Written on January 31st, 2005 at 01:01 pm by Darren Rowse
Making chunks of change from Blogging
There is a good basic article over at Emerging Technology - Discover Magazine about how people are making money from their blogs. Its a good summary of the emerging trend of bloggers to monetize their blogs and largely focuses upon the Adsense method and whilst most enternetuserss won’t learn much from it it will probably wet the appetite of bloggers wanting to experiment with this growing desktop industry.
‘Why should we care about such small change? Because most of us, whether we recognize it or not, have a passion about something. Maybe you’re an armchair astronomer or a guy who restores 1964–65 Corvettes. Maybe you follow cricket religiously or know more about the Battle of Antietam than academic historians. Or maybe you can wire a home theater system in your sleep. That wisdom may be genuinely useful or interesting to other people, yet chances are you’ve never shared it with more than family and friends.
Now that expertise has a place to go. Bit by bit over the past 10 years, the Web has erected a global platform for personal wisdom. Services like AdSense—along with other advertising outfits, including one called Blogads, which focuses exclusively on blogs—are simply the final plank. You can now compose, design, publish, promote, and make money from your writing without ever leaving your desk.’
Read more at This is not a dream: You can make a chunk of change by writing a Web log
Written on January 31st, 2005 at 12:01 pm by Darren Rowse
How to Research a Profitable Blog Topic
A while back when I asked you what you’d like to ask professional bloggers in my upcoming interview series MM asked:
‘I want to know what kind of research they did before they jumpstart a new blog. How do they gauge the “marketability” or earning potential of a new topic?’
I’ll ask the question when I start my interview series (first interview will be released this week) - but thought it was worth attempting an answer here also from my own perspective.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. The best research that I’ve ever done on a topic for a potential blog is this…
I get a hunch, I take a guess and start a blog.
I start a blog, I watch the traffic levels and I watch the earning levels. If it does well I keep doing it. If it doesn’t do well I stop doing it.
It isn’t really rocket science - but it works! Yes there are tools that you can use to research a potential topic and some people put a lot of time, energy and thought into it - but my experience is simply to take an educated guess and give it a go.
The beauty of blogs is that they are really so cheap and simple to start up and have very little in the way of overheads. Just yesterday I had a fully functioning blog up and running within 90 minutes (with a little help from a friend who will run it with me).
So far I’ve run most of my blogs on just a couple of domains which makes starting new ones even cheaper and easier. There are some costs of this approach which I live with the consequences of, but the benefit is that you start a new blog with a good chance of being picked up quickly in Search Engines for virtually no cost at all (except your own time). I know that three days after I start a new blog with this method that I’ll be listed in Google and MSN - sometimes its even quicker.
Tools to try: In terms of what tools I use to do research and firm up my ‘hunches’ - the main thing I do is punch in the search term at Overture which gives me an indication of what advertisers are paying for ads on the keyword on contextual advertising systems and how many people are searching for the term. If it looks like a lot of people are looking for the word and advertisers are paying reasonable levels for the ads you could be onto a good thing.
Other Factors?: Of course the other factor to consider is how many other webmasters and bloggers are already producing sites for that term. You can get an indication on this simply by searching for the term in Google and seeing how many responses come up. Alternatively you can use a tool like WordTracker that gives you this information and rates the chances you have at going for the keyword.
You’ll never never know unless you give it a go: Put all that information together and you have an ‘educated guess’ - then its time to test and see. Put a blog up (don’t put too much effort into it until you know if its paying off) - get it indexed by the search engines - give it some quality content - give it some time and track the results.
If it gets some traffic then put more effort into it by giving it a cool design and writing more content - if it doesn’t take off just let it sit there and die. I generally leave my unsuccessful attempts online because they do earn a few cents/dollars per day and it all ads up - and you never know - one day it might actually take off.
Written on January 31st, 2005 at 09:01 am by Darren Rowse
Search Engine Optimization for Blogger Blogs
Wayne has been posing hard til it hurts over at Search Engine Journal where he’s just written a series of excellent Seach Engine Optimization (SEO) posts on optimizing your Blogger Blog. It is a series in four parts (so far):
- Search Engine Optimization and Blogger Blogs Part One
- SEO & Blogger Part 2 - Search Engine Power of Blogs
- SEO & Blogger Part 3 - On Page Blog Optimization Techniques
- SEO & Blogger Part 4 - The Link Power of Blogs
The techniques that Wayne talks about and observations that he makes are good solid SEO strategies that are proven to work - not only on Blogger blogs but on other blogging formats and normal websites. It is easy to be overwhelmed by SEO strategy - I know when I first started looking into it I was totally confused but it is well worth doing a little research and having some of the basics in your mind as you blog. Don’t become obsessed by it - but be informed and where you can use the basics to enhance your chances of being ranked highly by the search engines.
Update: Wayne has also posted this series in full on his own blog at Optimization for Blogger Hosted Blogs
Written on January 30th, 2005 at 05:01 pm by Darren Rowse
Third Party Blogging - Charge Out Rates
Today I received another email from a company wanting to know how much I would charge to write a blog for them. It seems to be a semi regular (and increasing request that I get). I’m very interested in developing and maintaining blogs for others but am at a bit of a loss as to know how much such a service is worth. I know a number of readers of this blog do this type of work and was wondering if you’d be kind enough to give the rest of us (or just me via email) a hint at what the going rate is for this type of work?
Do you work it out per hour, per post, per week, per visitors generated, per % of revenue generated or some combination of the above?
I know how much I can make from one of my blogs but how much would you charge to blog for someone else? Feel free to leave a comment below either anonymously or with your details or shoot me an email with anything (specific or general) you’d like.
Written on January 30th, 2005 at 05:01 pm by Darren Rowse
Make Money off Your Blog
Washington Post has an article today about making money off a blog. Their tips are pretty predictable and basic and centre around Adsense, Blog ads, Affiliates, Donations and Merchandising. Nothing too new there but interesting to see another article about blogging (pro blogging at that) in a bigger news outlet. They write:
‘You pound on the keyboard each day, broadcasting your unalloyed truths to the world (or at least to friends and family) via your blog. Unfortunately, earning such singular authority demands serious time and energy, and what begins as a hobby can quickly start seeming like Job No. 2 — sans paycheck. But haven’t you heard? You can turn your Web log into a digital cash cow. Simply choose among these techniques (but keep in mind that it’s not all free money — come tax season, Uncle Sam gets his fair share).’
Read more at Make Money off Your Blog
Written on January 29th, 2005 at 06:01 pm by Darren Rowse
Tell me what you want, what you really really want
enternetusers is entering into a time of change. I’m approaching my 500th post on the blog after a few months of writing and the time has come to up the anti and take things to the next level in terms of design, content and focus.
As part of this I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on how enternetusers can better serve you in your commercial blogging ventures.
The basic goal of what I want to do is to help others discover ways of making their blogging profitable. I believe that there are many avenues for adding an income stream to blogging and more and more examples of such blogs appear every day.
So how can I resource you more? I would value you taking a moment or two to either email me or leave a comment below. Here are some topics and categories that I’ve focussed upon in the past, let me know which you like and would like more of and which you’d just wish I’d shut up about:
- Content Tips
- Case studies
- Interviews with enternetuserss
- Design Tips
- Blogging News
- Reviews of Revenue programs
- Tips on how to use Revenue programs
- RSS News
- Podcasting News
- Search Engine Optimization Tips/News
- Blog Ethics
- Blogging Tools
- Business/Corporate Blogging
- Affiliate Programs
- Blog Consultants
I don’t have time to come up with a proper survey but take a moment if you are interested in what I do to help me improve it. Any other topics that you want to see covered or suggestions on what would make enternetusers better would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Written on January 29th, 2005 at 06:01 pm by Darren Rowse
The Entrepreneurial Blog Glenn Fleishman
Glenn Fleishman over at GlennLog has just posted a link to an audio (and visuals of his powerpoint) at Business Blogging Summit which currently really enjoying listening to. His main headings were.
- Obsess
- Exhaust
- Report
- Choose
- Expand
- Earn
- Populate
- Perform
Let me just mention a few points he makes within these topics that resonate with my experience in Entrepreneurial Blogging over the past 18 months. The following is a combo of Glenn’s thoughts which I’m adding to and giving a few examples of:
Glenn talks about the importance of archives - your archives (which you accumulate over time) are almost as important as the daily posts you write. How true. If I was just relying upon my new posts for making a living from my blogs I’m sure my wonderful wife would not still be letting me refrain from a ‘real job’. Similarly to the graphs Glenn showed my statistics reveal that whilst home pages are usually the most popular pages on sites that overall it is the archives that do the best traffic wise. For example only 30% of todays traffic to this site entered enternetusers via the front page. 70% came in through the back door to individual pages (some of them quite old) on my blog. Archives rock!
Voice - when you sound authoritative you (without pretending to be something that you’re not) you actually begin to fill a space on the topic you’re talking about and people actually begin to look to you for comment/expertise. This is is one of the interesting phenomenon’s about blogging and I guess the internet in general. We’ve all read something on the internet at one time or another and taken the words we see there as an authority. One example that comes to mind was when I wrote a post one day about the upcoming release of the movie of the Matrix 2. I commented on some of the themes that I saw in it that might be relevant to spirituality. A month later I took a call and was interviewed as an expert by a reporter from the New York Times. I was quoted in the NYT a few days later - but the ironic thing was that to this day I’m yet to see the movie. It is quite scary really that one can become an expert about something they have little knowledge or experience of but it illustrates a point.
Links don’t bring Bucks - Original content is key. It is easy to link to other sites but what brings you repeat traffic is quality original content whether that be scoops, reviews, interviews, opinion etc. This is also my experience. At Digital Photography Blog the post that get the most traffic by far are the reviews and tutorials that we right ourselves. Other than that it is the stories that we break (scoops) and our resource pages that do best. Whilst I do use a ‘link’ approach in most of my blogs the posts that get the most traffic are always the original content. Links are important to me as they do give your readers a more rounded and fuller exploration of a topic - they also do add to your credibility (ie show that you have a handle on the topic).
Find an Empty Spot - Whilst it is difficult to find a topic where no one is blogging there are numerous ways of finding ‘empty spots’. Find a site you want to be like, if they don’t have an RSS feed you might actually have an opportunity on your hands. The importance of empty spots was drummed home to me in the putting together of our Athens Olympics blog. Two months or so before the games started I did a search for sites dedicated to the games - I found very little in the way of quality sites and no blogs at all. I knew that BBC, NBC etc would enter the market but decided to get in before them and put together a comprehensive coverage. Two weeks later the new blog was in the top 3 results of Google for most Athens Olympics search terms and by the time the games started (and numerous other bloggers were just entering the market) we had over 2500 pages indexed in Google (and added another 2500 or so over the two weeks). Whilst NBC and BBC saw much more traffic than us due to their referring TV viewers to their sites through their on screen advertising we constantly outranked them on Google and saw 2 million readers find us during the games fortnight.
Persevere - It takes time. The longer you stay in a space (as long as its not dying) you’ll grow along with the industry. This is very very true. It takes a long time to build a reputation, page rank, inbound links. You may not feel like you’re growing your blog but if you persist (and work hard and blog smartly) you should see good growth. My site statistics have ups and downs but over time it is clear that things are on the improve.
Expand - One blog is good - are many blogs better? Glenn is testing this at the moment. Really getting more niche oriented in his blogging about WiFi. It is interesting that this trend continues to increase - however Weblogs Inc is also doing some more ‘general’ type blogs at the moment. I’m a big believer in this and not only have numerous blogs on one industry/topic, but also across a number of them which is part of my diversification strategy. Its vitally important in my opinion to have your eggs in a number of baskets to cover the ups and downs that you will face in your entrepreneurial blogging ventures.
These are just a few of the topics Glenn covered in his excellent presentation - I’d highly recommend you download the full audio file. If anyone out there knows Glenn and can do an introduction with me I’d love to feature him in one of our interviews in the next few months with enternetuserss - let me know if you can do the intro.
Written on January 29th, 2005 at 03:01 pm by Darren Rowse
The Benefits of having a country Top Level Domain
Lee Johnson has a good article pointing out some of the Benefits of having a country Top Level Domain ie a.uk, or.au domain name:
‘Most of the large search engines will give you a higher search ranking for a site that has the tld of the searchers country. For example, if someone from the United Kingdom is performing a search for widgets, a search engine will often rank widgets.co.uk higher than other sites selling the same product but only have a.com tld.
Having a country specific tld will also allow you to be included in a lot of great country directories that stipulate that your domain name has a certain tld. Getting your site into these directories can be a great way of improving your search engine website rankings as these are 1 way links from authority sites for your chosen subject. These kind of links are graded much higher than reciprocal linking…’
Lee goes on to share other benefits also. It is an interesting question and one that I’ve often considered. My main livingroom.org.au domain now hosts a number of blogs - and there have been some definite advantages of this approach. i do rank very well on google.com.au but on the other side of things there are some costs worth considering of having a more localized URL.
If you’re blogging about a global topic the.au can cause problems both in search engines but also with ‘the look’ of the URL. I’ve had a number of people write off my blogs because they are not a.com or.net or.org. However overall my approach is that if you write good content, interact with other bloggers and optimize your blog well you should do ok no matter what its URL.
I’m interested in others opinions on why you have or haven’t gone for a more localized domain.
Written on January 29th, 2005 at 09:01 am by Darren Rowse
Make Money for Recommending Movable Type
It looks like Six Apart are moving toward an affiliate program where people recommending Movable Type will get a commission from anyone buying a license.
‘Many of you recommend Movable Type as the weblog platform of choice to your customers or clients. With our new reseller licenses, you’ll be able to make money each time you sell a copy of Movable Type. We’re planning to offer generous commissions for all of you who offer software and services on top of the Movable Type platform.’
There is no ETA on when the program will go live yet.
Written on January 29th, 2005 at 09:01 am by Darren Rowse
Bloggers Sell Advertising Space on Ebay
The Mobile Technology Weblog is another blog that is using Ebay to help them earn an income from their blog by selling advertising space on it. They are currently up to $41 for a 120 x 90 banner (for a month) after a couple of days of the auction. I’m sure others have done this (I’ve definitely seen non blog type sites do it) but its a good idea and worth a try.
‘TJ and I came up with a pretty cool idea recently, which I think is unique - but I’m sure we’ll find someone who’ll claim it’s been done before :-)
Why not auction off advertising space on blogs on eBay? So I placed an ad this morning to sell off the ad space you can see on the top right of the blog for a month. You can see it - and bid on it! - here.
It’s a bit of a punt, but if it works, it could be a great way to connect advertisers with bloggers, which is what eBay does so well. And if it enables bloggers to be rewarded for their work, I’d be delighted.
If you’re a blogger reading this, I’d really appreciate a link to this post - the more people see it, the more likely it is to work and the more likely it is that it’ll start something big for all of us.’
I was actually pondering the other day whether an auction type version of BlogAds might be a viable method of selling ads. For example if instead of bloggers setting their prices (guessing at market value) and hoping that an advertiser comes and pays that much - if Blogads added the option to have an auction for your ad space. This way advertisers would have a little more say in the setting of the price as we as the blogger would find the true market value of our sites. Just an idea - one that I hope who ever uses it will give me 10% of the earnings from!
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