Interview : Blogging For Cash
The subject of my next interview in this series, Al, is a webmaster that has been playing around with websites for nearly 10 years. He has recently turned his focus to revenue in the last 18 months on his 12 sites and 3 blogs. The most popular of those is a technology blog called “Coolest Gadgets“. In addition to his posting on the Digital Point forums as dct, He is looking at launching another 2 blogs in the next few weeks and is continually looking for passionate writers.
First of all what is Blogging?
Blogging started of being individuals writing about their life and specific interests, a bit like an online journal. Now many blogs have evolved to no longer be about an individual but more about specific subjects, so instead of having the blog about Jon Smith and his Ferrari, we now see The Ferrari Blog.
How is Blogging for Revenue different?
In a lot of ways blogging for revenue isn’t any different, if you have an interesting blog you’ll get traffic and generally the more traffic you get the more revenue a site can generate. You can optimise a blog for income though, specific subjects, high cost hobbies etc.
What is the average amount of time before you might start to see a return?
You can start getting a small (few dollars a day) return within a month but I’d say it takes at least 6 months to get established, though some blogs can take off very quickly (and equally others never do)
Is it as easy as figuring your income by multiplying how much you make on your first blog by how many blogs or are their diminishing returns?
I’ve not found it to work like that. The best blogs have passionate writers and most people have only so many different subjects that they are passionate about. It’s also easier to generate revenue off some subjects than it is others. Traffic being equal making money off a blog about digital cameras is going to be easier than a blog on cloud formations
What is the best software/script to use?
For me it’s WordPress. It’s good out of the box (well zip) and is very easy to skin and customise.
What are the biggest negatives?
It can be very time consuming as you really need to post at least daily and on some days it can be hard to find something you want to write about.
What is the most common way or program to realize your revenue?
Google Adsense is the obvious choice but there are generally suitable affiliate programs for most subjects. Selling advertising space direct to appropriate companies can also be pretty lucrative and more stable than Adsense.
What do you see for the future of blogging for revenue?
It’s not easy money and is certainly not the easiest of ways to make money on the NET. But if you enjoy doing it the money can be a nice extra income.
What kind of money could someone expect in 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year?
That’s a bit of a how long is a piece of string question, if I launch a new blog I’d be happy if it was making 300USD/mth in the first 3, 1,000USD after 6 and 5,000 after a year
If you could give just one piece of advice, what would it be?
Write about something you enjoy, don’t even think about money at the beginning just write about a subject that you enjoy, monetise it later.