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Blogging for Profit (With Legendary GOLD Follow Up Posts)

The Grind

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Teach me. You get 10% commission on first two jobs we bring in because of a blog.
Teach you?

1. Yeah pay me, I'll teach you, obviously you need it.

2. It takes a year for the results to come pal.
 
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Vigilante

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Greg R

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I can attest to blogging as being arduous road.

With my blog, I was able to go from 3 Million to 800K in Alexa rank in a year. It took a lot of grinding to get there. And that's not even an impressive feat.

It took a lot of hours and a lot of work just to get there; networking with top bloggers, writing, and running your own site... Basically another full time job.
 
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csalvato

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I love all the chatter in this thread about how it's so easy to start a blog and make money from it.

As someone who makes money from his blog every month with 0 effort, let me tell you, it's definitely not a matter of "just get started writing"! It took a long time to get to that point, and it was a hard road.

Even with my experience creating a successful, revenue generating blog, getting a larger organization to start a profitable blog has been incredibly difficult.

Like everything else in Entrepreneurship, be very wary when anyone tells you "how easy it is".

If you seriously want to go down the road to blogging, it will help your business for sure. Just don't expect any results for about 5 months after 24/7 effort. IF everything goes well, that is.
 
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Greg R

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I love all the chatter in this thread about how it's so easy to start a blog and make money from it.

As someone who makes money from his blog every month with 0 effort, let me tell you, it's definitely not a matter of "just get started to writing"! It took a long time to get to that point, and it was a hard road.

Even with my experience creating a successful, revenue generating blog, getting a larger organization to start a profitable blog has been incredibly difficult.

Like everything else in Entrepreneurship, be very wary when anyone tells you "how easy it is".

If you seriously want to go down the road to blogging, it will help your business for sure. Just don't expect any results for about 5 months after 24/7 effort. IF everything goes well, that is.
I second that.

I haven't touched my blog for a few months now. I'm still making money (not much) and traffic is diminishing.

It seems more practical these days to use it as a tool rather than it be your business.
 

Andy Black

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csalvato

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It seems more practical these days to use it as a tool rather than it be your business.

Traffic will diminish over time unless you keep re-engaging and keeping the content fresh. As you mentioned, it's a fact of the biz.

If you choose blogging to create a sustainable means acquire customers, you need to be ready to commit to creating great content for your blog for *years* to come. That means creating systems and processes for creating and publishing amazing content and getting really good at writing (or hiring writers, which is very difficult).

It really is a long term commitment if you want to see real results, imho.

That's why my blog has stalled. I was not prepared to write content in that niche for years to come. Just the thought of writing more content makes me anxious.

Something to consider before you "just get started writing".
 

Greg R

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Traffic will diminish over time unless you keep re-engaging and keeping the content fresh. As you mentioned, it's a fact of the biz.

If you choose blogging to create a sustainable means acquire customers, you need to be ready to commit to creating great content for your blog for *years* to come. That means creating systems and processes for creating and publishing amazing content and getting really good at writing (or hiring writers, which is very difficult).

It really is a long term commitment if you want to see real results, imho.

That's why my blog has stalled. I was not prepared to write content in that niche for years to come. Just the thought of writing more content makes me anxious.

Something to consider before you "just get started writing".
That is correct.

Since I have blogging experience I feel more comfortable making it part of my business.

If you didn't really know about blogging as a business owner, I would caution that person in taking this approach.

I am now proficient at it is a bearable degree. But for a newbie, time could be better spent doing something else unless it was part of your businesses main strategy.

Blogging is basically another form of copy writing.
 
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Andy Black

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I create content on a daily basis. Not on my blog, but in this forum. Let's consider that daily content creation/writing, akin to "blogging".

It's generated work for me because forum members refer me to business owners who aren't forum members.

It's not my main way of generating leads though. I just do it because I enjoy creating content and "can't not do it".

If I *had* to create content to grow my business, then it would take all the fun out of it for me.

I'm just not interested in having a blog or "content marketing strategy" where I have to write every day in order to grow my business.

I'd rather focus on making sales than writing content to make sales. I'd rather go the direct route.

For me that means using my skills to make clients happy and refer me to other people.

For me, that also means using my skills to generate leads for my own business.

Maybe I could do a bit more with my content and I'm leaving money on the table.

Except the whole idea of "blogging", "online funnels", and "building a list" bores the hell out of me.



Reminds me of "You don't need a website, you need sales."

Just replace "website" with "blog".

Sure, a blog can increase sales for a service business like mine, but it's just one of many ways HOW I can get sales.

Something I took away from "Ready, Fire, Aim" was that, until you're making $1 million per year revenue, your job is to find ONE sales strategy that works and scale it like a mofo.

I'll stick to finding ONE sales strategy that works best for me and that I enjoy, and continue writing for fun - and therapy.




EDIT:

Found it:
It looks like I misquoted it, but heck, finding your ONE initial sales strategy sounds good to me.



EDIT2: This is in response to comments about creating a blog for a business, not about creating a media empire and blogging for ad revenue etc - which was the point of Vigilante's opening post.
 
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Envision

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You guys are lost...

Good luck.

You're posts are incredibly annoying to read.

Post your blogs in this thread so we can see the genius that is TheGrind or gtfo

Edit: Let me clarify why they're annoying so you can work on it... They provide no value to the topic that Vigilante brought up.

Edit #2: And after going through your profile its quite obvious you have a negative mindset and rarely if ever post something constructive or worthwhile... Even you requesting a refund for your INSIDERS membership is pathetic and rude.. MJ was even working with you when he didnt have to.

What are you here for?
 
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redsfaithful

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It does depend on topic. I have had sites in the 250k-500k page views per month range make six figures a month.

And it takes a long time. Whenever I start a site I assume it will lose money for a year (I don't do anything except direct workflow and marketing, so there are costs for writing and design.)

Anyone that has an asset that is doing hundreds of thousands of page views a month can be making a living from it, assuming it's not a niche where it's very easy to get traffic (celebrity gossip or similar.)

It's almost always more lucrative to do something besides sell advertising.

I have a couple of sites where I use Adsense (I think I was the one that made the comment about webmaster welfare, I know I've used that phrase here before anyway), mostly sites that failed at what I was hoping to do, so I might as well slap something on it, but that's never the goal initially.
 

Insaint

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I'd love to see some of these blogs you speak of so I can look at how they market and monetize. (Not copying their site...copying their strategy/process.)

Take a look at https://www.buysellads.com/buy. You can see what small to (very) big sites charge for their advertising in various categories. Just keep in mind that is what they charge, not everything will sell at that rate. But it will give you an idea of the possibilities.

Most of the larger blogs/sites will have far more monetization options than just these ads. Find a few sites in your niche (or similar) and browse to see what they do or just contact them and ask for the advertising possibilities.
 

Vigilante

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You're posts are incredibly annoying to read.

Post your blogs in this thread so we can see the genius that is TheGrind or gtfo

Edit: Let me clarify why they're annoying so you can work on it... They provide no value to the topic that Vigilante brought up.

Edit #2: And after going through your profile its quite obvious you have a negative mindset and rarely if ever post something constructive or worthwhile... Even you requesting a refund for your INSIDERS membership is pathetic and rude.. MJ was even working with you when he didnt have to.

What are you here for?

I removed him from the thread.

Anyway... Back to the topic.
 
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Greg R

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I removed him from the thread.

Anyway... Back to the topic.
For all intent and purpose of this thread, lets stay on the topic of having the business be the blog rather than just using the blog as a tool for a business.

Maybe this deliberation can be interpreted as a vetting process for the modern day blog as a Fastlane business.

Does a blog adhere to CENTS??? I think so.

As discussed in the book, it does. However the book also states that this form of business has a low barrier to entry and is dependent on high traffic.

As we have already discussed, ad rev is one way to get good income via blog. We know this requires a large amount of regular traffic and a specific demographic.

What could be some other forms of revenue?

I already know the answer to this but for the sake of conversation let's shoot.
 

Charnell

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I started a very niche blog (not the one in my signature) back in mid-January that's been making progress in the last 6 months. A pretty consistent 150% increase in traffic every month, and an average earning of roughly $0.07/visitor.

After 4 months people were actually reaching out to me because they found the website from Google and wanted to advertise.

Is it changing my life? Hell no. If it maintains this trend until the end of the year? Maybe a little bit.

I started it on a whim to learn about SEO.

I still don't know anything about SEO.
 

ZCP

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He PM'd me. Had some pretty good thoughts. Not sure why he didn't want to share them here.
 
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Charnell

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As we have already discussed, ad rev is one way to get good income via blog. We know this requires a large amount of regular traffic and a specific demographic.

What could be some other forms of revenue?

I already know the answer to this but for the sake of conversation let's shoot.

Forms of revenue besides actually posting essays and articles?
 

Greg R

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Forms of revenue besides actually posting essays and articles?
Forms of revenue besides ads.

I will start.

Affiliate Marketing

Good idea? Maybe.

Best idea? Not really.

You have little control with Affiliate Marketing so most wouldn't consider it "Fastlane"
 

Greg R

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Forms of revenue besides ads.

Or we can pick apart blogging for the purpose of ad revenue. You guys choose.

Either way, as someone already mentioned, it should be treated like a business and should solve a problem or have a great USP.
 
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csalvato

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As we have already discussed, ad rev is one way to get good income via blog. We know this requires a large amount of regular traffic and a specific demographic.

What could be some other forms of revenue?
IMHO, Ad revenue is not a good way to monetize a blog or any other content website, unless you are dealing with millions of page views (e.g. ViralNova, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, etc.)

IMHO The options are:
  1. Drive blog traffic to your own product
  2. Drive blog traffic to your own service
  3. Drive blog traffic to a partner (e.g. you have a direct relationship with a college, and you send them leads in exchange for cash.)
  4. Drive blog traffic to an affiliate offer (e.g. you have a relationship with QuinStreet and you send them college leads, then they send them to the colleges. Then QuinStreet pay you.)
  5. Drive blog traffic to ads
Options 3 and 4 don't need to be in the education niche - that's just where I have operated in the past. Other similar examples would be things like generating insurance leads for an insurance affiliate company, or generating leads for a real estate wholesaler.
 

Charnell

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The absolute best blogging money maker: how to make money from a blog course.

A big part of the game is the "fame" and the influential portion that comes from the blog. Once you have the popularity, you alone can become the product that people pay for.

You have little control with Affiliate Marketing so most wouldn't consider it "Fastlane"
I like being an affiliate for one of the partners of my niche site. We talked for a while on Skype about it and negotiated a rate. Technically it's affiliate marketing, but that's a bit more personal than just going on Amazon and signing up.
 

Andy Black

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"The Internet is just one big lead generation machine." (I can't remember who said that)

Do all monetisation strategies for a blog involve generating leads for some business?
 
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csalvato

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A big part of the game is the "fame" and the influential portion that comes from the blog. Once you have the popularity, you alone can become the product that people pay for.
If it's a personal blog then yeah. That's not the only kind of blog, though.
 

Charnell

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If it's a personal blog then yeah. That's not the only kind of blog, though.
I guess you could replace the "Once you have the popularity, you alone..." with "Once the website has the popularity, the website alone...".
 

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