There are literally millions of people who blog. Most of these are personal bloggers who use their blogs as a platform to provide updates about their lives to friends and family. It’s no surprise that blogging is huge. It’s fun to keep track of friends and family.
After people have been blogging for a while, they start to hear that it’s possible to make money blogging. This usually leads them to articles like this one.
Types Of Blogs That Make Money
The blogs that make the most money are almost always blogs that share advice. News blogs also make money but it’s significantly harder to make money with a blog that provides news. Personal blogs rarely make a lot of money. In order to make a lot of money, your blog needs to line up with information that a lot of people are looking for.
Advice Blogs That Make A Lot Of Money
StevePavlina.com – Personal Development
ProBlogger.net – Blogging
Digital Photography School – Digital Photography
CopyBlogger.com – Copywriting
Lifehacker – Productivity
Get Rich Slowly – Personal Finance
There are of course thousands upon thousands of blogs that make a lot of money. Right here in The Keyword Academy community we have hundreds of people who are making great income from their blogs. Some of them are blogging daily and others are simply providing information on blogs that are rarely updated. It’s very possible to use either approach once you understand the concepts that lead to making money.
How To Get Paid To Blog
Step 1 in this process is starting a blog that lines up with information that people are trying to find. There are a lot of people who hope that they can make money with their personal blogs. However, massive amounts of people aren’t going to be interested in seeing pictures of your kids or in hearing about your latest trip. You would be a lot more likely to generate interest and traffic if you provided tips about your profession and/or hobbies.
The technical side of getting a blog going shouldn’t be too difficult for people that already have personal blogs. The setup will be virtually identical, it’s the topic that will be different.
How To Choose A Topic
Choosing a topic really isn’t that difficult. I personally like using an online tool to determine the size of the audience that’s looking for information. The tool shows you how many people are searching for things in Google. By entering ‘digital photography’ into the tool, I can see how many people are searching for it each month. By comparing the results against those from other topics, I can get an idea of how large the audiences for each are.
How To Develop A Popular Blog
There are two keys to developing a popular blog. The first is bringing traffic to the blog and the second is providing solid information that people look for. The Keyword Academy is full of information on developing traffic. We help people to learn to bring steady traffic from Google.
How To Make Money With Your Blog
Once you have a blog that gets a lot of traffic, it’s pretty easy to make money. Some people use advertising programs like Google Adsense and others sell their own ads. Adsense is by far the easiest way to make money and it can be used to make money on most blogs that get traffic.
Further down the road you can consider using more advanced forms of making money like affiliate marketing (selling the products of other people and companies) and even selling your own products. This of course is optional and is something that you should only consider when you are already producing income with your blog.
As you can probably see, there is quite a bit to learn. We have already created a lot of material here at The Keyword Academy that can help. There are a lot of people who have used that material to get started and have already been producing significant incomes. It takes some time to learn but it’s honestly a great way to make money.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
My Favorite Online Business Models
On Monday when I posted about preparing to pursue internet marketing full-time, I got a series of questions about what my favorite business model is. I started to reply to a couple of the comments, but before I got very far I realized it’s not a very easy question to answer.
I’m kind of a business junkie anyway so asking me to name my favorite business model is like asking a chubby person to name his favorite flavor of ice cream. It’s not easily done.
I’d rather not tell you my favorite business models, and give the impression that my preferences define what is best for you. I think I’d do you a favor by telling you how I think you should choose a business model for yourself. The best way to do that is probably to look at the elements of business models you see used on this site, and pick which of them would be the best fit for your personality.
At the core of every business is the single question: Which of its core activities are most closely related to making money? Let’s answer that question in terms of business models you’re seeing on this site. You’ve seen us talk about Niche SEO, Flagship Blogging, BANS (via Vic), and you’ve also seen Court offer his own personal coaching services.
Activities Most Closely Tied to Income:
Niche Site Creation:
- Keyword Research and Selection: the ability to consistently find new niches to target is key to success and income with this strategy.
- Link Building: Niche SEO is all about Google traffic, and Google traffic is all about quality content and links.
*I’m no authority on BANS, but the reading I’ve done on Vic’s site tells me that it’s all about keyword selection and links, just like niche SEO.
Flagship Blogging:
- Content Creation: as I’ve been part of Famevilla Internet Marketing School I’ve seen his name and audience explode as he has found something he can teach (with authority) that solves a real problem for a lot of people (actually achieving rankings on Google and making money off those rankings). If you can write content that achieves the same thing, you’re on your way to doing what Court (and many others) have done.
- Networking: when this blog was new, I remember my mentor commenting on 50 or 60 blogs per day, sending emails introducing himself to people, and making friends like crazy. At the time I didn’t get why he was doing it. Now it’s pretty obvious right? Flagship Blogging is about people knowing who you are.
Being known and having problem-solving content will bring links, traffic, and subscribers, and income.
Coaching and Consulting:
- Flagship Blogging: Yes it sounds odd, but the entire Flagship Blogging model fits right inside the Coaching and Consulting Model. At least it should in my opinion. I used to work for a coaching company that sells its services to people without creating a relationship of familiarity and trust first. My take is that this sets up the client to always doubt what is being taught. If you successfully create a Flagship Blog first, you’ll position yourself to give your personal clients real value because they’re learning from someone they know and trust.
- Interacting with Clients: my mentor spends a few hours each week on the phone with our personal clients. He really enjoys it (mostly because we’ve been lucky to work with nothing but high caliber, hard-working people). He also responds to emails answering our students’ questions. Interacting with our students via phone and email are the core of the model.
Which Of These Activities Appeal Most To You?
Whichever model you pursue, you need to understand that successful businesses are highly repetitive in nature. You should pursue the business whose core activities best fit your personality and preferences. If you can’t see yourself performing these activities day in and day out for an extended period, without becoming miserable, then that model isn’t for you.
My mentor has been coaching people one-on-one for years now and he really enjoys teaching and building relationships with his students. I’ve been doing keyword research and building links for over two years now, and I’m far from sick of it. That’s why these models work for me and for my mentor.
Which models and activities appeal to you and why?
I’m kind of a business junkie anyway so asking me to name my favorite business model is like asking a chubby person to name his favorite flavor of ice cream. It’s not easily done.
I’d rather not tell you my favorite business models, and give the impression that my preferences define what is best for you. I think I’d do you a favor by telling you how I think you should choose a business model for yourself. The best way to do that is probably to look at the elements of business models you see used on this site, and pick which of them would be the best fit for your personality.
At the core of every business is the single question: Which of its core activities are most closely related to making money? Let’s answer that question in terms of business models you’re seeing on this site. You’ve seen us talk about Niche SEO, Flagship Blogging, BANS (via Vic), and you’ve also seen Court offer his own personal coaching services.
Activities Most Closely Tied to Income:
Niche Site Creation:
- Keyword Research and Selection: the ability to consistently find new niches to target is key to success and income with this strategy.
- Link Building: Niche SEO is all about Google traffic, and Google traffic is all about quality content and links.
*I’m no authority on BANS, but the reading I’ve done on Vic’s site tells me that it’s all about keyword selection and links, just like niche SEO.
Flagship Blogging:
- Content Creation: as I’ve been part of Famevilla Internet Marketing School I’ve seen his name and audience explode as he has found something he can teach (with authority) that solves a real problem for a lot of people (actually achieving rankings on Google and making money off those rankings). If you can write content that achieves the same thing, you’re on your way to doing what Court (and many others) have done.
- Networking: when this blog was new, I remember my mentor commenting on 50 or 60 blogs per day, sending emails introducing himself to people, and making friends like crazy. At the time I didn’t get why he was doing it. Now it’s pretty obvious right? Flagship Blogging is about people knowing who you are.
Being known and having problem-solving content will bring links, traffic, and subscribers, and income.
Coaching and Consulting:
- Flagship Blogging: Yes it sounds odd, but the entire Flagship Blogging model fits right inside the Coaching and Consulting Model. At least it should in my opinion. I used to work for a coaching company that sells its services to people without creating a relationship of familiarity and trust first. My take is that this sets up the client to always doubt what is being taught. If you successfully create a Flagship Blog first, you’ll position yourself to give your personal clients real value because they’re learning from someone they know and trust.
- Interacting with Clients: my mentor spends a few hours each week on the phone with our personal clients. He really enjoys it (mostly because we’ve been lucky to work with nothing but high caliber, hard-working people). He also responds to emails answering our students’ questions. Interacting with our students via phone and email are the core of the model.
Which Of These Activities Appeal Most To You?
Whichever model you pursue, you need to understand that successful businesses are highly repetitive in nature. You should pursue the business whose core activities best fit your personality and preferences. If you can’t see yourself performing these activities day in and day out for an extended period, without becoming miserable, then that model isn’t for you.
My mentor has been coaching people one-on-one for years now and he really enjoys teaching and building relationships with his students. I’ve been doing keyword research and building links for over two years now, and I’m far from sick of it. That’s why these models work for me and for my mentor.
Which models and activities appeal to you and why?
5 Internet Marketing Strategies That Don’t Work
1. Image Search –> Programes that produces income. This strategy works great if you want to boost your ego, because it can be extremely effective for getting traffic(visitors). However, if you care about marketing or earning cash online, image-search does almost nothing for you. I challenge anyone to take a stream of image searchers and to try to get them to act. Getting them to click ads is extremely difficult and getting them to make a purchase is even more difficult.
2. Personal Blogging –> Adsense. The bottom line is that people don’t really care about bloggers. They are only interested in what they will benefit from your blog. If you are trying to establish a blog while hoping that people are getting interested in YOU, you have a long road ahead of you. People care about what you can provide to them - they care about how you can solve their problems.
3. Social traffic –> Adsense. It doesn’t take degree from MIT to figure this one out. Social traffic rarely clicks ads of any kind. This happens because more often than not, these individuals are looking for entertainment. They also have a solid understanding of what ads are, and what they can expect to see if they click one. You can expect social traffic to click on an ad less than 0.25% of the time they hit one of your pages. That means you’ll need 400 social visitors to produce one click IF you’re lucky
4. Social traffic –> Sales. Social traffic is also extremely difficult to sell to. Again, these people are looking for entertainment and honestly, are often information addicts. However, it is often possible to get them to subscribe to a feed and then convince them to make a purchase later.
5. PPC –> Adsense. People were making a killing with ‘Adsense Artbitrage’ a few short years ago. However, this is almost impossible to do in today’s climate. Google’s smart-pricing made this a LOT harder. There are still people claiming that it can be done, but as you might guess, these people are almost always trying to sell you a product that tells you how to do it.
2. Personal Blogging –> Adsense. The bottom line is that people don’t really care about bloggers. They are only interested in what they will benefit from your blog. If you are trying to establish a blog while hoping that people are getting interested in YOU, you have a long road ahead of you. People care about what you can provide to them - they care about how you can solve their problems.
3. Social traffic –> Adsense. It doesn’t take degree from MIT to figure this one out. Social traffic rarely clicks ads of any kind. This happens because more often than not, these individuals are looking for entertainment. They also have a solid understanding of what ads are, and what they can expect to see if they click one. You can expect social traffic to click on an ad less than 0.25% of the time they hit one of your pages. That means you’ll need 400 social visitors to produce one click IF you’re lucky
4. Social traffic –> Sales. Social traffic is also extremely difficult to sell to. Again, these people are looking for entertainment and honestly, are often information addicts. However, it is often possible to get them to subscribe to a feed and then convince them to make a purchase later.
5. PPC –> Adsense. People were making a killing with ‘Adsense Artbitrage’ a few short years ago. However, this is almost impossible to do in today’s climate. Google’s smart-pricing made this a LOT harder. There are still people claiming that it can be done, but as you might guess, these people are almost always trying to sell you a product that tells you how to do it.
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