Blogging for a second income - does anyone else here do this?

CarefulCash

This is a really interesting thread.

It was started by someone who doesn't seem to have revisited here since 2009. She had lots of techie skills, and had put up a blog that was making some money. If her profile shows that blog then it has become very successful indeed!

But few would be able to follow her

Since then this thread seems to have gone in lots of different directions, and I'm worried that the one term 'blog' is being used for too many things...
- making money like Amanda did
- a personal blog you try to monetize
- autoblogging or Google spam
- quality content blogs for affiliate promotions

They all take different skills and a different mindset. I make a fair amount of money now with my blogging, but I've also built up blogs that did nothing. The change was when I focussed on ONE model, rather than just putting up a blog because I could.

ellebee1986

I'm looking to start a blog and have read through this thread and its been a huge help

My dilemma is Im planning on working on a blog that is a bit personal to myself, Relationships and Cheating which I know will be tricky dredging up bad memories but atleast I will have something to write about. My plan is to write more article type blogs than a diary type blog but throwing in some of my experiences and background in there. Will this work? It will obv start of as a hobby but Im hoping with some hard work and if I can continue to find the inspiration to write about the subject I can gradually turn it into a bit of pocket money.

Id appreciate anyone with experience's opinion as to whether my subject will work and whether or not my own experience should be mentioned or keep as pure article style.

Thanks

lizzie157

Have started a blog today. Still don't really know what I'm doing but this thread has been a great help so thanks to all contributers. .

Emuchops

lizzie157 wrote: »

Have started a blog today. Still don't really know what I'm doing but this thread has been a great help so thanks to all contributers. .

Hello Lizzie. If you put a link to your blog in your 'personal profile/contact details' bit, people who want to, can look at it. That's what I've done and it's bought a little bit of extra traffic. It all helps make you feel that you're not wasting your time!!
I don't think you're allowed to put blog links anywhere else on this site, but I'd love to be proved wrong.

Lienshare_2

Interesting read even if I did skip through.

Blogging is a doddle to do, there is absolutely nothing hard about it and doesn't take hours and hours of hard work.
But saying that working smart is what you have to do.
Now Money Saving Expert is technically a Blog full of rich content created by Martin on subjects that he knows about.
That's the thing having knowledge of something already before starting a blog, deciding what content to write about, video's to embed or images to use.
If you have zero knowledge about hosting, using wordpress, domain names then go the free route by using Blogger which is owned by Google is completely free and relatively easy to use.

I have 10 blogger blogs, one main hosted site, did have more but sacked them because I just didn't have enough time to spend on them.
You read about people having over 50 or 100 sites but unless you have a few other people to help you maintain and add content to then it's absolutely impossible to do.

My primary work now is in JV's (joint ventures) similar to a partnership but without all the hassle, which makes life a lot easier, I do the writing and other people have the headache of SEO, backlinking, getting traffic and so on.

For Traffic look at Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Digg.
I would say a good percentage of my traffic/visitors come from Social Media Sites.

One other thing I will point out though is whatever topic you choose to create your blog about do make sure it's your own written content and not someone else's because Google will catch you out.
Quality content makes money.

spiritus

Lienshare makes an excellent analogy which had passed me by.

Moneysavingexpert is essentially a blog. Although there are some excellent guides on here most of the content is written by us, forum members.

Lienshare_2

spiritus wrote: »

Lienshare makes an excellent analogy which had passed me by.

Moneysavingexpert is essentially a blog. Although there are some excellent guides on here most of the content is written by us, forum members.

Content is added on a daily basis to the main site that's how traffic is maintained to the blog.
I saw this post on the Twitter feed just a minute ago.

.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2012/02/social-media-users-getting-bored

The Forum is something extra, any hosted blog can have a forum attached.

(not allowed to post links, hence the the unlinked post)
Daft idea if you ask me, but there we go.
I know rules are rules.

GinaG3

Just been reading through this thread and found it really interesting and informative. Thanks all posters. I started blogging at the start of the year after trying unsuccessfully twice before, I just got bored and gave up. I'm really passionate about my subject, and do it as a hobby instead of an earner although I wouldn't turn down an income if one was to come from it. There is fierce competition out there I am a regular reader of new blogs and established blogs for inspirations. All my ideas are adapted, unique or inspired by as I get fee up with seeing bloggers readily taking other peoples material and passing it off as their own. I'm not giving up this time. I'm having withdrawl from not blogging since the start of the month as my laptop has broken and can't handle blogging via the iPhone app endlessly!!

Lienshare_2

GinaG3 wrote: »

Just been reading through this thread and found it really interesting and informative. Thanks all posters. I started blogging at the start of the year after trying unsuccessfully twice before, I just got bored and gave up. I'm really passionate about my subject, and do it as a hobby instead of an earner although I wouldn't turn down an income if one was to come from it. There is fierce competition out there I am a regular reader of new blogs and established blogs for inspirations. All my ideas are adapted, unique or inspired by as I get fee up with seeing bloggers readily taking other peoples material and passing it off as their own. I'm not giving up this time. I'm having withdrawl from not blogging since the start of the month as my laptop has broken and can't handle blogging via the iPhone app endlessly!!

Hi GinaG3,

Don't give up.
If you are passionate about your topic then continue writing.

Jonnytwotimes

Lienshare wrote: »

Interesting read even if I did skip through.

Blogging is a doddle to do, there is absolutely nothing hard about it and doesn't take hours and hours of hard work.
But saying that working smart is what you have to do.
Now Money Saving Expert is technically a Blog full of rich content created by Martin on subjects that he knows about.
That's the thing having knowledge of something already before starting a blog, deciding what content to write about, video's to embed or images to use.
If you have zero knowledge about hosting, using wordpress, domain names then go the free route by using Blogger which is owned by Google is completely free and relatively easy to use.

I have 10 blogger blogs, one main hosted site, did have more but sacked them because I just didn't have enough time to spend on them.
You read about people having over 50 or 100 sites but unless you have a few other people to help you maintain and add content to then it's absolutely impossible to do.

My primary work now is in JV's (joint ventures) similar to a partnership but without all the hassle, which makes life a lot easier, I do the writing and other people have the headache of SEO, backlinking, getting traffic and so on.

For Traffic look at Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Digg.
I would say a good percentage of my traffic/visitors come from Social Media Sites.

One other thing I will point out though is whatever topic you choose to create your blog about do make sure it's your own written content and not someone else's because Google will catch you out.
Quality content makes money.

I would strongly disagree with the advice given by lineshare. Keep well away from free blogs like blogger. They are ok for a hobby but if you intend to make any sort of money from blogging then you could find yourself in all sorts of trouble.

You see a blogger blog is and never will be yours. If they decided to shut you down or ban you for no reason at all, there is nothing you can do and your income and all your hard work will instantly be gone.

There was a famous case a while back when they decided to do this with a website owner who was quite a high earner and it shocked quite a lot of people. A wordpress blog is your own property to do what ever you like with and it can never be taken off you. If it becomes successful then it can become very valuable. Basically you are building a strong portfolio with your own site.

"Google will catch you out" doing what ? Re-using content "make sure its your own written content" this is very subjective and a matter of opinion and not fact. There are plenty of people who do quite well with auto blogs. Also you can use article sites for content so long as you link back to the original author etc. As well as that I sell sites with the same content and I know my buyers do quite well just by changing it slightly. Once again there has been great debate about this and there is no right or wrong to re-using content and Google will not "catch you out" as it not illegal.