What’s Your Blog’s Revenue Base?
By Desty on Aug 7, 2007 in Blog Business, Online Business
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For those who have or are seeking to monetize their blog, how do you plan to achieve it? What models are you working off of? Are all your eggs in one basket, or do you have several sources of income?
I’ve been seriously thinking about the various pay to blog opportunities out there (PayPerPost [aff], Smorty, ReviewMe [aff], etc) and I’ve determined that there is a problem if you based most of your income from these sources. When you write to ‘get paid for blogging’ I think it’s much tougher than your normal blogging. Normally when you write an article, you have several options on your topic; you control what you write about. In a ‘pay for blogging’ opportunity, you are restricted to the paid subject; heck, some places require a positive review!
I’ve got three to four sites that I belong to, and I really don’t see any subjects that, not only do I not have any interest in writing about, but they’re not topics I think my readers would be interested in. If we, readers and myself, wouldn’t be interested, I see how in good conscience I could take the opportunity.
Deeper into the subject, I’ve started to distance myself from the possibility of doing paid posts, beyond offering my services as a business reviewer through ReviewMe. It comes down to what type of income are you working for. Do you want linear income or residual income?
These ‘pay for blogging’ opportunities front end all the income, ie. you get paid 30 days after the article goes live and is approved. The article continues to give benefit for the customer, but you’re done with it. No more income for you!
Don’t get me wrong! I have written sponsored articles in the past and have had good experiences doing so. I’m just saying based off my current business plan, they’re not for me.
I’d much rather have residual income streams where you setup a system and continue to get paid over time. You usually start off with much smaller amounts of income, but if you add more and more income streams, over time you have a nice, stable revenue source.
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One plus point I’ve seen with the old paid posts on my blog is the search engine traffic they continue to pull in, which makes them a useful post to add adsense to.
I haven’t been doing it long enough to gauge how good it is, but I figure that recycling them like this, is better than just deleting them when they hit 30 days old.
“It comes down to what type of income are you working for. Do you want linear income or residual income?”
That’s why I stay away from Pay Per Post and even Reviews, I would rather set up something that will bring me in passive income. I’m not in this for another J-O-B.
Although, if my blog ever gets John Chow level traffic, I may do a few reviews, $400 is not to bad for a single post
@Chris — The few paid posts I’ve done have either been to share services (Smorty, Bloggerwave) with others, to write about a situation where a sponsor’ed service is actually helping me (would be using it without being paid to write about it), or a serious post that blends with the sponser. If I can figure out a way to write about something in a way to gives value to readers, I don’t take the job. Since they are articles of value immho, I keep them.
@Ryan — Passive income is where it’s at
I’m willing to do reviews because I think they would add value and be great articles for readers. I have a few in the pipeline that I’m working on.
I think it’s good to mix up your income as much as possible. Use paid posting services, sell text link ads, sell direct advertising and run adsense or a similar program. After that include affiliate programs and I think you can maximize your earning potential.
That is true, spreading your options does allow for greater earning potential. Problem with that is, I’m more of a focus type of person. I want to focus on one thing, do that one thing great, and then add something else. Setting up a plan, such as how to selling text link ads. Research that optimal conditions to get the most out of those link ads as possible. Then follow through until you have done as much as possible. Maximize a resource, then move to the next one.