There is no shortage of people trying to make money blogging, especially in today’s economy. There is however, a shortage of people actually making the money. It’s kind of like the have’s and have not’s in a way. Does it seem unfair? The recent article in Slate Blogging for Dollars says that on average blogs getting 100,000 or more unique visitors per month earn an average of $75,000 annually. That number is skewed further by a very small percentage of those blogs making more than $200,000 per year. But with nearly a million blog posts published daily, all the money in blogging is being made by a very, very small percentage of blogs. These are regular bloggers too, not affiliate or niche sites at all.
The best resources online are free. The best free content comes from knowledgeable people. When you find a great resource you bookmark it and go back time and time again. Why do people spend time giving away free expertise online? Is it ego? Self gratification? Charity? I recently read a problogger post “10 Innovative Blog Business Models” that talks about bloggers that painstakingly write expertise based blogs with an ulterior motive to sell something else. I don’t find that innovative at all – it’s just smart, and what I call “natural monetization”.
Why do you think I take the time to write this blog? It’s certainly not because I want to help the world. It’s also not for ego, and for sure not because I think I’m the next John Chow. I figured if I wrote enough about my problems slogging along as a blogger, my experiences and opinions would be worth something over time. I’m building a reputation and a body of work through this blog, and those that find value in that will try and use products and services I recommend. I’ll make money from those referrals, and hopefully the amount of money I make will increase over time.
The first 6 months on this blog I didn’t make dime. I wrote 50 posts on faith alone. The second 6 months I made maybe $150. Since I wrote 50 more posts, I guess I was paid $3 per post for those. Then I made $40 in one month, and then $75 the next, $125 the next, and $200 the next – do you see a pattern here?
Think about your success online in terms of a series of deposits, or even earning a degree. You have to pay to play. You have to pay your dues. You have to blindly and selflessly forge ahead until you reach the payoff – or else you have forfeited all your time for nothing.
What is success really? What does it mean to you? The degree to which you actually obtain success is determined not by your own sheer drive alone, but instead is measured by the quality of your content. Go back to the bank analogy again. Think of your posts like bank deposits. Are you depositing $1 posts, $100 posts, or $1,000 posts? Do you wonder why I don’t blog much anymore about passing fads or day to day crap in the blogosphere? It’s because I see those as $1 posts – why should I waste my time? You can read that crap on 100 other blogs. I try to make sure that every post is a $100 – $1,000 post. You come to this blog to read about how to fix something in WordPress, how to make more money in your blog, or how to get more traffic or readers. I try to make sure (now) that every post has some direct instructions on how to do one of those things. If not – I just don’t post. It just like if I owned a business and just didn’t go to the bank to deposit until my bank bag had at least $1,000 to deposit.
How does all this translate to you and your online work? Whether you writing in a blog, a niche store, or an affiliate site, think of each and every post as money. Think of the long term. Will this post be useful tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Next year? Think of the VALUE in terms of money. Think of every page and post as a resource that spawn some kind of action. Think of posts and articles and pages as “products” like a brick and mortar business. Would it be easier to sell 100,000 1 cent pieces of candy or just one Cadillac automobile? Don’t let your blog or site become a dollar store for your ideas – think of it as a “dealership for your business”.
Most of the posts I’ve written for this blog take 2-3+ hours or more. Guess what, nearly every one gets viewed each and every day. When you write are you putting money in the bank?
Do you really think that CONTENT is king?
that quality is what brings traffic?
Gosh… really?
Well, I have over 10 poor quality sites, that pull 500 each just by understanding the way google works and understanding how to rank for keywords.
Quality has nothing to do with making money.
@Ostralia – of course content is king. I don’t care if your shoddy practices bring you traffic or not – sooner or later (probably sooner) it will catch up with you and google will figure you out. Quality brings better conversion, loyal subscribers and readers, and traffic over the long haul. Ask any affiliate marketer if they want 500 transient readers per day with a high bounce rate or 1-5,000 readers per day that are loyal and regular readers.
What you propose is the ridiculous notion that shortcuts and shoddy notions are the way to go. That’s like saying driving a car with shoddy brakes is alright because it will get you there – with no regard for the fact that it could crash at any time. I wish you luck, unfortunately I really don’t see anyone online that is successful that has your mindset.
Good content is definitely an “investment” that will pay off for you over the long run–or even in the short run. I agree–it’s like money in the bank.
Chris at prepaid cell phoness last blog post..Omni Prepaid Cell Phone Offers
Very well put. If you wish to continually produce 100’s of garbage sites for the quick buck…maybe, then it’s a-ok…..for the long haul and respect you need the quality content.
I sincerely hope certain folks aren’t “teaching” others.
Dennis Edells last blog post..10 Effective Joint Venture Ideas To Get You Started
Well, you are the one that wrote 50 posts expecting to make money. I can make 5 post and generate 100 dollars in adsense in the first month. this is a blog about how to make money online – isn’t? So what you need to learn is about RANKING .
Do you think that affiliate marketers for Credit Cards work on QUALITY content? Is that what you really think?
Or how do you target your BANS sites? By quality of by long tail keywords?
In the other hand, i think your content is simply brilliant and I’m a subscriber. But one thing is to have good content and to make money. That are 2 different topics and good content doesn’t equal money in the bank. I have to disagree.
Good luck anyway.
I love your comparison about:
“That’s like saying driving a car with shoddy brakes is alright because it will get you there – with no regard for the fact that it could crash at any time. I wish you luck, unfortunately I really don’t see anyone online that is successful that has your mindset.”
Well, you were the one that took 6 months in making $200 dollars per month with a site. While you where doing that, serious marketers are buying domain names and creating sites, blogs, hubs, lenses…. creating a proper online network structure.
Mate (sorry if you take this personal… but) if it took you 6 months to realize that “Think of your posts like bank deposits”, well that’s why you are not making a lot of money with this site.
In my case I think of Links and anchor links to my money sites as bank deposits. Content? Content is OK for a social site, or when you are planning to sell your services… but not for a serious money generation site.
And the proof of that is that your site simply doesn’t rank at all for any making money online keywords, instead all your anchor links are for: “JTPratt’s Blogging Mistakes” .
You may attack the creation of mediocre sites, but this is the IRONIC thing: 1 of my mediocre sites makes more money in 1 month than your site did in the first 6 months. Isn’t that ironic? the reason, I understand that making money online has to do with target organic traffic. Keywords + ranking = money.
So my question again is: What is your website about? Making money online?
You certainly put a lot of effort in your posts. I must say I have learned a great deal from you in easy to understand English..
You provide content that you cannot find anywhere else. Original!!! It is a pleasure reading your posts as I gain new knowledge everytime.
Thanks …
Dave
Thanks for your article. Now I know what I need to brush up in!!!
Ostralia – you are a different kind of online marketer than most for sure. I think that if I were marketing credit cards in the first place I really wouldn’t be a blogger at all. I would be the type of online marketer willing to do just about anything for short term results. My posts are about building online income that repeats itself month after month. Will your sites be generating that $100 in adsense per month forever? I really don’t think so.
I think it would interesting to combine your techniques with quality content. I mean, take one of your mediocre sites generating $100/mo in adsense…what would it do is you added 6 – 1,000 word original content pillar posts? One would think the amount you would be making would increase. What if you added 6 quality content posts per month for a year? What would your mediocre site be like then?
I’ve written about all the things you mentioned – creating a network of sites, hubpages, squidoo lenses, backlinks, forums, and on and on and on. You must not have read that far back into the archives. I have many sites, in many niches, and I’ve written about many of them over time.
This site is not targeted at any mainstream keywords at all – including “make money online”. It’s targeted at my brand “jtpratt’s blogging mistakes”, and various long tail keywords pointed to clusters of articles and series. My point about the content and money in the bank in regards to this site is that I never really tried to market it (like my other sites) and good content has carried it into a money maker that increases each and every month.
Good article. I was thinking along similar lines earlier today while listening to a best-of compilation of one of my favourite musicians. What struck me was that his earlier work is (by today’s standards) rather amateurish in production quality etc, and yet he is really successful because he stuck with it, learned the lessons, and kept improving. Unfortunately I don’t know how long it took him to see success, but the lesson is clear: don’t quit too soon, just keep moving forward.
Rodney@Blogging with WordPresss last blog post..How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent
Quality content wins in the long run. Your post will get more and more links back over time and people will trust your site. People who want to make thousands of sites will get results faster but alot of times they have no real content and will go down in search engines while your site moves up over time.
highyields last blog post..Hsbc online banking.
Your posts really take 2-3 hours to write? That seems like your pushing it. Especially if the post is only 600 words or less.
wisdoms last blog post..Pain, Nerve Blocks, and Prolotherapy
Thanks for adding the comment that it takes 2-3 hours per post. I was wondering if I was just slow or something since each of mine tends to take 3+ hours. Part of my problem is adding pictures, I am not the best photographer, but I have been getting better. I guess if you subtract my photography time from my total writing time, we are in the same ballpark in terms of how long it takes per post.
depends on the content and if there’s research involved, graphics, screenshots, etc.
Hey are you guys using the caffeinated content plugin?
If so can you get it to post on different categories set at a future day. So that you can have more than on ecategory being supplied automatically with content.
thanks
I don’t see the value to this plugin at all – wordpress has it’s own scheduling feature
The key to great content is making your website one that people simply can’t resist interacting with. A website that they want to return to and will be eager to see new content. It’s engaging as well and a great tool for reference in the online space.