When You’re Blogging Not Just for AdSense Earnings

I started blogging just in January 2017. That’s three years ago. Well, it’s better late than never. I could have started it earlier. I had the mindset then that blogging would bring me a fortune, or at least an opportunity to make another source of passive income. I was never wrong.

Part of the ambitious goal was getting an instant approval of Google AdSense for content monetization. As said, it’s every blogger’s ultimate dream, so Google has all the raised eyebrows to say whether one is in or out.

So, I worked it out really hard until such time that I was able to comply with all requirements and finally, got the ‘yes’ of the tech lord. It took me shorter than the average application time though. Hard work paid off, I should honestly say.

As soon as I got such a sweet approval, I started to do regular research on topics which I thought would drive more traffic, aggressively share links to Facebook pages and groups with thousands of followers (got even banned by others), and strategize ad placements for increased clicks.

In short, I found myself in a pathetic pursuit of blogging for maximized AdSense monetization. Day and night, I would check my account as I made dollars, cent by cent.

All bloggers have the same instinct. I even witnessed my colleague then making a daily verbal report of her earnings. Worst, there are those who compromise information reliability and niche just for the same purpose. I couldn’t blame myself, even those newbies. After all, inspirations come from those professional bloggers who have been earning a fortune from making viral content and long lists of subscribers.

Fast forward, I don’t see competing for keywords and search engine ranks and creating almost the same content any more worth it. Sometimes I ask myself whether the web falls already saturated with the redundant tips, tricks, and guides on the same topics. The same thing, vloggers dump so much garbage videos on YouTube just to earn money.

While I don’t see the future of my blogging that way, I realized that there is no shortcut to profitable blogging. I had to invest in many aspects — dedicated time for research, writing, and tweaking style sheets, collaboration with brands, sponsors, and other bloggers, and keeping track of the progress, trends, and directions — all that do not happen overnight.

For the past three years, Google AdSense and sponsored articles have sustained the publication. As it goes, serious blogging comes with serious maintenance costs — webhost fees, domain renewals, social media boost, and others.

Google AdSense alone, in my experience, isn’t worth all the effort. Likewise, it’s not good to depend on one source of income when there are various opportunities out there. So, I started to welcome sponsored articles and even another ad provider, Innity Philippines.

I have seen blogs that do not anymore monetize their content with AdSense, rather with brand partners and sponsorships. That’s cool! Of course, it’s not the perfect time yet to give up AdSense.

Now, how do I redefine my blogging goals? I told myself lately that I would no longer focus that much on advertisements and income, rather on content. It’s simple — when I focus on creating content that matters, then readers visit the page, and increase the traffic. Bottom line, it’s traffic that serves as the practical measure of successful blogging.