Blogging to make money

[Jon]

Hey,

Has anyone had any experience of Blogging to make an income?

I have toyed with Blogs before using WordPress (Loved the software btw) but found it quite hard to come up with new content at a pace that people are looking for on Blogs (Which seems to be every few days).

It seems that those that hit the right mark can end up charging to host other peoples content, let alone also offering the opportunity to hold banner ads and sponsored competitions.

Seems like if you have the time, and the originality to write a very large amount of content Blogging can bring quite a lot of riches.

 

[Keith Worboys]

Hi Jon,

In reply to to your questions on blogging, It is something that I am relatively new to but have made a point of learning about and it has indeed paid me to do so although I will say that it is via the referrals that I get from my blog as opposed to anything that I have sold.

I originally went for a high end paid training course on blogging but have always found Mike Clffe-Jones http://www.mikeslife.org/ to be one of my favourite blogs for tips and advice. If you look at the very top of his blog you will see a free case study where he explains how he went from Zero to full time within a year.

I hope that helps

Keith

 

[The Funky Blue Dog]

Thank you Keith

 

[alex]

Certainly something I'm looking into at the moment - so I will let you know how it goes. I think you can make a good income from a blog but you need 2 things strong content and traffic. Based on my research to date I would say you need over 50 articles and be getting over 2 thousand unique hits per day to make it viable. Will keep you posted I am just starting out and I know what you mean writing good content is hard work!

 

[Jon]

Certainly something I'm looking into at the moment - so I will let you know how it goes. I think you can make a good income from a blog but you need 2 things strong content and traffic. Based on my research to date I would say you need over 50 articles and be getting over 2 thousand unique hits per day to make it viable. Will keep you posted I am just starting out and I know what you mean writing good content is hard work!

What is going to be your 'point of critical mass' if you will where you with place Ads on the blog to generate an income?

I always think it is a fine line between building an audience and wanting to make an income via that audience

 

[alex]

Totally agree with you it is a fine line. I am working on content, writing interesting articles, researching and creating. I plan to continue to do that for at least 6 months because I'm quite enjoying that whole process. If (a big IF) there is sufficient traffic (critical mass for me would be at least 2 thousand hits a day), I would consider monetisation by placing ads, probably at the top and side of the articles.

 

[Jon]

Totally agree with you it is a fine line. I am working on content, writing interesting articles, researching and creating. I plan to continue to do that for at least 6 months because I'm quite enjoying that whole process. If (a big IF) there is sufficient traffic (critical mass for me would be at least 2 thousand hits a day), I would consider monetisation by placing ads, probably at the top and side of the articles.

A few years ago I did a gig via payments per hour where I was writing content for a site each day. Did about 1000 words a day I think and it was quite a challenge after a few weeks coming up with new content so quickly so I would say aim for maybe 2 new posts a week and they will keep people coming.

You have an excellent domain for your project, I see people trying to do what you are doing and they go and purchase .tk or .co just to save on cost

 

[Jon]

btw your post on finding royalty free images online to use is very useful.

Sort of thing Google will rank quite highly I would have thought

 

[alex]

Thanks Jon - appreciate your feedback. I have written down ideas for well over 50 posts. I think it will be a busy year! The problem I have is finding time to write content as I work full time! Also I am not fantastic at writing (yet), so it takes me a long time to get my ideas down but I hope that will improve with time. I am aiming for at least 1 new article per week.

Re: domain name - yes I was suprised it was available and snapped it up! The domain and name of the site is a bit ambitious I know but I think it does grab attention - somehow "alex's money making blog" did not have the same ring to it! ;D

 

[Jon]

Finding time can indeed be difficult. I work full time as well and on top of that have 63336 work to do plus other bits and bobs

If you want some inspiration take a look at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage

I watched the site from start to finish, guy made a ton of money with just 1 good idea

 

[alex]

Yes that was a pretty clever idea! ;D

 

[Jon]

was slightly depressing watching him bring in all that money but more power to him really I suppose..

That's all it takes. 1 idea at the right time and Boom, it clicks with an audience and away you go.

The days were when building a website and making it look good was all it tooks. Now its all about CMS systems (of which I like WordPress the best) and putting up original content as otherwise Google just don't bother ranking you as they should.

 

[alex]

Yes I agree, getting Google to bring you traffic is a massive effort nowadays!

 

[Jon]

How are you finding the views and reads on your site then Alex?

Don't know if you are using wordpress or not but that used to be quite easy to get stats each day on who is looking at which pages and where the views are coming from.

 

[joeg]

Ive been toldd i should do a blog about experiences at the jobcentre. Got no idea really how to start. Do twtter and facebook but never blogged.

 

[alex]

Ive been toldd i should do a blog about experiences at the jobcentre. Got no idea really how to start. Do twtter and facebook but never blogged.

That's a good one! Check out Blogger and Wordpress - you can setup a blog FREE - it's easy peasy! If you can write a word document - you can blog. I'm using Blogger right now and learning lots. There are some advanced things to learn to add more cool features into your blog but if you want a simple text/images to start with then it's simple and takes minutes.

Before you start, have a think about a good name for the blog and what content you will write about. It's quite time consuming to write good posts but I think over time it gets easier.

 

[Jon]

I agree with Alex,

It would actually be quite a interesting blog to read, I imagine there would be a good amount of content as it shows you going through your journey

 

[EmmaH]

I would love to get into Blogging but not sure i even understand what one is really.

Someone need to make a beginners guide for blondes so I can get on board.

 

[alex]

I would love to get into Blogging but not sure i even understand what one is really.

Someone need to make a beginners guide for blondes so I can get on board.

I might write a blog post about that then!

 

[Jon]

Well worth doing

If you just wanted to write and have that content published than blogger and blogpost are probably your friend.

Once you get more into it, then buy a website domain and install WordPress and away you go.