David Risley lit a small fire on Problogger over the weekend with this guest post. You can read the entire post yourself, but the quote that I think sums it up best is:
The simple truth is this: Poor bloggers spend most of their time writing blog posts. PROBloggers spend most of their time on what actually matters – business.
The thrust of his post is that a blog without a product to sell is not going to be successful at making money. As a general statement this is quite true. Bloggers that write simply write post after post and wait for ad clicks are usually the same bloggers that give up after a few months after failing to make any meaningful income.
Generalizations in Blogging Income Potential
The ensuing discussion in the comments had several contradictory examples of blogs that do very well without a product to sell. This is also quite true. These sites exist, but they are relatively uncommon and for the beginner blogger it is not an easy model to follow if making a good income is your goal.
But as with most things there is a balance to be struck. A blog with no product will make very little money, with some exceptions. And a product site without a blog will also struggle to attract traffic and sales, again with some exceptions.
For bloggers looking to generate revenue, a combination of product and blog content is the better approach.
Another thing to keep in mind is that product revenue can be stronger for low traffic blogs than advertising. This is very important for smaller niches. A niche with low traffic but a well engaged audience can convert to good product revenue, when the comparative ad revenue could be next to nothing. Even for larger niches with more potential audience it can take big traffic numbers before advertising starts to generate a good income.
Diversity of Revenue Streams
I won’t tell you that its impossible to build very successful blogs based on ad revenue alone. Obviously there are blogs out there generating strong incomes from advertising. The question you should ask yourself is whether you want to go to all that effort to build a business relying solely on ad revenue as an income stream?
The risk with this approach is that all your eggs are in one basket. If your best performing ad network or affiliate product changes their rules or disappears entirely, all that revenue goes with it. Similarly, if you’ve invested heavily in SEO to drive the sort of traffic volumes that it takes to do well from advertising, and Google changes their algorithm or even de-indexes you entirely (even accidentally) then you could also find your earnings dry up overnight.
Instead you can aim for a more diverse mix of revenue sources, combining ads, products, and services.
The right mix of these has some clear advantages, because one method’s pros balance out another method’s cons.
- Ads are easy to add to a blog and are 24/7, but earnings tend to go hand in hand with traffic volumes
- Products are a lot of work to create, but they are also 24/7 and the ongoing revenue stream is less effort in maintenance and customer service
- Services are lucrative, but don’t scale up well because you can only work so many hours
Best of all if one revenue stream is temporarily stalled (eg you take time off for health or family reasons) the others will keep going.
Creating Product Revenue
So with all of that in mind what can you do about it on your blog? If product creation interests you but you’re not sure what to do first then think about who your audience is and what problems they need solved.
Maybe you’ve already got a great idea but haven’t been able to execute it yet. Finding time is hard, instead you need to make time for the projects that will generate you the income you want. Its easy to think you need to blog every single day and wonder where you’ll find the time in the rest of your life to create your product. If that is how you feel then think about cutting back your blogging to every second day and use those alternate days to work on your products instead.
Or if you don’t have any solid ideas at the moment you can use free content to test out a variety of product ideas, with the dual benefit of building your mailing list for future marketing efforts.
Don’t be afraid to try out different models and test ideas. The days of everyone making big money just by writing a lot of blog posts and using advertising for revenue are behind us now. You can go down that road if you like, but there are better roads to consider if you ask me.
Image Credit: Flickr
About Paul Cunningham
Paul, excellent post. That is pretty much where I am right now–trying to make the time to write one or more e-books.
Thanks Hannah. You’re in a great niche for books/ebooks because so much of your blog content will be reusable. Good luck.
Brilliant post man, and I don’t say that often. You backed it up with sound theory. Far too little of that too.
Even Glen, who argued most vehemently against Dave, spends most of his time on business development and not on writing blog posts.
I appreciate your comment Nathan.
Great post!
Awesome post. I like the usage of visuals too. I’m currently working on developing different kinds of products across sites and seeing which ones work the best.
I think services work really well if you want to base your whole website around the service industry. Otherwise I feel they can be a struggle for someone like myself who is not quite so outgoing/sociable on a one-on-one client basis (I mean, I guess I’m still growing into my personality, haha…). I know I’ve made plenty of money with providing services, but they can cost more than just your time. They can sometimes cause emotional exhaustion with iffy clients and/or difficult too many requests. Also it’s not as steady an income stream as products/ads might provide…
That’s just my thought.
I read David’s post and really enjoyed the “in your face” delivery in getting the point across and I truly appreciate your view on the topic as well. I wrote up an ebook that I give away for list subscribers and even though it’s not bringing in any funds, it has motivated me to start writing up other ebooks and creating more product.
My niche is fairly small, but the facts of the issues in my niche hit home and can be a bit disturbing at times (managing bipolar relationships) but the feedback I receive is outstanding and readers are able to trust my experience after the free product is received.
Thanks again for your input and motivation!
-Rich
Personally I love the technique of using a free report to test out an ebook idea. Reasonably quick to produce, can be made up of 100% reused blog content, and builds the list at the same time.
Glad you found the post useful.
Great post, Paul. Like many of the previous comments left, I, too, am brain storming for some sort of e-product…either a guide, book, or membership site. Since I have no clue what to offer on a membership site, I will have to research this option as well. While I am pondering my product offering, I continue to build ‘the list’. For those just getting started with email auto-responders and list building, be sure to research the pop over form option. This type of form outperforms my normal sidebar form by a factor of 8.
Rick, yep popups tend to convert very well for most sites. Its worth testing out. Some audiences hate them though, but most bloggers are happy as long as they convert more people than they lose.
Great post. All of these posts lately across different problogging blogs have really been opening my eyes to the necessity of creating a product. In the life of a blog, when is the best time to do this? Would it be after a year, after two, or immediately?
Greg, you could start envisioning and planning your products from day 1. One of my tips would be to use your blog to test out various ideas and see which ones resonate best with your audience. Eventually you’ll find a hot button topic or problem that people will pay money to learn about or solve and the rest is just execution.
Another clear and insightful post. Think I first found you by Googling wordpress help and haven’t looked back!
Thanks Karalyn… ha, maybe I should pay more attention to the search phrases people are finding me with, I have been slack on writing WordPress tips lately :-)
If what David said is true, how come there are bloggers who
became rich but didn’t write about business?
He’s not saying you need to spend all your time writing about business, he’s saying you need to spent more time working *on* your business, not just writing blog posts all the time.
@poch He’s not saying you have to write about business. He’s saying you have to BE a business and market your product.
Most entrepreneurs out there don’t talk to their customers about business practices and their business model etc. Rather, they talk about their products.
@greg Oh. I see. duh. I misread the context. Thanks Greg.
@poch No problem man, glad I could help!
Hi,
I love to read your blog, I’m very new in blogging. I found out that it is not easy to blog. What I mean is to maintain the blog, to get audience and traffic to my blog. How can I know that my blog is doing ok. My blog is about books, short stories, childrens’ corner and recommendation (affiliate marketing – selling products).
so far, there’s not much traffic, because I know my blog contents lack of something, nothing unique..I think I need to learn more.
Hi Nina, it can take a while when you’re new. Stick with it, and keep trying to improve bit by bit. I’ll admit it took me a good few years to really start blogging well.
Without seeing your blog I can’t offer any specific advice, but if you’re trying to make money from reviews and affiliate marketing make sure you are adding lots of VALUE for your readers, and not just making everything an affiliate pitch. You need to build traffic and trust before you can start making decent affiliate revenues.
i totally agree…blogs don’t make money but what you do on the blog is what brings in the money.
same goes to having a website…it is what you do (providing a product or service) is what brings in the money…just waiting for clicks may work for big bloggers but that is low use of an asset…
this is the truth newbie bloggers must know.
thanks
Paul outstanding post, i am totally agree with your statement that blog poor bloggers only write content. Selling products on blog is 70% better then advertisements.
Interesting blog post. I always wonder what I could do for an online product. I’d figure I write a book and send it out for free. Something different, something not about niche building and SEO. Maybe something about my personal life that I could give advice on. Then if that first book becomes viral, my second book will make some amazing money.
Great post. And shocking as well for a new blogger like me.
I am trying to make a income from my blog or whatever online business I can excel. But as far I know for a online business to grow you need a good popularity. If you want people to buy your product you have to create a trust circle first. And writing blog posts are the ONLY way, i think to it.
So right now as a newbie blogger I am going to drive traffic to my site and then start thinking about business.But what ever you said is true, though it is difficult for many people.