About making money with blogs (or websites)

[piatti]

Would you say that you should keep different blogs with different topics so that it's more organized and neat, or should you merge all your interests into one blog so that you get more traffic? For example if you want to keep a history blog, blog about technology, about religion, self-development, would you have all these topics in one blog?

Question about making a website: If you want to just make a website with Google sites what could be a problem? For one I find that the page heading in the sidebars are too small and can't be adjusted it seems.

 

[miles01110]

If you're starting your blogs to make money you probably aren't going to make any money. Making money from blogging starts with content people want to read, come back for, or pay for. If you don't have that, don't bother.

 

[piatti]

I would put only worthwhile information there.

 

[decafjava]

I would put only worthwhile information there.

Worthwhile to whom?

 

[Ariii]

Would you say that you should keep different blogs with different topics so that it's more organized and neat, or should you merge all your interests into one blog so that you get more traffic? For example if you want to keep a history blog, blog about technology, about religion, self-development, would you have all these topics in one blog?

Question about making a website: If you want to just make a website with Google sites what could be a problem? For one I find that the page heading in the sidebars are too small and can't be adjusted it seems.

What I would do is just have a navigation bar to sort by topic. People obviously read blogs because they're interested in what people write about, and some things interest more people than others. Some people just want to read whatever's on the blog, so they would not like having to go through mulitple ones to get there.

 

[*LTD*]

If your primary purpose for making a blog is to make a quick buck, you've already failed. Of course, you *could* offer merchandise associated with the blog, or ask for donations. However again, this depends on whether your work is actually worh it.

Unless you can come up with an effective con. And there are already plenty of those.

Look around the web and notice how many fantastic and interesting blogs are free. Now think about what you're up against when you decide to charge for the oh-so-delectable morsels you're going to write.

And if you have enough great material to write a blog for which people *would* pay, then you might as well write a book.

 

[piatti]

Yes i ran across two successful blogs that don't have any ads but that was because either the blogger is already rich from their job or started with a wordpress.com where advertising was impossible.

 

[Melrose]

If your primary purpose for making a blog is to make a quick buck, you've already failed.

This is wrong. People make money with blogs all the time, with the only intention of making money from blogs.

My personal blog is valued at around $12k-$15k, which still isn't much but considering it didn't exist two years ago and all content is original - plus it makes me a small amount every month in advertising - and I started with the intention of making money.

You can make money from blogging. It takes time; don't be fooled by people who blog it rich quickly. Those cases are pretty rare, and the ones that work are really touted and promoted. The thing is, be passionate about your topic, keep it relevant (to both a wide audience and your audience), keep in mind how you rank on search engines (though this isn't an end-all), be open to diverse monetization methods (not just ads, and especially not Google Adwords), and find other related, well read blogs to writer for/link share with.

Generally the more diverse your topics the more traffic, but the more targeted the content the higher the conversion ratio. If you're starting, I would not blog about all those topics at once, and especially not on the same website. Pick one you can do well in and affords you some good traffic and stick with it. Once you've built solid traffic you can either sell it or hire someone to maintain it - and use it to launch blogs on perhaps other topics.

Like anything else, it is possible but it is still work. Working from home is still work; if you don't treat it as such it will fail.

 

[piatti]

Melrose, how much does your blog make? Could we have a link of your blog for reference?

more topics more traffic but less conversion rate -- does this mean less conversion to money? what is the reason for this?

 

[Melrose]

Melrose, how much does your blog make? Could we have a link of your blog for reference?

more topics more traffic but less conversion rate -- does this mean less conversion to money? what is the reason for this?

A conversion rate is very important if you're selling a product, either your own or from an affiliate. If you have an ad driven blog (ads that rely on impressions), more traffic is better because you have more page views. It's like a difference in quality versus quantity. Highly targeted content and products attract visitors who are much closer to making a purchase, so potentially the conversion rate goes up. A wider audience means more traffic, but a larger percentage are arriving by accident and are more casual.

If it's a popular topic you're blogging about, you can also leverage visitors into subscribers and build an email list; I haven't done this with my blog, but people that do say it works very well. Even some design-centric blogs are now pushing opt in forms to get subscribers.

I'd rather not let my blog out on here, just for my own reasons. As I say, it's not making me wealthy but it is making me money and more than just a few dollars here and there. I will say I don't use Google advertising. I've used Chitika for a while and it's done not so badly, plus the ads aren't so Google-ish looking. If you like, I can PM you some places to visit where you'll find a lot more than I can tell you.

my name is Derek btw

 

[*LTD*]

I'd rather not let my blog out on here, just for my own reasons. As I say, it's not making me wealthy but it is making me money and more than just a few dollars here and there. I will say I don't use Google advertising. I've used Chitika for a while and it's done not so badly, plus the ads aren't so Google-ish looking.

ehh, ok I didn't consider that. My bad.