Written on July 23rd, 2005 at 02:07 am by Darren Rowse

Distinctions between Blogs with Ads and Blogs Without

Pro Blogging News 13 comments

Here’s a quote for the day from Dave Winer for us to ponder - I’m interested in your thoughts in comments below:

‘A blog without ads is itself an ad, interesting to a small number of people. Blogs with ads, like their print counterparts, strive to be as broad as possible, to reach as many people, and in doing so, lose their value as an ad for the author.’

I’m not sure I completely agree with Mr Winer on this one. In fact many of the blogs that I see with ads these days focus right in on a small target (quite the opposite of broad appeal) of readers who are interested in a niche. In doing so the author potentially becomes a real authority in the niche as a result of his or her blog. One of the blogs that comes to mind on this is Reiter’s Camera Phone Report.

Alan Reiter is the author of this blog which has become quite legendary in it’s niche. From what I can tell Alan has made quite a name for himself as a result of this blog which has ads and which has a very focused topic and readership.

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting Dave’s point - but to me it doesn’t make much sense. I’m interested in others comments.

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Written on July 23rd, 2005 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse

Adsense - Scheduled Maintenance

Adsense 3 comments

If you notice your Adsense reports don’t update as normal today (July 22nd in the USA but 23rd here in Australia) it’s because there is an update scheduled according to the Adsense Rep at Webmaster World who writes:

‘I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow, July 22, 2005, between approximately 9 PM – 11 PM Pacific Time we will be conducting scheduled AdSense maintenance. During this time, you may not be able to access the ‘My Accounts’ tab of your account.

Your earnings will continue to accrue during this timeframe, and will appear in your reports after the maintenance is complete.’

Read more at ASA Alert

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Written on July 22nd, 2005 at 06:07 pm by Darren Rowse

Principles of Choosing a Profitable Blog Topic

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 46 comments

B.L Ochman has a post in which she summarizes information gleaned from an interview with Stephan Spencer who gives some solid advice on starting a blog. Here are two of his suggestions:

‘- Pick a very narrow topic. Nowadays even a blog specifically about Google is too broad. There is a blog about Google AdSense – now that’s nice and narrow, he says. “You are more likely to be seen as an expert in a narrow topic area.”

- Make sure you have enough content to be able to keep the blog going.’

Stephan’s approach is very similar to my own.

I was chatting on the phone to a reader wanting to start her first blog today. As we talked I realized that in choosing the right topic for a new commercial blog there are many factors that you want to weigh up and attempt to find some balance in. Some of these factors include:

Topic Popularity - One important factor in the success of any commercial blog is that it will need to find readers. I could probably build a blog that would dominate the niche for ‘green striped paper bags’ and get 100% of those searching for the term on Google (there is no competition) however the fact of the matter is that I’d probably be my only reader. It’s important to choose a topic that meets a demand for information. It need not be on a topic that absolutely everyone is searching for information on - but the popularity of the topic is obviously one factor that could increase the chances of success.

As a practical example of this - when I started a blog six months back on the Pope I knew that there was likely to be a good demand for information on the topic. It was not my only motivation for the blog - but it did influence my decision to start it. Now that we have a new Pope and that the news surrounding him has settled the demand for information has decreased significantly and the blog’s profitability has of course decreased also.

Topic Competition and Narrow Niches - Another way of increasing the chances of profit is to choose a topic which currently has few quality sources of information already existing online. You may think that no such topic exists - but you’d be wrong. Whilst the web is a crowded place there are many topics where there is little competition and as a result you have the ability to be one of the biggest fish in that small pond. Sometimes you have to narrow your topic to find such niches, other times you have to be ‘the first’ as a new topic emerges and other times there might be existing sites on the topic - but they are of a low enough standard that you can compete easily by producing something better or more useful.

My narrowest niche blog is one that I run on UAV’s or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Now it’s not my most profitable blog by far - and there are not many people searching on the topic but I know I get a fairly large % of those searching for my keywords because I rank so highly on Google for them (example). Once again it’s not the most profitable blog I run but it’s an example of what you can do over time if you’re willing to carve out a niche for yourself.

Availability of Revenue Streams - Ok so you’ve found a topic people search for and you don’t have much competition - but you’ll never turn a profit on it if you don’t find an income stream for it. Anyone who has played with contextual advertising programs like Adsense know that some topics pay higher amounts for a click on an advertisement than others. As a result two blogs with the same levels of traffic with the same rate of clicking through (CTR) on ads can pay significantly different amounts of money.

If you are going to use Adsense you ideally want a high paying topic. Unfortunately whilst you might identify one you may just find that your competition is incredibly high. Sometimes it is worth picking a topic that is in the medium level of click values and has less competition.

Adsense is not the only revenue stream available to bloggers and in considering how you’ll generate income it’s also worth considering what affiliate program are available for your topic and what opportunities there might be for sponsorship from private advertising sources. If you type ‘your topic affiliate programs’ into Google you should be able to find any that exist reasonably quickly. Also check out Amazon’s affiliate program as they have a very wide range of products that you can earn a small commission off (nb: Amazon doesn’t pay huge commissions but it’s a good starting point if you’re new to affiliate programs).

Availability of Content - Like Stephan says - you’ll want to do a little research on your topic before starting a blog to see if you’ll be able to sustain it in adding fresh content over a long period. The thing that kills many commercial blogs very quickly is that the author simply runs out of things to write. I’ve started numerous blogs over the past couple of years that I quickly found I had nothing much to say about.

If you’re wanting to test the availability of content you might like to check how many articles Google News has indexed on it in the past few days (Topix and Yahoo! News also have similar services). Another wise move would be to do a keyword search on a tool like Bloglines, Technorati of Blog Pulse to see what is being indexed there.

Measure your Energy, Passion and Interest - Lastly (and very importantly) it’s worth trying to objectively measure your own passion, interest or energy level for the blog. Whilst there might be plenty of news going around on the topic will you still be energized by posting on the topic in 6 months time (without the motivation of money - because it might take take a year or two to establish yourself in a niche). If you don’t have something motivating you to post on a topic it can become very difficult to keep doing so - unless you have a very dedicated personality type.

Put it all together - The fact is that you’ll rarely find a topic that all these factors come together on unless you’re either very lucky or the first in a popular new niche that you just happen to have a passion for. Most blogs fall down in one (or more) of these areas. This does not mean it can’t be a viable and profitable blog, but it’s good to be aware of the weaknesses as you venture out. The beauty of blogging is that there are no rules - and some of my most successful experiments have flown in the face of most of the above principles.

For example (just to disprove myself and give a little hope to you rebellious types) - arguably the most successful blog I’ve ever been involved with (over a short period of time) was the Athens Olympics Blog that I ran with a mate which generated 2 million visitors in a few weeks and made us a tidy sum of money.

This blog succeeded despite having massive competition (from every major news website going around) and despite having very low click value on Adsense and few lucrative affiliate programs. The sheer weight of people searching for information over a short period of time was the main ingredient to our success. This was coupled with us working incredibly long hours (around the clock for two weeks and for months before) providing a blog that was actually quite useful. We actually became known as a site that updated statistics and information faster than most of the ‘professional’ sites covering the event.

Despite being dormant (and falling into disrepair lately) it still even gets reasonable visitor levels to this day.

So take these principles as friendly advice - not rules. In many ways they are ‘ideals’ which you will almost certainly have to compromise some of at some point but which can help you choose a topic that has a greater chance of success.

Add your own suggestions and experiences in choosing a blog’s topic below in topics.

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Written on July 21st, 2005 at 10:07 pm by Darren Rowse

Perseverance in Blogging

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 12 comments

Duncan has a good post over at Blog Herald about that talks about perseverance in building a blog. He writes:

‘Very few people find fame and fortune through launching a blog overnight, but over time most people can build a reasonable audience, or even more, based on perseverance at blogging, literally going the distance.’

Very true words from Duncan as per usual. Consistent, regular and quality posting over a sustained period are key to building a successful blog. If you’re not in it for the long term you’re unlikely to get far as an entrepreneurial blogging.

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Written on July 21st, 2005 at 09:07 pm by Darren Rowse

Adsense Link Units - Weblogs Inc Closes in on $1M in a Year

Adsense 16 comments

Just to keep things in perspective Jason Calacanis posts that Weblogs Inc is getting close to the number of dollars earned in a day that would take them to earning $1 million in a year.

He reports that they broke their previous record for a day’s earnings with Adsense and reached $2335 on a single day. The next target is $2739.72 in a day (the magic number that if they can maintain as an average for a year will get them to $1 million). Wow - those there are big numbers!

Jason reveals a tip for readers and writes:

‘One more tip: the Google horizontal banners work well. You know, the ones where a user clicks and sees a group of ads and then you get paid if they make a *second* click (the first click to Google gets you nothing!). Even with this double-click issue it performs really well (I don’t think I can say how much better then a leaderboard without getting in trouble with the Google Adsense Terms of Service, but lets just say it’s significant). I think this is because the users who click on those ads are rabid—they want a ton of information and they probably visit more then one advertiser’s site.’

I’ve highlighted the ads that he’s talking about over at Engadget in the following screen cap (click to enlarge).

It’s an interesting tip and one that I’ve been experimenting with myself (as I posted a week or so back). My experimentation with Google’s Adlink Ads (actually they now call them ‘link units’) is mixed. Readers here will remember I had these links at the very top of my blog for a week and I promised to share how they went. As Jason says we’re not allowed to give specific details of CTR and impressions but my experience in that position was poor - in fact it was poorer than when I had the 120 x 90 format in my sidebar.

However since moving the ads down underneath my menus at the top of the page the performance has improved - but only slightly.

I’ve tried a variety of positions for the banner style ‘link unitis’ but can’t report as good performance as what Jason seems to be getting. It is better than nothing at all, but for me it’s nowhere near as good an earner as the traditional text ads that I run which are the best performers for me by far.

I’m interested in other’s experiences with the ‘link unit’ ads. How do you use them? How have they performed (be careful not to reveal too many details).

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Written on July 21st, 2005 at 07:07 pm by Darren Rowse

The $14,436.45 that Got People Talking

enternetusers Site News 22 comments

Well after a couple of days away speaking on a conference (where I could only access the web via dial up for a few minutes per day) I’m back home to survey my blog’s status.

I always seem to time my going away for a few days (or longer) to those times when my blogs seem to be ‘hottest’ and this time was no exception.

enternetusers.net has been something of a frenzy the past week with links in Aussie Newspapers, from prominent bloggers through to the infamous slashdotting.

The results of such attention have been quite amazing. There are many trackbacks to follow up - my inbox is full of requests from bloggers wanting links, consulting, advice etc (please don’t be offended if I take a while to reply and if I can’t help at this time) - readership here is way up on normal (peaking on Sunday at around 60 times the ‘normal’ levels and calming down today to 5 times normal) - hundreds of new readers have subscribed to my weekly newsletter (I’ll write it tomorrow hopefully).

It seems that everyone has something to say about my earning $14,436.45 from blogging. The opinions are just so varied and the conversation around it is actually quite rich. Whilst there have been a few unpleasant comments and emails in the main the response has been incredibly positive.

I thought I’d point you to some of the conversations and comments the past few days have:

• Scrivs writes Getting Rowse Money - ‘You must keep in perspective how long Darren has been doing this and how frequently. Could you honestly put in 12 hours a day, 6 days a week? I know I couldn’t. I would simply go insane. But think if you did?’

• 282 people ‘dug’ the story at digg with an array of comments ranging from wondering how I’ll spend it through to doubting it can be done.

• rianjs.net writes - ‘I must have read every enternetusers.net article on making money blogging, and most of it’s pretty reasonable and doable, if you have the time to devote to actually writing.’…

• Escape Velocity makes some good comments about my ’secrecy’ on which of my blogs make the most money (maybe I am being a little paranoid - not that there is really any real secret if you’re willing to dig into enternetusers a bit.

• Warren Kinsella writes - ‘This guy says he makes ten big ones a month blogging. Not sure I believe it. There’s the faintest whiff of Ponzi scheme, here. Or is there?’

• Jermexpress writes - ‘It surprised me as I never believed that one can actually make a living from blogging. It’s one dude in a million but his success is proof that one can really have fun and live well if you put quality efforts into whatever you’re doing.’

• Retire Young and Wealthy writes - ‘…I don’t know if I could put that much effort into blogging. I would prefer to maintain a website, that you don’t have to keep adding entries to and doesn’t require too much maintenance.’ You’re not the only one - I’d love to have a passive income from a static site too - however the fact is that very few sites ever do achieve this. Search Engines like fresh content these days so sites that don’t update don’t tend to rank well over time. The idea of ‘easy money’ online isn’t one I subscribe to.

• Andrew says he’s not calling me an ‘outright liar’ but does write - ‘I am calling bullshit on guys like this (links to enternetusers). I don’t buy it. Call me jealous, call me skeptic, call me whatever…but I am not going for it. When a company that has 75 some-odd targeted blogs, and a working staff, is happy to pull down $1,000 per day on Adsense, I am not ready to hop on the $15,000/month from three sites bandwagon just yet.’ Ok Andrew - let me spell it out again. I have 20 blogs. I earn the majority of my income of three of them but they all contribute to the overall figure. If you’d like to pop around and check out my cheque stubs from Google I’d be more than happy to show you. I’m getting a little over people not calling me a liar…

Other mentions included Site-9, My Money Blog, Blog Herald, Genuine Blog, Blogging Tom, WebKEW, GoldGrad, L’actu des Blogs, Poynter, Synastry and Sierralog (some of those might a little translation).

Thanks for the many words of encouragement and links (these are just some of the more recent ones to send traffic and trackbacks).

Now let’s get back to blogging…

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Written on July 21st, 2005 at 05:07 pm by Darren Rowse

BlogPulse Profiles

Blogging Tools and Services 5 comments

I’m really looking forward to trying out Blog Pulse’s new Profiles Tools which promise to:

‘allow users to find more information about a specific blog or blogger—who authors it, how Active the blog is, how it ranks in comparison with other blogs, what it’s about, etc. Many people have questions about who bloggers are and how much influence they wield. BlogPulse Profiles provide basis metrics and analysis to begin to answer those questions.’

Unfortunately for the last hour or so I keep getting an HTTP error every time I try to use it. Hopefully they sort out the errors soon enough as it seems to be offering a pretty decent alternative to Technorati according to Blog Herald.

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Written on July 20th, 2005 at 08:07 am by Darren Rowse

Subscription Base Revenue Stream for Blogs - PixelPass

Other Income Streams 11 comments

I just stumbled upon PixelPass - a method of adding an income stream to your blog where your readers pay a small monthly fee to subscribe to your content. Subscriptions are never more than $2 per month and allow readers to access your whole blog.

I’m not sure that a system like this would work for most blogs - however in some of the following circumstances it could just work out:

• if you have a committed readership on a niche topic which isn’t available elsewhere for free
• if you have an incredibly high profile and are a ‘must read’ on your topic
• if you have a premium section to your blog that offers real value

I’m sure there will be other circumstances that might make a subscription revenue stream possible - but I wouldn’t recommend it in most cases.

found via SEO Scoop

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Written on July 19th, 2005 at 04:07 pm by Darren Rowse

Bloglines Issues?

Blogging Tools and Services 23 comments

Is anyone else having problems accessing their feeds on bloglines today?

I’ve been trying to log in (from a different computer to normal) and can’t see any of my feeds after it logs me in.

Interested if this is an isolated issue or not?

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Written on July 19th, 2005 at 09:07 am by Darren Rowse

Getting a Blog Writing Gig at Gawker Media

Pro Blogging News 8 comments

If you’re interested in getting a blogging gig at Gawker you might like to read how the new editor at Gridskipper, Chris Mohney, got the job by writing an anonymous ‘Gawker Watch’ blog. Chris writes:

‘The “stunt” I pulled was writing an anonymous blog called Gawkerist that paid an absurd level of attention to Gawker Media blogs and bloggers. Everything about Gawkerist was meticulously, cynically planned, except the end result—actually working for Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton. I only told two people about Gawkerist—my girlfriend and an old pal safely ensconced in hometown Alabama. To both, I explained that since New York media types were always interested in Gawker Media (albeit sometimes begrudgingly), it seemed like a logical topic to attract their attention. After picking the target, I next had to figure out the logistics.

Gawkerist had to be anonymous, as I thought a mystery blogger would arouse more buzz than a blogger with a name and face, however non-famous. I implemented a paranoid series of steps (probably laughable to anyone with actual technical skills) to make sure no one could trace my blog, e-mails or comments back to me. I also resolved to indulge in no personal asides, keeping the Gawkerist voice clear of blogger navel-gazing. I fully intended to reveal myself eventually, but I didn’t want someone else to out me prematurely.’

Read more at Do Not Try This At Home: One Man’s Harrowing (And Slightly Ironic) Attempt to Get a Media Gig

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