money
We’ve all heard the hype about making millions with our blogs but the fact remains that very few bloggers have the degree of expertise required to produce content that brings in the massive number of hits on advertisements that are required to make a living from blogging.
The make money blogging niche is the largest niche of all. The competition for readers is fierce and most traffic flows to the A and B list make money bloggers. Other bloggers within the niche tend to re-blog the content produced by the front runners, rather than creating unique content, and that has a negative effect on the niche as a whole, as readers become savvy to this.
The truth is that there are no shortcuts to making money from blogging. You need to have a knowledge base and skill sets that make it possible for you to “deliver the goods”.
You must:
- evaluate your theme and replace it if required
- structure a reader and search engine blog;
- recognize that content is king
- use keywords effectively;
- create unique, high quality content;
- practice the essentials when composing posts;
- select and link to appropriate anchor text;
- link to authoritative sources in your posts and blogroll;
- understanding reciprocal and non-reciprocal links and
understanding backlinks is essential - deep link to your previous posts;
- develop a brief profile and online presence;
- develop a brief blog description (25 words or less);
- develop a brand;
- encourage comments and respond promptly and in a friendly manner;
- leave meaningful comments on related blogs and create blog centered relationships with other bloggers so you can build a blog readers’ community around your own blog and help them do the same around their blogs;
- join social networks and forums and use social media;
- promote your blog and increase traffic to it.
If you do all these things listed above, you will create a blog that’s worth monetizing. Then you will be ready to consider when and how to purchase your own domain.
Here at wordpress.com only certain types of blogs are allowed and blogger initiated advertising is not allowed on wordpress.com blogs. The only wordpress.com advertising exception is for VIP blogs, and high traffic accepted into in the AdControl program. This is because wordpress.com already is already running advertising on our blogs.
In the case of bloggers who have placed advertising on their blog and who have been reported to Staff, a warning will be placed on their blog with a link in it for contacting Staff. Until the bloggers in question removes any advertising they have on their blog their blog will be suspended. If they refuse to comply, then Staff will delete the blog.
The option for purchasing a $30 per year upgrade to have a wordpress.com advertising free blog is available. It’s also possible that an upgrade to purchase an upgrade to allow advertising may be made in the future. However, at this point in time advertsing on a wordpress.com blog is taboo unless you are paying for a VIP account.
This is part one of a three part series.
Related posts found in this blog:
twenty income streams for bloggers
Adsense and Ads Off Upgrades
Play it again, Sam: No Adsense, No Advertising
compulsivewriter
September 25, 2008
fantastic post. very helpful for an elementary blogger like myself! thanks again…
The University Princess
September 25, 2008
What people don’t realize, though, is it’s not easy to get a lot of traffics. Dx
irtiza
September 25, 2008
getting traffic to my blog is really a problem. i wii try (or atleast try to try) all this things you mentioned. love your blog. adding it to my blogroll. thanks
SBA
September 25, 2008
Good cautions for new bloggers to not get ahead of themselves trying to make money before they build the foundation. So many are using the same template, you can guess there’s a rehashed “formula for success.” Others are sincere and may be good writers, but in the end lose readers who just flit to the newest secrets blog. Surprisingly though several young bloggers seem to report huge number of visitors. But then money making is the largest (inbred) niche as you said and it costs nothing to hit the subscribe button. Some will eek out a dollar or two based on page views. I hope they find your post and take heed.
timethief
September 25, 2008
@compulsivewriter
I’m happy that you found the article to be informative. It’s important to develop your skills and blog content prior to moving on to monetizing a blog.
timethief
September 25, 2008
@The University Princess.
Traffic will be less of a problem when you have basic SEO at work for you and you know how to promote your blog. Happy blogging.
timethief
September 25, 2008
@irtiza
Thanks so much for linking to my blog. It’s good to make a new friend and I appreciate it. Setting aside the basics, increasing traffic to a personal blog will be reliant on you seeking out other personal bloggers and forming relationships with them. You will have to develop a blog description in 25 words or less that contains the key words for your blog. So there’s your homework. lol :)
timethief
September 25, 2008
@SBA
I often see new bloggers asking others about advertising and why they aren’t making money. A visit to their blog tells the story. It’s a construction job and until there’s a skillful builder on the on a site monetizing is premature. Thanks for the visit and best wishes for even better blogging.
Dr. Nicole Sundene
September 29, 2008
I am so glad you wrote this! After just evaluating about 50 blogs I wish I could have just linked to this post. People are often jumpint the gun with monetizing and what they don’t realize is that blogging is a long term venture if they are going to be successful with it. Love the new templates on your blogs btw…
timethief
September 29, 2008
Thanks for the positive comment. I’m fairly sure that many who hit on this post assumed I was going to give them some magical secret to make a quick bucks but you and I both know that’s malarkey. The bottom line is that if you do not know how to be a skillful blogger, and if you have not built a search engine optimized blog, with an archive full of quality content, and if you have not established a faithful readership, then monetizing is premature.
Elaine
December 7, 2008
What a lot of newbies don’t realize is that blogging and making money at the same time is horrendous amount of work and most people fail at making a penny on their blog! Before you even think about monetizing a blog, a blog has to be established, have back links, PR, be SEO’ed, have solid large reader base.
Next thing that goes in is identifying the product you want to sell, the commission you will get, demand and purchasing power. There are many aspects to evaluate and it is a full time job for some. Honestly, even experienced online marketers don’t make crap! I know that from a horse’s mouth.
To cross $100 a day threshold you first have to spend copious amounts of money. This stuff is not free. Newbies tend to think oh, free wordpress or blogger will do… it simply won’t. Getting paid links, hiring freelancers, advertising costs, integrating auto responders and paying for subscriptions, and much much more goes into setting up online business on mere speculation that it will pay back; that cost eats into your bottom line quickly.
The hype about making mountains of money online is pure BS to make you pay hundreds of dollars for the information that’s supposedly going to make you rich… it won’t! Not that I ever paid, but the Internet is full of this hype!
timethief
December 7, 2008
@Elaine
Your testimony is right on. The belief that it’s easy to make money online is pervasive; the reality is that it’s not. As the old business adage states: you have to spend money to make money. Moreover, provided you have the skill sets required, developing any business takes lots of time and lots of hard work.
Indika
December 16, 2008
Hey!!
Thank you for your advicess. It is really help full for me. I’m also trying to increse my blog traffic.
Thanks.
timethief
December 17, 2008
@Indika
You’re welcome and best wishes.
Jessica
February 1, 2009
Hey! Love this series, it’s helping me a TON. Thank you.
I actually just wanted to let you know that you’ve got a glitch in the penultimate paragraph (the bit about suspension).
Cheerio.
timethief
February 2, 2009
@Jesscia
Thanks for reporting the glitch. I have fixed it. I’m also happy to hear that this series is helpful to you. Thanks for letting me know that. :)
JEN WILLIAMS
January 3, 2010
i think i got to know some things i never knew before…thanks for the post.
fukkbok
January 12, 2010
hello there…thanks mate for the great share…….
timethief
January 12, 2010
You used this post of mine to create a post on your own blog and failed to backlink to my posts. That’s unethical behavior that will not win you any friends or any backlinks in the blogosphere.
Justin
February 7, 2010
HI.. nice post… Do you ever heard about people make $1,000,000 on [link removed by timethief] I get this site, and they said that many affiliate marketer have joined..
please I need your suggestion about should I join this site?
please contact me at [link removed by timethief]
Justin,
timethief
February 7, 2010
@Justin
The blogosphere is crawling with internet marketers, scammers and spammers, who purport one can make a million by blogging . This is why the advertising entry in the wordpress.com documentation makes it clear that they aren’t welcome on this blogging platform. See: http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/ and take note of the Affiliate marketing blogs section in the types of blogs allowed and not allowed at wordpress.com
If you intend to become an affiliate marketer then do be aware that Google hates paid links and your blog’s PageRank will plummet if you choose to go that direction. Read the Blogging for money section in this post http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2008/11/09/understanding-reciprocal-and-non-reciprocal-links/
I removed the site link because I refuse to promote the kind of sites you linked to. I removed the email link for two reasons. Firstly, I do not provide advice via email. Secondly, posting an email address in that format is an invitation for email address harvesting spam bots to collect your email address and spam the crap out of your blog. See> http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2007/10/18/eluding-email-address-spam-bots/