Money making Bullshit, who else did fall for the, “There is money online, you just gotta grab it!” Motto? It just like online Poker, people think they can win, but it’s still gambling, even when you do everything right you will lose. Not only once, often. Very often. The make money niche is better in many ways, you do something productive on the one hand, and you learn a lot of other stuff on the other hand.

First of all, we all dream about making money when we start reading make money online blogs, but actually, this stuff is pretty boring. Almost everybody seems to copy what the big guys are doing, or rather, they try to copy and suck at it.

Nowadays a blog is a pretty useless thing in case you want to make money through private ads. Ads are good when you have amazing traffic. Back in the days I did not have amazing traffic as I am not Darren Rowse or rather John Chow. How do you ruin a blog? Yes, you try to sell ad space on it.

Where is the use of this ad-space? Those small 125*125 Pixel Graphics … nobody clicks on them, alomost no one. This kind of ads is just one of the pointless inventions some bloggers had when they asked themselves how to earn a few bucks here and there, especially with no follow links.

First of all, private ads on blogs need some sort of audience, this might work if you have some sort of niche blog and you find some people who offer something to them. But in the make money niche, forget about that. Those blogs are useless, as most people who make a living online don’t blog about it. The handful of rich bloggers use their blog as an outlet to created a brand around their blog, it’s not like television where people are forced to see the ads, or even click on them. “CLICK on those ads or I won’t write any more content you freak(aka the reader)!”

This won’t happen as bloggers are attention whores. Everybody who blogs has the desire to tell the world something. And sooner or later he really wants to earn some money with it, but he usually does not risk losing reader by going a pay per read blog. Private ads are so 2006, you should consider removing them unless you get some bling for your space.

Advantages of Private Ads

You have control about them, you can reject people and give them away for free.
It can turn into a steady stream of income.
In case you can customize the ads and make them a part of your page they can be a great success.
In case you manage to think outside the box and create incentives for your adspace you can make good money.

Disadvantages of Private Ads

Pagerank selling is punished by google, so nofollow links are the way to go.
Standard 125*125 are boring and useless advertisments.
You have to take care of them and your advertisers.
They can be an annoyance when the banners/buttons are ugly.

Money making potential of Private Ads

It takes time to deal with your advertisers, takes time to place the ads, and worst of all, the average blogger is not even earning a lot of money with them, in case you can afford a program/script for this, it’s probably something else. It’s a joke when you think about ad pricing and that there are loads of people with blogs where ads cost almost nothing. Ads are given away through contests, or earn a measly 5-15 $ per month. Is it really worth your time? How much do you earn per hour in your real life job?
I guess you earn, and certainly deserve more for your time, unless you are already a superstar and get awesome deals for your web-space. From my point of view, private ads start to be profitable at +1000 RSS subscribers, PR4 and link selling or a niche that has people who need attention. Unless you have this, don’t even think about private ads, as they are a waste of time. Rather do something useful for your time that will last longer than 1 subscribtion period. Some examples are building links, adding a few affiliate product reviews. Or, in case you are a creative build a solid portfolio and sell your skills.
Overall the money making potential ranges from 1/10 to 10/10, depending heavily on the internet real estate you have. In case you have some premium spots and manage to create some killer campaigns that fit your blog you can earn a fortune, in case you don’t… don’t even waste your time with this, especially when you are starting out.