I post a lot to my own blog and I tend to blogwalk and post on other blogs as a means of attracting some traffic to my humble little abode. I have often wondered what it takes to make serious money from blogging and having done a little research now I know.
Now that I know it is a little sad really because I am so far from making a really decent living from blogging that I do not see myself quitting my current job any time soon to take up full-time blogging.
Technorati released its 2008 State of the Blogosphere report last week and it states that there are some 900,000 blog posts made each day worldwide. I know where 3 -5 of those blog posts come from. But here's the catch. To be making a really decent living off of full-time blogging you need to be generating some 100,000 or more unique visitors per month. This will earn you on average USD 75,000 per year. This means that full-time blogging is not such a bad gig if you can make it work for you.
The biggest problem for me as I see it is the 100,000 unique visitors per month. I have about 3,000 unique visitors per month. So, I am guessing this means I need to find another 97,000 or so to be making it worthwhile.
It would be nice to have a blog that is as popular as the blog of Perez Hilton who is reportedly seeing more than USD110,000 roll into the coffers each month! I hope he appreciates my visits! I reckon I would start working part-time if my blog was able to provide about AUD 5,000 per month. I wonder how the tax works? I am going to have to do a little research on that part of the deal.
I guess if I want to boost my readership I need to start or get involved in some "flame wars" or post some viral videos, or start getting really into Facebook, Friendster, and other social networking devices. I know the social networking thing is likely to work because I am getting a few requests to become people's friend on Facebook. I only started the Facebook account because I needed to get info about my upcoming 21st Hurlstone Agricultural High School Reunion.
Once you become a full-time blogger and your income is dependent on your blog, I would imagine this ups the ante and the pressure to produce more and more quality blog posts to keep the unique visitors rolling in and to keep me rolling in the cash.
Some thoughts to ponder.
11 comments:
I'm with you on this.
100 thousand visitors IS a lot. If I see my stat in September, I've got about 7 thousand visits, but only less than 10% is returning visitors. The rest is probably just did some blog walking and stumbled upon my blog by mistake.
So although I dream of making money out of my blog, I don't see it happen anytime soon. Hix...
"To be making a really decent living off of full-time blogging you need to be generating some 100,000 or more unique visitors per month. This will earn you on average USD 75,000 per year. This means that full-time blogging is not such a bad gig if you can make it work for you."
It's dependent on the topic of your blog and the location of the visitors to a large extent. If the topic has an obvious commmercial angle, like if you blog about gadgets and gizmos, and if the bulk of your readership if located in north America, then you can certainly make good money on 100,000 uniques a month, if you aren't shy about monetising... But if your'e blogging about odds and ends in an obscure country in se asia and much of the traffic comes from se asia then your're going to have to lower your expectations money wise by a lot.
FW...
Seems a lot to me too! So, it will remain a little elusive for me in the near term.
When combined with the insights of Patung (he knows more on these things than I do) it seems that it is just not the 100K in unique visitors but the topics and things that you write about plus where those unique visitors are.
Patung...
Thanks for the insights. Without divulging facts and figures, do you make any money off of IM?
Sex sells.
I am renaming my blog "The Polar Bear Sex life......"
Stuff my day job.....
PB...
I figure that it does, the sex sells thing that is. I note that gossip and particularly celebrity gossip does pretty well too.
Think about it, if Perez Hilton is turning over blog revenue of 110K a month then we are talking about 1.1 million a year.
As I said, blogging can be a good gig if you can make it work for you.
By the way, porn sells pretty well too. I guess this means that your renamed blog will include pictures?
Perhaps you can do what Steve Pavlina does - he blogs motivational stuff based on his own life experiences ;)
IM makes a little money but it is piddling. In cpm terms ($ per thousand page views) it is in single figures. I don't do it for the money, lol.
As for sex, it's actually a bit of hard sell, conversion rates in adult are often just 1 in 1000, makes sense if you think about it, there's tons of free stuff out there and your'e asking people to PAY....Conversion rates for non-adult can be as good as 1 in 100 or maybe even better.
Therry...
My life is just not that motivational :D
Patung...
Once again, thanks for the insights. As I have said, and often, I just do not know this stuff. So, thanks.
Rob probably you never watch E! (girly TV, I know), but now I see more 'experts' who are asked to give some insights are titled "celebrity bloggers". Hmmm maybe I should write about Gerard Butler, Ewan McGregor and Sean Connery?
FW...
I do watch sometimes. I am married and there are times the missus is in control of the remote control :D
Yeah, I figured that I might have to do something similar, become a quasi-expert in something or perhaps "shop" my expertise around.
Just one appearance as an expert should get the ball rolling on my quest for 100K unique visitors.
kalau sudah bisa generating money dari blog, mungkin pak Rob sudah buka kantor media sendiri nih
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