@Peter – No prob – I like the way your site has evolved over the last 2 years, particularly the updated theme… not sure when you implemented it but I definitely like it (especially the green – gives with the money theme and all)…

@Paul – “I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve already messed up too much.” — LOL!!

You MUST be a blogger if you’re thinking that. We’ve all been there. “Man, I should’ve…” or “I’ll never be as big as …. ” or “Advertisers will never want me because…”

Yada yada yada …

Lesson #1: You will screw up constantly. It’s an opportunity to learn. I got a portion of our site banned from Google from using too many affiliate links in posts. Lesson learned. I got very frustrated for about 4 weeks – wanted to throw in the towel. Now, 11 months later, the site makes more than double what it did before that time.

Lesson #2: If you aren’t screwing up, you’re doing something wrong. You’re not pushing the limits enough. Jim has a great article on this:

http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/get-towed-twice-a-year.html

If your blog isn’t “getting towed” twice a year – or heck, four times a year, you probably aren’t trying enough things.

Lesson #3: Learn from others. Watch what the big bloggers do. Emulate them. There’s a reason they are the “big bloggers” – it’s because they know things. In my opinion, it’s better to avoid reading the “make money online” sites – there’s too much static. Not all the advice is bad, but its hard to weed out the good from the bad. Instead, watch what other bloggers do. I’ve been watching Jim for 2 years on Bargaineering. I take the concepts he implements in PF and apply them to Home Improvement.

Seriously… Keep your chin up. There’s a lot of money to be made online, and it grows every year. You’ll get your slice if you’re persistent.

After reading Peter’s article today about starting a blog and some other people’s advice, I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve already messed up too much. I’m not even sure if my theme is halfway decent. It’s a free one that I tweaked myself, but sometimes I feel like it looks outdated compared to most websites.

@Peter – Thanks for the tips. I’ve been looking at this going forward, and I’ll be a little more focused on content that will be better for Adsense. I’ve been working on mostly foundational articles since I started the site in June.

I put together a new posting plan that will still allow me to focus on what the Bible says at least once or twice a week, but the other posts will be on broader PF topics. For example, I’ll be starting a series on how to get out of debt.

I’m also planning to start incorporating some reviews with affiliate links but a lot of the advertisers I applied for on Commission Junction have denied me.

Paul – I’m in a similar niche – Christian Personal Finance and my eCPMs are higher than yours, but I think it’s because I focus on writing more search and adsense focused content that I know will do pretty well with adsense. In my opinion – it’s all about content, what you’re writing about, and what types of posts have the highest paying advertisers and clicks. Another Christian PF site that does well with adsense – Christianpf.com. Bob does a lot of great writing as well, and I think his site is a good one to check out if you’re wondering how to optimize your content for some monetary return.

You’d also expect Google to bias sending traffic to pages that generated decent clickthrough payouts, but I expect it would go against it’s sensible mantra of being agnostic about such things (for its long term sustainability) so I doubt it does that.

Personally I wouldn’t say $5 eCPM isn’t bad… I have experimented with some niches with disastrously low payouts, way below that level.