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

gb12345

graceunderfire's_signature wrote: »

This weeks favourite website is: whatcanidoforSPAM.co.uk

So your favourite website is one that has only been in existence for a few days and has no work on it.

You must really think we're stupid - it is obvious that you and your other id that you originally used to promote the site are connected to the site.

Chai_2

Google are heavily cracking down on the whole linking thing and are looking into more social validation. You would do better with things like an active twitter account, a fan page and most juicy of all...... Youtube videos!

G owns youtube so do some useful tutorials, reviews and so on, put the url in the descriptions box, write some keyword info in the title and the rest of the description and you will be in a far better position than the old school back linking could get you.

If you have talents surrounding making stuff or some good "how to" info you could really make something of it. Write a short book about your area of expertise and sell it on amazon (free to low cost to do).

Create tutorials using youtube, set them to private and host them on a page on your wordpress site which you charge to access simply using paypal and you send them the link to view the videos after they have paid.....

There are many ways.. just gotta get the thinking caps on. I may do a big post on a few ways some time this month. HTH

CaramelLatteKiss

I'm a lifestyle blogger, and have just started to see a teeny bit of income coming in from my blog.
I use SkimLinks, which means if I link to a product and someone clicks through and buys from that site, I get a few pence of the profit. It doesn't cost the buyer anymore, but I get a little extra pocket money.

If you can get it, reviews and sponsored content can be a good way of making a little extra.

freewheelinfranklin

quatrofromageo wrote: »

It's a shame, because your website can look like an absolute dog, but if it's got tons of links it will rank well. :mad:

This is not necessarily true any more especially in google. The "Big G" has, in the last 3-4 months, really started to clamp down on what it is calling 'unnatural links'. The days of blasting 20,000 junk links from blog comments and the like and achieving top rankings are well and truly gone.

It's all about fewer but higher quality links these days. Much harder to acquire of course.

freewheelinfranklin

daz501 wrote: »

To get the traffic needed many bloggers advocate pandering to the search engines by targeting search queries using the Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool (sign in first).

Just be aware that the Adwords tool is not always accurate ... it can report only 20 searches for a keyword when it's actually 100 times that figure. I have verified this with numerous tests.

LilyLarkin

I am a freelance journalist and I had a 6 month column in the Guardian on how to build and monetise a blog, if it's of any use to anyone. The column is finished now but you can still access all the (free) resources that were made available.

As I am a relatively new poster on this site so I can't link it directly, but if you type "how to build a profitable blog guardian" into Google you will find the column

In this first article of the column, there is a link at the bottom to bloggingcasestudy dot com - here there is vast amounts of information to get through on all aspects of blog development, from choosing a niche and design, to creating a product to sell, to writing post titles etc.

New bloggers will find just about everything they need to know, and more experienced bloggers might find some extra tricks later on in the column.

Hope this is of help!

My own blog that was the subject of the column, I have to admit I lost my mojo for. But I have another long-standing blog in a very specific niche that I revamped after I finished this column, and this blog growing an audience now at a very steady rate and I think it is on the brink of being able to be monetised.

I do it for the love of it and the passion for my subject, so to be earning from it will be a huge bonus.

quinechinoise

LilyLarkin wrote: »

I am a freelance journalist and I had a 6 month column in the Guardian on how to build and monetise a blog, if it's of any use to anyone. The column is finished now but you can still access all the (free) resources that were made available.

That must have been an interesting commission! I confess that I'm not really an avid Guardian reader. But I shall take a look at your articles, out of sheer nosiness!

To help others, here are the direct links that you didn't post.
Column series at The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/series/how-to-build-a-profitable-blog
About the project: http://bloggingcasestudy.com/about/

MacGirl80

Sorry if this is a potentially repetitive or silly question, but does the money come from selling ad space on your blog?
thanks

quinechinoise

MacGirl80 wrote: »

Sorry if this is a potentially repetitive or silly question, but does the money come from selling ad space on your blog?
thanks

There are no silly questions; only silly answers.

Bloggers can have many different sources of income. Some do indeed sell ad space on their blogs. Others might be blogging to promote their own businesses and/or selling products via their blogs. Some bloggers get paid to write about specific topics or products. If you brainstorm, I'm sure you can come up with more potential ideas. Those are just some of the common ones, off the top of my head.

Put another way, a blog is simply a website in a specific format. Anything that an "ordinary" website does, a blog could do too. It is entirely possible to use a CMS designed for blogging to create a simple static website. It would be defeating the purpose of choosing a blogging CMS but it would be possible.

LilyLarkin

quinechinoise wrote: »

That must have been an interesting commission! I confess that I'm not really an avid Guardian reader. But I shall take a look at your articles, out of sheer nosiness!

To help others, here are the direct links that you didn't post.
Column series at The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/series/how-to-build-a-profitable-blog
About the project: http://bloggingcasestudy.com/about/

Thanks for posting the links. Those are they And yes, very interesting commission, and also interested to hear what you think about it!