Well, it will make my heart grow fonder if it works, but it may upset you!

Thanks to all you wonderful readers, and I’m sorry but I don’t know who you are, my blog is rapidly reaching a readership level where I can “monetize” it. No, I don’t like that word, but it seems to be the polite way of saying “I want to make money.”

There are lots of ways to monetize a blog, but the usual starting point is to add Google AdSense advertisements, so that’s what I’ve done. I don’t know if you are seeing them along with this article, because I have no way of knowing when Google will start to put ads into the spaces I’ve reserved for them. I also have no idea what you will see. Google has very complicated algorithms to decide what to display for you.

In fact, the whole process of getting adds into the blog was way more complicated than I imagined it would be. Before even beginning the process I plowed through “AdSense for Dummies” – yes, there’s a “for Dummies” book for anything you can imagine. Also I carefully watched a 90 minute video. And I’ve still only grasped the basics.

Managing the ad placement could be a fulltime job, and with some of the most popular blogs which are maintained by a whole team of people, there are indeed poor sods who do nothing but figure out the best way to make the most money. Well, I’m a parttime team of one, so I won’t be doing that.

Nonetheless, to make even some money, it’s important for each article to carry the right keywords, so that the Google adbots can figure the most appropriate ads to stick in my blog. You see, they make money too! So, as I say, it hasn’t been a trivial task, and I will need to monitor the ads’ performance to make even a few bucks.

Why would I want to make money? You really need to ask? Doesn’t everyone?

Well, I’m hoping the income will cover my travelling expenses, which in turn will mean more blog articles. So, even though you probably don’t apprecaite being bombarded with yet more advertising, and I would really rather write articles than worry about managing those ads, it really is a win-win situation.

And it certainly has substantiated my belief that in the IT world, you learn something new every day.