I was a little surprised this morning when, after I’d given a talk on business blogging, a seminar attendee asked if I’d seen the Newsweek article this week on why it’s impossible to make money with blogs.
“Guess I’ll give it all back, then,” was my off-the-cuff answer.
But out of curiosity, I picked the mag up on the way back to my room. If you haven’t seen it, Daniel Lyons, a talented blogger known for two years as “Fake Steve Jobs,” has an editorial that explains why none of us can make money blogging.
Big traffic, no money
Fake Steve Jobs’ best month came with a traffic spike. His actual identity was revealed in the New York Times, sending more than a half-million people to his site in a single day.
His payout? For that half-million-visitor day, about a hundred dollars in AdSense earnings. For the entire month, he made $1,039.81.
Not quite what he was hoping for when he became a celebrity blogger and earned an impressive amount of attention and notoriety.
So if Fake Steve Jobs can’t monetize a blog, the rest of us are doomed, right? He worked hard, he created quality content, he had a terrific angle that went nicely viral. He was at the pinnacle, and he’s broke. So we will be too.
It must be true, he said it in Newsweek.
I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn’t one of them.
The expert weighs in
The article then tapped another source for a little expert credibility, Paul Verna, an analyst with eMarketer.
Verna’s take was that the real issue was “the lack of a clear business model that can generate substantial revenues.”
Verna’s on the right track, but we’re still a long way from the core problem.
If your business model is “I want to make money on the Internet,” you’re not going to get very far. The Internet is profoundly indifferent to your desire to make money with it.
Please notice that this does not mean that “there is no possible viable business model for any blog, other than a few fortunate exceptions that prove the rule,” which was the conclusion Lyons reached.
It just means that Fake Steve Jobs didn’t come up with a working business model, so he didn’t make any money.
Blogs are not television
I’ll confess, I have no idea how to monetize Fake Steve Jobs. His readers aren’t coming to his site to solve any kind of real-world problem, other than “how can I kill 10 minutes before my boss gets back from lunch?”
Television networks produce entertainment. They either make money from advertising or, for premium cable channels, from subscriptions.
If you want to watch Lost, you have to watch ads. Tivo dented that model considerably, but it still works well enough for now.
Advertising can work on some content web sites, but it usually works best when the reader is coming to the site to figure out a solution to a problem. If an ad presents a relevant solution to that problem, the ad can be effective.
For a complex bunch of reasons, advertising isn’t especially effective on most blogs. Unless there’s a terrific message-to-market match, ads on blogs tend to underperform wildly.
If you want to make money in the real world, solve real problems
Too bad Lyons wasn’t a Copyblogger reader. He might have seen Brian’s post about the smartest monetization strategies for blogs and content sites, and why advertising is no longer on that list.
It’s not about trends in advertising or trends in the blogosphere. It’s about returning to a fundamental marketing truth.
If you don’t offer customers something they dearly want, whether it’s to gain some great pleasure or escape some great pain, you’re not going to make any money.
People do want entertainment and relief from boredom, but selling pure entertainment online is tricky. Right now the expectation on the web is that entertainment is free. You’ll have to get creative to escape that context, the same way musicians had to get creative to make a living when free music sharing became the norm.
It’s time for online business to grow up
For a long time, we believed that “online was different,” and that we didn’t need to accept any of the normal rules of business. We’d put something on the web and Magic Internet Dust would come along and make up for our total absence of business knowledge.
“Leap, and the net will appear,” was the mantra.
That sort of worked for awhile, but it doesn’t work now. If you don’t have a solid understanding of who your market is, how they’ll find you, and what problems you solve for them, it’s now “Leap, and the floor will appear.”
So focus on what does work now, and has always worked.
Provide value. Solve actual problems. Uncover what’s bugging people and fix it for them.
The real Steve Jobs sells beautiful, easy-to-use, loveable tools that make his customers’ lives better. If Fake Steve Jobs wanted to make money, he would have had to do some work to figure out how he could do the same.
About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.
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Very interesting insight. I can speak as a consumer and say the sites that I am most likely to come back to on a consistent basis solve problems. In the process of solving problems they create credibility. Build enough credibility and I will buy from you.
Solve a problem – make some money, seems simple enough, but better still, help others – feel good about yourself:)
Couldn’t agree more, Elliot! But we don’t have to starve to do it.
Find out what people want… and are willing to pay for… and serve them just that in your blog.
Sonia,
Thank you for bringing the article to our attention. I completely agree with your thought that applying a solution to common problems is the way to go in any business including blogging but one of the elements that blogging guru’s really leave out of the equation is the requisite talent required to pull together all the necessary pieces to be a financially successful blogger (writing skills, creative skills, marketing skills, experience, etc.).
Because pro blogging, like any other business venture, requires a mix of skills; I believe people are more likely to be successful if they employ a team approach with exerpts seated in key areas.
John
http://www.customerflypaper.com/about
Hey, just because one guy failed doesn’t mean the entire business model doesn’t work! The correct conclusion should have been: you cannot make a full-time income from Google Adsense with one blog. (Even that conclusion might be wrong; just read the Adsense success stories)
You hit it right, Sonia, when you said you have to solve a problem to monetize a blog successfully. And it better be a problem that keeps your readers up at night and that they’ll gladly spend money for to solve.
Hi Sonia.
I totally agree…offer something that changes lives, that people will be ready to pay for. Of course, people won’t pay for even highly valuable content if you offer it for free on your blog. So how to monetize a blog that offers valuable content for free? I think adsense is not the solution for such blogs. You need independent advertisers who can pay either variable amount according to impressions generated or a fixed amount according to the kind of traffic in blog receives.
I agree that if you don’t have a strong business model, you’re not going to make money and just being popular doesn’t mean that you make money.
In my current venture, I’m not blogging for money. I’m blogging for other reasons and if a bit of cash comes in, that’s great too.
But if I wanted to make money on-line, I wouldn’t depend on AdSense ads or other similar things to make money.
@John, I’m inclined to agree with you. There are a few bloggers who combine the business expertise with great writing chops (cough Brian cough cough sucking up cough), but it’s a rare combo.
One of the things I focused on with my talk, in fact, was how useful a partnership between a great content person and a great businessperson can be.
Sonia,
You are right a good marriage of skills is rare…this is why the business (and blog) failure rate is so high. Keep doing what you and Brian are doing…
John
This is outstanding truth and it ought to be required reading for all prospective purchasers of info-products offering the promise to help one make money online. One could read this post and easily assemble a list of purchase decision-making questions that would serve them well. Thank you.
Sonia -
Thanks so much for this post and review of the Fake Steve Jobs. When I first saw the article in Newsweek I was extremely disappointed that this one example was making a statement for all of the blogging world. Obviously by offering something unique and compelling there is money to be made….and you might impact some people along the way as well.
And that my friends, is why I’ve been on quite a hiatus for about a month (actually since Jan, except for that odd 2 posts for some entertainment value during a new year season).
There’s a need for a strong business model to get that first valued dollar – or even that last dollar to make that cash out from Adsense.
I too didn’t know that the Fake Steve Jobs only managed to hit $1k at it’s peak month till reading this article. Thanks too for sharing it!
this is exactly what i did – set out to solve problems and provide information. visitors came, and so did advertisers. now, i make my primary income from my blogs and have for the last several years. and i am by no means one of the “big fish” in my niche in terms of traffic, but i am in terms of quality of information.
making money blogging comes down to your ability to provide lots of high-quality, relevant, easy to find information to as many people as possible, answer questions, & solve problems. you also have to run it like a business, etc., etc., but that is the cornerstone.
all this is of course, based on the premise that you are doing what you LOVE & believe in
Valuable advice. Running a blog for profit is a business. Businesses without marketing plans fail. If you want your blog to be successful and earn a profit you have to plan how that is going to happen.
Great insight, with some common sense on the side.
The thing is, even the real Steve Jobs would have trouble monetizing a blog, unless he just made it an Apple store, which isn’t the same thing at all. We’re told content is king, and it’s true – Copyblogger is a solid example of that – but if we’ve learned one thing from the influx of celebrities on to Twitter, it’s that getting yourself known, or being already famous, goes a long way.
There was a recent piece on Problogger that showed survey results that declared that 10 per cent of bloggers make more than $20,000/month. It was clearly nonsense, and it’s that kind of ‘gold at the end of the rainbow’ approach that gives false hope to a lot of folk, who quickly become disillusioned when the hits and the dollars don’t come flooding through.
The reality, I think, is that no, in all probability you aren’t likely to make any money blogging – most of those that do are well-established and were fortunate enough to be right on the curve before everybody and their mother thought a blog sounded like a good idea. Technorati tracks over 100 million blogs. How many of these make decent money? How many of those make enough money for the owners to do nothing but blog, i.e., salary-level income? It’s not one per cent – there’s no way a million blogs out there make salary-level money. I think a closer estimate would be one-hundredth of one per cent.
The truth in these things is typically somewhere near the middle – statements such as ‘all blogs can make money’ or ‘no blogs make any money’ are equally false – but I think this is an example where the actual answer lies a lot closer to Newsweek’s report, and the example of Fake Steve Jobs, than it does the other way around.
Nice one here, Sonia. I think this topic is rarely being covered on other blogs, as they are more focus on telling bloggers how to create attractive blogs rather than to have helpful blogs.
In fact, some self-acclaimed top bloggers are not really helping new bloggers. They are making money because they have a lot of followers which gives them opportunity to sell ad space on their blogs.
And yes, popularity is not always equivalent to making money. Sometimes, it can even be a burden since many might envy you and destroy you.
That is an excellent article – really bring to light what I’ve been struggling with, and give me a new goal to gear my blog to. Thanks!
Here’s a blog that works: Trendhunter.com. 70+ posts a day, seven days a week. Posts are crowdsourced and crowd gets paid 100% of AdSense revenue from their posts.
Nice post, I saw that article earlier and wasn’t quite sure what to say. So 1 person couldn’t make it, oh well, there are plenty of stories where 1 person couldn’t make it in an industry.
Without solving problems people won’t have any reason to continue to visit and interact. Also, monetizing your traffic is certainly alot more than just putting up adsense. Offering products, training, etc are certainly ways to monetize traffic if you are bringing the right audience.
I said this on Twitter this morning, but I make money on my blog by having readers take me to their parents houses and then I ask for money.
Newspapers are the original “bloggers”.
How are they doing these days? Their business model was to make money off of their ads. Now the web has taken the same basic model but spread it out from the few to the many. Thus diluting the entire pool!
Additionally, we have gone from seasoned professional writers to people who fancy themselves writers. But realistically there is only so much one can write about “How to make money blogging”.
@Sheamus, I agree that most bloggers will never make significant money. I disagree that is has anything to do with being lucky or early to the game.
If you approach blogging as a business, you can learn to make money with it. If you simply refuse to quit until you make money, and you accept that you may need to try different approaches until you get it right, you’ll make it work. If you approach it as a way to get famous, or you fall in love with any one topic/persona/approach, your odds start to get worse.
@Brian, bonus points for going lateral with the business model there.
@WebsiteDesignOrangeCounty, if I had to pick the absolute worst topic to make any money with, “how to make money blogging” would probably tie with “raising naked mole rats for fun and profit.” Just one person’s opinion.
I love what C.S. Lewis said about being original, and it carries a great lesson for bloggers:
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
I think remarkable, original blogs (and writing) will win an audience. Then we just have to understand what needs our blogs are meeting and who their audiences are if we want to monetize them.
This line, “The Internet is profoundly indifferent to your desire to make money with it,” nails it.
Great post.
There are quite a few ways fake Steve Jobs can leverage his blog:
1) As a speaker.
2) As a celebrity writer.
3) As a PR expert.
When you get half a million people to your blog, you have done something that most people only dream of. The point isn’t that he made $1000 from adsense. That adsense is only a tiny chunk of what’s possible.
Every author knows this.
Why would you spend a year or more writing a book (most first time authors spend even more) only to have it sold at $16 at Amazon.com. And what’s your profit on that? $1?
No you can’t make a lot of buckeroos that way, and hey, you don’t need me to tell you that an author who depends on the royalty cheque (aka adsense) doesn’t really understand the point at all.
Jim Collins spent five years (I think) researching ‘Good to Great.’ Think about it. Five chunky years of your life. And then it sells for $16-20. But where’s the revenue? Of course, Jim’s books have sold over 2 million copies, so yeah, even at a buck a book, he’s ok.
But the real revenue is the speaking fee: $50,000 per hour.
And consulting with CEOs (on his fees and terms and location).
Ah, Fake Steve Jobs has a business plan. He just has to dust it off, and roll it out.
The problem with FSJ was AdSense. I don’t call slapping AdSense on “monetizing properly.”
FSJ could have had 125×125 banners, either sold by the author himself or through a marketplace like BuySellAds. That would have been much more profitable.
Even a decent CPM-based banner from one of the big networks would have paid better than AdSense.
T-Shirts are also a decent way to make money if you’re big enough. XKCD makes most of their money on merchandise.
Excellent post. Solve a problem, fill a need. Saying “you can’t make money blogging” is like saying “you can’t make money driving a car”. If you only drive where you want to, not many folks will pay for the ride. If on the other hand you offer a taxi service, or a delivery service…that’s different.
The internet (and blogging) is just another tool in your business toolbox.
You have to remember that blogging is just a medium.
Books are a medium.
Newspapers are a medium.
Rocks were a medium.
Nothing pays until you understand the concept: Give the ideas, sell the system. That’s when the penny drops.
Give the ideas.
Sell the system.
And everyone has a system, no matter if they make delicious chicken curries or get half a million people to their website.
@Sean You made the very point I was going to make – a blog is a means to an end not the end itself. There may be a few exceptions, like Tech Crunch, Gizmodo, Engadget etc. that generate enough ad revenue from their blogs that really are about industry intelligence or product bulletin boards where the old media model might still apply. Of course, even with the model you describe, and with which I agree, there are only a minority who are in the league of a Jim Collins, be it as consultant, writer or blogger.
Here is my 2c;
My ? is who actually clicks on ads? I never do, ever. Is it that everyone wants to use AdSense and knows about it, so they do not click. I think it is the older people clicking on ads, you know the ones who still use IE and have MSN as the home page.
So I think that we will have to be very creative to get “US” to click on an ad. I haven’t figured it out yet.
Many interesting points brought up here. These comments are also great pointing “Fake Steve Jobs” at solid ways to monetize. I’m curious, while ProBlogger was mentioned before, how he would weigh in on this debate.
Just goes to show that good writing and good business/marketing are not joined at the hip. It’s jaw-dropping to think that if he couldn’t make more than a $1k a day with that kind of traffic, somehow the model itself must be busted. It just means he didn’t know what he was doing.
I don’t even consider myself much of a “problogger” in the advertising model sense, and I made nearly $500/ month with a tiny fraction of that traffic at one point a few years ago.
I read Lyons’ article in Newsweek and my thought was, “He had no marketing plan.” He doesn’t understand that content contributes only about 10% to the revenue. And he should know because I bet he only gets 10% of the cover price when he sells a book. The rest is marketing.
I think you offer a overly simplistic view of making money online. Unfortunately, it is not the whole story.
What about johnchow.com, icanhascheezburger.com and other sites with substantial traffic but not exactly “solving a problem”?
Creating a site to address a specific problem/need is one way to attract targeted audience and monetize content. But, it’s not the only way.
As demonstrated by johnchow.com and icanhasscheezburger, you could also generate a lot of traffic, and monetize a hack out of it — as long as the traffic numbers are there, you will see some conversion. The conversion might not be as high as vertically focused site. But, if you’ve huge traffic, you’ll still make good money.
Regarding Fake Steve Job’s complaints, I think he is good at generating traffic, but he is terrible at monetization. Any seasoned online marketer will tell you that Google Ad Sense is not the best way to monetize. What about email list? what about using Kontera, Text-Link, content ad network, Chitika, etc.? Fake Steve Job should only blame himself for the poor monetization job he has done.
@Jim Gaudet many many people. our CTR’s at BuySellAds.com are insane. But, the reason why they are insane is because (like the article here says) they are on blogs and websites that are solving a problem and the targeting is dead on.
The problem with these huge sites that don’t fit into a specific niche is targeting. Targeting on any large ad network still sucks. Advertisers who are lucky enough to have a niche network for the users they are looking to target definitely see results from display ads.
Terrific post. Right on the money like most copyblogger posts are. It’s all about the value you provide.
@ todd g
Thanks for the info. I feel better knowing this. My problem, I think, is that I use the Internet differently than most. I think I need a good analytics package to help me understand the way people browse through my site.
If you run your own blog, it’s impossible to make money from it. The only way to actually make money blogging it to be paid to write for someone else.
Bloggers who make any kind of money are just building trust and credibility with their readers. In other words, it’s not blogging that makes you money, it’s the relationship you build with your readers.
Blog to build a relationship. Use the relationship to discover a need. Solve a need to make money… oh wait. That sounds like a business model.
@Henry Bingaman too bad you’re wrong. Plenty of bloggers make good money from their blogs.
@ todd g So how does it work? People have to pay to read the posts? I’ve never seen it.
Even to get advertising revenue you have to build a relationship that will keep readers coming back. Unless you know a Jedi mind-trick that proves me wrong…
@Sonia – thanks for the post, very interesting…
@GeekMBA360 – also very good points. Sometimes the value is purely light-hearted entertainment (but nonetheless, valuable to some during a much-needed break!).
@Sean D’Souza – I can almost hear fake Stevie’s publicist furiously typing up a pitch for him to speak at random conferences now, after seeing this pop up in her google alert. Ha.
Ah, it sounds so simple! Thanks for the reminder. It’s all too easy to get caught up in fancy tricks and add-ons instead of focusing on what you’re there for
@Sean De Souza – you hit it right on the head – that is exactly what I would have done if I was Danial Lyons – he already had a Tribe all he needed to do was bank on it…it was a shame he gave it up. I’m surprised he didn’t make any money from that book, or maybe he did and didn’t mention that because he is married to the corporate teet.
He should have plugged into twitter and killed it. I thought about this, while he was doing it…you could tell when he was trying to monetize it, and I thought about how he could make an information product from it. If I was him I would have hired an Industrial Designer to make a bunch of 3D designs of future projects that Apple would allegedly release and call it “The Secret Secret Moleskin Idea Diary of Steve Jobs” Market it as products ideas that Steve Jobs has been thinking about producing, but it is just a bunch of goofy ideas that go along with Danial’s crazy offbeat commentary.
Most bloggers would kill for that type and size audience, he should have just sold the site at it’s peak for all its eyeballs and PR rating, he could have made some fat bank then.
Getting and keeping the common base of eyeballs is the toughest part, if you have an entrepreneural mind then making or finding related products/services is easy. It’s a great place to test new ideas. The key is working them into the story he was crafting the whole time.
This is that same story from Think and Grow Rich where Napolean Hill talks about a man who went out west to strike it rich by digging in a gold mine. He didn’t understand geology and how gold veins work so ended up selling the mine to someone else who was smart enough to bring in a geologist to help him. The first guy sold the mine for pennies on the dollar and the new guy cashed in hard core because the geologist showed him which direction to dig.
Sonia,
You’re singing my song!!!
Think GDP – Goals, Desires and Problems when you want to make money doing ANYTHING – blogging included.
People have goals they want to accomplish – or desires they want satisfied – or problems they want solved. Tap in to one (or better yet, two or more) and you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
I knew you guys would have about a zillion excellent ideas for how this could have been done. I think “The Secret Moleskine of Fake Steve Jobs” is a completely brilliant idea.
I’m singing along with Kathy/Virtual Impax, especially with the desire thinking.
Most of all, give to people through your blog. It’s not all monetary rewards that make the world go around.
I read that article in Newsweek. I wanted to “comment” on it and say “Pwnt.” I am a bad person. =(
I look forward to your articles, Sonia & this one doesn’t disappoint. You even got me clicking your Solve Actual Problems link. Thanks for the learning & keep up the ace work! P.
This was an excellent post and great insight. I’m going to bookmark this page and come back and check out the links.
It’s true. Solving a problem for people is what sells.
@ Kathy / Virtual Impax
I have seen your comments before on other blogs, but this comment is perfect! GDP is an acronym I will not forget, thanks…
Sean @ 12:31 has the important point.
“Blogging” is just a medium.
Or, as our refrain goes, “blog” is just a publishing format. Like “newspaper.” We really need to stop calling ourselves “bloggers” (newspaperers?) and stop saying we are “blogging” (newspapering?). We are writing. We are producing. We are publishing.
And some of us are generating revenue. We don’t even use AdSense (too much clutter) … we sell all local DISPLAY ads, and they work, and they generate enough revenue to support a family of 3 (co-publisher husband and I, and our teenage son) plus pay business expenses, including freelance reporting and technical help as needed.
The problem our site solves? A quest for information on what’s happening in our neighborhood NOW.
Sonia,
Excellent job framing the Newsweek article with an objectivity the article itself doesn’t possess. Though the Newsweek article successfully gets you to read by being provocative, it doesn’t succeed on the facts. The lack of imagination and defeatist attitude amount to “it can’t be done because I didn’t do it right.”
Thank you for putting up a much more logical, realistic view of the situation.
I definitely agree with your assessment: attention only works when you have the right monetization model.
One thing that irks me about the Newsweek editorial is how far behind the media is in reporting the central issues facing us bloggers. I mean, it’s a tricky subject even for those of us creating content.
I think Darren Rowse has his finger near two issues that are hugely central:
1. How can we get more diverse voices on the blogosphere to make a sustainable amount of money? This is obviously not as easy as it looks, because beyond monetization, there’s a huge monster lurking, which is…
2. How do we get quality, diverse content in the first place, given that “influence” – the one thing a blogger needs in order to feel like the enterprise is going somewhere – is in increasingly short supply?
The Internet has brought to our attention a ton of voices, but for every voice that ‘makes it,’ we can see the huge number of voices that are drowned out. Most of the diversity in content we see isn’t from proper market incentives, but from the fact tons of people are just trying anything to see how the Web will respond.
To me, those central issues both hearken back to a prior question: How sustainable is much of what we see on the Web? What exactly, when all is said and done, are all of us providing for people, and how are we shaping them?
Terribly late to the party, and even worse, I have nothing better to say than, “I agree.” But it was worth saying.
Sonia,
Thanks for an excellent post with some really good points.
My blog carries zero advertising, yet has been the biggest revenue generator my business has used – and we’ve been going for 13 years.
The revenue isn’t from traffic numbers, for blogs or anything else. It’s from getting the right people to the right place to solve their problem (whether that problem is how to make a cheesecake to how to generate accounts payable reports).
In other words, driving 1,000 people who own 100 foot luxury yachts to a site that sells small helicopters (for landing on the yacht) will get more sales than driving 100,000 chicken farmers to the same Web site.
Oops, that should say …how to make a cheesecake OR how to generate accounts payable reports.
You guys are making a great point, that I touched on a couple of times in the talk I mentioned. There’s nothing magic about any one tool. It’s about the underlying stuff–the content, the relationships, the marketing message, the way you serve your market–not the fact that it’s a blog vs. Twitter vs. email vs. whatever the next thing will be.
A blog is a handy tool for publishing content. What you do with that content is the important bit.
Sonia, thanks for your insights. I’m new to this game and just the other day I had that “aha” moment that I should write what my readers want to LEARN about and let the advertisers (or affiliates) help SOLVE the problem, rather than just be there cluttering up my blog.
Great post, and I especially liked what Jim Connolly had to say. I wanted to comment on his comment. The only way I could see to do that was to click on his name – that was good thing, since his site is terrific, but I also want to know how to respond to a comment on CB & keep it on this page….help.
@The Story Woman, we don’t have nested comments, but you can preface your remark with @Jim Connolly. That seems to work nicely to let everyone follow who’s addressing whom.
Hi,
I really don’t know why many people stop thinking when publishing on the Internet. If I would tell them that the article they’re writing is going in a printed magazine they immediate would think about how to create a better title or a better first paragraph or how to provide better information – basically they would concentrate on how to develop the best copy they could. Why is this not happening on the Internet ?
It’s true that many think that the Internet will make you rich in no time with minimum effort from your part, while you stay at home playing on PS3.
You need a business model. You need a niche market that people are interested and that can offer decent organic traffic. The fact that people are searching the Internet in order to find solutions to their problems is no longer a secret. See what the problems are in your niche market and offer as much free advices and content as you can.
But … in the end it’s more easy to talk about building a business then actually build it.
Thanks,
@TomaBonciu
This gives me a lot to think about, which is one of the things I look for in an article. Give me info and let me ponder it.
I pretty much wrote off trying to earn money with my blogs because that’s not why I started blogging. I wanted to connect with people and share my knowledge. Trying to sell something to them felt “cheap.” But isn’t that a silly idea, since my main blog is about running my small press where I write about the books I sell?
I agree, making money with blogging can be very difficult. You have to set up the blog and generate traffic to it and then convert that traffic into money through ads or affiliate products to earn any money.
But then again anyone can start a blog, with little start up costs (except a computer and internet connection), so the ROI is big.
You can always just talk about what you do, why you do it, what makes you different, what you put into your press and how you feel about writing and books. Then let people know when you have new books available.
No one will feel like it’s selling, including you. It’s about developing those “true fans” who will support you and promote you in the world, and who just make your business more enjoyable.
@Sonia Simone – Well said…exactly what I think and what I believe I’m doing. Thank you for confirming it.
Great post. I haven’t bothered with a blog as to date I’ve been spending my time building businesses offline that use online marketing to gain customers. But I can see that blogs will be hugely beneficial if, as you said, you solve actual prblems rather than waste people’s time…
Great post… I was actually thinking about how i could monetize my blog better! I was thinking of several different ways… I think the best way is to have your own products or services or both! I plan on making my first product within the next 2 months! I’m excited… blogging is fun! thanks for the post!
I would be happy with over $1000 in Adsense earnings per month. After all once the blog is working for you, the passive income keeps rolling in. One thing about making money with PPC it’s a win win situation. I always say it’s a better investment than putting money in the stock market.
After I read a book about monetizing for PPC my earnings tripled.
I would say that the blog was very poorly set up for making money if they had a half million visitors a day and only made a little over a thousand in a month.
This one slumped my hope down that there really is big money when you blog online. But then after reading this I was staring blankly at the monitor for a moment. Then reality snapped me out of the ideals. Nicely written article.
Blogging is not, however, passive income. You have to keep writing posts for the darned ungrateful things or they quit getting readers.
No argument from me on that last point. And I hope everyone is picking something up here. A bunch of Copyblogger readers who *don’t* (yet) have a half million readers and who *aren’t* (yet) blog superstars have the piece that FSJ couldn’t muster. You guys are smart and creative and you know more than you think you do. So go forth and conquer.
@Homestead Users. Can you give me the name of the monetizing book? Thank you!
There is always truth in both sides. I suspect that his site did not have appropriate ‘trick landing pages’ , ‘hidden affiliate links’ , ‘deceptive affiliate store fronts’ , and lack of targeting hurt him alot. Part of it too may be that traffic spikes are alot different than real readers, and just being famous does not mean expert online money person.
You nailed it Sonia and @Sheamus completely misses the point. (not trying to pick on you Sheamus).
Maybe your reply to his comment should have been included in your original post but this is a perfect opportunity to jump on my soapbox.
All media is now like music. There are hundreds of millions of wanna be Rock Stars out there. That doesn’t mean any of them will ever make a dime. Most of them suck. They either lack talent, or the discipline, practice and determination needed to make it.
That doesn’t make them bad people.
There are millions of amazingly talented musicians who never make a dime for all sorts of various reasons. They may just be bad business people, or not want it bad enough.
In the end most musicians have to succeed on so many levels to make money that it weeds out the undetermined and untalented. That’s why the super successful are Rock Stars. They have made extraordinary music with an unusually high number of fans.
But what The Fake Steve Jobs and Shaemus are both missing is that there are millions of musicians who make a living; some a very good one playing music and are not and never will be famous. It is an industry.
All media is just starting to become exactly like that industry. There will be Rock Stars who have meteoric rises and crash and burn. Then there will be the little known working away day after day.
We all now have the tools to create any form of media we want and make a living doing it. The question is are we/you talented enough, determined enough, and patient enough to make it happen.
@ Rick Calvert Good analogy. Just think of all the very successful, but largely unknown session musicians that appear practically on any stars records and who are essential to their success.
One thing I miss anyone mention is luck. We all know that is a factor in many success stories. It doesn’t compensate for lack of effort, skills or all the stuff mentioned but often it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time, hear of an opportunity or have someone find you.
In my own long business career, I never applied for a job in the traditional way with a resume. It was always hearing of an opportunity or being contacted. Call it what you will, it’s at least partly luck.
There is always opportunity, and having a blog with a good following is a huge opportunity. Time to figure out who that market is, marketing-strategy-partnership and analyze. Look to spread your wings and take advantage of your SOI and networking skills.
If you don’t find a way to make a go of a popular media platform with a good following you probably aren’t interested in doing more than the “day to day experience”. There is always an angle to monetize on, or a means to contribute to a monetization strategy… always.
Thanks Joe. You are absolutely right. There is an element of luck. Again I think the music analogy applies. Some no talent hacks do get lucky and get rich and famous while more deserving artists toil for years never getting their break.
In the end the folks that have the most talent, and work the hardest improve their odds greatly of “getting lucky”
There’s a saying in book publishing: you need talent, luck, and persistence to get published, but you only need two of the three. In my observation, that holds true.
Blogs offer the unique opportunity for anyone and everyone to build a readership. Blogging is not a means to an end but more of a launching pad.
Thanks for the insightful observation!
thanks for this article. I’m making so much mistakes and this really clears it up as I’m pretty new to this.
I wonder why people keep going to gossip sites then. Times listed PerezHilton as an overrated blog. What problem does he solve? In fairness, I must admit he almost started a whole niche of gossip blogs.
Well, wanting to know celebrity gossip is sort of a stupid problem, but nonetheless it’s a good one to solve if you want lots of traffic.
Entertainment sites do solve a problem (boredom), but they can be tricky to monetize. You’ll notice Perez Hilton has a much more robust collection of strategies to make money, including more relevant ads, t-shirts, and speaking fees.
Sonia,
You are right. Perez Hilton solves “boredom” much like many of these gossip celebrity magazines. People like to see celebrities being bashed because it makes them feel better about themselves. Insecurity helps these gossip sites live on.
Daniel Lyons is a perfect example of why large corporate businesses in America are struggling through these so-called “tough economic times.” The guy is clearly creative in one area, but he’s also shown that he’s incapable of adapting to a different, more sustainable path.
These days, both individuals and corporations need to realize that adaptability is their most important asset. Furthermore, they need to accept the fact that “what works” is changing rapidly as we continue to rush headfirst into a more consumer-driven marketplace. Cést la vie, people—these are the facts.
Re: Perez – 2 things:
1. Celebrity traffic is unbelievably massive… makes Dan Lyons’ numbers look tiny. People crave that crap.
2. Advertisers understand the celebrity niche, thanks to its longstanding presence offline w/ the tabloids. The “humorous imitation of a CEO” market… not so developed.
I think another problem which limits the ability of people to make money from their blogs is the media. The media jumped on the blogging bandwagon, and because media sources already have an audience, blogs created by the media are going to receive publicity soon after launch that blogs created by members of the public cannot get.
That’s the real truth Elliot, it couldn’t get better than that at all. The ideas is to find a starving prospects who are looking for solution to their problem and help them solve those problem.
That’s what we need to make real cash online…
I have to say you’ve raised some good point in this article. I’m new to online marketing but find it not much different to offline marketing. There are a lot of people out there that have forgotten or just don’t know the basic principles to running a business and the fundamental keys for success; it is to provide value and a good solution to your customer’s problems.
It is interesting to see the variety of responses to this post.
Making money from blogging is clearly not easy. But it’s not just about making money. It’s also about providing useful, helpful, entertaining information that is valuable and improves peoples experience in some way.
If you have something of value to offer, you provide answers to problems, a proportion of your visitors will become buyers at some point. Especially so if you can engage them and build a relationship with them.
Insightful!
I think the big trouble for bloggers is the whole “clickthrough” payout, versus “impressions” ad model.
We really need to dump google here, and focus on advertisers who are willing to put something shiny/animated on the blog, and pay for impressions, not clickthrough.
I often catch a glimpse of things on blogs, and don’t click through. But it enters my mind and may affect my decisions later, or I may even do another google search on that area or even visit their site, later in a day or next day!
Nice share, Thanks it’s very useful
Most people (including myself) are wondering generalities. They don’t have a solution to offer, they only “get lured” into the next idea (like blogging for money.)
As your post mentions, “making money” as a goal on the internet is not a great place to start.
Start with a solution (product or service,) then start learning psychology and how to market your product or service.
And be persistent!
To make a good living from Adsense, you’ll need more than one website.
I write only on what it is really important for people : health , wealth and saving both. I believe too, that you can’t make money with a blog, no matter what.. I never made any money with it ..I give up..
“Provide value”. What more really needs to be said? This is why I keep visiting copyblogger! Thanks
I have just stumbled across this site simply because I just actually paid $47 to find out how to add google adsense and try to promote other people’s buisness’ on my blog while relating to real problems. I really think I should try to get my money back!!
Everybody has a problem, so they say. Funny thing is why does it become difficult to identify what the problem actually is? Actually, writing a blog is not about solving other people’s problem of making money online…..yet, now so many blogs are about making money.
Why do you took my comment out ?
How people can judge if I am doing the right thing if they see don’t see my site, Genius ? and you pretend helping bloggers..
Take this one out to MR the censor..
I concur with an earlier commenter: i’d kill for $1039 in AdSense earnings.
Still, fake Steve Jobs could of made more and more than likely is making more now.
This is the key to why advertising works, period. Well put. ‘Advertising can work on some content web sites, but it usually works best when the reader is coming to the site to figure out a solution to a problem.’
Great Post.
I personally think that ADSense isn’t the right option for the beginner’s..
There must be some other ways invented for the new blogger’s.
Your info was quite great.. It surely did made me aware of some universal facts..
Fake Steve Jobs made several classic mistakes common to many beginning bloggers (I’m a beginner, too, but I’ve done enough research and learned enough that I can recognize some of the inherent flaws.)
1. He didn’t research his niche, or how to monetize it, adequately BEFORE starting his blog. Starting a humor or entertainment site is fine, but as the article author pointed out, some light entertainment isn’t as compelling a draw as a blog that meets a need or want. Dan Kennedy is a computer-phobe, but he’s an excellent marketer and copy writer, he knows how to SELL things, I heartily recommend you try any of his books or multimedia offerings, and he says when contemplating a niche, think about their needs and wants, what do they truly yearn for, what are they truly afraid of, and try to meet those needs and fears. Those are the most fertile areas to mine for money.
2. He tried adsense on a blog manifestly unsuited to it. Adsense works best in tightly targetted niches, blogs that are targetted towards a specific category of products or services, not on personal or humor blogs. What product or service matches up well with a Fake Steve Jobs website? iPods? My guess is most people coming to a FSJ site already have an ipod, but even if they don’t, how is the adsense program going to automatically figure out that iPods are the appropriate ads to show? Whereas if you have a mountain biking blog, its going to be much easier for adsense to correctly target your audience with the appropriate ads.
3. He tried adsense, and adsense alone. I agree, his peak of $1 G from adsense revenue would be highly desirable for most people, but its chump change compared to what he could have made with that kind of publicity and that kind of traffic had he actually done some affiliate marketing, and put some AM banners and links sprinkled throughout his blog. Its not as easy as if you had a well targeted niche, but he could have flogged web hosting services or blog related products (like this blog? make your own!), any time he mentioned an Apple product he could have inserted an affiliate link to amazon.com or buy.com, heck, he would have to be more creative, but he could have provided affiliate links to books or movies he found amusing or funny, since presumably his audience would share a similar sense of humor, if they appreciate HIS.
4. He made the classic erroneous conclusion, “I couldn’t make money doing X, therefore nobody can.” Nonsense. There are lots of people who try to make money on eBay and fail, and there are a much smaller number who succeed. The difference? Most people don’t do their research beforehand, they don’t know what they are doing (or worse, think they know it all), they make a minimal effort and then lose interest when they don’t go beyond a certain point. The SMART sellers who make money on eBay do their research, learn from their mistakes, constantly strive to improve their results, put a lot of work into it, and think about their back end, upgrading sales, continuing a relationship with the buyer, even outside of ebay).
Throwing up your hands and saying “it can’t be done” is a lot easier to do, and a lot more palatable psychologically, than admitting well, I didn’t do it, there’s something I don’t know, and deciding to learn what you need to so the story is different the next time.
Pain killers generally make more money than vitamins. Either way, both of them serve a purpose. I see several bloggers in my industry who are still trying to figure out who their blog serves – themselves or their readers.
So focus on what does work now, and has always worked.
Provide value. Solve actual problems. Uncover what’s bugging people and fix it for them.
yes i agree, good articles
Find out what people want… and are willing to pay for… and serve them just that in your blog.
thanks. I’m making a lot of mistakes and this really clears it up.
See that the quote “You are not going to make money if you dont solve anybodys problem” As an owner of a gaming and entertainment website which brings me decent traffic a day brings me little money. The only good thing about this is I enjoy what I do. So I guess my next venture is to find something I enjoy doing again and how it solve someones problem so I can make some green!!! $$$$
Thank you for this insightful post. I remember reading the article written by the Fake Steve Jobs and was frustrated by his response. Just because he didn’t succeed doesn’t mean nobody can. I looked over his blog and could see straight away why he didn’t succeed (and I’m only a beginner blogger).
I do thank the Fake Steve Jobs though, he taught me one thing – not to do what he did.
Excellent. I may one day be motivated to get familiar with this money making stuff via blogging, but this post was well worth the stop-over.
Well done you lot.
Your post reminds me of the dot com meltdown.
Many great points raised in the article and the comments. I also think, now nearly three months after the original post, that it is important to point out that newspapers and magazines are an industry clearly on the ropes, as newspapers are folding by the day and magazines are seeing subscribers evaporate along with ad revenues.
Keep in mind THEIR business model is taking on water and about to go under water…primarily because of YOU (the collective community online).
So, personally, I discount whatever they say about the people putting t hem out of business. It’s biased.
Sometimes, when someone is struggling, it is easier for them to see YOUR problems (“you cannot make money blogging”), than it is to see THEIR own problems (“we are getting killed because of the internet has destroyed our model and we remain inflexible, and resistant to change”).
Great article and excellent comments.
Fake Steve Jobs is being disingenuous. He is making plenty of money right here
http://www.amazon.com/Options-Secret-Life-Steve-Parody/dp/0306815842
Does anyone think the book would do as well if he hadn’t started with a successful blog? Really?
Sort of surprised nobody mentioned this crashingly obvious monetization strategy
Its about credibility isn’t it?
In the wider world, there is still this general perception that blogs are nothing more than ego trips and political ranters … when in fact that is an unfair representation of the blogosphere. Some of us out there (like copyblogger for example) is using the blogging platform to sell something of value.
You are right when you say online needs to grow up and I suppose grow into the systems, checks and balances which are already in place for real businesses.
I think that once there is some sort of standardisation of the blogosphere, and codes of conduct which blogs can adhere to (I’m thinking like the ones journalists have) and thus hold bloggers responsible for their words; then taht would effectively legitimised blogs and bring it out from online to mainline.
Good story.
I think you should not just blog for the money, but because you want to. (just like an hobby) Any (extra) income welcom.
The types of “bloggers” who make serious money from their blog ($5k+/mth) are those who have a true niche market and not entertainment. They blog about finance, or curing a disease, or how to fix motorcycles, or whatever, and then either have targeted ads, affiliate programs, or their own product.
My brother runs a six-figure per month ecommerce site. I asked him what he thought about social networking traffic. He said that next time he gets “stumbled”, he’s going to send stembleupon a bill for wasted bandwidth.
Targeted traffic that is looking to make a transaction (that old, crusty, “meatspace” concept of exchanging currency for a product/service) will make you money whether you have a yellow-highlighter scrolling salespage or a wordpress blog or a static HTML site.
Thanks Sonia and CopyBlogger team for providing this informative article.
I think the reason why most new bloggers can’t make any dime by blogging is that they try to enter niches they don’t really know anything about. They just want to earn some cash because they have seen other successful bloggers making tremendous amount of money.
While it is not impossible to make a living online by blogging, it doesn’t happen overnight. You need to get involved in order to succeed.
Why not create a blog or website around something you are passionate or nonchargeable about?!
Why not try to solve many people’s problem in your niche instead of stealing other’ bloggers content?
If you provide your readership with tons of unique and high quality content in your niche which you really enjoy, people would consider you as an authority and give you credit. It means high targeted traffic containing prospects that want to just take your recommendations more seriously and buy from you. The bottom line is huge profits.
Yes, you too can make money blogging if you take this fact into account.
Once again, thank you for this interesting article.
Cheers!
Hooshmand Moslemi
Well, it is not bad to earn money out of blogging. But in my case, I blog because it is my passion and once you love what you are doing not just because you want to make money out of it, you will really succeed.
I can’t understand people who say that making money with blogs is impossible. With the help of high quality affiliate programs there are many ways for quality content with the possibiliy to earn money. You just must be clever enough to hide to your readers that you are a “cheap” affiliate blogger.
Thank you for saying how it is. It can be challenging for new bloggers because time is different now. I agree with what you said here.
If you blog to make money you probably won’t make any.
If you blog for content, for relationships, for audience, for your own learning and fun, maybe even for new opportunities, then chances are.. you might. But it won’t matter that much because it wasn’t the goal in the first place.
“There’s a saying in book publishing: you need talent, luck, and persistence to get published, but you only need two of the three.” – Sonia Simone
I like that, never heard it before. Talent and persistence, and a good profitable niche, is all you need.
On Fake Steve Jobs, its also important that you have a long term goal for your blog. If you blog to teach people things, you can always think of a new angle to produce content about. But if your blog is a gimmick and its topic is imitating someone famous, that gets old and you won’t be keep producing high quality content and be able to build a lasting audience.
So, it seems evident that making money is not my cuppa tea… but still there is still this sense (gut feeling) that I too can make money:)..
This is a very nice post.
Great post, and oh so true.
If you are starting a blog just to make money, stop! You’re doing it for the wrong reasons, thus it will not work.
Create a blog about something you love and are passionate about, it will show in your articles. Write articles regularly, and work on your SEO and building traffic first. One day, 6 months down the road when your website has more traffic than you can count, introduce a product / affiliate link that is RELEVANT to your blog theme (niche).
Yes you can make money blogging. Is it worth all the time and effort it requires to be successful? …yes. But be prepared to do some hard work.
Good stuff!
If you think blogging for profit is a do nothing get rich quick job, you are really in for a surprise! This is real work and you have to think about what you plan to do to get traffic and how you can turn that into money. The game changes constantly and you have to change with it.
I learned how hard it is to make money a couple of years ago. I set my blog up, post good content (IMHO), managed to get about 125 visitors a day and made about $8 a day. That’s with Adsense and affiliate links. I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t a Shoemoney and started posting to help others and not to monetize. Now I make $18 aday. LOL
Seems simple enough, solve a problem…!
I agree with you. Actually, if you want to generate an income, all you need to is SOLVE A PROBLEM.
PROBLEM = SOLUTION = MAKE A CHANGE
Blogging for money is not a straightforward process, people think that when they set up their website, tomorrow they’ll produce money. Not like that. You need to optimize your site, getting visitor and building your visitor trust before you can earn money from it
I absolutely agree, making money by blogging is NOT easy.
I think you should not just blog for the money, but because you want to. (just like an hobby) Any (extra) income welcom
I think dont go for keywords and traffic, but it is essential to concentrate on making original good contents. Many bloggers focus on SEO work, instead of making good and bulk contents or posts, Just give justice to blog title. Dont go for money, then money will follow you
I think you should start blogging as a hobby or passion and eventually once your blog gets good traffic and rankings you should take the step to monitize it and earn a nice side income.
Making money blogging is for sure not easy. It can take years to start making a decent income, if your lucky even sooner.
Seems like all the “how to blog” guru’s are focusing their audience on “niche blogging”. Chunking down the keywords to small groups that are less competitive. (of course, to be honest, they are making money off the rest of the tribe that wants to learn how to make money…always a good sell).
Blogging is a complicated business, as others before me have noted. It is a huge learning curve for an absolute beginner. I know, I’m new. I created a beast by not following “guru’s” directions and started a review blog to write about whatever I thought was interesting, reliable, or scammy. It’s tough working the multiple keyword angle.
But hey, my site is #1 on Google (without using the quotes). That really means nothing. Just wanted to see if I could do that.
I really had to think about writing differently. Writing with keyword placement as opposed to keyword stuffing, was a new concept. I have to say, though my hair is a little thinner on one side of my head (I’m a girl Robin)…the whole process is fascinating. Like a puzzle, or a chess game.
It’s a business, stupid, LOL. The real Steve Jobs gets it. The commenters here get it. There is a lot of professionalism and brainspeak.
For anyone new, I say: jump right in the water is wonderful. Where can you get a free education and practice on marketing, sociology, psychology, SEO, and the many tech skills that are needed, for about 10 bucks a month?!
So while my #1 Google “gab” is zero to…well…zero; its OK. I’m learning new skills, I’m learning about people, and most important point: I’m learning more about myself!
I think this is probably one of the best tips for bloggers. Having massive traffic isn’t always the best way to make money, you want traffic that is targeted. I also do not know anyone that is still making money from adsense that doesn’t have a major website that gets thousands of unique visitors daily.
I think this was a wake-up call for bloggers to take a look at different ways to make money whether it is with affiliate links or even providing a service that they can write about some on their blog.
But my question is, why should readers click on ads on blog site when they get the content for free? Why should they go through all that trouble? For many readers, the ads are annoying. The come for the content.
Forgetting the monetization for the moment, I think that articles that are informative and solve peoples’ problems are the best ways to generate quality traffic.
If they’re already searching for something then it’s only natural that some will go on to take what’s on offer whether it’s a report or newsletter or something that solves their particular problem.
What’s frightening is that people with perceived authority can sway the masses so easily even when they’re actually wrong.
I run several WP-based websites where I offer product reviews, price comparisons, etc. I run these sites to both help prospective customers and, yes, to make money.
I have some info-based sites where I get a little Adsense money, but nothing to get excited about. Yet, I’m doing pretty well as an online entrepeneur. I don’t treat my sites as “blogs” per se. I tried that. Ugh. You become a slave to the site.
But by treating Wordpress as a CMS and not focusing upon the temporal nature of my writing (i.e. it doesn’t have be updated every day), I’ve been able to do just fine. I focus on the quality of the content and solid SEO, not whether it’s updated twenty times a day.
Why the comparison? He failed because he didn’t have a plan. If he had become a MacMall or even Apple Store affiliate and added a Popshops store to his site, I guarantee he would have made a heck of a lot more than a $1000 a month. I sure would have.
I know that with 500,000 visitors I would have grown my Aweber list tremendously, and convinced half of the subscribers that a new MacBook Pro would have changed their lives forever. But then again, I have a plan.
My reviews help people make decisions. As you say above, they have a problem (albeit minor), and I provide a solution. It’s not brain surgery, but it does require focus.
It’s a shame he failed to monetize his site properly, but it doesn’t mean you can’t make money blogging. You just have to be smart about your business model.
Stumbled on this today because it came up on my Google Alert for keywords “blogging for money” … imagine my surprise when I saw the original date of the comments! This has been going for some time! Read the article and the whole thread of comments! Very interesting.
I am an aspiring problogger … right from the outset I am branding myself as a problogger as that is where I am heading, whether it takes me a year (OK… year one is almost up and that status has not been conferred yet) or two or three or more. Actually, it is an ongoing process no matter where in the blogosphere hierarchy you are.
I have a stable of blogs and have made some coin on most — far from enough to call a livelihood income but here is what my feeling is, if I have made some dollars, then I just have to get better at what it is that delivered that dribble of an income and increase it.
I’m on page with everyone here … if you want to earn $$$ blogging you have to treat it as a business, make a plan, constantly review and make adjustments, grow your traffic, learn more about conversions, build a list, etc. etc. etc. There are many who make serious incomes and to the person who earlier said that 20% of bloggers make 20K per month …. I believe that the real numbers are something along the lines of that of those that blog for money (less than 20%), 17% cite blogging as their primary source of income. Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra’s recent address at the Blogworld Expo in Vegas is eye opening … and encouraging for those who are willing to take the time, make the effort, and learn and apply on how to make the money truck roll into your driveway … and it does not happen in a year, nor two!
Wishing everyone success………..keep on trucking…er, ah, that would be keep on blogging!
best…………valentina
Very interesting article. It seems like everyone and their dog are starting blogs in the hopes of making money quickly.
hey! Watch it! Woof!
I’ll have you know that this dog has a decent blog … and were it not for other duties such as sitting adoringly at the feet of my mommie, postings would be more frequent. Now that the guantlet has been thrown methinks I’ll get myself off of this nice fluffy bed and prepare some posts … maybe I’ll even publish my newsletter which has been neglected for some time!
Barkfully …………
Boo Barkley
Chief Barker – BooBoo Speaks!
Top Dog (that would be CEO to you humans) Sit BooBoo Sit.
Perhaps after blogging for days and weeks and months, the writer will forget the real reason why he/she is writing: it’s for the dough!
Thanks for reminding us to have a clear vision of how important a business model is!
I think it’s pretty easy to make $500-$1000/month from a blog. I did it in 3 months. What’s difficult is making a living off blogging and getting to the $10,000+/month field.
It can be done but it takes probably 3 years of loyalty and sbscribers to get there!
I totally enjoyed this post, I am “young Blogger” and the thing that stuck with me the most is the aspect of having a plan. I so often jump into these projects/business and under estimate thinking down the road and committing to making it successful…let’s see how is does first mentality. I have a plan now…Thanks!
What a fantastic article. So true and to the point. Especially hit home for me, because I am at that point where I am considering monetizing my blog.
I had no belief that I was going to get rich quick. I did realise that it was going to be hard work. My problem is, and still is, how to go about doing it.
As @Scot said, its not about how much traffic you get to your site, it’s about how you use that traffic. Adsense might sound great, but it’s not a big money earner.
Also just having on revenue stream is probably what killed him. Multiple smaller streams is what I am aiming for. Affiliates, private ads, give-aways, subscriptions, e-book sales, etc. If he had had a few apple or Amazon affiliates on his site, I am pretty sure he would have made more money.
My though, what a waste of an opportunity. He did do one thing right though, he taught us how not to make money. If we can learn from this, it won;t be an entire waste
What truly is the best monetizing model? If it was easy, there would be more millionaire bloggers than there are at the moment.
You can make money from blogging, but you have to have patience when you are starting out. I think that’s what gets a lot of people down when the find out that they actually have to do some work to get traffic to their site. All you have to do is stay motivated and provide people with something that they want, so they will come back to you site.
Well, this is my first foray into internet marketing and I am on a very steep learning curve. I’ll read so many articles that contradict each other…some say you need a fixed membership site, some say to make money you need opt ins using a plethora of articles and an email mini course. Some tout keywords, others say they’re not that important. And supposedly all these authors are making small fortunes.
I’m not suggesting that any of these people are con artists..they just all have found ways, albeit different ways, to make money on the internet.
Anyway, I’ve sort of combined a couple of ideas and we’ll see where it takes me.
Really enjoyed reading the post and all the comments.
Stephen,
When I first started out , I did a lot of the grass roots type of marketing such as forum chats, posting on others blogs…..ect to build traffic. You will build up your traffic over time, as long as you are consistent. It does take some time and you might not see some real traffic until about 1 year of consistent marketing. That’s why their are so many people trying to SELL you on buying their traffic explosion kits?
Love this part: The Internet is profoundly indifferent to your desire to make money with it.
It is so true, so many people have complete fantasy ideas about how to make money online. They think they can setup a site or a blog and let out some cr** and then make millions with adsense or textlinks or a bunch of banners.
The article should have been titled: Quit faking it and get real. Fake Steve will never be the real Steve
Thanks Patrick for your encouragement. I guess the old adage “if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is” applies to internet marketing.
Find it and first time reading really like the post. Blog is not television is really open my eyes. Creating and fresh idea are need.
Excellent post… I’ve found that while funny/entertaining blogs are fun to make, they definitely don’t make as much money as a blog that solves a problem.
It seems impossible to make money with blogging alone, i find the best way is to keep creating fresh content on your blog and developing long term backlinks into your blog and then link out to your own money sites.