Blogging is fun. Big blogging is business.
February 1st 2009 01:21
This article will propose that blogging can generate a moderate or better income for any qualified person - no secrets, no luck, no scams, no magic potions required.
The key word, however, is "qualified". Success takes patience, talent and hard work. The hard work is especially important for the first two years or so when the blog will generate little income.
Blogging continually disappoints people who expected more from their efforts. Why? Because when they read articles like this, they get excited about messages such as in the first paragraph above, and gloss over messages like that in the second paragraph.
So let's rewrite the first paragraph in the sort of language which does not make headlines or grab attention:
Very few people are qualified to create a high-traffic blog.
Let's ask some questions of a theoretical new blogging hopeful:
If you answered no to any of these, chances are your blog is not growing quickly in terms of reader traffic.
If your blog is not growing satisfactorily, here is a list of the reasons which explain it. It could be one or it could be a combination of these reasons, but it only takes failure in one of them to scuttle your blog's big-earner potential.
Let's look at these points in more detail.
Your content is not limited to a well-defined subject or product area
All blogging guides will tell you that the nature of the beast is that single-topic blogs work. The reason is that search engines work partly on finding core words and partly on finding third party links to your blog. Good writing about a single topic will bring vastly more success in both areas than diversified subject matter.
Your content does not do at least one of the following: inform, entertain, make people think
Tell people something they don't know, and you have a captive audience. Tell people something they do or don't know in an entertaining way, be it with urbanity, wit or the spare beauty of good poetry, and you have a captive audience. Make people think about implications and ramifications and nuances of life, and you have a captive audience.
You are not posting at least five times a week
Advice on frequency of posting varies, and is related to the typical length of your posts. If you write long descriptive or introspective posts, for example, daily posts may be too much to create and may be more than your readers will want. If you write short posts about breaking product news, for example, several posts a day can work well. Generally, for typical (150 to 500 word posts), five times a week is a minimum to maintain reader awareness and maximise search-engine visibility.
You don't write well
There is no gentle or polite way of saying this: the great majority of bloggers do not write well. That should not, of course, stop anyone blogging - it is fun and everyone can find like-minded people with whom to swap comments and form friendships. Blogging is very much about communities. But do not expect big traffic and monetary returns from your blog unless you are a good writer. Note that I define a good writer as someone who can write grammatically correct sentences with clear messages. It is not necessary to be a talented writer - one who can elevate words from the utilitarian and make them sing - but it helps. If you don't know whether or not you are a talented writer, you aren't one.
You don't market your blog
This is perhaps the least understood step on the road to blogging profitability, but it is essential. To make serious money from blogging is to make a serious business of it. A full-time American blogger recently said that he spent about 20 per cent of his time writing and 80 per cent of his time marketing his blog. Heather Armstrong's husband works full-time on the non-writing aspects of her Dooce blog. That's taking care of business.
How do you market a blog? You answer every comment with a considerate and value-added response; you trawl the internet for blogs and forums with similar subject content and you leave comments and form relationships and become known; you understand how to optimise key word performance and search engine visibility and any number of other tools such as trackbacks; you understand the importance and workings of Technorati and Digg and Twitter etc; you understand and can implement affiliate programs; you know how to build a business model and establish reasonable goals; and you know how to conduct a business negotiation when the time comes for you to discard the Learner plates of AdSense and move into the big-money world of focused, contracted display advertising.
Blogging is fun. Big blogging is business.
The key word, however, is "qualified". Success takes patience, talent and hard work. The hard work is especially important for the first two years or so when the blog will generate little income.
Blogging continually disappoints people who expected more from their efforts. Why? Because when they read articles like this, they get excited about messages such as in the first paragraph above, and gloss over messages like that in the second paragraph.
So let's rewrite the first paragraph in the sort of language which does not make headlines or grab attention:
Very few people are qualified to create a high-traffic blog.
Let's ask some questions of a theoretical new blogging hopeful:
- Have you had formal writing training (post school)?
- Have you had writing work published in a serious medium (with professional editors)?
- Do you take pride in grammar and proof-read thoroughly before posting?
- Do you post fewer than five times a week?
- Do you understand how to promote, market and monetise a blog?
- Do you spend a lot more time promoting your blog than writing content?
- Do you understand keywords, how to monitor them and how to check their effectiveness?
- Are you registered with Digg, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Technorati etc and do you understand how to optimise your blog's exposure through them?
- Do you count links in your sleep?
If you answered no to any of these, chances are your blog is not growing quickly in terms of reader traffic.
If your blog is not growing satisfactorily, here is a list of the reasons which explain it. It could be one or it could be a combination of these reasons, but it only takes failure in one of them to scuttle your blog's big-earner potential.
- Your content is not limited to a well-defined subject or product area
- Your content does not do at least one of the following: inform, entertain, make people think
- You are not posting often enough
- You don't write well enough
- You don't market your blog
Let's look at these points in more detail.
Your content is not limited to a well-defined subject or product area
All blogging guides will tell you that the nature of the beast is that single-topic blogs work. The reason is that search engines work partly on finding core words and partly on finding third party links to your blog. Good writing about a single topic will bring vastly more success in both areas than diversified subject matter.
Your content does not do at least one of the following: inform, entertain, make people think
Tell people something they don't know, and you have a captive audience. Tell people something they do or don't know in an entertaining way, be it with urbanity, wit or the spare beauty of good poetry, and you have a captive audience. Make people think about implications and ramifications and nuances of life, and you have a captive audience.
You are not posting at least five times a week
Advice on frequency of posting varies, and is related to the typical length of your posts. If you write long descriptive or introspective posts, for example, daily posts may be too much to create and may be more than your readers will want. If you write short posts about breaking product news, for example, several posts a day can work well. Generally, for typical (150 to 500 word posts), five times a week is a minimum to maintain reader awareness and maximise search-engine visibility.
You don't write well
There is no gentle or polite way of saying this: the great majority of bloggers do not write well. That should not, of course, stop anyone blogging - it is fun and everyone can find like-minded people with whom to swap comments and form friendships. Blogging is very much about communities. But do not expect big traffic and monetary returns from your blog unless you are a good writer. Note that I define a good writer as someone who can write grammatically correct sentences with clear messages. It is not necessary to be a talented writer - one who can elevate words from the utilitarian and make them sing - but it helps. If you don't know whether or not you are a talented writer, you aren't one.
You don't market your blog
This is perhaps the least understood step on the road to blogging profitability, but it is essential. To make serious money from blogging is to make a serious business of it. A full-time American blogger recently said that he spent about 20 per cent of his time writing and 80 per cent of his time marketing his blog. Heather Armstrong's husband works full-time on the non-writing aspects of her Dooce blog. That's taking care of business.
How do you market a blog? You answer every comment with a considerate and value-added response; you trawl the internet for blogs and forums with similar subject content and you leave comments and form relationships and become known; you understand how to optimise key word performance and search engine visibility and any number of other tools such as trackbacks; you understand the importance and workings of Technorati and Digg and Twitter etc; you understand and can implement affiliate programs; you know how to build a business model and establish reasonable goals; and you know how to conduct a business negotiation when the time comes for you to discard the Learner plates of AdSense and move into the big-money world of focused, contracted display advertising.
Blogging is fun. Big blogging is business.
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Comment by Janet Collins
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I have heard that a blog that restricts itself to funny stories about knitting does quite well. In fact, extremely well!
But I don't ave any knitting stories, damn it!
Comment by Chris Champion
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Comment by Janet Collins
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