Making money from your blog
Last Wednesday night I had the pleasure to speak at a Knoxville blogger group, and the topic was monetizing your blog. It's a tough game out there, with "A-listers" like Om Malik, Cory Doctorow, etc. already making tons off their work. How does the average person do it? In my mind there are at least three key things you'll have to have in a blog:
1. Strong, original content
2. Daily (or if longer-form, weekly) content
3. Links galore
Let me clarify:
1. I'm talking how-to's, event coverage, or something "unique" that's hard to find elsewhere. One advantage in the blogosphere is a rapid-fire response rate. This gives writers an advantage over mass media, who are slow to react. Think guerilla coverage, or hacker how-to's.
2. Daily content keeps RSS readers fresh, and keeps readers flocking to your pages. We have found, when working with a swarm of bloggers on one blog, that over 20 posts a day keeps a lot of traffic moving through. Think BoingBoing.
3. I don't mean a linkfarm! Any time to reference someone else, you link back. This is etiquette, and Google "juice" for search ranking.
Anciallaries flow from this like:
- Avoid re-posting content
- Think SEO
- Treat it like a business
- Try things out, see if they work, retool if necessary
- Participate in the blogosphere as a whole
- Diversify your ad revenue (Google is big, but not the only game in town)
As they say, you gotta be in it to win it. If this is only a hobby, that's all it may ever be. Maybe if you're really lucky, and Joe Namath passes out at your house, you'll get noticed. But just wiling away the hours on Myspace blogging about cute socks will get you nowhere fast. Choose a platform that'll allow you to maximize your ad revenues, and keep up-to-date on technology.
Good luck!
1. Strong, original content
2. Daily (or if longer-form, weekly) content
3. Links galore
Let me clarify:
1. I'm talking how-to's, event coverage, or something "unique" that's hard to find elsewhere. One advantage in the blogosphere is a rapid-fire response rate. This gives writers an advantage over mass media, who are slow to react. Think guerilla coverage, or hacker how-to's.
2. Daily content keeps RSS readers fresh, and keeps readers flocking to your pages. We have found, when working with a swarm of bloggers on one blog, that over 20 posts a day keeps a lot of traffic moving through. Think BoingBoing.
3. I don't mean a linkfarm! Any time to reference someone else, you link back. This is etiquette, and Google "juice" for search ranking.
Anciallaries flow from this like:
- Avoid re-posting content
- Think SEO
- Treat it like a business
- Try things out, see if they work, retool if necessary
- Participate in the blogosphere as a whole
- Diversify your ad revenue (Google is big, but not the only game in town)
As they say, you gotta be in it to win it. If this is only a hobby, that's all it may ever be. Maybe if you're really lucky, and Joe Namath passes out at your house, you'll get noticed. But just wiling away the hours on Myspace blogging about cute socks will get you nowhere fast. Choose a platform that'll allow you to maximize your ad revenues, and keep up-to-date on technology.
Good luck!
posted by Victor Agreda, Jr. at
8:40 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for your summary, Victor. I'll post my comments on my own blog, with my perspective on what I gleaned from your talk last Wednesday when my time permits. However, I appreciate your summarizing your point of view about the most important points from your talk.
You did a nice job in your presentation, and I appreciate your effort in sharing your recollection of what you covered with the rest of us.
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