Money from blogging

Paul Bristow asked yesterday in comments to another posting here about Adsense and moneymaking. Chris C. also jokingly pointed out that unless one could make money from blogging, watching videos and listening to music, he didn’t think he had any alternative income streams.

Well, it *is* possible to make money from blogging, and most of that money does come from advertising revenue.

The problem is about economy of scale. What are the essential points of a money-generating blog?

Content

Don’t even try it unless you are committed to it. It helps if you’ve been a blogger before and you know that you can write good quality content on a daily schedule. You need to update AT LEAST once a day. The internet is full of blogs which say, “I’m going to update this more often from now on!” dated from last May. Unsurprisingly, these blogs aren’t making any money. If you know that you can stare at a blank screen and create something from nothing on a daily basis, then go for it.

Subject/Niche

People don’t search for blogs on your life in general unless they are a friend of yours. I love those kinds of blog (in fact, I keep one), but unless you have 30,000 friends who all visit your blog daily, it won’t ever be a huge money-making exercise. Pick a subject you know and love passionately – one that you think you can write about on a daily basis. If you love it, then the chances are high that someone else will love it, and if they recommend it to someone else they know who loves it… hopefully you start to go viral.

Advertising

Ok, here’s the big one. You need to “monetize” your website. For a beginning blogger, Google Adsense is probably the easiest option. It doesn’t cost you a thing, and you might just make some money out of it. It gives you contextual adverts which (hopefully) match the subject of your site (see, another good reason to pick a nice, easily recognisable niche!).

There are a 101+ ways to monetize your website, but this is the easiest, and the one that is least dependent on traffic figures. Once your blog has been listed on Yahoo and Google (I’m told this takes between 3 and 6 months to start showing up regularly – their algorhythm is complicated!) and you have collected a number of good quality incoming links and regular readers (best achieved with high quality content) there will be other options open to you. We’ll discuss those as time goes on. Right now for a beginner? I’d stick with Adsense.

Independent Hosting and Domain Name

If you want people in the blogosphere to take you seriously, get your own domain name. Preferably a dot com, as it is still the default for most people. If you write under a pseudonym which is unusual, try to get some variation on it as a domain name – this will make it easier to get listed on Google, certainly, and will make it easier for the occasional visitor to find and remember your domain name. I use a WordPress install, and I have to say that I lovelovelove it. It is easy and straightforwards to both install and upkeep, and has the kind of flexibility that I only dreamed of over on Livejournal. One day soon, in my copious spare time, I will learn some level of PHP scripting so that I can get down and dirty with the code, but right now it is simple enough to navigate around with common sense and a reasonable amount of HTML (and a very small amount of Java!). There are other systems out there, but I’ve got to say that I can’t imagine ever uninstalling WordPress.

A Willingness to Network

I know that this one will be an easy in for all my Livejournal readers – that’s what Livejournal is all about – reading and networking. However, be prepared to break out of your comfort zone and go make some new friends out there. There is a lot of quality material out there that you will never see if you just stick to Livejournal. Get yourself a free feedreader and go sign up for a few things in your coffee break. I’m using Google Reader, as it is free, easy and pretty versatile. Go on, make some new friends and comment on other things – because then they may come over to *your* journal and comment on your articles too, which ups your traffic and leads to links, which leads to better advertising rates and so on and so forth.

A Good Place to Start

The very best sites that I’ve found are:

Problogger
John Chow
DoshDosh

Give them a try and see what you think – blogging is addictive and the perfect way for someone who never stops rabbiting on to get heard. Why else do you think I do it?