Monetize and Stats

There's this feature called "Monetize" in the blog settings.  It's even there for all of my blogs.

As most of my posts go: little, if any, research.  Take the information here with a grain of salt.  I write these posts fairly quickly and am bound to make mistakes.  If there is a mistake, point it out with relevant sources and I'll happily edit the content.

Many of which do not have any readers.  This one, if Google's stats are right (I think they're inflated), has about 100 page hits a month.  That's less than 100 readers a month.  And this blog actually has more readers than any of my other blogs.  Admittedly, if we're optimistic, I might say that the potential revenue is $0.15$ a month (assume a CPC of $0.30$, each person actually clicks, and we get 50% - you can verify these numbers Google Traffic Estimator Sandbox and http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/05/adsense-revenue-share.html).

So... let's say that to make this venture break even (writing takes time), then $100.00 a month would cover my time to write silly rants.  Assuming I'd even care about the cash.

Ok, that's about 666 clicks per month.  If (assumption again, beware) 10% of readers click (I'm sure my target audience loves ad-block. I love ad-block too!), that's about 6660 readers a month.

Why did I feel like ranting?  Consider this: blogs with few readers that have ads will benefit whoever serves ads (larger accumulated potential user-base).  It also makes blogs that exist in the hopes to make profit stick out like a sore thumb.  It is possible for a new blog to attract a large user-base on the first or second post.  Enough to make ads a good idea.

On the other-hand - wouldn't a blog like that try to keep the momentum going for a few months?  See that success is good after the first month (or so) and then monetize?

Why did I write this?  I enjoy looking at the stats.  Trying to understand why 100 lost souls would wander to this blog each month.  Looking for patterns.  I've found a few, but that's for another post.  This one arose when I compared the stats to the monetize features.

I'm aware there are plenty of sites that offer hints on how to maximize profit using ads.  I don't care for that.  This blog is my little soap box.  It has no focus.  It has no research.  It just rants.  100 readers a month is amazing for something with so little focus that it hurts.  100 is amazing since I'm not targeting anyone, just writing what I'd contemplate anyhow.  Writing what I'd write anyhow and forget in a drawer....

Now my rants are forgotten, but indexed by search-engines all over!