13/05: Blogging For Money and Profits

If you haven't read Andy Beard's recent posts discussing the effectiveness of blogs and whether or not blogs suck I recommend that all bloggers drop in on him and take a look. I was going to leave a comment but realized it would probably be a bit too long and decided to post about it instead.

Andy's post, prompted by the new sales blurb from Ken Evoy of SBI, has led to some interesting debate on the matter. (Andy links to the page in question).

Not long ago I had been in some discussions with Josh Spaulding regarding the same thing, and we concurred that a blog in the overcrowded internet marketing niche is not likely to be a very effective income generator - at least not directly.
A lot of the commenting over at Andy's blog supports this.

In relation to my own blog, it has been apparent to me that blogging is not the platform to use if you are seeking to make money online.

There, I've said it too, so let's qualify the statement.

This particular blog has been running for a little over a year and looked at solely in terms of revenue generated you would have to call it a dead loss. Shocking? Well, no, not to me at least. My blog is just another tool in a box filled with tools. Blogging can give you a leg up in search engine placement and is an effective way of getting some traffic and SERPS positions. Sure you might sell a little advertising, maybe make a few affiliate sales and a little Adsense revenue perhaps but it's very difficult to generate what could be considered a full time income.

It is Ken's claim that blog posts have the shelf life of a daily tabloid newspaper, and although that's maybe a bit of an exaggeration, the point he is trying to make is valid. Indexing of blog posts is very fast nowadays, particularly by Google, but maintaining a good position in the SERPS for older posts is not something you can automatically rely on.

Looking at his comparison charts regarding Wordpress and SBI the bias is obvious, but then it is a sales page. I would contest some of the points made and I've used Wordpress as a CMS rather than a blog and found it to be very flexible and effective. Some of the features Ken would have you believe are not available to WP users will depend on your hosting company for one thing, so there is a bit of generalization going on.

SBI has certainly made me more money than this blog though, just through the affiliate program and it's not something I've promoted much at all. It sells though, because it is a good service.

If the bulk of your visitors are bloggers themselves, particularly if they are bloggers hoping to make money online, they are usually too busy trying to build their own traffic and subscriber bases to be all that interested in yours. I made a comment once that if you actively comment on other's blogs, you will receive comments in return but let that aspect slide and those comments will dry up very quickly. This has always seemed rather pointless to me, a kind of "conscious driven" commenting.

It's the same mentality that drives a lot of people on social networking sites - getting swamped in an endless stream of applications purely because they feel that they might be perceived as a "misery" or "impolite" for not responding to each and every request. In the end, it overwhelms even the most dedicated MySpace or Facebook user. I can say that because I've made that mistake and let the benefits of Social Networking as a sales funnel slip away. It's something I intend to correct if I can..........

Let's be honest, commenting can become a chore, moderating comments can become a chore, and blogging can become a chore. Those who enter the blogging arena with high hopes of making good money from the venture, are invariably disappointed. That's when it really does become a chore and they drift away, disillusioned.

This is the crux of all the observations made by both Andy and Ken. Blogging does require a lot of work and if you measure it as a ROI, it usually doesn't stack up.

In my experience a lot of RSS subscribers are not avid readers and most are not reading blogs looking for products or services to buy. They are far more likely to be looking for information on how to grow their own subscriber base and how to improve their visitor numbers and revenue.

You will find it extremely tough to sell anything to such an audience. Indeed, even trying to persuade them that there are better ways to approach making money online than blogging and providing free services to get them started, meet with far less success than you would expect. Just to prove this to myself I'm including a link to a free minisite software application - just one way of diversifying and spreading your money making wings.

Josh gave a telling example a while back citing sales of a product derived from his successful EZ-MoneyOnline blog versus sales from his listbuilding tactics. I forget the specifics but it was around the ratio of blog: 2 sales. List: over 40 sales.

My own listbuilding ventures regularly net me signups and sales, but the blog really doesn't deliver. I've measured this in the past, and there really is no contest. To generate, for example, 100 signups to a free program over a seven day period through capture pages and opt-in emails is entirely possible. With a blog post I am lucky to see two or three over a much longer period.

Why is this? Both audiences are looking for ways to make money online after all. I can only conclude that bloggers see themselves as bloggers and not marketers and are reluctant to diversify. This, if you really want to earn money, is not good. Multiple streams of income should be something you work towards.

I think that as a blogger, you must avoid tunnel vision and understand that you need to do more than blog if you want to make money online. For me, the blog has not really even been that successful from an affiliate marketing standpoint - again, I'm talking directly. I still believe that a blog is an important part of any marketers arsenal, but if you try to view it purely as a money/time equation it just doesn't compute.

Even those with a good RSS subscriber count will tell you that conversions can be very disappointing, although I'm betting that the subject/niche you blog in does have some bearing on that. 

My advice is this: do not to blog solely for the purpose of making money.

If you want to turn blog readers into customers you will often have to find other ways of getting them into a sales funnel - through your list building or niche specific newsletter for example.

TCH

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