Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 04:02 pm by Darren Rowse

Technorati Introduce Favorites and Plays Favorites?

Blogging Tools and Services 13 comments

David Sifry announces a new feature at technorati - Technorati Favorites which allows people to keep track of their favorite blogs on one page. You can add up to 50 blogs and then follow them via a single RSS stream. This sounds like a very useful tool - BUT…

Of course (rant ahead) readers of enternetusers blog won’t be able to follow enternetusers as a favorite because apparently we haven’t been posting for the past 6 days (despite the fact that I count 41 posts in that time).

Yep we’re still not being indexed.

Actually we did have a couple of days of indexing after a enternetusers reader asked someone high at Technorati (not sure who) to look into my case. I’m not sure what they did but we started getting indexed within minutes of them making the request. We still were not being featured in the Top 100 despite being in the 70’s but something is better than nothing.

A few days after that however I finally got an email from someone in Technorati’s customer service department responding to my emails from the past few months. I explained we’d started being indexed but asked about the Top 100 list and mentioned my other blogs were not being indexed. He said he’d have a look.

Unfortunately I’ve not heard anything back since, despite more emails, and the next day Technorati stopped indexing enternetusers again. That was a week ago and we’re back to the silent treatment. They are still tracking inbound links and giving a ranking (not featured on the top list) just ignoring my own posts.

Splog List - I’ve now heard from three sources who claim to know people at Technorati that enternetusers might be on the Splog list and that they don’t tell bloggers who request information on why they are not indexed the reason. I can understand this on one level (they don’t want to give sploggers insider information - I admire them wanting to take a stand) but on another level I don’t understand how someone is supposed to defend such a charge if they don’t believe they are doing anything wrong or how they are supposed to fix what they are doing wrong if it’s an honest mistake.

I still respect and admire Technorati’s services, but am increasingly frustrated with it as it is rendered next to useless for me and readers wanting to interact with my blogs via them. By the comments in my previous posts on the topic here and here it seems I’m not alone.

update: this post has had some partial response. My friend with the contact at Technorati contacted them again and got them to look at it saying that they would unblock enternetusers again. At around the same time Dave Sifry commented and asked me to outline the problems via email which I’ve done.

The result - once again posts seem to be being indexed and it’s picking up that I’ve updated more recently than 6 days ago. Still waiting to see if the other issues will resolve this time. Hopefully whatever happened will stick this time.

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Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 04:02 pm by Darren Rowse

Speed Linking - 22 Feb 2006

Pro Blogging News 0 comments

• Steve Rubel presents The Four P’s of Blog Marketing: Passionate, Purposeful, Present and Positional.
• ClickZ reports that Digital Ads are expected to hit $23 billiion by 2010 - gulp
• fiftyfoureleven.com writes So Your Content Has Been Copied, Now What?
• Jeremy Wright talks about how MySpace IS the new Blogosphere

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Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:02 pm by Darren Rowse

Bleeding Edge and the Search for a Blog Business Model

Case Studies 4 comments

There’s been an interesting progression of thoughts over at Aussie Charles Writght’s blog (Bleeding Edge) over the last week or so as they’ve searched for a business model for their blogging (originally spotted via Squash who has some thoughts on it too). Here’s the progression of posts on the topic over the last week or so:

Charles wrote on the 15th of this month that they were in the process of closing down the ‘Razor’ blog which he’d been writing for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age - mainly because of the time it was taking and the low return in terms of income in comparison to other forms of writing that they could earn money from.

The following day he wrote that they were exploring a subscription based approach - ie charging $15 per year for an email version of the column. The responses from readers were mixed, although the positives outweighed the negatives (although there were only 19 comments in total which makes me wonder how many readers would pay $15 if they didn’t bother to give an opinion).

The next day the reports were that 12 or so readers had subscribers - and that some had gone above the $15 subscription fee and had paid up to $50 - that’s what loyal readers to a blog will do.

On the 21st there was another post with an update. Again it spoke of the generosity of some readers and talked about the possibility of a subscriber only section of the blog called the Blood Bank. Readers were then asked to consider what the blog had meant to them.

I’m finding the progression of posts most interesting. The search for a business model is not an easy one (I say this from personal experience). In fact it can be incredibly frustrating and is filled with all kinds of heart ache and angst. You feel like you’ve got something worthwhile to say and you’d like to put more time and energy into it - but you have to pay the bills and despite your best intentions it just doesn’t work.

As I read through the above posts today I found myself thinking along a number of different spectrums simultaneously. Let me attempt to get some of the thoughts out here - not as a critique but in the hope that it helps someone (and perhaps even me as I continue to grapple with my own business models for blogs).

Subscriptions - as I wrote a couple of posts ago - charging readers for content is not an easy thing to do. The challenges are many and include (for Bleeding Edge) transitioning readers from free content to paid content. Most web users are used to accessing free quality content and many (if not most) would be reluctant to pay unless they were getting something either:

1. exclusive - something that they just couldn’t get elsewhere
2. extra - perhaps something beyond content (community, prestige, personal advice, a gift, a chance to win something etc)
3. excellent - exceptional quality of writing
4. expertise - perhaps this taps into #’s 1 and 3 but I think it goes beyond. Some people will be willing to pay to get content from someone who is the number 1 in their field.

I’ve not tried this route myself (and have no intention of doing so) but I suspect to make it work there would be a need for a fairly large readership to start with as only a small percentage (and I’m guessing) would be willing to pay.

Syndication - I first heard of Bleeding Edge and Charles Wright through reading his column on a Thursday in The Green Guide of The Age. The column has a URL at the bottom that was to his blog which grabbed my attention and took me over to see what else he had to say (I think he was writing something against Macs which of course sucked me in :-) ).

As I read the posts that Charles has written above about the decision to withdraw their content from The Age and SMH I wondered whether it was a smart move or not. While I understand the cold hard dollar figures and how blogging is paying them less per word than other forms of writing - I do wonder whether being published in those newspapers might have had other benefits to their income earning potential. I’m thinking here of another recent post that I’ve written on indirect money making through blogs and wonder if the same principles can come into play through newspaper columns.

The Bleeding Edge column was in the hands of thousands of people each week in hard copy and as a result the names ‘Charles Wright’ and ‘Bleeding Edge’ were being seen by thousands.

While I understand the decision to pull out of the papers I hope that in doing so Charles is not killing off perhaps the best publicity that he could have for himself and his other blogs.

Advertising - A year ago now I did a little friendly/free work for Charles in looking over his blog in terms of it’s AdSense optimization. From memory it helped a bit but not heaps. I’m totally unaware of how the ads perform these day on the blog but obviously they don’t bring in that much. There are probably a few teaks they could do to optimize the ads in terms of positioning that might bring in a few extra clicks - but as I look at the blog I see a larger problem in terms of contextual ads - these being the blog’s topic and the blog’s source of readership.

While I enjoy the topic (innovation) I wonder if it might be a little too wide when it comes to contextual advertising. I’m not saying they should narrow their niche, just that it might just be a reality that they have to live with.

In terms of the source of readership - I suspect it’s a largely loyal readership and as a result they are suffering from ad blindness. In at least one of the comments on the posts I mentioned above I read of one reader who said he didn’t even notice the ads. Perhaps some rotation of different colors and new ad positions might help - but unfortunately this might be an ongoing problem - one of the downsides of a blog which people love and keep coming back to.

My only suggestion with advertising is that perhaps they should investigate mixing the ads up a little. I don’t know the blog’s traffic levels but maybe they could try some impression based ads - perhaps there is also some scope to be selling some text ads to capitalize on their PR of 5 (more on different ad options here).

Other Indirect Income Earners - the last thing that I found myself pondering as I gave thought to the Bleeding Edge predicament is that perhaps one way forward is to explore some more indirect income earning possibilities. Charles does have a good reputation and profile when it comes to ‘technological things’. He not only had the column in the papers but appears from time to time on radio (or at least he used to). I just asked three Melbourne friends if they knew who he was and they all said they did.

Perhaps the way forward for Bleeding Edge is in capitalizing on this in some way. Of course I’m unsure exactly how (and I’ve taken almost 2 hours out of my day to think about this and write up this post already) but perhaps rather than exploring was to earn an income directly from the blog via ads or subscriptions it would be useful to think of how to leverage it’s profile. One idea is some sort of e-book on some subsegment of innovation.

Concluding Thoughts

I’m aware that the above thoughts might come off as a critique or as a pretty arrogant commentary on what is another person’s life and business. This is not my intention.

I see the search for a business model as something that many bloggers go through. My own search for one for enternetusers has taken a year and a half and is only just now beginning to be formed (luckily I had other income streams to get me through to this point). My hope is that these random and unfinished thoughts being put out there are helpful to other bloggers working through similar issues with their blogs, and maybe even to Charles (who I’m told I’ll be bumping into in person in Coolum in the next few days).

Update: Charles has posted a response/update to this post and made a few clarifications. Seems I was wrong about the column in the Green Guide ending - I think that’s definately a good thing. Also the subscriptions seem to be rolling in which is great also.

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Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 10:02 am by Darren Rowse

enternetusers in Coolum

enternetusers Site News 8 comments

Just a note to any fellow Aussies in Queensland (the Coolum area). I’ll be there from Sunday through to Tuesday for a conference and I’m sure I could find a little spare time for a beer/coffee/stroll on the beach.

I’m not sure of the conference (that links to last year’s one - can’t find an 06 one) schedule but there’s sure to be time. Let me know if you want to hook up.

PS: Just noticed that Cameron Reilly is in town for the same few days (looks like we’re both booked into speak at the same gig without knowing each other is on).

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Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 08:02 am by Darren Rowse

Making Money Because of Your Blog - Indirect Methods

Blogging for Dollars 25 comments

We now turn our attention to ways of making money from blogging that are more more ‘indirect’ in nature - or how to earn money because of your blog rather than from it.

Many of the following methods are the result of the profile and perceived expertise of the blogger themselves (whereas many of the direct methods mentioned previously are less reliant upon this).

Building a profile as a blogger doesn’t happen quickly and starting a blog with some of these hopes should be seen as a long term thing. My own experience in this area is that now after 18 months of blogging here at enternetusers that it’s only been in the last few months that I’ve had opportunities open in most of these areas.

• Consulting - when you are perceived as an expert on a topic you will find that people naturally come to you for advice - some of them willing to pay for it. Some niches are probably better positioned than others for their bloggers to get into paid consultancy work of course. I spoke with one blogger recently (blogging in a business/technology field) who was able to charge himself out at $600 per hour to give advice to a large company. Interestingly I’ve heard of a number of companies in the last 6 months who are developing VOIP services that bloggers will be able to add to their sidebars to enable them to be called by readers for consulting. The systems would have per minute rate on them to automate this consulting process.

• Employment Opportunities - Just this last week PR blogger Steve Rubel announced that he’d been hired by a bigger PR firm. While he didn’t say it explicitly in his post I suspect that one of the reasons for him landing the job was the profile he’d built over the last year and a half from blogging. Steve’s case is not the only one - bloggers are increasingly being targeted by companies because of their demonstrated abilities in their field of expertise.
• Business Blogging - Similarly there are some businesses who employ people to blog for them either as their main role or part of their role. One example of a company who employed a couple of bloggers was Vespa who now have two blogs. BloggerJobs is one site worth following if you’re looking for these types of jobs. Most of the jobs there are from blog networks but occasionally they include businesses looking for bloggers also.
• Book Deals - Some days as I read through the RSS feeds that I follow it seems that every blogger I read has a book either in progress or coming out. Once again it’s about being seen as an expert in your field - if you can achieve this you will find publishers are more receptive to having an idea pitched to them and at times will even seek you out. This is becoming more and more common with publishers as they are seeing not only some great writers but that many of them already have large amounts of content on their blogs ready to be pulled together into a book!
• Offline Writing Gigs - Manolo from Shooeblogs recently landed a writing gig in the Washington Post Express after he was discovered via his blog. These types of opportunities can be in the form of newspapers, magazines, trade publications etc.
• Online Writing Gigs - Similarly some bloggers also land jobs writing for other forms of websites as a result of being discovered from their blogs.
• Selling e-resources - I wasn’t sure whether to classify this as direct or indirect (and depending upon how you do it you could probably go either way) but some bloggers are leveraging the expertise they have in an area by putting together their own ‘e-products’ such as e-books, tele-seminars, courses etc and selling them to their readers.
• Business Partnerships - One of the benefits of blogging about a niche topic that interests you is that you will begin to connect with others who have similar interests and expertise. As you interact with them it’s amazing to see the opportunities for working together that arise.
• Speaking Opportunities - Once again this is dependent upon the topic you’re writing about but some lucky bloggers end up with all kinds of opportunities to speak at conferences, workshops and seminars on their topic of choice. Sometimes they are freebies, other times the conference will cover costs and on other occasions there are speakers fees.

If you’re planning to use some of these indirect ways of making money because of your blog it’s important that you think seriously about building your own profile and credibility as a blogger. Think about the types of people that you respect and look to as experts an consider what they offer in their fields.

These people are generally original thinkers that not only report what others are doing, but who provide answers and vision for their industry. They are also often well networked and have the ability to draw others along with them.

What does this mean for your blog? Here’s where I’d start:

• provide useful content that shows an understanding of your niche.
• network within your niche. Work on being connected with other key players (big and small).
• use your blog not only to report and rehash news but to also show initiative in proposing solutions. Be proActive in your blogging and lead the conversation rather than just react to it.

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Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 02:02 am by Darren Rowse

How to Make Money From Your Blog - Direct Methods

Blogging for Dollars 30 comments

Having thought through whether you should blog for money it is now worth taking a look at some of the different models for doing so.

I tend to break the different models that bloggers are using to make money from blogging into two areas - Direct and Indirect methods.

Direct Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income directly FROM their blog.

Indirect Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income BECAUSE of their blog.

Most blogs tend to fall into one or the other of these methods - although there is nothing to stop bloggers experimenting with elements of both ( I’ve seen a few bloggers get into trouble with this (example: Scenario 1 in the previous post).

In this post I’ll look at 8 direct income earning methods and in the next post of this series I’ll explore indirect methods. Please note that on occasion in the following post there will be few affiliate links to services that I use and have had some success with. These will be marked with (aff) after them.

Direct Income Earning Methods for Bloggers

1. Advertising

There are many ways of selling advertising space on a blog (this could almost be a series of it’s own) but some of the different advertising options that I see bloggers experimenting with include:

• Contextual Advertising - Programs like AdSense and YPN (beta) are very popular with bloggers and are probably the most common income stream being used by them today (MSN are developing one too). In short - these programs scan the content of your blog to assertion what it’s topic is and attempt to put contextually relevant ads (text and image) onto your blog. They are generally simple to use and involve pasting some code into your blog’s templates. Payment is on a ‘per click’ basis (referred to as CPC or ‘cost per click’ ads). Contextual ads suit blogs that have a particular niche topic, especially if it has some sort of commercial angle (ie it has products and services associated with it). They are not so good with ‘general’ type blogs (ie many topics) and/or political/spiritual blogs which argue just one side of a case (this confuses AdSense). I write much more extensively on how to use AdSense on your blog here.
• Other CPC Advertising - There are a variety of other ad systems that pay on a per click basis which are not contextual in nature (which is important as systems like AdSense do not allow you to run contextual ads on the same page view as them). These systems include Chitika’s eMiniMalls (aff) which I reviewed here.
• Impression Based Ads - Impression based ads pay a small amount for every person who views the advertisement. The amount that they pays varies from program to program (and ad to ad) and is generally a fraction of a cent. There are a variety of ad systems around like this including Fastclick (aff) which I reviewed here and Tribal Fusion. Impression based ads won’t earn you much if you don’t have a lot of traffic but can be great if you do.
• Blog Ads - BlogAds have become something of an institution when it comes to advertising on blogs. They traditionally have had a focus upon monetizing political blogs but are expanding their focus lately. The beauty of them is that bloggers set their own rates and can accept or reject advertisers that apply to them to be featured on their blogs. These ads put the control of what ads show and how much they earn into the hands of the blogger. The downside is that if you price them too high you could never have any ads showing at all. They can also be difficult to be accepted into as a publisher as these days they only accept people into the system if they have a someone who is already in ’sponsor’ or recommend the new publisher.
• Text Ads - Another increasingly popular way to sell ads on your blog is to look into text links. The beauty of these are that they don’t take up much room and that depending upon the system you choose to run them you can have control over which advertisers you accept and reject. AdBrite (aff) is one such system that gives you control in a similar way to BlogAds in that you set your own prices and approve all ads. They also other other formats of ads. Text Link Ads (aff) is another text link seller that more and more bloggers are using. The beauty of both of these systems is that they have a pool of advertisers already so you don’t have to go looking for your own advertisers. Their systems are also both very automated and are just a matter of pasting some code onto your blog. I use them both and while they don’t earn anywhere near as much as AdSense or Chitika for me they add up over the year and have done well for me. Bidvertiser and Adzaar are other system that I know are popular with some (we’ve used them quite successfully on b5media although I have little personal experience with them).
• RSS Ads - An increasingly popular way for people to read blogs is via RSS. As a result publishers and ad providers have been keen to find ways to place ads in feeds. These attempts have been met with a variety of success levels. I’m yet to hear of too many people making big dollars with RSS ads yet but the ad systems seem to be improving. AdSense offers RSS ads to some of it’s publishers (you have to have a certain number of impressions first) as does YPN. Feedburner is a tool I’ve used to help monetise my own feeds - they give publishers three options (1. AdSense if you’ve been approved by them, 2. Amazon affiliate program and 3. if you have a lot of subscribers (over 500) they have an Ad Network). Pheedo is another system that you might like to try (although I’ve not had much experience with it).
• Other Ads Systems - In addition to the above systems (most of which I’ve used myself) are many other advertising options which I’ve not had experience with and so won’t personally recommend. I’m sure they are worth experimenting with however as I see many of them being used by bloggers every day. Here they are in no particular order:
• AdGenta, CrispAds, Clicksor, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, Double Click, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, OneMonkey, and TextAds. Feel free to add your own and tell us how you’ve gone with them in comments below.

2. Sponsorship

Another form of advertising that a smaller number of bloggers are using is to find their own advertisers. All of the above systems have the advantage of finding you advertisers (or at least assisting in the automation of ads to your blog) but as your blog grows in profile and influence you might find other options for private deals come up.

The big blog networks have people dedicated to the task of finding advertisers (often working through ad agencies) but smaller bloggers might find this worthwhile also. I’ve been selling ads on my Digital Camera Blog for two years now and as it’s grown in traffic and profile and managed to attract larger companies (who are willing to pay more) to buys space. Currently the blog features ads from Adobe who have bought a combination of banner, newsletter and text ads.

The key if you’re going to take this approach is to target advertisers in your niche that have products that closely relate to what you’re writing about. There are a variety of ads that you can offer them including banner ads, buttons, text links, mentions in newsletters and even individual post sponsorships. I would highly recommend that you always make it clear to readers that your post is a sponsored one when you’re writing a sponsored post.

3. Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are where you take a commission for referring a reader who purchases a product or service to a company. Probably the most common of these for bloggers is Amazon which has tens of thousands of products that you can link to (I reviewed it here). Other affiliate programs that represent many different companies and products include Linkshare, Commission Junction and Clickbank.

Affiliate programs take some work if you want to get the most out of them (perhaps more work than advertising) but can be lucrative if you match the right program with the right blog/topic. If you want to explore affiliate programs more you might like to read 10 tips for using affiliate programs on you blog.

4. Selling/Flipping Blogs

The idea of selling (or flipping) your blog is one that many bloggers have in the back of their minds for ‘one day’ but in reality it is not something that is overly common… yet (I think this is changing). Probably the largest sale is that of Weblogs Inc (a network of blogs) which sold to AOL for a reported $25 million. Of course this is the stuff that most of us can only dream of - but there are examples of smaller blogs being sold, either privately or via auctions on sites like eBay and SitePoint. One such auction was that of the Blog Herald which took place here.

Starting a blog with the main goal of selling it down the track is one that I’ve heard of a number of bloggers doing but few have been successful. Rather than starting with this intention I think if you start with the intention of building a quality site that has a large readership and it’s own good income stream you are more likely to find buyers down the track.

5. Donations and Tip Jars

A very small number of blogs have a history of making good money with these (Jason Kottke being one of them). To be successful with asking for money from readers you’ll want to have a large and loyal readership (and a rich one might help too). Most bloggers just don’t have the critical mass or the cult following to make it work.

6. Merchandise

Another method that some blogs use with reasonable effect is to sell T-Shirts, Mugs, Stickers etc with the blog’s name, logo and/or taglines on it. This is another idea that will probably only work if you either have a brilliantly designed merchandise range and/or you have a cult-like status as a blogger with some fanatical readers who are a little obsessive about your blog. Some blog topics lend themselves to this more than others.

7. Selling Subscriptions

The idea of charging readers for content is one that surfaces from time to time. While there are numerous websites around the web that do this successfully (community membership sites) I’m yet to see many (any) blogs do it well. The problem that most bloggers who have tried it have run into is that most topics that you could think to start a blog about already have free sites available. To make it succeed you would need to have some sort of premium/exclusive content and/or real expertise on a topic.

8. Blog Networks

Another emerging income source for bloggers are blog networks. There are two ways to make money here. Firstly you can start a network and contract bloggers to write for you or secondly you might like to join a blog network as a writer. There are many networks out there and all have their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ll attempt to write a post on what to think about when you’re looking at whether to join a network later in this series.

Next in the series we’ll look at indirect ways of making money because of your blog.

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Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:02 am by Darren Rowse

Adrenaline Blogging

Pro Blogging News 7 comments

Today has been a massive day of blogging for me. While I tend to have full days with moments to relax - today was full steam ahead.

I woke up to find that Lifehacker had picked up the Blogging for Beginners series which was bringing in considerable traffic and quite a few emails from new readers wanting to know more. I designed the post that everyone was landing on a little to make it easier to understand and to capitalize on the traffic a little (highlighting newsletter and RSS subscription options).

As I was doing this I noticed that the post had begun to climb the del.icio.us popular page which was bringing in more traffic. It’s still got a way to go to get to the top but has been hovering in the top 10 most of the day.

After getting that post in order and posting a couple more posts to enternetusers to keep the series fresh I started doing the rounds of my other blogs, only to find that three digital camera manufacturers all decided that today was the day to release their latest ranges in the lead up to the PMA show next week.

I was also excited to find that a camera that I’d announced rumors on a month or two ago had actually come to be a reality (the Canon EOS 30D - a new DSLR). This was a bit of a scoop as most of the other digital camera sites out there are under NDA’s with digital camera manufacturers and were not able to write about it. As a result I had managed to climb to a reasonably good position in Google for it (I didn’t quite get to top spot). The traffic as a result of this position today has been pretty amazing.

The rest of the day has been spent maniacally trying to keep up with digital camera manufacturers. This will be my 40th post for the day.

When you’re blogging in a competitive industry with new products coming out regularly you need to be very alert to the latest news. The difference between posting something as it’s happening and posting it 24 hours later can be quite large in terms of the number of sites that link to you and the end position you get in Search Engines (which can have a big baring on how well your blog goes for the year ahead in terms of traffic and earnings). On a day like today with so many new products coming at once it can be almost nerve wracking to be a blogger - but at the same time is a load of fun!

Anyway - most of my normal blogging has gone out the window so I’d best get back to it - it’s midnight and I feel like I’ve just started for the day!

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Written on February 22nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:02 am by Darren Rowse

enternetusers Campfire anyone?

enternetusers Site News 19 comments

Gizmodo have invited their readers to a chat room using the BaseCamp Campfire service.

Maybe we should do a enternetusers chat from time to time. I’d advertise the time in advance and we could give it a go, toast some virtual marsmellows, have a sing along, smoke some cigars and talk problogging.

Would anyone be interested?

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Written on February 21st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 10:02 am by Darren Rowse

Should I Blog for Money?

Blogging for Dollars 20 comments

I speak with bloggers every day who have heard the stories of blogs that make big dollars and who want to try to make an income from blogging also. One of the pieces of advice that I attempt to convey (and I’m afraid it doesn’t always get through) is that it’s worth pausing, before running out to slap ads on your blog, to ask yourself whether making money from your blog is right for you.

While this might seem to be a silly question to some (what’s wrong with earning money?) I think it’s worth at least asking the question.

Not every blog is suited to blogging for money.

Does it Fit with Your Blog’s Goals and Objectives - For me a lot of the advice that I’ve given in this series of blogging for beginners comes down to working out some goals, strategy and vision for your blog (I’ve written extensively on strategic blogging here so won’t unpack this now). There are many reasons why people blog and the motivation of money is just one of them. Here’s some of the responses I had when I asked why people blog:

• ‘I blog for recreational purposes - to help me relax’
• ‘I blog as part of my plan for world domination’
• ‘I blog to help me promote my book/business’
• ‘I blog to keep a record of the life and times of me’
• ‘I blog because I want to help others’
• ‘I blog to because I’m lonely and want to connect with others’
• ‘I blog to pick up cute girls/guys’
• ‘I blog because it’s fun’
• ‘I blog because I want to build profile - I want to be known’
• ‘I blog to make a living’

Now there is nothing wrong with blogging for more than one reason - but bloggers considering adding income streams to their blogs need to consider the possibility that there are implications of going in that direction that MIGHT impact their other goals.

Let me share some scenarios of real cases that I’ve come across (no names given) where putting ads on a blog wasn’t a good idea. If I were a betting man I’d say that they represent the story of many bloggers and that others could add more scenarios:

Scenario 1: Business Blogs - I remember one blogger who added contextual advertising to their Business Blogs (blogs which had primary goals of promoting a business’s services) only to find that the ads that were served to their blogs were for other businesses in their field who they were competing with. While they could block some of the ads they found that more ads replaced them. In the end they felt it was better to remove the ads and keep the focus on themselves.

Scenario 2: Reader Uproar - Another blogger who I have been talking with recently told me the story of the day she added impression based ads to her blog and created a mutiny among her readers who were angry that she’d gone that route. While on some blogs reader ownership are not very high, there are other blogs where for one reason or another that readers take great offense to bloggers changing the rules midstream - especially when it comes to ads. Depending upon the community levels and the way you introduce the ads you can end up losing readership and you need to consider whether the benefits of the income will outweigh the costs of fewer readers.

Scenario 3: Money Obsession - Perhaps one of the saddest examples that comes to mind is of a blogger who had been running a really interesting and reasonably successful blog (I wouldn’t call him an A-lister but he had a small loyal following) who got bitten by the ‘money from blogging’ bug so badly that it ended up killing his blog. Ultimately he ended up deleting a lot of his archives (the ones that had no income earning potential) and slapping so many ads onto his blog that it was hard to find any content. He ended up only ever writing on topics that he thought were ‘earners’. In doing so he lost the vast majority of his readership and ended up with a pretty poor blog. Greed took over.

Scenario 4: Poor Conversion and Clutter - A number of bloggers come to mind who have announced that they are fed up with ads on their blogs largely because the payoff has not been worth giving the space over to the ads. Ads do add another element of clutter to your blog and if the conversion isn’t sufficient they can seem quite pointless. This varies from blogger to blogger and sometimes comes down to the type of ad chosen and the topic that they are writing about - but it’s one of the main reasons I see bloggers taken ads off their blogs.

Scenario 5: Reputation - My last example is of a blogger who was blogging to build his own reputation in an industry. He’d been blogging for a number of months and was slowly become better known (although had a way to go). His problem started when he started promoting affiliate products that he’d had no knowledge of and which (he later found out) were actually ripping people off. In doing so he ended up doing the exact opposite to what he’d set out to do - he destroyed his own reputation.

I’m aware that this post has a somewhat negative tone to it and don’t want to disillusion readers too much. On the flip side of these stories of bloggers who found that blogging for money is not the answer for everyone are many more stories of bloggers who have found ways to supplement their income via blogging (and even a few stories of bloggers who now blog full time).

It’s to these stories (and the strategies that these bloggers are using) that we’ll now turn our attention next in this series.

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Written on February 21st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 10:02 am by Darren Rowse

Introduction to Making Money from Blogs

Blogging for Dollars 5 comments

Blogging has undergone something of a revolution in the last 2 years on many fronts. The number of people blogging has exploded, the number of tools and services available for bloggers has risen (and their quality has been raised incredibly) and the profile of blogging in wider culture has increased also (I find I only have to explain what a blog is to 50% of people these days).

Along with these developments has been an increase in focus upon making money from blogging. This is a trend that is happening across all levels of blogging, from very prominent blogs (I found that 100% of the top 30 blogs had some sort of income stream from their blogging) right through to many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of smaller blogs.

I’m now going to turn the attention of this series onto making an income from blogging. The following posts will begin to introduce bloggers to making money from blogging and will examine the following questions:

• Should I Blog for Money?
• What Income Streams are available to be used by Bloggers?
• How Much Can I Make?
• How can I maximize the success of these income streams?

I’ll tackle each of these questions in turn over the coming days. In continuing the ‘beginner’ focus of the series these posts will be very introductory. For more extended learning on making money from blogs I’d recommend digging into this blog’s archives and/or checking out a Six Figure Blogging, a six session course on the topic.

It should be stressed at the beginning of this mini-series of posts that bloggers need to enter into an examination of this topic with realistic expectations. While millions of bloggers are experimenting with advertising and affiliate programs on their blogs, the vast majority of them are only supplementing their income by doing so. While some bloggers make a full time living from blogging - most are not and are at a level of paying for a daily (or a weekly for some) coffee or are using the income as a way to offset some of their Internet access costs. For more on getting a balanced view of blogging for money head over to my Public Service Announcement post which attempts to give some perspective.

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