Don’t Be An Adsense Idiot Like Guy Kawasaki
January 8, 2007 – 7:32 amby Darren
Guy Kawasaki has a great reputation online as being some sort of tech heavyweight. But recent comments he’s made about monetizing blogs through Adsense are quite inept. Of course when someone who’s a “big shot” in the blogosphere makes a comment that helps people confirm a belief they already hold, it will spread quickly. The idea is: if a “big shot” blogger is failing to earn money at blogging, then what will it mean to the rest of us (you know, the ones that don’t have the big reputation for genius)? The thought is, if he can’t make it, no one can. Hogwash, Guy Kawasaki may be a leader in certain fields, but he’s doing an incredibly half-assed job of monetizing his blog, and thanks to his revealing his numbers, we can take a look at how to avoid the same problem he’s running into.
Now we can expect advice like Don’t quit your day job. Not a very happy statement to make to aspiring pro bloggers. The first thing we look at is Guys numbers:
* 2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day.
* 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz.
* Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve tried several times during the year to get my snail mail PIN so that I can get paid, but I’ve never received it. I don’t mind Google getting the float…)
These numbers really, really suck. But this isn’t Google’s fault at all. You have to TWEAK your Google ads for YOUR website. There is no way around it. Tweaking ads alone can triple his income instantly.
Why is he really not making money? Because of his subject. He’s targeted highly technical readers who 1) read through RSS and 2) wouldn’t click an ad if you put a gun to their Mother’s head. Chances are great that Adsense is probably not a good match for Guy’s blog. So from this we CANNOT jump to the wrong-headed conclusion that there “is no money” in blogging. Just because one person has done a bad job of monetizing a hard to monetize blog doesn’t have any bearing on what happens to the rest of us.
There’s two really big lessons to be learned from Guy Kawasaki sharing his numbers.
1) Technorati popularity means nothing
Kawaski is listed as “the 35th-45th” most popular blog on the internet. In reality, 2.5 million page views is a very, very low count. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that many celebrity bloggers have many, many more page views than this. In fact, 6,000 page views a day is a very low figure. Why? People are using RSS to read his posts and not visiting his website to click on ads.
2) Technical readers suck for blog monetization. There’s no point in comparing a blog that appeals to tech readers to one that doesn’t. Non-technical readers BARELY use RSS, and they are very likely to click on ads. This will greatly increase your revenue just by switching from a technical field to a non-technical field.
3) Kawasaki is blogging as part of an online strategy, but he isn’t blogging for dollars.
I would expect almost ANY pro-blogger to earn much more than Kawasaki does, out of sheer necessity which causes experimentation. No way would you sit around getting $280/month and pretend that was the limit, when you depend on paying your mortgage with Adsense money. Instead, you do a poor job of monetization and then make the claim that:
3) I can tell Web 2.0 entrepreneurs that they’re on drugs if they think they can depend on an advertiing model because of my first-hand experience
Don’t be surprised if they tell you that you’re the one smoking crack in response. This is some seriously flawed logic, and hopefully big bad Guy didn’t scare any of YOU.
Guy Kawasaki, I bet, indirectly uses his blog to make big money. Adsense is not a big part of his strategy, at all. For that reason it seems disingenuous for him to make blanket statements about the profitability of blogging, when I’m sure he understands the distinction between monetizing your blog primarily from Adsense and using it to derive other networking benefits.
Guy Kawasaki proves that even a very smart person can be an Adsense Idiot if they’re not careful.
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7 Responses to “Don’t Be An Adsense Idiot Like Guy Kawasaki”
Isn’t it http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ has not passed the 1-year mark ? As u blogged about it takes 1 year for a blog to blossom, although he’s famous guy :D. Someone like JohnChow managed to make $2K a month, which is a total-up of adsense and some other ads on his blogs and he’s got 1K readers on his feedburner. (Note: John Chow’s blog is about 1yr ). Btw, I guess the guy kawasaki doesnt know where to place his ads correctly. Well, it shall go in between your text content, which readers are more likely to click.. I don’t agree to quit day-job for blogging, anyway I’m new and just take blogging as my hobby
By ketyung on Jan 8, 2007
Love the post and couldn’t agree more.
I have most “big shots” how they think they know all and people have instant repect for them and trust all what they say.
Total BS, he is doing much wrong.
By Matt on Jan 8, 2007
If your content is really useful and is a non technical website.
1. Have a paid only, password protected RSS feed.
2. And provide a newsletter that uses the RSS feed.
By marcel on Jan 9, 2007
I really appreciate the encouragement not to let more popular bloggers get you down in the “blogosphere.” You need that encouragement from time to time.
I just wonder whether you are being a bit hard on Mr Kawasaki. I didn’t really get the idea that he promoted himself as a “big shot” from reading his blog. It is a little fragmented as far as his ideas are concerned, but he seems to be a stream of conscience sort of blogger, as oppose to someone with any real agenda - the title of his blog notwithstanding. And that he is blessed with a big-hitter name. As for wanting to be in the Technorati top 50? Everybody’s gotta have goals.
Just as a little aside: Through the middle section you miss out an “a” in his name. Makes him sound Polish.
By Rory on Jan 16, 2007
He’s promoted as a “big shot” everywhere he goes. He’s a keynote speaker at webmaster conventions.
I’m sure a lot of people hang on his every word.
As for the mis-spelling: I’ll edit it. I post about 20-30 times daily on many blogs, so every now and again I’ll make a small error. Thanks for pointing it out.
By Darren on Jan 17, 2007
That’s a heck of a workload you’ve got there, Darren. Lotta writing.
My apologies. I didn’t realise you were using the term “big shot” in a generic sense, rather than derogatory.
By Rory on Jan 17, 2007
No problem, Rory. I didn’t mean to sound like a wise guy, I’m just explaining the reason I make typos.
Funny thing is, I don’t always notice when I proof-read either!
I wasn’t trying to be derogatory to Kawasaki. I think he has a well-earned reputation for knowing how to make money online, so I’m sure his comments about Adsense are primarily link-bait.
By Darren on Jan 17, 2007