Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger
In the last 15 minutes I’ve had 3 people ask me pretty much the same question:
“Why promote an RSS feed where you share the full posts of your blog when it means people don’t read your blog?”
Rather than write another post on the topic I thought I’d simply share a previous post where I address it:
Are RSS Subscribers Worthwhile if they Don’t Visit Your Blog?
Also check out 10 Sure-Fire Ways to Get RSS Readers Visiting Your Blog.
Over the last few weeks the poll I’ve been running here on ProBlogger has asked people about who designed their blog. The results are in and it looks like that the vast majority of bloggers are not paying for themes.
61% of our readers are using free themes in some way – either using a default theme that the blog came with (11%), downloading a free template (21%) or taking a free theme and tweaking it (29%).
18% of our readers are designing their blogs completely on their own and while the market for premium themes does seem to be growing only 13% of you have paid for a theme.
The lowest response of all was for people to pay for someone else to design a blog for them (8%). That brings the total of those paying for their design in some way to 21%.
Total Votes at the time of publishing these results: 2513
In this post Robb Sutton – author of the ebook Ramped Reviews. A very helpful ebook that I’ve just read that has some great ideas on how to get products to review on your blog, how to write profitable reviews and much more. It’s a great read on a topic that I think a lot of bloggers will find helpful.
As you take a look at your blogging habits in your quest to become a top blogger, you need to ask yourself several questions that will determine how you need to shape your blog for the future.
If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, you need to look at your blog seriously and start treating it like a business. Each of those questions directly correlates to a function that takes you out of the pleasure blogging world and into running a secure business that generates profits. As we continue on this path to creating a source of cash revenues, what do we need to look at specifically to treat our blogs more like a business and less like a hobby?
Every successful business has a laid out plan of attack and blogging as a business is no different. You need to have an idea of where you want your blog to go in the future and the steps you are going to take to get to that goal. Plans change and adapt with the times, but the end result is often one in the same.
Are you trying to build a successful review blog on fishing equipment? You have to lay out the steps required to get to the top of your niche. What products are you going to need to review? Which interviews do you need line up? Which companies and blogs do you need to work with to create more traffic and subscribers? Are you going to hold contests and giveaways with some of the industries latest gear? These are all types of questions that you need to answer for yourself and create action steps to carry out as you continue to grow.
This long term planning and focused goals are what sets the successful blogs apart from the vast wasteland of un-updated waste that plagues the web. Each of these blogs had grand plans of making it big, but by not having a defined plan that required action…they become unsuccessful and ignored in pursuit of the next big thing. By creating these action steps that lead towards goals, you are developing a business plan for the future of your blog. These actions steps need to be written down on a whiteboard, digital checklist or any mind mapping generator you feel comfortable with to keep the goals at the forefront of your thoughts. Cross the goals off as they are achieved and create new goals for the future.
For your blog to be taken seriously as a business entity, there needs to be a defined organization to the content. By having clearly defined categories, archives and design layout, you are insuring that your content will be absorbed in the most efficient means possible by your readers. This organization in your blogging also bolsters confidence with potential investors, product companies, advertisers and future partners. When it comes down to it, the more serious you take the outward appearance of your blog, the more it pays off when you venture into outside business relationships.
It today’s marketplace, branding makes or breaks a business. With the thousands of blogs that are started with each fleeting thought of creating content, it is becoming more important to set yourself apart from the pack. If you are really going to take blogging serious as a business, your own domain name is going to be a must. Your cute setup on Blogger is not going to instill long lasting confidence in your blog from an outside perspective. If you are not willing to throw down the pennies it takes to self host your site, then you are not willing to make the investments needed to create a successful business in the eyes of potential business partners.
Create a brand around your blog url and have a defined logo. This logo will be used in the future for business cards and letterheads, but more importantly…it brands your business in the eyes of your readers and potential business partners. Successful logos are often simple, so there is no need to get extremely ellaborate. If you can not come up with any ideas, enlist the help of others.
As you continue to treat your blog as a business, you are going to start building up your credibility as a serious pro blogger. Credibility is something that can be won and lost in seconds as you continue to build something that you can call your own. To keep your street cred high, you need to consistently pump out positive results. Get in the habit of under promising and over delivering as you take on more affiliate promotions and advertisers. You need to continue to churn out quality content on a regular basis that consistently adheres to some sort of schedule. As you continue to build upon your credibility, more doors will be opened with even more avenues of revenue generation. You will start to see the snow ball effect take place as your readers and partners continue to be drawn to your success and quality content.
Turning your blog into an actual business entity is a crucial step. While creating a business to house your internet ventures has obvious tax and protection benefits, there are some non-legal aspects that you need to consider as well. By creating a business, you are now protected your own personal information. You no longer have to give out your personal and sensitive information to advertisers and affiliate programs as all they need is your tax ID to generate payouts. The outward appearance of your blogging is also secured through advertisers and affiliates as they are now dealing with a business and not a blogger. Again, you are strengthening your brand in the eyes of the businesses that you are going to rely on to generate income.
I would also recommend setting up a business checking and paypal account to handle the money transfers. This keeps your blog revenue separate from personal accounts and creates a lot easier organization during tax time.
When you are just blogging for fun (which there is nothing wrong with by the way…just a different goal), you have a completely different mindset than when you are blogging as a business that creates income. You are stepping into a completely different world as you are now managing, running and producing in your own small business environment. Even the hugely successful personal blogs on the net are run like a successful business on the back end. You now have to take your future seriously and continue to take the steps to see success.
Like any business, you are going to see your share of failures, but a successful business will analyze these failures and learn from them for the next round. Bloggers and business owners that learn more from their failures than their successes will enjoy the fruits of their learning through increased success.
As you go to publish that next blog article, are you keeping your goals close or are you just putting up another article as you go through the motions of pumping out more content?
Check out Robb Sutton’s great ebook Ramped Reviews.
This is one of the cooler ideas I’ve seen in a while – it’s a WordPress theme site with a twist – ThemeWars.
Each week two WordPress themes are featured and readers are asked to vote for their favorite. While obviously the site’s about selling WP themes it’s also kind of fun and will be interesting to see what themes win each week. The winner gets put into the theme store once the week’s results are in.
Nice idea and the first two themes up for your vote are pretty nice themes too.
It’s been a couple of years since I ran this poll and I’m curious to see if the readership of this blog has shifted since then – so….
Looking forward to seeing the results on this.
This afternoon I came across the results of an interesting study called the Ruder Finn Intent Index which I think makes useful reading for bloggers.
In this post Rodricus Kirby shares some strategies of making money blogging by looking at strategies used in the Magazine world.
Magazines have been a medium to contend with for years because of their influence over readers, large subscription bases, and their power to generate big advertising dollars. By maximizing these 3 advertising strategies you’ll begin the profitable transformation of weblog into web property;
Strategy: Think of it as a “one advertiser to rule them all” type of deal. A featured advertiser should be one main company or brand that can get their message across effectively through every opportunity available on your site. This includes; a written featured article about the company, its products and services, a 1-on-1 interview to coincide with the article, a product or service review, and banner ads across high traffic areas of your site. Essentially you’ll come out from behind the desk as a blogger and into the arena of journalism and entrepreneurship. It’ll take some work, a little networking, and some sales tactics, but once you land that first account it’s all money from there.
Why is it a win for you? – You’re able to charge a premium advertising fee depending on your site’s traffic, your online social status, and how much targeted content you can generate for the advertiser.
Why is it a win for the advertiser? – It’s simple, less competition for your readers’ attention on your site = more traffic and profitability for them.
Note: Create different advertising packages with different price points. Depending on what the advertiser spends will depend on how much, “content coverage,” he or she receives. (Don’t go overboard with the pricing, if you’re a new blogger then you probably haven’t built up a large enough audience to entice big dollars from a major advertiser. Be strategic!)
Tools: When you write the featured article, use tools such as twitter search (real-time conversations) and yelp.com (community reviews) to find out what others are saying (only the good comments) about your featured advertiser. Also, try out Blogtalkradio.com (internet radio show hosting) for conducting your interviews, and possibly shooting video for the product or service review. The more dynamic the content the more engaged your readers will be which = an epic win for your advertiser.
Strategy: When I say featured content I don’t mean your life tips or opinion piece typed articles. The post has have a certain level of marketability. Something that will resonate with readers and be a perfect fit for a sponsor. For example; “Black Enterprise’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs under 40 Sponsored by Bank of America.” Or, “50 Greatest Gadgets of all time Sponsored by Microsoft.” Get it? This featured content becomes less of an article and more of a multimedia presentation as you should incorporate video, audio, and written pieces to drive your main points of view home. It’s a more targeted piece of content than that of the first tip. Where as the latter is kind of spread around with a focus on the advertiser, here, the advertiser focuses on a particular topic.
Why is it a win for you? – When you have a Featured advertiser as mentioned above, they will take up all the attention of your readers. However, having sponsors for your featured content easily allows you to sign as many advertisers as you would like since they’ll be attached to specific pieces of content on your blog. Say it with me together kids, “M-O-N-E-Y!”
Why is it a win for the advertiser/sponsor? – The first thing sponsoring featured content does is; it gets the advertiser closer to their target market. Trust me; Pepsi’s not going to sponsor a list of the “50 Greatest Kool-Aid Flavors of All Time.” The second thing it does is; it positions the advertiser’s brand as a participant in their market. It shows market engagement and a form of connection to who they want to buy their products or services.
Note: Brainstorm and come up with lists or featured stories that would resonate within your blog community. Select a few companies (online or off) who target the same kind of market, put together sponsorship proposals, and be persistent in pursing them. It might also be a good idea to partner with different bloggers and come together for a huge collaborative feature and seek sponsors together. The greater the “market basket” for a potential sponsor, the easier it is to seal the deal for the sponsor seeker.
Strategy: Every magazine I flipped through had a classifieds section toward the back of their books. It listed every company under the sun that offered just about every kind of opportunity, service, or product. No doubt, this was the last line of offense for generating revenue for a magazine. Why can’t it work for bloggers as well if it’s done in a tasteful way?
Note: Keep your ads specific towards a certain market and you’ll attract more relevant advertisers. That means if you’re running a Christian blog then there shouldn’t be any Viagra ads on your site. Consider having a “free” classifieds section and run ad sense or other affiliate ads of your own for “traffic generating money.” Also, as mentioned above, you might pool your resources with other bloggers and split the costs, workload, and revenue of this marketing technique.
These are just a few examples that magazines give us as bloggers on effective advertising for our blogs. While ad sense, affiliate links, and text links are great ways to generate income, these techniques will take your blog to new heights. I would love to hear your feedback on this topic in the comments below.
Rodricus Kirby is an author, success coach, and consultant. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Success Center, the #1 online destination for Christian entrepreneurs to become inspired, empowered, and equipped for success.
Update: we’ve compiled your answers on your weekend blogging strategy and have posted them here.
What is your weekend blogging strategy?
Interested to hear your strategy.
PS: I’ve written a little more about what I do on the weekends here and here.
PS2: the weekend’s the perfect time to kick start your blog. Why not start the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge!
Almost a week ago I started a new type of post here at ProBlogger by asking readers – What Were the Best and Worst Blogging Experiences You Had This Week?
The response was fantastic. I actually found quite a bit of inspiration in some of the comments left and think that there were some great ideas and lessons shared. I think that by sharing the things that have gone well as well as the ‘worst’ stuff (mistakes, problems etc) that we can all learn a lot.
So…. I’ve decided to make this a weekly post that I think I’ll run on Saturday my time (Friday for those of you in the US).
Worst – This week was a tough one at home. The whole family (including me) has been sick at different times. On top of that I’ve had a few extra things to do outside of blogging (for example this weekend I’m preaching at church – something that takes a lot of preparation). As a result my main struggle this week has been around finding the time and head space to blog. I think I managed to get through it but did have to lessen my load a little by pulling back on some of my normal social media activities like Twitter.
Best – While I struggled to keep putting out new content this week one of the best things about the week was that some of what I did manage to write seemed to resonate with readers. A couple of posts (this one on declining traffic and this one on my ‘sock drawer’)got over 100 comments which is always a level that I look to on this blog to signal a post did well and for some reason this was one of those weeks when the positive feedback emails outweighed the complaints (always a nice thing).
What was your best and worst of the week? Share anything you like as long as it relates to your experience of blogging!
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My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like Digital Photography School and TwiTip - Twitter Tips.
In 2002 I stumbled upon an article about ‘Blogging’. I didn’t know it at the time but that moment changed my life. Read more about Darren or contact him. Connect with me on Twitter at , Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.
