Money Online

The stats
During the last couple of years, the number of blogs through out the blogosphere has been increasing exponentially (up to jully 2006, technorati was reporting 50 million of them) and this trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Furthermore, it appears that the main purpose of a large portion of these blogs is to generate income, especially those hosted on free hosting platforms that let you run adsense ads, like “blogger”. This resulted in lots of poor quality content, filled up with tons of ads that probably don’t generate enough money to buy a hamburger.

The cause
I do believe (and this is strictly my opinion) that one of factors that made blogs appear like mushrooms after the rain, is the widely advertised success of bloggers like Darren Rose (there are many others but I think he is the most representative figure for the “money making blogger” type).

It is a well known fact that since he has started the Problogger project, he has made a lot of effort to help bloggers make money online, by giving straight-forward advices and a lot of valuable information. What some may not have realized before actually starting to blog, is that due to his writing skills he makes things seem a little too easy to achieve, when actually it’s pretty darn hard. Although that particular blog is by far not his biggest earner, the word about it has spreaded like fire; seeing how much money he is making, and the fact that he is also revealing the methods to do it, in some people’s minds it triggered the idea that blogging is some kind of easy “recipe” of getting rich quick.

Nobody can deny that through his work, Darren has been an inspiration to many bloggers that actually made it. The thing is, that those people had the qualities to do it in the first place, and the advices given by people like him only helped them find their way to success. I am not going to talk about what are the qualities that bloggers need to have, since it has been discussed a lot lately and there is not much that I could add at this moment (you can read more about it on Dailly blog tips).

The failure
However, given the numbers provided by technorati regarding the total number of blogs, I can’t help but wonder how many “failures” are there. How many have you seen? Probably not many, simply because they lack exposure, and if you accidently stumble upon one, you don’t spend more that 5 seconds there. It would be interesting to have some statistics regarding the number of inactive blogs, to see how big the cemetery really is. If we substract the A-list, B-list, C-list and even D-list bloggers from the total number, there will still be enough “bloggers” to conquer a small country.

Conclusion
Keep in mind that no matter how easy it may seem, making money (online or offline) is never that simple.
Above all, blogging is about commitment, passion, knowledge, creativity, originality, skills, etc., so if you do it only for the money be prepared for a few weeks (or months - depending on how stubborn you are) of frustration and lack of social life.

I am in such a mood that I am even considering writing an article about “top reasons why you shouldn’t consider blogging if you want to make money online”… In fact, I may even do it, unless somebody else picks up the idea and does it first (should have kept my big mouth shut ).

Most self-employed people that I know complain that they are too busy and they never have enough time to achieve what they want. I was in the same boat when I started working on my own about 4-5 years ago (as a 3d artist, not as a blogger, but it is very similar). One by one, the days were passing by and I was realizing that I was doing very little comparing to what I had been aiming for. I was becoming more and more frustrated and I definitely need to do something about it.

Surprisingly, the way to fix this problem was simple and I was kicking myself for not doing it from the beginning.

First thing I did, was to keep some sort of a log or personal diary and write down what I had been doing every 60 minutes.
I decided to be very strict about it and wrote down each and every detail (like reading an email, answering a phone call, etc). I kept doing this for 3 days without reviewing it at all. Only after that I thought that it was time to analyze my activities. Believe me, I was very surprised to realize that I could have had a lot of spare time, but I was losing it piece by piece.

The “little” things:
A big share of my time was wasted on small things like watching the news, coffee brakes, cigarette brakes, surfing the net, unnecessary phone calls etc. I know that this may not seem too much but 5 minutes + 5 minutes + 5 minutes… and so on, equaled up to 2 and a half hours a day (besides the 30 mins- 1 hour lunch brake).

Furthermore, these “little things” were always interrupting me from working; from time to time to time… BAM! “You’ve got mail”, I couldn’t help reading it, and since I was there, why not check the stats to see if somebody has posted a comment on a forum where I had been promoting my renderings… and than back to work…. arghhh… where was I?

You need to stay focused on what you are doing and don’t stop until you finish it. Strictly referring to the blogging activity, it can take you an entire day to publish a post if you write a sentence, than stop to check the analytics software, than surf the net a little to see if John Chow has posted something during the last hour… than go back to write another 2-3 sentences, and so on. Just concentrate on finishing the damn article! (and forget about Darren Rose too until you are done with it )

Not setting priorities
This was another important issue that I was facing. I was either starting too many things at once, or starting with a specific activity that seemed more important, but was actually not as urgent as others. The results weren’t good for any of these situations. I wasn’t able to focus very well and not only I was always on the run, but the quality of the works that I was producing wasn’t as high as it could normally get.

Back to blogging again, if you have many ideas for your content, just note them down but don’t try to write more articles at once. It will take more time to finish them this way, and probably you won’t be able to dedicate 100% of your potential into each one.
Also, you need to concentrate on what needs to be done NOW! Finish this first, than start thinking about what you plan to do next, no matter if the second one would be so fantastic that it will hit the Digg frontpage. Probably it’s not the best example, but you get the idea.

Friends and family
Believe it or not your close friends and family members can actually “contribute” in a negative way to your success. No, I am not saying you should isolate yourself from them, but they must understand that what you are doing is actually a job, and you must treat it accordingly. I remember, when I first started working from home, that everybody was asking for small favors; and every phrase started with “Since you are staying at home, could you please…”.
You should learn to manage diplomatically these kind of situations; or in plain English, learn to say “no” politely, and eventually they will understand the importance of what you are doing and stop asking.

Schedule
Someone who tells you that he does not have time to do what they want to do is either a person who does not plan his activities or a person who fails to stick to his plans. Use a schedule and decide when you read your emails, when you are taking brakes, when you write your articles, when you promote your blog, etc.
Don’t waste your time on small things, don’t chat on messanger while you’re writing and don’t let others bother you.

It is nice to be your own boss… but if don’t ACT LIKE A BOSS you will fail!

Happy writing!

Like many other subjects that I have approached on this blog, the issue of “new visitors vs returning visitors” has been highly debated. I see people asking about this on forums quite often, so I thought it was time to share my opinion about it.

Don’t bark at the moon!
When you first decide to start blogging you must struggle to find ways to attract visitors and at the same time provide quality content to make them come back. The best idea would be to have a bunch of posts saved and publish one each day, while you concentrate only on promotion.
Every blog owner knows how difficult it is to make his presence noticed on the blogosphere. But what happens when you run out of pre-made posts?

When is it enough?
If you keep allocating too much time for promotion you will find yourself in a position where either you are not updating often or not producing quality content. If this happens, there is a high chance that you will lose your small group of loyal visitors that you have worked so hard to get. I am NOT saying that you should stop promoting your blog, but you must chose your promotion methods carefully, so they don’t take up too much of your time. I know people that spend around 4 hours a day, only to submit their blog to directories. This particular method may be a little useful at the beginning but you won’t get very far with it. Directories drive an insignificantly amount of traffic, and the link popularity that you gain from it may be useless if you are in a slightly competitive niche.

Your first priority must be to keep your returning visitors happy by providing them with the same quality content that made them return in the first place.
They can increase your popularity in various and natural ways (linking, submitting your articles to social media sites, word of mouth, pigeons, paper planes, etc) a lot more than you alone could. Even if they will not link to you after 2-3 visits, keep doing what you are doing and it will be impossible not hit the jackpot from time to time. Eventually people will not only post comments on your blog but also they will start to spread the word around.

Good things come to those who wait
“Loyal visitors don’t click on my ads!” - Yes, this is true. They are familiar with ad placement and within a period of time they develop a “syndrom” that many people like to call “ad blindness”. The best traffic for this purpose is coming from search engines, but since ranking in SEs is directly related to the number of anchored links, how will you be able to get it? This is why blogging is not for people that want to make money quickly…

It is almost like in the restaurant business: Build the restaurant, advertise a lot to get you started, but always try to improve your quality standards, don’t disappoint your clients, and the word will spread around.