If 88% of SA Bloggers Make No Money, Is Google Adsense Worth It?
I’ve been following the South African blogosphere in recent times and when the SA Blog survey was announced by 24.com in collaboration with Afrigator and Amatomu, I was eager to see how much the SA blogosphere has developed.
From the stats shared my way by Justin Hartman of Afrigator, 88.4% of SA Bloggers earn zero revenue from their blogs, which makes me wonder if Google Adsense is a viable method to earn revenue from blogs.
A look at the figures below will show that the average a South African blogger makes is between R1 and R200 a month. Only 2.9% of the total blogs surveyed earn more than R3000 from their blogs (about $300 USD), which raises several questions as to the essence of the adsense program for African bloggers.
I’m interested to see what the figures are for Nigerian bloggers, even though there is no statistical generating blog aggregator such as Amatomu or Afrigator for Nigeria that could run a blog survey within the Nigerian blogosphere. Perhaps Afrigator could arrange a blog survey for Nigeria?
- But is there any better way that African blogs can earn more revenue from there blogs?
- Is Google Adsense and other Affiliate Marketing revenue generating models really worth it?
- Can Adgator be a better substitute to Adsense?
While we wait for the launch of Afrigator’s Adgator, Africa’s first blog advertising network on December 8, we hope that this new ad network will make African bloggers earn more money from their blogs. But my problem with Adgator is that only South African blogs can join the ad network.
So the question is: Could this service be extended to all African bloggers?
Hey Loy - great article once again! I honestly believe that Adgator can be extended to all African bloggers because this is the reason we started it. The reason Adgator isn’t in Nigeria yet is because we’re working on increasing the Nigerian base before we implement it. We’ve figured out that roughly 10-15% of our SA base has converted into Adgator users so we need the Nigerian base to be a little bigger before we can be really successful in offering a wider reach.
Hey Man!
I agree, good post. I think, though, that its worth pointing out that many South African bloggers use Wordpress (which doesn’t support Javascript, so no adsense there) - and many just haven’t tried monetizing.
That said, I also think African blogging isn’t really benefitting from Adsense. If someone blogs in any other language than English (with the exception of French) on this continent, they’re probably not going to make money, as Adsense doesn’t support these languages. My mother tongue (Afrikaans) and those of many of my fellow countrymen (who speak Nguni and Sotho language variations) are currently receiving squat on the Adsense side.
Therefore I’m also hoping that Adgator will become a sustainable effort for the WHOLE continent
Hi Loy - 1st time here and must confess lovely post.
I also ask myself are Africans and Nigerians especially, making any money off their blogs - I continue to wonder, especially how some Nigerians comes up with ads and posts like how to make money online as a blogger and all that…
With adgator, if properly organised like adsense and co. will be a source of income to african bloggers - lets pray it extends to Nigerian bloggers.
Check my post on http://nairablog.com/2008/08/popularity-among-bloggers-is-it-more.html,
somehow similar.
Dear Everyone,
We provide mass emailing, email advertising services to the internet community. Our services are best value for money. Please visit our website http://www.massoptins.com for more details. Thanks, Mike.
@Justin - Thanks. Let’s all hope that the Nigerian base would get a big push by Q1 of 2009, so we could make some more money;-) Great job, man.
@Johan - Your English is perfect enough to get Google to pay you Adsense revenue:-) By the way, nice blog (even though I couldn’t understand a word in Afrikaans). Thanks for dropping by.
@Ife - Thanks for your comment. In fact, Afrigator hope to extend the service to Nigeria and Kenya by Q1 of 2009. All we can do is watch and wait:-)
Cool to see African bloggers trying to monetise their creations a little!
[...] … to make money blogging website sulap TERMURAH (BUKTIKAN) Ikutan Investasi Mandiri If 88% of SA Bloggers Make No Money, Is Google Adsense Worth It? - startupsnigeria.com 12/03/2008 I’ve been following the South African blogosphere in recent [...]
I think a Local Ad services is the way to go for African Bloggers.
Interesting post, Loy always churning great articles. Kudos man.
As matter of fact I’m really excited with what the Afrigator Crew are doing and I hope Adgator would be a better option for the African blogoshere.
@Loy - Hehe, thank you. I’m glad you like it
@Richard - I totally agree with you.
@Edundayo - Thanks, man!
@Johan - It’d be great if you could install an English translation feature, so we could enjoy your blog too;-)
Hello all
Yes please can we develop the African market.And please some more marketing for Afrigator coz I did a keyword search on GoogleKeyword Tool and some people are looking for “Affregator” which I assume is Afrigator.
This is what I have found out with my online marketing course.A really good one and I have learnt so much bout the internet.I have put up websites,have marketed other websites so it was really good in that way and I dont regret the money at all.My course did not mention online surveys at all but I found out about it while I was surfing and no,dont do it.am gonna post all the details in my blog.I just have a bit of trouble thinking on a global scale but am getting there.
and yes-nice post