The question I get asked most is how on earth I live off of a blog. The answer is: I don't. Well, not entirely. There are few design bloggers I know who live entirely off of their blogs. Most people have the support of a significant other's income, freelance revenue or a side job that helps pay the bills. And I'm certainly no different. When it comes to paying my rent and putting food on the table I combine my site's ad revenue with income from freelance jobs. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but for the most part we all work outside of our blogs in some capacity to make ends meet. Because well, someone has to make sure my cats are fed and spoiled.

Regardless of how many times I explain that I don't live exclusively off of my blog people want to know how to make it work. So I figured I'd share any knowledge I have about eeking a living off a design blog (this may well apply to non-design blogs, too). Let me say first that I do NOT suggest quitting your day job to pursue life as a design blogger (or any type of blogger). When I started I was contacted by an over-eager blogger who quit her job and told me she had decided to do this full-time because she'd seen others doing it. Let me save you some time and money: don't do it. Unless you want to devote half of your waking hours to tracking down major advertisers, it's darn near impossible to live your normal lifestyle on a design blog budget alone (unless you have a very wealthy someone buying your groceries). I'm not saying it can't be done, but most people who don't come from a marketing or advertising background will have a hard time maintaining their current lifestyle on ad revenue alone. Believe me, after taxes the numbers aren't quite as promising.

That said, it's completely feasible to make a generous side income from blogging. If you've created a website with a few thousand readers a day and put the time into creating a fair ad program you can easily pay your groceries or subsidize a few nice trips with your earnings. And if you're really dedicated to advertising you can probably make it so your blog is your main day job and your outside work (done on a regular basis) fills the gap between the poverty line and a comfortable living. Here's how to do it:

1. Establish your blog or website's basic stats: You won't be able to pull in any real ad money (or advertisers) without numbers. Sign yourself up for a free stat counter (I use statcounter.com) and install the code into your template. In a snap you'll have detailed information on your unique viewers, page loads and visitor lengths. Once you have these numbers you can get an idea of how many people are viewing your site on any given day.

2. Create a reader survey: Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) is a great thing. You can set up an account and create your own custom survey to get to know your audience. Who are they? Where do they live? How often do they buy things from your site or click on ads there? Once you've created a list of questions, ask your readers to participate. If you can swing a gift for one lucky reader you can usually entice a few extra people to fill one out. Be merciful and try to keep them to a few pages in length (and only once or twice a year).

3. Create an advertising one-sheet: Compile your viewer stats over the course of a month so you can provide your advertisers with a one sheet describing your daily unique visitors (repeats are nice but they don't represent your true daily audience), where they come from (stat counters can usually give you a breakdown by city, state and country) and how long they stay on your site (also provided by the standard stat counter). Once you have this you can include a basic description of your site and any press attention it's received. I'd advise staying away from reader testimonials (my advertisers have explained that anyone can find a gushy reader or two) and long-winded descriptions of yourself unless you have some relevant work experience. Combine this with the results of your reader survey and you'll have a pretty good one-sheet, my friend.

4. Set your Prices: Here's the bad news- most of the major design blogs out there aren't charging as much for ads as you think. The biggun's can charge a few thousand a month for one or two key spots but remember, you're going to have to pay taxes on this and these guys are looking at numbers over 20k a day. It's best to be realistic about your traffic and set prices accordingly. Email other similar bloggers to see if they're willing to share their rates. Start with a fair price and you can always increase as demand or traffic grow.

5. Reach out to Potential Advertisers: Here's the hard part. I can't claim any expertise on this section because I've never actually sought out advertisers. But I'd imagine the best way to go about this is to analyze your reader survey and see what people are looking for. Are people looking for affordable clothing? jewelry? tableware? garden tools? Figure out your target advertiser and tell them that you have their audience ready and waiting on your site. But remember, don't be too pushy. Not everyone is hip to web advertising quite yet- introduce yourself, attach your one-sheet and if they're interested, they'll contact you. If you have a site that can sustain advertising in the first place you'll probably hear from a few companies by the time you're ready to go anyway.

6. Maintain your boundaries and keep your advertisers happy: Everyone has different goals for their site's advertising program. Figure out yours and stick to them. It's easy to be enticed into extra posts, shout outs or free mentions by advertisers with big money. If you're cool with this, go for it. I'm personally not into having posts devoted solely to announcing new advertisers, but if your readers don't mind and you're ok with it, make that your plan and let your advertisers know. If advertisers ask for additional stats or features discuss this with them and try to find a happy medium. Chances are, what makes one advertiser happy will make them all happy. It never hurts to give your advertisers more information about your site and its demographic. And don't forget- figure out a plan for compensating unhappy advertisers. If you start late or they're unhappy do you reimburse? Decide what works for you and make it very clear to your advertisers- it will pay off in the end if you have an unhappy person claiming you owe them money or extra time.

My final thought on this subject is a tricky one: whether or not to run your own ad campaign or use a service like Adwords. I personally find it has been worth it to maintain my own program. I certainly don't always enjoy dealing with advertisers who think they have control over my site because they advertise with me, but I think it's been beneficial to both parties to interact on a regular basis and figure out what works for them. I'm able to get to know an advertiser, their products and their way of doing business first- never a bad thing. I'm also able to help advertisers create an ad that works best for my site- talking to these people has been an educational experience for both parties.

This was probably the longest post I've ever written, but I hope this was able to help some of you who are trying to launch an ad program on your site. Best of luck with all of your blossoming blog businesses