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

red_devil

Think you can yes just been looking at their support section?

Bigbase

Unless you run the forum your self, you will always have difficulty trying to make money from it.

red_devil

i tend to agree but you are tied in to them. There must be some way.

Bigbase

You can move the forum to your own platform.

advanta

Just a few comments on blogging from someone who has spent a lot of time on this stuff:

1)Don't even think about doing this unless you have an irrational compulsion to write and are contributing a lot on forums like this one already for free. As a published writer I often get asked about people's ideas for books and so on. Mostly, people miss the point. Writing is a kind of disease. If you aren't compulsively writing all the time this isn't for you.
Essentially, if you write for a blog "just" for money it won't work. The best reason to write a blog and monetize it is that you are already wasting a lot of time contributing content to websites unpaid and you want to get paid a little for this wasted time.

2) The daily profits will be almost nothing initially and it will probably take you years to get to minimum wage. If you make £1 a day from adsense and think "huh-big deal, £1" then don't do this. You have to be the sort of person who thinks "Wow! £1 a day. I could make £2000 in passive income from this" (in truth passive income will usually decline after a while but you get the idea).

3) Writing articles of general interest doesn't work. It is possible to get a million hits on a blog and make no real money from it. You need highly targetted articles where you have a specific product and demographic in mind.

4) Write posts about things about people need, not what they may have a casual interest in. Casual interest does not cause people to buy stuff.

5) Time-sensitive articles are worthless. In the £1 a day example above, an article with a shelf-life of a month makes you £30, whereas an article valid in a year's time makes you £365. Write "evergreen" content.

6) Be aware that whatever you did to acquire the knowledge you acquired was probably a more profitable use of your time than writing about it. If there is no added value to you writing vs doing then carry on doing.

7) A rare plus point: if you keep doing this then your returns tend to increase exponentially through linking and increased PR, and various other web phenomena too complex to explain here. But you have to do this for years and treat it like a job to make serious money.

8) Monetize your blog with high-paying, highly targetted CPA offers. You just won't make enough money from general programs like adsense without an insane amount of traffic. Ideally, sell your own product.

Bigbase

Advanta, whilst I agree with majority of what you have said.. Id like to point a few things out.

I find taking a different approach to the blogging normally works for me.

For example I normally pick a topic that has low competition on google to write about. I then put together a quick wordpress site and put up about 5 posts along with a contact form and an about page.

I took a friend under my wings, and set up a site with them. Yesterday the site made the highest amount ever. Just over £50.
£28.60 from affiliate sales and £23 from google. But normally the site does average around £15-18 a day, with next to no work. (after the initial hard work).


You can make money on google adsense.
(earnings for today is low, normally picks up around 6-7pm when the internet is busier)

Normally the affiliates dont make as much as that on a day to day basis, but you do find 1 or 2 days of the week where you make a bit and it evens out for the days you dont make a lot.

The traffic was just over 200 uniques. You dont need a lot of traffic to make money. Just like you dont need a lot of content to make money. Quality over quantity.

I've told him to gradually aim to build up a small portfolio of 5 sites all earning £10 a day. Which would equate to around £1500 or so a month.

This is a very decent wage. You will initially spend long hours. But your sites work 24/7. So it does eventually pay you back.

PazDeLaHuertaFan

Bigbase wrote: »

Advanta, whilst I agree with majority of what you have said.. Id like to point a few things out.

I find taking a different approach to the blogging normally works for me.

For example I normally pick a topic that has low competition on google to write about. I then put together a quick wordpress site and put up about 5 posts along with a contact form and an about page.

I took a friend under my wings, and set up a site with them. Yesterday the site made the highest amount ever. Just over £50.
£28.60 from affiliate sales and £23 from google. But normally the site does average around £15-18 a day, with next to no work. (after the initial hard work).
(earnings for today is low, normally picks up around 6-7pm when the internet is busier)

Normally the affiliates dont make as much as that on a day to day basis, but you do find 1 or 2 days of the week where you make a bit and it evens out for the days you dont make a lot.

The traffic was just over 200 uniques. You dont need a lot of traffic to make money. Just like you dont need a lot of content to make money. Quality over quantity.

I've told him to gradually aim to build up a small portfolio of 5 sites all earning £10 a day. Which would equate to around £1500 or so a month.

This is a very decent wage. You will initially spend long hours. But your sites work 24/7. So it does eventually pay you back.

You make it sound easy.

NellyD

I am a blogger and have been for a while.

I love blogging and see it as a hobby and have made great friends in my community. You all make it sound so easy to capitalize on you blog but in my experience it really isn't.

I average around 10,000 page views per month, have a lot of subscribers and post content 3-4 times a week. I have made about £7 from google adsense in 6 months!

I am not blogging purely for monetary reasons and I do get quite a few PR freebies and review opportunities, but in terms of advertising and affiliates etc... I am a bit clueless. Any tips?

Emuchops

NellyD wrote: »

I am a blogger and have been for a while.

I love blogging and see it as a hobby and have made great friends in my community. You all make it sound so easy to capitalize on you blog but in my experience it really isn't.

I average around 10,000 page views per month, have a lot of subscribers and post content 3-4 times a week. I have made about £7 from google adsense in 6 months!

I am not blogging purely for monetary reasons and I do get quite a few PR freebies and review opportunities, but in terms of advertising and affiliates etc... I am a bit clueless. Any tips?

Same here-your stats sound quite impressive (to me anyway).
Also can someone do a basic explanation of 'affiliate links'? I don't think my blog is a potential vehicle for them (humour), but I'd still like to know about them.

Bigbase

PazDeLaHuertaFan, it is easy once you get the right niche. I can get a site built up in 2 hours. Adding the contact takes a little longer, but sometimes I pop over to fiverr.com and i'll get around 3 articles for $5. (around £3).


NellyD, maybe try out a few different add placements. I found that putting the advert directly in the post helps and convert very well. I can give you pointers if you like. With that much traffic, you will make a nice sum. - I guarantee it.