Blogging Begins To Pay Off
December 18, 2006 – 9:16 amby Darren
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Founding a blog network in March of 2006, I had basic ambitions of building a new revenue stream for myself, where none had existed before. Why? Blogging has some definite advantages over traditional websites. I knew when I started that the process would be a learning curve, but I really wanted to add the freshness of blogging to what I was doing online. I figured blogging would keep me connected to the world in a way that “not blogging” couldn’t.
The first several months of blogging were merely experimentation.
I needed to learn what worked for me, and what didn’t. I had to determine what the best ways to generate some actual income. What I learned, the hard way, after a number of months are the big drawback of a blog network.
1) You need bloggers. I made agreements with 10 bloggers. Only 1 has mattered to achieve the desired posting levels. The rest are gone. That’s a 90% failure rate, mostly, I’m sure based on the selection criteria. I haven’t been too enthused with the results so far, but I’m pretty sure that I could make RevShare or PPP work with the right people.
2) You have to update relentlessly. The more blogs you have, the more updates need to be made. As your blog network gets bigger (bigger than you, the wife, and the dog), you will have more and more people involved. As the number of people goes up, the chance of individual failure goes up with it. It’s easy to get people to commit to blogging, but quite another for them to do it long enough to where it adds up.
When I realized these two concepts, I decided to take a look at what my blog network really needed and I discovered it: The Blog Republic needed a blog that could really make some money. At that point I decided to put more efforts into doing focused blogging myself, and I realized that post density is the quickest route to Adsense income.
Since then, I’ve been able to ramp up and get sufficient post density on a few “anchor blogs” that should provide enough revenue to start growing out more blogs in earnest.
All in all, for less than a year of blogging (9 months right now), the income from blogs looks great. After enough template tweaks I’ve been able to get decent CPM and CTR for Adsense. I’ve also found it extremely easy to get blogs to rank high for a decent number of keywords across some very trafficy areas. (I developed some unique blog SEOs principles in September that have boosted traffic nicely).
A $XX,XXX income in 2007 is assured at this point and with great enough strides the numbers could go higher.
I’ll be happy to ouline all of the steps I’ve taken to achieve this. In fact, that’s been the whole point of this blog since the beginning. I also plan on announcing some RevShare ideas for interested parties in the coming weeks.
Thanks to everyone who’s reading along at home and participating. I wish you the best this holiday season and thank you for your continued interest.
Darren
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12 Responses to “Blogging Begins To Pay Off”
The real secret might just be work, work , work. Congratulations Darren!
By Easton Ellsworth on Dec 18, 2006
“Work” is the secret for people like me who don’t come up big ideas
Thanks Easton!
By Darren on Dec 18, 2006
You’re welcome! (for participating and coming here to read your blogs~) and seasons Greetings to you and yours too!
Now .. if you don’t mind my asking .. which do you consider to be your anchor blogs again?
When I look at my little network of blogs, I too can see some light at the end of the tunnel, revenue-wise, but I see your items 1) and 2) becoming more and more a building factor in future successes.
By HART (1-800-HART) on Dec 18, 2006
Nice post and great to see it working out for you, and not bad from only 9 months of blogging
“I’ll be happy to ouline all of the steps I’ve taken to achieve this.”… Go go for it Darren, im all ears.
I would be especialy interested in quote, “(I developed some unique blog SEOs principles in September that have boosted traffic nicely).”. If you are open to sharing
Congratulations!
By Matt on Dec 18, 2006
I plan on outlining it all. Anchor blogs have to be in popular keyword categories and you have to maintain a high post density.
Absolutely Fa-bulo.us - The Celebrity Blog is currently bringing in 3,000 unique dailies and generating good revenue. The other winner is Planet Cell Phone which has lower traffic but much higher CTR. After much experimenting, these areas have been a sweet spot for me.
I can also tell you that Gadgets, Travel, and Investing, all have high earnings. The problem with those fields is, though, you need a level of expertise to pull it off. I haven’t been able to post myself often in those blogs, but the CPM is high.
I researched the keywords before I ever founded any blogs.
By Darren on Dec 18, 2006
That’s a nice unique level to reach daily .. I’ve got a long way to go to reach that level - for all my blogs, not just one .. so you know I’ll be one looking forward to reading your outline!
Currently, most of my traffic and adsense activity is on the lowest paying keywords in history .. it seems .. PETS. There will be changes in 2007 though and I hope to shuffle it up a little.
By HART (1-800-HART) on Dec 18, 2006
Congrats Darren, and thanks for sharing your steps… I personally want to help a couple of people in my area to get started on blogging as well, and I’m considering setting up my mini network so that we can all keep pushing each other to work!
Easton, yeah you are right! Work, work, work is the BIGGEST secret of all time!
One more to add is patience, patience, patience! I guess it takes time for things to brew on the net
By Kian Ann on Dec 19, 2006
I also build my blogs around a subject I know is popular and do keyword research on the exact most popular terms.
I tend to find the blogs that have a higher CPM are also harder to attract hits, but if you find a subject that is much more popular (or easy to compete in) with a lower CPM but higher views it about all equals out.
A blog of mine, (about 1 month old) recently jumped from 500 unique a day, to 5000-8000 unique a day, due to a lot of news about her. I knew this would happen.
$10 on the domain, has earnt me over $300 in a week :). I know it will die down over time, but I would be happy with $10 a day or so.
By Matt on Dec 19, 2006
The fact that domains are so cheap makes everyone want to start new blogs. The only problem is updating them all!
By Darren on Dec 20, 2006
Sure is, over my three years of blogging, and about 1 year of blogging professionally with my girlfriend, we have discovered that some blogs take much of our time, 5-10 posts a day, where others only take about 1-2 two posts per week (simply dud to a talk of news and information for this sunject).
Which means some blogs only take say 5mins a week to run (after the initial set up), and can earn a reasonably amount of cash, not much, but if you have a number of small sites like this, it adds up.
I find that two of our 10 or so blogs take about 80% of our time, but do not earn 80%. Finding a good balance is key.
By Matt on Dec 20, 2006
Being able to do a ton work is great, but the problem is in doing it accurately.
I can only handle so many pages a day, or the quality drops. But I bang out one hell of a lot of content most days. I’m scared not to
By Darren on Dec 21, 2006
I know exactly how you feel, gotta keep it going, but also not too much so where you rush and skimp at it, and the quality drops.
Hard work at a balance.
By Matt on Dec 21, 2006