Making money off of blogging……

I started this blog with zero intention to make money off of it.  And I still have zero interest in putting the work that would be required into making this an real money maker.  I did briefly toy around with Google Ads, but the money there was essentially zero and not worth the (very) minimal effort required (in the space of a year I earned $0.05).

WAY back, I did a post on a DIY version of a commercial product.  And that post has worked its way into the first page of search results (infact, depending on the search words its the FIRST result right under the company page), on every search engine I’ve tried, when people search for the name brand product.  And its one of my biggest search engine hits, in the last two weeks it netted me 218 hits, more than twice the number of hits on my main page.  Which made me a little concerned when I realized it, some companies can be very sticky about how their name is used, and I keep expecting (somewhere in the back of my brain) to be contacted by the company in question and asked to either rename the post or remove it all-together. 

Well, I finally got contacted by the company in question (well, I think I have, I haven’t tried calling them yet to confirm its a legit contact, I want to have a better idea of what to do before I do that).  And instead of being peeved about my post they’re offering me membership in their associates program, with the offer to make a commission of up to 20% of of each sale that comes in via the link on my blog.  Apparently people who decide that the DIY version isn’t for them (or who try it and can’t get it to work), then proceed to follow the link in the post to the brand name company, enough for them to notice.  A check of my exiting links shows that 48 out clicks in the last four months went to the company page.  The only out link with more hits is the link to the DIY instructions….

I have no idea as to the terms of the associates program, the information on the company site is basically identical to what I got in the email.  I have zero intention of pushing this product any harder than I already am.  Which, in case you haven’t noticed, is essentially not at all.  I’d be willing to modify the original post to include the associate links (and a disclaimer stating that I am an associate), and MAYBE a discrete link on the side-bar.  But I know one peeve of mine is when a blogger joins such a program and then pushes it with every post and big ads……But I also have to admit that the idea of pulling in enough to cover the costs of the blog itself (hosting fees mostly) would be nice……

The final choice is of course mine, but its not like I have a million people who read this blog either, So!  Thoughts, opinions, random barely connected thoughts?

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