Written on March 11th, 2005 at 01:03 pm by David Shawver
How Many Posts do you Need in your Archives to earn Money from Blogging?
Someone asked me just now -‘how many pages do I need on my blog for it to earn $XX.00s per day?’ Its a pretty common question and one that I’m going to tackle below - but first let me ponder another related question from Thomas who in my recent call for feedback on this blog asked:
‘Is there a direct and predictable relationship between the total income of a blog and the total number of blog posts?’
Its a good question and one I’m sure I’ve talked about before in my archives somewhere - but that I’m happy to write a little about again.
I’m going to generalize terribly here and give you a very short and blunt answer to your question Thomas - and I’ll expand upon it some more for those who want to journey with me some more on it.
The Short Answer - My generalized answer is ‘yes’ - I do believe that in most cases there is a relationship between the number of posts on a blog and the income that it currently generates.
The Long Answer - Why do I answer yes? - to me its a matter of logic but also a reflection of my experience. As my blogs have grown in quantity of posts I have earned more. Of course there are other reasons for the increase in income (including increase in page rank in search engines, increase in loyal readers etc) but one of the main reasons for the increase in income is simply that I have more blog entries in my blogs now than I did a year ago. This bring more readers (and income) mainly because every post I write is a doorway into my blog via the Search Engines.
As I’ve written before - the majority of my readership comes from search engines (mainly Google) who refer people to my old entries. Each time I write a post Google indexes it and its another potential page that someone will find when they search for information on the topic I’ve written about - its like each post opens a doorway to your blog.
Old Posts Can Diminish in Value - But wait - there’s more - let me tell you why its not just as simple as having a lot of posts! Depending upon the blog and its topic, old posts have the potential to loose their earning capacity.
Take my Digital Photography Blog for example - the older the posts on that blog get the less likely they are to earn me an income - mainly because the topics I write upon date and become obsolete. Every year digital camera manufacturers release over 100 new digital cameras and they retire a similar number of models. As a result the pages I have on these old models become less and less likely to be searched for by readers - they diminish their earning capacity. This characteristic of old posts is not just the case for technology blogs - its obviously the case also for news sites, politics sites and virtually anything where there are new developments.
Not only that - its worth remembering that Google seems to like fresh and updated content better than old content. I can’t find too many places that talk about this - but its something I’m noticing in my own use of the search engine. I suspect that an non updated blog post loses some of its weighting over time in Google’s eyes and will therefore lose its earning capacity as it falls down the search engine results rankings.
Of course there are many other factors - number of posts is just one element of the earning capacity equation of your blog (of which there are many).
How many Pages? So back to the original question - if quantity of pages relates to income levels - ‘how many pages do I need on my blog for it to earn $XX.00s per day?’ Its the same question as ‘how many posts per day do I need to write to make $XX per day’ and a similar question to ‘how much should I make per day from XXXX daily visitors?’
I’d really like to be able to answer those questions and would if I could - but unfortunately the variations between blogs can be so great.
For instance I have one blog that has 10% of the posts of some of my other blogs - yet it makes just as much as them (if not more some days). Why? Well there could be a number of reasons for such an anomaly. It could be that it just gets a lot of traffic (it doesn’t in this case) or it could be that the ads on the page pay significantly more per click than other pages (as is the case here).
I was speaking to one web entrepreneur recently (not a blogger) and he told me how some of his best earning sites are actually very small - just a handful of well optimized and highly ranked pages. Of course this person has hundreds of such sites - so I guess you could argue that his earning capacity is tied to the number of pages he has - but its worth noting that some pages will always be more valuable than others.
So remember that whilst it might be interesting to compare blogs and to make judgments about what they should be earning per number of post or traffic - that comparing blogs is like comparing apples with oranges.
So the take home lessons of the day - blog lots (quantity does count) but also blog smart (pick your topics wisely).
Feel free to add your own thoughts on this topic in comments below.
Written on March 11th, 2005 at 09:03 am by David Shawver
Michael Jackson Responsible for Blog Traffic Growth
Michael Jackson’s late appearance to court today brought a deluge of traffic to the Michael Jackson Trial Watch blog that we’ve been experimenting. It was quite amusing to watch the hits start rolling in as it got closer to him not showing and then especially as the deadline passed before he showed up wearing pajamas.
The experiment has been reasonably successful so far, although we’re only really seeing traffic from MSN search at this point - Google has shunned us thus far but we’re hoping that their next update will remedy this. As you can see from the stats above - the last three days have seen more and more interest in the site as the trial heats up and as the media whip things into more and more of a frenzy. I can’t imagine what it will escalate to if he’s found guilty at the trial’s end in a month or two.
Written on March 11th, 2005 at 09:03 am by David Shawver
Customize Google News - to a Point
I welcome the new customizable Google News - but have to admit that I’m not as excited about it as I first was when I heard about it. The changes that they’ve made don’t really change the way I’ll use the service. It all seems a little cosmetic to me - yes they allow me to have a bit more control over what is viewed on the page but it seems like largely the same features which can be moved around the page a little.
When they let me track RSS feeds like on MyYahoo! and when they allow me to track my News Alerts via RSS rather than via email or manually going to the page - thats when I’ll be excited. For now I still prefer using Topix which allows me to watch my selected news alerts via RSS. I’m sure Google will catch up eventually.
Written on March 11th, 2005 at 09:03 am by David Shawver
Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines - The Top 5 Tips
Tinu Abayomi-Paul post an article over at Search Engine Guide on how to Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines - The Top 5 Tips. Might be useful for some - although nothing really new here - you’ll find it all in my SEO archives too.
Written on March 11th, 2005 at 06:03 am by David Shawver
Getting Yahoo Traffic for your Blog
One of the constant frustrations that I’ve had with blogging over the years has been my inability to rank well in Yahoo’s search engine results. Despite the fact that Google seems to love some of my blogs - Yahoo has always been rather standoffish with them. It does seem to index my sites but it might as well not have as the percentage of traffic it sends is miniscule. This is until recently.
A few weeks ago I saw a number of bloggers talking about a technique that promised to get Yahoo indexing blogs better - so I gave it a go and have had some moderate success. Its still not traffic in the levels that Google sends (but I guess that would be hard as more people use Google to search the web) but its better than previous levels.
Really the strategy is simple and it involves signing up for a MyYahoo page and using the RSS Headlines feature. This feature allows you to track a variety of blogs via RSS. Simply add your own RSS feeds and it seems that Yahoo adds them to its own tracking system which must be linked to their indexing system.
Just a day after adding the feeds to my MyYahoo page I noticed an increase in my traffic from Yahoo. Since then as it has indexed more pages it seemingly is sending even more traffic across to some of my blogs.
No guarantees but Its worth a try if you’re looking for more traffic on your blog (and who isn’t).
Relevant links on this topic include:
- How Yahoo’s Recent Facelift Can Mean More Traffic to Your Site
- My Yahoo RSS Headlines Module - FAQs
- My Yahoo RSS Upgrades Officially Live
Written on March 10th, 2005 at 11:03 pm by David Shawver
Yahoo! Publisher Network
Anyone know what the Yahoo! Publisher Network is? Could it be the rumored competition for Adsense that seems to be being talked about more and more these past couple of weeks? What does Yahoo themselves have to say about Yahoo Publisher Network? Not a lot - but here is what they reveal:
‘To support the publishing community, Yahoo! will be introducing new products and services-including publishing tools, advertising products and access to our Yahoo! audience. Our products will leverage the Yahoo! network to provide the most value for small publishers. If you are interested in being notified when they launch, please provide your information below.’
Read more at Yahoo! Publisher Network
Written on March 10th, 2005 at 03:03 pm by David Shawver
Blogger Fight Club Proposal
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
A couple of posts ago in an update I suggested that perhaps we should lock Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis in a room together and let them have an all in brawl til they get their issues with one another off their chests. This comes after their latest spat over Gizmodo’s decision to accept an offer from Siemens for an all expenses trip to Germany for the CeBit show in return for posts on the blog. Follow the latest disagreement at Gizmodo sells out to Siemens, then Calacanis transparency policy and then My comment policy.
So after suggesting the fight club solution above I got to thinking - maybe we should have a debate?!? I mean there is already one going on - but how about we actually have a formal Pro Blogging debate between Nick and Jason?
I think it should be held at an independent third blog (I’ll volunteer as I’ve been both a knocker and supporter of Nick and Jason over the past 6 months). We’ll flip a coin and choose who gets to make an opening statement about their issue with the other (or perhaps we should name a topic on blogging ethics, or on accepting stuff for posts - transparency I guess) - then the other can have a go and we go back and forwards a few times till its all said and done. As we go the rest of us can have our say and then at the end we all go back to our blogging business.
Who knows it might actually achieve something for all of us thinking through issues of ProBlogging and the ethics of it!? Or then again it might just be a good PR exercise for all involved - I mean there is nothing like a good fight to draw a crowd!
What do you say Nick and Jason?
Written on March 10th, 2005 at 10:03 am by David Shawver
Tell me what you want, what you really really want…
I’ve been writing enternetusers for almost 6 months now. There are 630 post in my archives on a vast array of topics including some tips that I wrote very early on that have probably not been read by many due to the fact that when I started I was my only reader.
I love writing this blog - its the first and last one in my stable of blogs that I write on every day. To be honest its probably the least profitable one that I do (there is no money in ads for blogging tools) but that doesn’t really worry me because its a labor of love - enternetusers energizes me.
Over the past few weeks I’ve had a number of people reflect back that things that I’ve written have been helpful to their professional blogging efforts - this is what this site is all about so I’m over the moon to have been a help. I’d like to get more of these emails and instant messages - not because it strokes my ego - but because I honestly would like to see Pro Blogging grow as an industry (probably the wrong choice of word).
So - in order for me to be more effective in equipping and encouraging you my wonderful readers, I’d like to hear from you. Tell me what YOU want out of enternetusers. What are the types of tips and articles that you need to read more on? Help me help you by giving me some insight into the issues that you’re facing at present as a Professional Blogger?
Do you want more articles on Adsense, affiliate programs, blogging tools, more inspirational ‘you can do it’ articles or interviews with Pro bloggers? Would it be helpful to start a forum discussion area where you can discuss with others? Would case studies of blogs making money be helpful? These are just some ideas and starting points - let me know what you want and if I know how to do it, I will.
I’m also toying with the idea of collating a short book (an e-book, or a real book if anyone wants to publish it) on the topic of ProBlogging with some good basic tips that I’ve learned over the last two years on creating a profitable blog. Rather than having to wade through the archives of this blog it would be a way of getting it all in one place in a logical and more helpful order. Would this be of interest to anyone? If so what would you like it to cover?
Basically I’m happy to keep doing what I’m doing - it seems to be meeting some blogger’s needs because traffic is gradually growing - however I’m not satisfied with just meeting a few needs - I want enternetusers readers to have ‘ahaa moments’, I want them to see lights going on, I want them to be empowered and equipped to produce quality income generating blogs and for that to happen I need you to tell me what you want - what you really really want….
Written on March 10th, 2005 at 09:03 am by David Shawver
‘When to Post’ to your Blog II
Yesterday I wrote a little post on ‘When to Post’ to your Blog and have been really impressed with the advice and experiences that you as bloggers have left. I guess I did ask for your experiences but the wisdom shared was great. Obviously its a topic a lot of you have done some good thinking of. Thanks for sharing.
I guess as I look at the collective wisdom of us all we can say that its different strokes for different blogs. As I consider my different blogs this morning I realise that my posting rhythm is quite different from blog to blog. Here on enternetusers I try to post through out the day - but always try to have something fresh up soon after I get up and just before I go to bed (basically these posts are for the US market). However on other blogs timing is not such a big issue and I post in blocks (ie I’ll put 6 posts up in 10 minutes) - the reasoning on this is that I’m not posting so much for readers who will read what I write shortly after I write it, but rather I’m posting for readers who will find my blog via a search engine.
In the comments of the previously post I particularly found Timothy Lee’s comments helpful and thought I’d elevate them into a main post (not that others words were not worthy - its just that his experiences were quite helpful). Timothy writes:
‘The answer on when to post lies mostly in the concept of dayparts. Nielsen has segregated the week into five distinct dayparts. Each daypart is comprised of a majority of one consumer type. Each daypart is also associated with a particular type of content.
As I blog on small business, the daypart I am most concerned with is the M-F working hours. Based on two months of analysis, I know that most of my readers come during the work day and work week. I also know that the two biggest blocks of readers are located in the Central and Eastern U.S. time zones. I further know by looking at statitics for each day that peak reading occurs at 8:00 and at Noon.
I therefore publish each morning, M-F, by 7:00 a.m. Central to ensure that new content is online for Eastern readers at 8:00. I publish little on weekends.
A sports related blog may find the weekend daypart better for posting as Nielsen has identified that daypart as being best for sports. Likewise, political blogs may find better readership in the evening daypart.
It comes down to basic marketing – know your product; know your market.’
Timothy is spot on the money - ‘know your product; know your market.’ Who is reading your blog? What are they looking for? When are they looking for it? What style of writing do they connect with? Where do they live? What level are they at? All of these questions (and their answers) can and should be buzzing around in your mind as you consider the questions of when and how to post.
Written on March 10th, 2005 at 12:03 am by David Shawver
What Google Never Told You about Making Money with Adsense - A Review
A couple of days ago I interviewed Interviewed web entrepreneur Joel Comm who authored the e-book What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense (affiliate link).
Since that time I’ve had a number of emails from people asking for my opinion of the book as they are considering making a purchase of it so I thought I should give you a brief review here to help readers work out if its the book for them.
I should say right up front that I’ve been using Adsense for over 18 months now on my blogs and whilst I won’t pretend I know everything there is to know about the program, I would classify myself as an advanced user of the system. It makes up a significant part of my income from blogging.
So with this in mind I’ll say the following about Joels E-book:
- What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense is a 55 page e-book which is full of good solid adsense advice. Joel uses real examples to illustrate his tips. The e-book is well laid out and is easy to look at and read.
- It is not tailored specifically for blogs but information contained in it is easily adapted to blogs.
- Joel does mention one other product within his e-book that costs money, however the rest of his tips are free.
- Joel makes $15,000 per month from Adsense - I can see why from his tips. They are good tips, sensible tips and easy to implement.
- Joel writes in an easy to read fashion - his tips are accessible to even beginning publishers.
- I would classify Joels tips as excellent for beginners to medium users of Adsense. As someone who has been using the program for 18 months I did not read too much (if anything) that was new to me. However I still think it was worth the purchase price for me as it reminded me of a few tips that I’d forgotten or gotten slack with. I’m pretty sure that the tweaks I made as a result of these reminders will earn me more than the book cost over the next few months. Likewise I would expect that beginner and medium Adsense publishers who follow Joels tips should find themselves making their money back.
- The only qualification I’ll make to this statement is that to be successful with Adsense you will need at least a good basic traffic level for your blog. You can have the best optimized ads in the world on your blog and have no or little traffic and you’ll never make much. So I’m suggesting that you take a more holistic approach to earning money from your blog and not only work on your ads but also other areas of your blog (see my archives for hundreds of tips on the many facets of improving your blog).
- Joel offers a 100% money back guarantee and writes - ‘‘I’m sure this will work for you, and so committed to see that it does, that if you apply the simple techniques I’ve outlined in my ebook and you don’t see results within 30 days, I will personally review your site and make suggestions to help you increase your AdSense revenue. If you’re still not satisfied, I’ll refund your purchase price in full!’
- I find Joel’s story pretty inspiring. He’s someone who has really harnessed the power of Adsense for the good of him and his family. In a relatively short time he’s found himself a very decent income for himself.
- Each Adsense expert has their own particular style of using the program. Its worth remembering that Joel is sharing from his own experience on his own sites. Use his tips as starting points - but as he recommends you should make them your own and experiment with them on your own site.
So should you buy What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense? Only you can really answer that question but I’d give it some consideration depending upon the level of your experience with the program. Whilst I didn’t learn a lot from it I’m glad to have read it and won’t be asking for my money back because it’s given me food for thought on a few areas. In short - its a great introduction to Adsense and will give newer users a fantastic head start (I wish I’d read it 18 months ago). If you’re more experienced with Adsense you might use it as a refresher course - or maybe give it a miss if you are happy with what you know.
If you want to ask me clarification questions or have had some experience with it yourself please feel free to leave your thoughts in comments below.
Update: Joel has recently updated this e-book significantly. It now has many more tips and pages and is updated to include some of the newer Adsense features. While the first version was probably more targetted at a beginner level - the newer version is more helpful for intermediate users of Adsense.
Update: Joel has also released a couple of other similar ’secrets’ book which you might like to try out also:
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