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Does it pay to have a blog/website?

njmac

njmac

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 6, 2004
1,757
2
For e-commerse, obviously that is a great outlet to sell your goods, but do blogs / info sites pay or are they just for fun?

I have a decent local business of giving cooking classes and I'm working on a slightly different, but still local-only way to expand on that.

I had a site up about 6 months ago but never really did anything with it because I was busy.

Am I missing out on an opportunity to make some decent money ( I'm guessing affiliate or ads?) or is just something people do as a service, for a national business or for fun?
 
This all depends on your marketing strategy. If you have a site that always has fresh content that people need to (or really really want to) read, they will visit and subsequently, (probably) click on ads on your page. It could also be a way to supplement your classes and attract more customers to your classes, depending on your location and if you are able to market to your location.

You may try subscription-based videos (vid/podcast). Just a thought.
 
njmac said:
For e-commerse, obviously that is a great outlet to sell your goods, but do blogs / info sites pay or are they just for fun?

I have a decent local business of giving cooking classes and I'm working on a slightly different, but still local-only way to expand on that.

I had a site up about 6 months ago but never really did anything with it because I was busy.

Am I missing out on an opportunity to make some decent money ( I'm guessing affiliate or ads?) or is just something people do as a service, for a national business or for fun?
Click to expand...

If you're looking at a local-only business, depending on where you live and how many people are regularly glued to their internet access, a website may not be the most effective marketing tool, but will still act as an important online info centre for your business. Traditional advertising, such as local papers may be more effective (press releases and articles featuring your latest classes can work very well and are free)

I think a lot of people use their blogs/websites as an outlet, perhaps a free/viral marketing tool. They get people interested in their blog, perhaps by posting interesting/extreme articles and people may come back to them directly with some 'real' business. I've heard from Photographer's who've posted their photo's for free on sites like FLICKR and had return business that way - all using viral marketing. Some Podcasts are a similar idea, though limited audience numbers.

I personally have a couple of sites myself (excuse the plug) :D.

KootenayMacUser.com is really just a fun networking tool, to try and weed out people in this small community. Since it's been running for the past month or so, I've met a few like minded people through it and that may or may not lead to something in the future. To promote it I have a link in my email signature that I use for all local emails and take advantage of free-ads in the local paper (which a lot of people in the area read).

I post my MTB 'movies' on Rootsrocksflow.com (also a Podcast), just so I have something to keep me focussed with my video-editing. Some of the movies from the site have been picked up/linked to by other MTB sites around the world (I can tell from the webserver stats) and the editing/production feedback has been quite useful in helping me develop further as a cameraman/editor. Again something I'd like to get further into, but not necessarily just in MTB.

Just some ideas.
 
I doubt I'll ever make any money off of all the website stuff I've done. I've made some, but not nearly all of it back. I just like to think I'm learning some things (HTML, Javascript) for the pursuit of knowledge
 
Constitantly updated blogs are Search engine FOOD. It will only drive traffic to your site. It's up to your skills and marketing weather or not you can convert those hits to $$
 
It probably won't make an indent in your overall profit. However, as google et al get better and better at indexing the world's information, if someone looks up your town and food, you'd better have a website, even a small one that's never updated, because if you don't, google won't know you exist and people will find your competition first.
 
Thanks for the replies. :)

I didn't expect it to be so difficult to keep my website up to date the first time around. I would like to play around with it again, but it doesn't sound like I'm missing much income potential.
 
I think the simplest answer to this question is:


"Would YOU pay to read this blog/visit this website?"

if your answer is no, than chances are no one else would. Honesty, don't start a blog to make money.
 
dornoforpyros said:
I think the simplest answer to this question is:


"Would YOU pay to read this blog/visit this website?"

if your answer is no, than chances are no one else would. Honesty, don't start a blog to make money.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's what I thought.
 
All businesses should really have a website, even if it just contains information about what you do and how to contact you.

You could blog about your business life if you wanted, but it'd be hard to make it come off as professional.
 
miniConvert said:
All businesses should really have a website, even if it just contains information about what you do and how to contact you.

You could blog about your business life if you wanted, but it'd be hard to make it come off as professional.
Click to expand...

True.. One static page would take, what, 1 hour to make and upload. And maybe that one page will attract one single customer in its lifetime. But hey, 1 hours worth of work for an extra customer..

(Of course you should stay away from expensive hosting and isp's if one static page is your goal..)
 
Maybe I could have a list of upcoming classes, prices and dates. Right now I get booked by word of mouth.

Unfortunately I can only do so much business because its just me teaching - thats why I was looking for some less labor-intense income. I will probably get something up though. I do have .mac and rapidweaver.
 
I don't think that advertising revenue is really all that viable if you are not getting a lot of hits. I get about 80 unique visitors per day to my site (http://www.juggl.org) and I am lucky if one of them clicks on an advert. Plus, if you use something like google adsense you are going to end up advertising your competitors :rolleyes:
 
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