Tumblr has become the place where all the cool kids have been hanging out – and I must admit I love it too! Tumblr is cool, convenient and simple to use. I know I have talked before about how to make a Tumblr blog and the confusion over Posterous vs. Tumblr, but today I want to address something a little bit different.
It doesn’t matter what kind of website you want to start, at some point in time you will wonder about how to make money from it. Everyday people are making thousands online and you want a piece of the pie.
Adding Google Adsense is definitely an option to monetize the targeted website traffic visiting your blog. But adding Google Adsense to a Tumblr theme can be quiet tricky, since each Tumblr theme is designed differently.
In this quickie tutorial I will show you how to add Google Adsense to a Tumblr theme with a 2 column design. For this demonstration we will using the Stationary Tumbr theme.
Have You Applied for a Google Adsense Account?
Is Your Tumblr Account Setup?
Have You Installed the Stationary Tumblr Theme?
Add Google Ads to Your Tumblr Theme
- Login into your Tumblr account. You should be viewing your dashboard.
- You will need to customize your current Tumblr theme, so click the Customize link in the right column.
- Select the “THEME” tab at the top of the screen. This will open the HTML code of your current Tumblr theme. You will be adding your Google Adsense code to this custom html section.
- Look for the following code:
<div id=”sidebar”>
<div id=”inner-sidebar”>
<div id=”authorbox”> - Insert your Google Adsense script directly after:
<div id=”inner-sidebar”>
- You should check the code placement by clicking the “UPDATE PREVIEW” button at the bottom of the code window. Please note that it may take up to 10 min for your new Google Adsene code to appear.
- Click on the “SAVE CHANGES” button once you are satisfied with the placement and want to save the changes made to your current template.
Note: Since you are making custom changes to your Tumblr theme, you should always save a copy of your current theme, by copying the custom html to a text editor on your local computer for safe keeping.
My 2 Cents About Domains
If you have had a chance to read my post on how to make a free blog, then you will know my position on free blog sites. But just in case you haven’t read this page, here’s a recap.
Free blog hosting sites (like Tumblr) are cool because:
- They’re free!
- They are super easy to setup and configure even for a beginner
- You can get started in less than 5 minutes
But they do have their disadvantages as well:
- You will not have control over your own domain name – especially if the blogging services goes out of business or decide to change the format of their URLs. The future of your blog is the hands of someone you DON’T EVEN KNOW!
- If Tumblr ever decides to close up business http://www.yourblogname.tumblr.com will no longer exist
- Your blog’s domain name holds all the authority, statistics and Pagerank and they are NOT TRANSFERABLE! If you are looking to create a brand or generate an income you will loose money and search engine traffic if you change your url later. If you decide you want to make this blog your own, you CANNOT add a domain name later. You will lose bookmarks, visitors, Pagerank, search engine ranking and MONEY! And worst of all if you ever decide to leave that blogging service for a large scale paid option and close that account, you will be left with nothing. Another person can start a blog with your previous address and take credit for all of your hard work.
How to Resolve the Domain Name Problem
All you need to do is register your domain name. Tumblr allows you to use a custom domain name with your free Tumblr account and you can get a super cheap domain name directly from Godaddy for only $1.99. Go Daddy is a trusted domain registrar, so save yourself a few headaches in the future and register a domain.
