Today’s company that helps bloggers make a little bit of extra money is one of my favorites.  It’s very similar to Logical Media, although this company has fewer offers.  Fewer offers to wade through is a good thing, in my opinion, because fewer offers means fewer spam-like offers!

What I particularly enjoy about Escalate Media Affiliate Network is that they have a lot of different coupon-based offers.  For my site, which is all about using coupons to find the best bargains, this is a wonderful thing.  Remember when I said that one company had a higher pay-out for Coupons.com?  That company is Escalate.  Through Escalate, when someone click on the Coupons.com link on Fantabulously Frugal and prints out coupons I get paid 45 cents per printing session.  Logical Media only pays 40 cents per session.  It’s a small difference but if you sign up for multiple affiliate networks you’ll definitely want to watch to see where you can make the most money.

There are other non-coupon offers as well.  For instance, whenever someone signs up for the the Savings Toolbar from cash-back shopping site ShopatHome, you’ll earn $2.50!  Or you can promote well-known tax filing website Taxact.com {which is actually what I use} and receive $2.50 whenever anyone signs up for a new account.

It has been my experience that the deals on Escalate are legitimate and they’re relatively high-paying.

Click here to sign up to become an affiliate for Escalate Media Network.

The application to fill out isn’t too long, although I don’t know what their requirements are for being accepted into the network.  Your blog might have to have a certain number of posts, or it might have to have been in existence for a certain amount of time.  Unfortunately they do not accept everyone.

Posting ads to your blog using Escalate Media is quite easy.  Again, as long as you know basic HTML {or just how to cut/paste and then where you want the HTML to go} you should be set.  Ads come in a variety of sizes, including basic text ads so you can post them on your sidebar or in actual posts.

When I tell you about today’s blog monetization method, you may think that it sounds somewhat similar to ReadySite, for which I have a bit of {obvious} disdain. There are some big differences that make Logical Media superior, in my opinion, and I think it may be a good option for generating a little bit of extra income from your blog.

The number one reason I compared ReadySite and Logical Media is because they carry some of the same spam-ish content.  You know the deals: “Click through, enter your email address, give away your first born son, and we will send you a freebie.”  THOSE kinds of deals.  But while you don’t get to choose whether or not situations like the one above appear on your website with ReadySite, you do get that option with Logical Media.

Here’s the way Logical Media works:

1. Sign up for a Logical Media account.  Click here to sign up using my personal referral link. {You will allegedly get $25 and I will get a small commission!}

2. During the sign-up process you will need to supply your social security number.  They can not pay you otherwise.  If you are not comfortable submitting this information online, well, I’m not sure what to tell you.  I’ve been signed up for a year and have never gotten scammed by any of these companies.  Pinky swear.

3. You will need to tell them how many “Site Views” your site gets per month.  If you aren’t currently tracking this and you’re using Blogger, I recommend doing one of two things: Sign up for a Google Analytics account or sign up for a Site Meter account.  Both of these services are free and will let you see how many people are accessing your blog on any given day.  WordPress users: This information is available in your dashboard, though you can also sign up for Analytics and Site Meter.

4. You will likely need to wait a day or two or three to see if you are accepted into the network.  Logical Media was one of the first sites like this that I signed up for, and that’s when I had -3 readers.  I don’t think it’s too hard to get accepted, though I cannot guarantee that they accept everyone.

5. Once you are accepted, you are free to post pretty much all of the ads on your site, if you wish.  You will see that some ads come in the form of ad boxes {of varying sizes}, and some are text links, which makes it easier to integrate into posts and/or email newsletters.

6. If there are any special stipulations that need to be met in order for you to get paid, such as someone needs to submit an email address, it will be clearly laid out for you.  That way if you’re not comfortable asking your readers to give up their first born child so that you can make a buck, you don’t have to post the ad.

Posting the ads to your site is easy, as long as you have a basic knowledge of HTML.  Once an ad is posted, either through a banner or text link, you will *hopefully* start making money.

Here are a couple of ways I am currently using or have previously used Logical Media to make money on Fantabulously Frugal:

• There’s an advertisement for Coupons.com that’s available. This ad has been posted in the sidebar of FF in the past.  Anytime anyone clicked on that ad and printed out a coupon, I would net 40 cents.  They didn’t need to buy anything or do anything crazy.  They just needed to click through and print.  That’s not spam and Coupons.com is a legit {and wonderful} site that’s full of printable grocery coupons.  {And yes, that ad IS still in my sidebar.  But it’s now being hosted by a different company, which we will talk about soon!}

• I did a recent post on the health and fitness email newsletter Vital Juice, which I found through Logical Media.  Vital Juice is a real e-newsletter, and I am, in fact, a subscriber myself.  When I posted about this newsletter, I received $1.10 for anyone that signed up.

For some companies, I think Logical Media is a great source for advertising.  In terms of Vital Juice, they probably have a set budget for what they want to spend on advertising.  As soon as they reach that dollar amount through Logical Media’s network, they can quickly pull down the ads and stop paying commissions.

If you sign up for Logical Media, I just recommend being careful of the spam-ish advertisements.  Once you sign up for an account and start learning your way around, it will become pretty evident which ads are spam and which are not.

Google’s AdSense is, perhaps, one of the best known ways that bloggers can monetize their websites.  Why is it one of the best known?  Because it is so easily integrated with Blogger and everyone is encouraged to sign up for an AdSense account at the same time you sign up for a Blogger account.

AdSense makes it super easy to place advertisements on your blog.  You can place them in your sidebar, below actual posts, and/or in your feeds.  Aside from choosing where the ads will appear on your site, you don’t really have to do too much.  Google automatically chooses the ads that appear based on your content.

From start to finish, here’s how the process works:

1. A company decides to place an advertisement using a site like Google AdSense, and pays a set amount of money for said ad.

2. Google uses blogs to display those advertisements.

3. If your blog is displaying one of those ads, you will get paid a certain amount of money every time someone clicks on the ad.

4. Google does not divulge any specifics, but you will get paid half of what the advertiser pays {per click} and Google keeps the other half.

Warning: If Google suspects that you are somehow manipulating your “click-through” numbers, they won’t pay you anything.  For instance, I’ve seen sites encourage readers to click on the ads to raise money for the site.  The site may then do something like use those funds to host a giveaway.  Google frowns upon this.

If you can’t tell, I’m not a huge fan of Google AdSense.  I’ve never seen anybody make a lot of money from the service, and it seems like Google benefits most of all.  Yet, I recognize that the service is sticking around so someone is making money.  I really just wish the service were more transparent.

If you use Blogger and you’re not yet using AdSense, find your “Monetize” tab and then click on “Set Up AdSense.”  It is pretty easy to set up from there.  You’ll just choose where you want the ads to appear on your site.  Once you have set-up AdSense and if you choose to show the ads in your sidebar you’ll be able to choose specifically where the ads appear by going to Layout > Page Elements, and moving around the box that says “AdSense.”  AdSense is also compatible with all of the other blogging services.

Click here to sign up for an AdSense account, or learn more about the service.

Please share – Have any of you been able to make a sizeable amount of money using Google AdSense?  Do you have any advice for making the most of AdSense?

When I started Fantabulously Frugal almost one year ago I didn’t think there was any way I could make any money off of the site, and I certainly didn’t go into it with that as a goal.  This site was started purely as a hobby – a way to fill my time once I completed grad school.  Slowly though I began realizing that there were some ways to make money from the site.  Not a lot of money, but a little bit here and there.

Everything I learned about monetizing Fantabulously Frugal I learned through trial and error, and through finding little tidbits about programs on other websites as I went along.  I am going to try and lay everything that I know out here over the next few days and possibly weeks, and hopefully some of you will be able to make a little bit of extra spending money from your own site.

There are two big things I want to warn you about before we get started:

1. If you start a blog for the sole purpose of making money, you’re not going to make any money.  It’s as simple as that.  Why?  Chances are if you start a site for the sole purpose of making money then you probably won’t be willing to put forth the time and effort to make sure that your blog is something that others want to read.  It’s going to take months and months of hard work before you see any sort of monetary gain.

2. Most blogs will not make much – if any – money until you have a sizeable readership.  This is why you should really care about your blog’s topic.  If you start a blog with the sole purpose of making money, people are going to see right through you.  But if you really care about your topic and put a lot of time and energy into developing good blog posts, the readers will come.

Though those are two different points, they work together.  The number one way to increase your readership is to write good content, and depending on your blog’s main topic, to write frequently.  Once you are writing quality content on a regular basis and networking with other bloggers {check out sites like 20 Something Bloggers, or set up a page for your blog on Facebook}, the readers will come.  The more readers you have visiting to your site, the more money-making opportunities you’re going to have.

I can’t wait to share with you what I know, beginning tomorrow, and I hope you’ll all provide feedback as well!!