Curious to know what the top 25 design blogs make from ad sales?
Any person reading this blog right now that is in the design field has probably wondered this very exact question: What do these design blogs actually make in ad revenue and is it possible for me to make money with my own design blog? Hopefully, by the end of this article you will walk away with answers to that question.
I’ve been pushing around the idea of starting my own design blog for months now and decided to do a bit of research to see what the top design blogs actually make in revenue. Since I know that the blog will be focused on ad revenue and not just pushing my web design business, I wanted to gauge what types of money could be made with the blog and how much traffic I’d have to hit in order to get to certain cash milestones.
The trend I see in a lot of the top design blogs out there are the use of the service Buy Sell Ads – we even use it here on Guerrilla Freelancing (our listing is here). It’s a great service and it allows advertisers to find the sites they’d like to buy ads from, get approved and placed in front of millions of people.
The beauty of it for the site owners is that they don’t have to manually ad the codes in each time a new ad is purchased and remove them once the month is up. As a publisher, you earn 75% of the ad revenue, so you’re getting a great deal (in my opinion) because you no longer have to focus on selling the ads, managing them and so on.
Please bare in mind that these stats are only for the publicly sold ads on their sites and do not reflect their earnings from private advertising purchases, reviews and other forms of advertisements like feedburner links/ads, google adsense, and so on. So, lets get to it – what do these blogs actually make in revenue?
PSDTuts+
- Estimated Impressions: 6,230,000
- How many ad spaces?: 12
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 9
- Revenue: $9,893.25
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Abduzeedo
- Estimated Impressions: 5,999,000
- How many ad spaces?: 46
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 38
- Revenue: $4,650
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Hongkiat
- Estimated Impressions: 3,395,000
- How many ad spaces?: 12
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 12
- Revenue: $2,475
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Nettuts+
- Estimated Impressions: 2,225,000
- How many ad spaces?: 13
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
- Revenue: $4,785.25
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Creattica
- Estimated Impressions: 2,025,000
- How many ad spaces?: 10
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 9
- Revenue: $1,987.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Vectortuts+
- Estimated Impressions: 1,830,000
- How many ad spaces?: 11
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
- Revenue: $3,940.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Web Designer Depot
- Estimated Impressions: 1,660,000
- How many ad spaces?: 13
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 11
- Revenue: $4,181.25
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Smashing Apps
- Estimated Impressions: 1,630,000
- How many ad spaces?: 30
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 23
- Revenue: $1,991.25
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Six Revisions
- Estimated Impressions: 1,505,000
- How many ad spaces?: 12
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 9
- Revenue: $4,357.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Web Design Ledger
- Estimated Impressions: 1,415,000
- How many ad spaces?: 14
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 13
- Revenue: $3,225
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Instant Shift
- Estimated Impressions: 1,305,000
- How many ad spaces?: 11
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
- Revenue: $1,275.00
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Vandelay Website Design
- Estimated Impressions: 1,135,000
- How many ad spaces?: 12
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 12
- Revenue: $2,512.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
CSS Tricks
- Estimated Impressions: 1,105,000
- How many ad spaces?: 12
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 11
- Revenue: $2,887.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
1st Web Designer
- Estimated Impressions: 1,085,000
- How many ad spaces?: 21
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 14
- Revenue: $2,287.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Speckyboy Design Magazine
- Estimated Impressions: 1,080,000
- How many ad spaces?: 46
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 18
- Revenue: $2,251.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Tutorial9
- Estimated Impressions: 1,050,000
- How many ad spaces?: 21
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 19
- Revenue: $2,647.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Bittbox
- Estimated Impressions: 1,025,000
- How many ad spaces?: 6
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 6
- Revenue: $2,193.75
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
DesignM.ag
- Estimated Impressions: 855,000
- How many ad spaces?: 10
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 10
- Revenue: $1,275.00
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Web Resources Depot
- Estimated Impressions: 820,000
- How many ad spaces?: 4
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 3
- Revenue: $618.75
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Web Designer Wall
- Estimated Impressions: 815,000
- How many ad spaces?: 10
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 8
- Revenue: $2,775.00
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Blog.SpoonGraphics
- Estimated Impressions: 815,000
- How many ad spaces?: 9
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 7
- Revenue: $1,912.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Naldz Graphics
- Estimated Impressions: 520,000
- How many ad spaces?: 13
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 8
- Revenue: $693.75
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Marcofolio
- Estimated Impressions: 440,000
- How many ad spaces?: 9
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 8
- Revenue: $352.50
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
GoMediaZine
- Estimated Impressions:
- How many ad spaces?: 32
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 14
- Revenue: $903.75
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
Spyre Studios
- Estimated Impressions: 300,000
- How many ad spaces?: 8
- Total ads sold (as of 01/28/10): 7
- Revenue: $480.00
Website Link | BuySellAds Listing
What are you waiting for?
There’s a world of advertisers out there who are just waiting to place their ads on your site. Build it, put all of the passion you have into it and watch it grow. Do not expect to hit these numbers overnight – but in time, you can definitely top this list.
