Search Engine (SE) query.

If a visitor arrives to a page from an SE, a targeted ad is displayed. If she arrives from another page on your site, no ad is displayed and the ad collapses in on itself, so the visitor sees nothing (you can opt to have the ad display a non-targeted ad or an ad from an alternative service in this case).

Here, for example, is a page that has a 468 X 60 banner placed directly below the main title tag on the page. But you don’t see it, right? Now on the other hand, here’s a page that has the same ad in place, showing what will be displayed if a visitor arrives via a SE query for the word “mortgage.”

Pretty cool, huh?

Now, I’ve never really messed around with Chitika’s Premium Ad service much. Frankly, I didn’t need to. But now, with advertising revenue sinking like a stone, I figured it would be the perfect time to run a little experiment to see how it performs and whether a large-scale rollout is warranted.

So here’s what I’m going to do…

I’m taking 10 high-traffic pages from UltimateFatBurner.com, and placing a 468 X 60 collapsible banner directly below the title (as demonstrated here). I’m going track the results for a month, and report the results back to you. We’ll see how the Premium ads compare to the “regular” ones displayed on the site.

A couple of things to consider that may impact the sort of results I attain…

1) Visitors might be more open to an extremely targeted ad AFTER they have perused the page’s content. In this case, would the banner ad perform better placed at the end of the article, rather than the beginning? It may be worthwhile to run the experiment again to see for sure (incidentally, Chitika staff recommend placing the ads at the beginning of your content).

2) A larger ad size may generate significantly more response from your audience. Not only are they harder to skim by, because of their size they can present more offers – increasing the likelihood that one may appeal to your visitor. Chitika staff, for example, strongly recommend using a larger ad size than what I am using here.

However, I am extremely focused on balancing ad revenue without being intrusive and infringing on my vistor’s experience. I can certainly tolerate the small banner illustrated above, but in my opinion, the larger ad sizes are too intrusive to use at the top of the page.

To read the first follow-up to the “Great Chitika Premium Experiment” click here!