The last poll here on ProBlogger examined a growing trend among bloggers trying to monetize their sites – to sell their own products from their blogs rather than just relying upon advertising and affiliate revenue.
Whether it be by selling an E-Book, training program or some other kind of learning program or whether it is selling one self as a consultant or promoting a product from a business that the blogger owns – more and more bloggers do seem to be exploring this as a way to make money.
The poll results were as follows:
I’ve not run this poll previously so have nothing to compare it to – however my gut feeling on this one is that if conducted even just a year ago the percentages would have been further apart. I suspect in the year ahead we’ll see them grow even closer.
Out of interest I thought I’d compile a list of the types of products and services that people said that they sell in the comments of the poll post. You can see that there’s a lot of variation (it’s actually a really inspiring list to me that illustrates a little of what can be done with a blog!
- Design work
- Web/Plugin Development
- Membership Site
- Coaching/Mentoring
- E-Books
- Reports
- Legal Services
- Book (hard cover)
- Software
- Speaking/Training Services
- Music Lessons
- Copy Writing Services
- SEO services
- Tutoring
- Screencast/Video Content
- Scrapbook Supplies
- Sewing Patterns
- Photographic Prints
- Excel Templates
- Music/CD
- Craft
- Flowers/Florist
- Bag Patterns
- Marketing Services
- Skincare products
- Handmade Soap
- Makeup Artist Services
- Craft Kits
- Calendars
- Vintage Clothing
- Gourmet Food Items
- Toys
- Website Templates
- Paintings/Art
- Diet Products
- Real Estate Brokerage
- Fitness Program
- Scuba Diving Education Business
- Personalised Spoof Newspaper Front Pages
- T-Shirts
- Jewellery
There are sure to be many many other examples of what can be sold off the back of a blog – feel free to add more of your experience in this in comments below.
More than I would have thought, which is good. A lot of different products on offer, shows that you can sell anything on the internet, which is good for everyone.
I think within the next couple of years, the ‘yes’ will be more that the ‘no’.
Great list – great ideas of more things to sell.
Andrew
It’s definitely not 44% of all the bloggers in the world. It may be 44% professional bloggers who are not blogging about their daily activities, but posting some useful information.
Darren,
I twittered the question the other day asking “does anyone blog for just the sheer joy of blogging anymore?” The answers were almost inline with yours above, though slightly higher.
As one who keeps a journal and who blogs for business, its interesting to see, the journaling go by the wayside in favor of seemingly making a quick buck.
Wow. That’s more than I expected.
I’m tinkering with the idea of selling audiobooks of my fiction stories. I already give them away to regular visitors to the blog. I’m not sure if I have the voice – or time – to do it, though. Maybe I’ll start with a couple of the shorter stories as a test run and see how it goes.
Thanks Darren for sharing all the known ways of monetizing the online blogging assets, I am also thinking of switching to my hosted domain where I can do all sort of things as till now I was learning what all does it takes to be on there.
Hi Darren,
Very interesting post! I am surprised there ain’t many more bloggers selling their own product! I am new to the blogging field but have been in social networking since 2007 and never made any money from that so decided to set my blog up in December 2009 and am slowly building it up!
I have try’d to moneytise my site with affiliate schemes with godaddy and HostGator but not made anything as yet (still early days though am more interested in building a following)! I think that over the next year I am going to write an ebook of my own about how to set up a blog and moneytize it!
Came up with an Idea today to get more interaction on my blog and that is a contest wher the winners get 3 months free banner advertising space, what you think?
Anyway I just wanted to say that I love your posts and look forward to the next one!
All the Best
-Phillip
This is a good size list. I’m sure there are plenty more that can be added but for what a lot of bloggers do this fits in well I’m sure.
I personally think the advantage of selling your own products is well worth the making of them though.
I wouldn’t know yet but will know in the future.
Re-Tweeting now. :)
Selling a product is the most profitable choice of monetization, I feel one can become a six figure blogger only if he sells a product or membership on his blog, I’d like to call this is as imperial monetization, please do allow to post this link to my blog post on this topic – http://dumblittleblogger.com/2009/12/imperial-monetization-methods-for-your-blog/
I agree with the general thesis of this piece. It is also important to advice Bloggers to make a space/cost analysis of their sites, specially 1-2 pages.
My conclusion is that AdSense by Google is at the bottom of the productive space utilization and it makes no sense for publishers.
It doesn’t take too much of an insight to see that the only one making any money here is Google, with ratios of around 0.35 to 0.80 cents per click revenue and pay out ratios to the publishing chumps of around 0.01 cents. That is an unbeatable ratio – for Google that is.
So use your space wisely, and direct selling is one of them.
I see this as a growing problem to be quite honest. People are rushing to sell products when they either don’t understand the process well enough to teach it or are just re-hashing other people’s ideas.
There’s a dire lack of originality in blogging circles right now.
Nathan – I think there could be some truth in that – however I also think that bloggers can learn a lot through the production of a product of there own (as they can learn a lot form blogging out loud).
Wow, I am impressed with the poll result. I have read your post about the significance income that can be achieved by selling our own product on our blog, but I didn’t know that almost half of your blog readers that vote on the poll actually sell their products.
I want to be a part of them, I have just created my firts e-book and sell it at my blog http://www.SAPstudyMaterials.com
Wish me luck :)
I’m not one of those. I like ppc and affiliate.
well, let’s say you’re a hooker. just follow me for a retarded second. AND you sell t-shirts on your blog about hooking, AND you use your blog to sell or promote your body. Ephman thinks you should be counted TWICE. hey there was a disclaimer up there about being retarded.
While I currently use a variety of affiliate programs, I understand that creating and marketing your own products yields the best profit margins.
I’ve really been enjoying this blog and have learned a lot, which I need to put more into practice. But, one thing I really would like to know about selling from my blog is how to do it! I make digital word art for scrapbookers and would like to begin selling, but I have no idea how to set up a shop. Would you be willing to do some posts on this? Thanks,
It really seems the growing trend of selling your own product or service is the way to go for bloggers. I’m not too concerned about selling any product on my site. I have 2 affiliate product banners from services I actually use and my own e-book.
I don’t focus heavily on marketing any of them simply because the purpose of my site is to use it as a connecting medium to my readers. I focus on building outside/offline business from my blog which I’m increasingly doing better and better.
I really think Internet Marketing is going to switch from being flooded with affiliate marketing to ‘self product promotion marketing’. We’ll see how it goes.
I actually sell your product, but I intend on making my own eventually… a lot of work in creating a product of your own from scratch especially if it’s a good product!!!
I’m working on a product for my site, a book on Hollywood Glamour Lighting and Photography. Months of work and I am still just scratching the surface, especially since I want it to be a quality product. Are we there yet?
We’re still just trying to figure out what sort of product we could make and sell. At present we are selling others products and mostly doing the Amazon Affiliate sales thing, but doesn’t pay much but it’s something. Anyone with ideas, would be appreciated. Thanks.
One problem I’ve noticed is that people have a habit of selling things that don’t relate too well to there blog. This list could certainly give those unimaginative bloggers a couple of ideas of something that might suit their site a little better.
Not that I can really talk, as yet I don’t sell my own product at all, selling something’s got to be better than nothing at all!
Creating your own product is the way to go. How else can you start your own business? Relying on PPC ads or affiliate revenue leaves your income stream in the hands of others….not a way to go if you want to be self-reliant.
Local brick and mortar and offline professionals such as dentists, cosmetic surgeons, financial advisers etc. are desperate for help to build their businesses. Blogs and social marketing present a low-cost, high-return way to attract prospects, generate leads, increase sales, and even provide services online.
Many of them do not understand the online marketing and sales process and lack the time to learn it.
These businesses need simple solutions to help them use blogging and social marketing.
Tremendous opportunity for bloggers who understand the marketing power of blogs and social media and have the local business sales savvy to work with business owners.
Interesting results. Dont forget that only people who were detracted by the poll were the ones who voted, this could make the poll biased to the people who visit your site a lot or have a stronger opinion. This statistic probably dose not consider the infrequent readers. Just saying. A really nice poll though, its interesting to think about.
David Parsons – its certainly not a scientific – although perhaps could have been skewed in both directions as I’m sure there were votes from people without even having blogs who arrived from search engines too.
I really am surprised at the high figure. I wonder does it refer only to active bloggers – in other words – those who update their blog on a regular basis? I have friends and a few clients who set up blogs but never followed up. They don’t update the blogs and they certainly don’t sell anything from them.
The list of products is very interesting and should give every blogger some ideas. I’ll use it with some of my clients.
I always knew that selling products on my blogs would be the easiest thing to generate a greater income. Affiliate marketing has brought in a little under 1000$ every month but I can only imagine if I sold my own ebook, even at $2.
That’s the key! Thank you for kicking me in the right direction.
InsaneS
http://tinyurl.com/yk7h4pe
There does seem to have been an explosion of ebook releases recently. It certainly is in fashion at the moment. I’d like to do something in the future but fear the bubble will burst.
I’d like to hear more about how people are selling their products rather than what they’re selling.
I don’t currently sell a product per se, but I think if I were to it would be a craft of some sort. I like crafting and am more comfortable with it over selling e-literature or how to manuals.
Its always a nice source of extra revenue. I plan to make an e book of tips on personal debt down the line.
I really liked this poll that you took I took part in it and again was surprised at how many people blog and do not outsource a thing. I know even with outsourcing starting up a blog was some major work and a huge undertaking and still is. You really have to train yourself and stick to a game plan of making sure you write fresh quality content for it nearly every day.
Till now i am promoting affiliate ads and ppc but it can be done.
Interesting poll. Your book is the only product I’ve purchased from a blogger and you’ve sold 14k? I would definitely like to see the average revenue these 44% saw last year related to their own products.
A great poll and a great list, good to know that people are trying and selling so many products. Its more than I expected, but this can only be a good thing.
I sell a service on my website, but use my blog to gain traffic. I seem to prefer websites rather than blogs, but need to use them as they are better for traffic.
nice graphs
i think i am going to sell my own product after this :-D
but i still don’t know where to start . . .
Darren, I agree with you. If you have done the same survey last year, the percentage would have been much lower.
I think the recession had an impact as well since many companies cut down their advertisement budget. Therefore bloggers had to look for other sources of income.
I wonder how many people took the poll? That number seems higher than the percentages I see while surfing.I think Darren has an inordinately high number of serious bloggers. And his training is so superb that lots of readers listen.
Thanks for a great poll. Now to sell something on my blog.
Debbie Lattuga – 2723 have taken the poll so far. I certainly do have a lot of bloggers who probably have taken their blogging more seriously than the average blogger that may have skewed things.
The list is rather accurate. I personally sell craft kits, calendars, vintage clothing and crack from my blog.
The list is extremely helpful in getting ideas about different kinds of products a blogger can sell in a blog. Thanks for sharing it.
There are some interesting items like
gourmet food item
handmade soap
Darren, thanks for putting up the list. Now a days, a lot of people use the blog as preferred medium to sell their products online. Couple of years ago, it was not an easy task for someone to design a website and sell their product, but with WordPress, setting up a website, using a free theme is very easy.
A few of my friends have actually started blogging only to sell their products in near future. Even I want to sell some of my products, but not quite sure where to start.
good afternoon.I actually sell your product, but I intend on making my own eventually… a lot of work in creating a product of your own from scratch especially if it’s a good product!!!
regards from Indonesia
very true Darren.and in my openion i should also start selling my websdesigning service at my blog..
@ Nathan –
“I see this as a growing problem to be quite honest. People are rushing to sell products when they either don’t understand the process well enough to teach it or are just re-hashing other people’s ideas.
There’s a dire lack of originality in blogging circles right now.”
Couldn’t agree more. An incredible amount of low quality PLR products are being touted on blogs.
Of course the practice of quickly creating and selling junk is perpetuated by people, (gurus?), who should know better, in churning out a never ending stream of take-advantage-of-plr products.
Great list indeed! I agree with you. The best way that people can make money online is by selling their own products. It’s a much better way and you can create more profit.
This list will surely help other people on different ways that they can experiment on with to make some extra cash from home on the Internet.
selling your own services or product is a great idea.
Great post Darent, actually, i found myself that selling my owner product is the best way to small blog, like my site:
– my blog provide the training software (online service) for driving license testing and with around 1000 visitors , 4000 page view per day, and not an English site, i have no hope with adsence or other artiffily program. But luckly i turn to sell my own service and it run ok for 6 months.
Again thanks a lot for the posting
Khanh
I guess this trend happens because blog is a great platform to promote and sell products on the Internet, looking from SEO and management perspective.
Btw this is a nice thing to see as more bloggers will create more quality and competitive products on the web.
Hmm, that’s a long list and I’m pretty sure there are still more to come as bloggers are continuously explore what’s best for them. Nice List Darren.
hmmm, food for thought! Since I’m only good at sleeping, I might as well offer “how to sleep soundly” consultancy service through my blog.
Until now I haven’t sold any product or service of mine.But plan to sell it in future as my blog develops