6 figure blogging 1

Six Figure Blogging

© 2005 Andy Wibbels and Darren Rowse. All Rights Reserved. http://www.sixfigureblogging.com/ v 1.0

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Six Figure Blogging Call 1 Transcript Editor’s notes: These transcripts have been edited for accuracy and clarity. You

will notice differences between these transcripts and the audio recordings.

Intro and Overview

Andy: Welcome to our first call, for Six Figure Blogging. It’s our pilot. It’s our

first. If it was a ship, we would smash a champagne bottle against it! Thank you

so much everybody for calling in today. We have sixty-seven people on the phone.

And from all over the world. I know we’ve got people from Singapore, Australia,

South America, Europe, North America so this is truly an international effort.

Darren, I am floored. I am absolutely floored!

Darren: Tonight are we going to be talking about the why and how, blogs are

good for making money online. We are going to start off with some why’s I think

Andy, is that right?

Andy: Yes, this is our overview for today, just so that you all get the framework

for what we’re doing, today’s first part is how blogs make you money, and then

the why. Then we’re going to be talking about learning from the existing

probloggers and networks that are out there and we’re going to wind up with the

preview of next week as well as some field work for people to think about or to

even do over the next week. So take it away, Darren.

Why Blogs Make Money Online

Darren: Excellent. We’re going to start with why blogs are good for making

money online. I want to start by saying that blogs are not the only way to make

money. Just looking at the variety of people that have signed up for this course, a

lot of you have already experimented with making money through affiliate

marketing, through designing websites, through consulting, which is fantastic.

We don’t want to build up blogs as the answer to every question that you might

have for making money. A lot of people get trapped into that and build blogging

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to be something that it is not. Having said that, blogs really do, in my mind, are

ideal for making money online in a variety of ways.

Probably the main thing that I love about them is that they are very flexible, very

adaptable, and they are very easy to get into. They are a type of thing that can

grow with you. For me, that makes it ideal for someone who knew nothing about

the internet, and nothing about putting up a website, to actually be able to start a

business in quite an easy, simple way at first, in a free way is fantastic.

The other thing that is great about blogs is that they rank well in search engines.

Great. So really, blogs rank so well in search engines for a variety of reasons. Just

by the fact that they update new content on a daily or on a weekly basis. Search

engines love regularly updating and changing pages. The fact that they have a site

structure where there is a category is ideal for search engines as well. I guess in a

sense, each category on your blog becomes a separate blog, a separate page in of

itself, which is something that search engines react really well to. Blogs interlink

within a blog, which again, is another search engine optimization strategy that a

lot of the other top sites try to build it into their sites but blogs do it

automatically.

Andy: Along with a lot of traditional websites sort of shy away from being

interlinked.

Darren: That’s right. And blogs naturally link between themselves very well.

They are interactive and they attract back readers and that sort of technology

actually builds natural relevant links between websites, which is probably the

main factor about building search engine traffic. So they really work well with

search engines. As I said, they’re highly flexible and adaptable; they’re easy to set

up.

What I love about them is that the overhead that I have as a professional blogger

is very low. I have friends, who are in business, who started up businesses and

had to outlay lots of money up front to set up a business. All I had to outlay was

my time. I already had a computer. I already had internet access. I paid a little bit

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for some hosting, I paid a little bit for some design, but the overhead’s very little.

I probably paid about two or thee thousand dollars a year in overheads to bring in

a hundred times that in terms of income. So my friends are all very jealous of me

in that regard.

I think also another beauty of blogs is that they also lend themselves very well to

niches and we’re going to be talking about niches next week. I think that is

another reason that they actually do quite well in a commercial space. We know

that in business these days that small is good and tight niches and tight focuses

on topics and on expertise is doing really doing well in the wider business world

at the moment and so blogs are great in those terms. Any other factors that

you’ve come up with Andy?

Andy: I think you covered most of it, just to reiterate the tight focus and the

niche is the superstar part of it all, that the content is all geared towards a certain

focused niche instead of having this broad website that a niche would that is

focused on the website and is content focused, it really helps to grab those search

engine results and get readers interested in that particular hyper focused niche.

Darren: Yes, the other thing I would say is that blogs are bringing in and

creating community along with loyalty, brand loyalty and the fact that they do

have comments that there are a variety of tools that build community on a site.

That is amazing community to build on blogs and that is a great basis for building

an income stream as well as you build a loyal readership. There are many reasons

that blogs are suited to making money. Having said that, there are some factors

that you want to work on. It’s not just as easy as that. For instance, ranking in

search engines is not just a matter of having a blog, you can do a lot of things to

increase the chances of that which we will be covering in six weeks in our metrics

section.

Andy: Now do you want to talk about the voice that blogs are written in and that

seems to really attract readers that it is a pretty fresh, human voice in exception

to traditional websites?

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Darren: Yes, again, that it is probably a trend in large business as well that

people are actually wanting to know the people who make the products. I know in

Australia, at the moment, there a lot of businesses that are doing very well are

around personalities and around people rather than about these big anonymous

machines that sits in a big gray building and you feel like you’re in an institution.

People actually want something more personal. They go to the local shops a little

bit more here in Australia now because they want to know the person who’s

making their coffee. So there is that sort of sense in blogs as well, that people can

actually know the one who is coming up with this content. It’s not just some

nameless machine that is spitting out content. It’s actually a real person. I think

that is something that loads itself to blogging very well as well. Do you want to

move onto how blogs make money Andy?

Andy: Yes, I think we covered the whys pretty.

How Blogs Make Money

Darren: Excellent. Really, what the meat of this call is about today is looking at

introducing some of the ways people are actually using blogs to make money. I

want to run through about eleven income steams that you might want to consider

adding to your blog.

One of the traps that I see with a lot of blogs is that they discover AdSense and

they never look wider than AdSense. I’ve discovered a whole group of bloggers

the other day who didn’t know anything about affiliates marketing for instance.

I’m going to run you through eleven different types of things that may suit your

blogs better then AdSense. That fact is that AdSense isn’t the answer to every blog

and really, you want to combine some of these factors together depending upon

the goals of your blogs, depending on your traffic levels and a number other

factors which we’ll examine at the end of this sort of little states.

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Income Stream #1: Blogads

Darren: The first one I want to look at is Blogads. If you go to

http://www.blogads.com, you’ll see there, a system of putting ads on your blogs

that a lot of bloggers are using quite successfully. I want to use one of my blogs as

an example here. If you go to digitalphotographyblog.com, that’s one of my older

blogs that’s on digital cameras and you’ll see that on that blog, it will lead you

through to another domain that is just easy to tell you the Digital Photography

Blog name. You look on that, on the right hand side there, in the side bar, you’ll

see at the top of the right hand side bar, a search tool and underneath that, you’ll

see a AdSense ad, and underneath that you’ll see five Blogads.

They’ve all got the same size, the picture on them, and the first one. The first one,

I’m seeing is looking to buy a camera is making money from digital photography.

There are five of them there. They are what are called Blogads. If you go to

bottom of those Blogads, it’s the fifth one down, you’ll a little thing that say, “see

your message here.” If you click on that, it will take you to Blogads. Blogads is a

system that is designed by Henry Copeland. A lot of political bloggers

traditionally use Blogads. I was looking at the Daily Kos, the other day. He’s

charging five thousand dollars per week for his premium position Blogads. Five

thousand a week and he has a number of difference spots in his blog that you can

buy, but that is the premium one. Obviously, some people are making some

serious bucks out of Blogads. They lend themselves very well to political blogs.

Traditionally that is where they are strong. If you can see the photography one,

they are starting to branch out unto other niches. There are some creative

networking things that bloggers are together on a particular topic.

Andy: And to expand on that, if youy take into account a particular blog, again, it

is a very tight focused niche whether it’s a, in the US whether it is Conservative,

or very Liberal or Progressive, the blogs have focused content for that particular

point of view, with people writing with those point of view so people with that

point of view are going to go to those blogs so the ads are working really well

http://www.blogads.com/

http://www.digitalphotographyblog.com/

http://weblog.blogads.com/

http://www.dailykos.com/

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because the ads are aligned to that point of view. So you can grab that from

politics just like any other niche or brand that you can think of.

Darren: That’s right, and the beauty of Blogads is that you have the ability to

reject or accept ads. You have total control over which ads appear on your site.

You also have complete control over setting the price that people pay for your ad

which is something that AdSense, for example, doesn’t offer you. Blogads, the

downside, is that you have less ability to change the design of the ads. You have

little control over that. For instance, the size of the ads is almost out of your

control. So there are some ups and down to Blogads as on top of that.

Income Stream #2: Google AdSense

Darren: The second I want to look at is AdSense itself. AdSense is ideal for niche

topics as Blogads is. You’ll see in my digital photography that I’ve got a number of

different AdSense positions particularly on individual pages. If you open them

up, you’ll see a variety of them. We’ll be talking about AdSense in two weeks so

we’re not going to have views at this point but just want to say that there’s some

ups but there’re some also downs about AdSense. You probably would not want

to use AdSense on a site that is a political site or a religious site or a site where

you’re arguing about one side of a case.

How AdSense Works

The beauty of AdSense is that it is contextualized advertising. It looks at what is

on your page and then it serves ads according to that. Unfortunately, it’s a

computer that is looking at your page and that computer doesn’t have the ability

to tell what the tone of your piece is, it doesn’t have the ability to tell whether

you’re arguing for or against something. You can actually end up with ads that are

quite opposite of what you’re all about. So if you’re passionate about what your

writing and there’s a risk that it may misinterpreting what your writing, it may

not be the right thing for you. I’ve seen a number of different bloggers who got

frustrated with it. It was serving quite inappropriate ads to their sites. The beauty

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of AdSense is that it is very adaptable in terms of design. There are a variety of

different sizes. You can change the colors, you can change the positioning quite a

bit. Those small changes can impact your blog quite a bit. So AdSense is very

quite popular. It’s how I make most of my money. Increasingly, blogs is going for

that. So we’ll spend a whole week on that. You want to add anything to that

Andy?

Andy: Yes, I just think that going with the whole idea that the Google ads can’t

really tell your point of view. I’ve seen that with some clients who are doing

either, like one was doing ADHD work and was a counselor with people who are

ADD and was finding that the ads being picked up were for herbal remedies for

this which aren’t considered medically appropriate. So the ads that Google might

choose for your content, may not be for the tone of your blog.

Darren: That’s right. There are other contextual advertising systems out there

which we’ll mention in future weeks. For instance Yahoo! is bringing in a very

similar system at the moment and they’ll be testing that.

Income Stream #3: AdBrite

Darren: The third one I want to talk about today is, AdBrite.com and text ad

systems. Again, if you look, at my digital photography site and go down the left

hand menu, this time, you’ll see a Shutterfly button. Under that Shutterfly

button, there’s a variety of different text ads, if you go to the bottom of those

you’ll see ‘text ads for eighty cents a day.’ Click on that, it will take you to a system

call AdBrite. AdBrite is, in some ways similar to Blogads.com because it allows

you to set up a price, it allows you to set a way you want to put these ads on your

page. It allows you to accept or reject ads from advertisers who are likely to be on

your site. The text ads, generally you won’t get as much for these ads but they can

actually be quite lucrative as well depending upon the way you’ve positioned

them on your site.

http://adbrite.com/

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Andy: Darren, are there traffic requirements that you have to prove before you

can be in these two programs?

Darren: No, I don’t think so. On some of the others that I’ll talk about there are,

but the beauty of them is that, especially with AdSense, AdSense allows you to

put ads on your site when you’re very small. You only got a few pages of content

and very small traffic. You do have to have some, but not much.

Participant: Darren, could you give us the site again. What I’m seeing, what I

put up is not what you’re describing.

Darren: OK, digitalphotographyblog.com.

Income Stream #4: Impression-Based Ads

Darren: Number four we’ll look at is impression based ads. Impression based

ads make money, not by people clicking on your ads and not by what you set the

AdBrite ads at but by having people look at your ad by the page impression, by

the page views that you have. There are systems like Fast Click or Tribal Fusion.

These programs will require you to have some traffic to your site and they are

probably best suited for highly traffic sites. I ran a blog last year with another

blogger on the Olympic games. We had two million visitors in a couple of weeks

to that site. The impression based ads, outperformed the AdSense ones quite

considerably there because of the high levels of traffic there. The downside of

Fast Click in particular is that the ads you might get served can be a little

annoying and animated, they can be for really junky type products. If you don’t

mind about that, they can be actually be earning you quite a bit of money. You

wouldn’t want to put it on a site that you’re proud of, you know, wanting to be

tackling a serious subject perhaps. I would keep it away from those. The

lighthearted blogs, it may be helpful.

Andy: So just to reiterate, the first couple of programs were about being paid

from clicks versus being paid from just impressions? That is like a rental model

right, where they’re renting your ‘inventory.’

http://digitalphotographyblog.com/

http://fastclick.com/

http://tribalfusion.com/

http://www.livingroom.org.au/olympics/


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Darren: Yes, like a sponsorship model.

Income Stream #5: Affiliate Programs

Darren: The fifth thing we’re going to talk about is affiliate programs. A lot of

you will be familiar with that because you’re running them on your blogs already

or you’ve been trying to sell this course to others using affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs are where someone pays for your commissions for selling their

products for you. So if you sell this course for someone, we’ll give you fifty

percent of what the income for that is for yourself. That is a fairly large affiliate

program. You can make a lot of money by selling two or three of these courses.

There’s also a lot of programs that are more on a micro level. The best example I

can give you is the Amazon affilliate program and its online bookshop. If you go

to associates.amazon.com, you can sign up for their affiliate program there. If you

recommend a book, if you recommend a camera, if you recommend a DVD and

on your blog, and someone buys that, then you’ll earn, I think, between four and

up to ten per cent of the profit for that.

Andy: Yes and they’ve expanded it to hardware too.

Darren: Yes. It’s great. You’ll see they’ve got cameras there. If you go to

individual pages on my blog, you’ll often see a little link at the bottom things

saying, “Get the latest price on these camera”, which is an affiliate link. So

cameras can be two or three thousand dollars so you can actually earn a little bit

of money through that. I don’t find I earn as much as some of the other things but

it’s a nice side earner as well, especially at Christmas time, it could be quite good.

Income Stream #6: Tip Jars and Donations

Darren: Number six, we are going to look at is donation buttons and tip jars. I

have never really made any money through these. But there are a variety of

bloggers who make good money in this. I think his name is Jason, I can’t

remember his surname. Is it Kottke?

http://amazon.com/associates

http://associates.amazon.com/

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Andy: Yes, it’s Jason Kottke, over at www.kottke.org. Right.

Darren: He, at the start of this year decided to go full time blogger through

donations. He quit his job and asked his readers for donation. I think he’s rakes

enough to live this year just purely from donation. He didn’t really want to go

down the advertising route.

Andy: Also a journalist, Andrew Sullivan at www.andrewsullivan.com. I think he

still has a tip jar. He was able to make quite a pot of money with the tip jar in his

blog.

Darren: Exactly. Really, the characteristic that got those guys that success is

that they had very high levels of traffic and a very high loyalty in their readership

with their blog. So people were donating not to his blogs but to him because they

believed in him and they liked him and are wanting to support him. So if you’ve

got a blog with not much traffic or if you got a blog with search engine traffic,

people coming in and not coming back to your blog, it’s probably not the best way

to go. If you’ve got a real community and people believe in you, as a person, then

it is definitely worth investigating the tip jar (in PayPal’s Donations or

Amazon.com’s Honor System).

Andy: It’s that cult of personality we were talking about earlier.

Darren: Exactly.

Income Stream #7: Merchandising

Darren: Now seven, merchandising. I tried recently to sell some T-shirts on my

blog. It was a bit of a failure. I think we sold less than ten of the things in over a

couple of months. I know some bloggers who are making some reasonable money

from selling t-shirts, and caps, and stickers through the organization Cafepress.

There are other variety of merchandising options also. I guess add to that,

ebooks. Now if you’ve got some expertise in some area and you want to sell and

ebook or a course, that is another way of doing it, through your blog.

http://www.kottke.org/

http://www.kottke.org/05/02/kottke-micropatron

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/donate-intro-outside

http://honorsystem.amazon.com/

http://cafepress.com/

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Income Stream #8: Consulting

Darren: Number eight we are going to be looking at is consulting. It’s not

something we are really going to be talking about over this course, but it is worth

mentioning here is that if you have some expertise in an area and that could take

time to build up than to be at a sell your time to a reader, it would actually be a

legitimate way of making money from your blog. It’s probably making money as a

result of your blog rather than making money directly through it. So that is why

we might not be covering it as much here. It’s something I’ve been doing a bit

more recently with some blog consulting. It can be quite worthwhile.

Income Stream #9: Sponsorship

Darren: Number nine, we’re on the home stretch now, is sponsorship. It

overlaps with some of the other things we’ve already talked about but quite a few

bloggers are making money now by selling ad space or sponsorship privately and

directly to advertisers. For instance, on the digital camera site, that just started a

campaign with Adobe over the next couple of weeks. It will be a two-week

campaign in which I give them some space on my blog and I give them some

space in my newsletter. So people are selling space directly to advertisers. The

beauty of it is, you are cutting out the middleman. You don’t give out fifty per

cent, or whatever it is, to Google to find the advertisers for you. The downside is

that it takes a lot of work and to actually find advertisers can take quite a bit of

time and to build the logistics of it all to set it up on your site.

Andy: Do they demand any proof of your traffic stats as part of the engagement?

Darren: They do, so that’s part of the work. In fact, I’ve knocked back some

advertising on some of my sites, just because so that the logistics of getting it up

would have taken me three or four days to sell if full time work to get the thing, to

put a proposal together and prove all that sort of stuff. You want to pick and

choose that a little bit. There are increasingly a variety of systems that you can

now use to rotate ads for your site which is quite good. It’s not just about selling

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ad banners either. Text ads, mentioned in newsletters, actually having sponsored

posts on your site, I know a number of bloggers who sell a particular post to

advertisers. As long as you’re clear and transparent that what you are actually

doing is actually for money than that is a good way to go.

Income Stream #10: Paid Membership

Darren: Number ten is one that a lot of bloggers have been trying but I don’t

really see too much success with yet, is actually charging for your content.

Charging your readers to read your blog. There is a number of people who have

tried this. Some try to have a premium area of their blog where they give the best

stuff to their readers. Others have tried to sell ad free versions of their sites, so

pay twenty dollars and you don’t have to look at all my ads. Other have tried to

sell their content on a post by post basis saying, “If you want to read the rest of

this blog…”

Andy: Really?

Darren: I’ve seen a lot of people trying these things, really to be honest, they

haven’t worked. In fact, a few people have probably made it work, where they

have vary unique and exclusive information and that cannot be bought anywhere

else. It’s probably the only way, I think, you can make it work. Your content

would have to be something that people couldn’t find anywhere free which is very

rare on the internet if you think about it today. Everything has free information

on the internet. It’s something you may want to consider if you’re brilliant, if

you’ve got exclusive information but it may not work for you.

Income Stream #11: RSS Advertising

Lastly we’ve got our RSS advertising. This is something that is a little bit new and

the tools around it are just beginning to be developed but if those of you, who can

help me, who have success, is that most blogs, these days have the ability to have

your content go to people without them coming to your blog, which is a great

technology, but the downside of it is if they don’t come to your blog, they don’t

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see your ads, they don’t see your affiliate programs. I would say RSS advertising

is one way of getting around that. Programs like AdSense actually allow you to,

these days, to put their ad in your RSS and there’s a variety of others around as

well. I’ve personally haven’t had too much success with that. I’ve noticed a little

bit of improvement recently if they get their tools right.

Summary of Income Streams and Q & A

Darren: So there are eleven different ways. I’m sure there are others. I’m sure as

we open up for questions that other people would suggest other ways that they

have done it. What I want to recommend is that you, before you just jump into

one of these methods is that you think about the goal of your blog. You actually

work out, “What am I actually trying to achieve with this blog?” Is it appropriate

for these types of things? Because they suit different goals. They suit different

traffic levels or suit differently types of readers and different demographics of

readers like age, location. You wouldn’t want to sign up with the Amazon affiliate

program if you’re readership is all from Australia where you’re not getting

American readers. The Amazon program is an American product. I cannot,

people cannot buy from Australia from Amazon for digital cameras. They can buy

books, but they can’t buy the hardware products.

Andy: That’s crazy.

Darren: It may not be appropriate to sign up for that program. It may be

appropriate to find, in Australia an affiliate program. So really the demographics

and the readership and I guess, lastly, the topic of your blog will determine which

of these methods that you might want to use. Do you want to open up for

questions Andy?

Andy: Yes. I am totally floored. You totally took us beyond the banner ad that it

is awesome. There’s no such thing as a dumb question. So you just dive on in. If

you have any questions that we’ve just talked about, go for it.

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Pat: Going to your Digital Photography Blog and on the right side, there is a

picture that says, “Looking to buy a camera, making money from digit

photography”, which one of those was that under, was that Blogads.com?

Darren: Blogads.com.

Pat: OK, thank you.

Darren: No problem.

Blending Blog Style and Design with Ad Look and Feel

Andy: Yes, something I noticed that you’re doing is your blending the actual

interface like the navigation among the ads. So some of the styling is the same. If

you’re readers are seeing the ads in the context of the interface, then the

navigation. On the right side Blogads, those together are ads. On the left side,

they are more embedded into the interface, then the navigation.

Darren: That’s right. I think there’s a lot of people are recommending that type

of approach. Traditionally people have said that on AdSense, that is how you do

that but that has been extended out to other types of ads to actually have a more

integrated design. They do perform better when they’re integrated within and not

standing out screaming, “I’m an ad, I’m an ad!”

How Do Impression-Based Ads Work?

Andy: Another other question?

Julieanne: Yes, it’s Julianne here. The impression-based ads, can you explain

them a little bit more or do you have an example of an impression-based ads on

your site?

Darren: Not on that site but me just let me look up one. Let me look at what I’ve

seen or have some.

Julieanne: Thanks.

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Darren: The basis of them is that you get a small amount of money for each

impression. With AdSense, you might get anything from two or three cents up to

two or three dollar for an ad per click. Impressions based ads are like a micro or a

hundredth of a cent per ad. The site I’m looking at seems to remove their

impression ads. I have a feeling that some of the ads you see on blogs like

Engadget are FastClick, some of their banner ads, some of them would be

sponsored fields, but some of them are definitely impression-based ads. Because

they are doing such massive traffic, they could make impression-based ads work

quite well. So you may have seen ads around with those annoying bouncy smiley

faces -they are impression-based ads through the fast click system.

Julianne: I know what you mean now. It’s every time they come to your screen,

you get paid a little tiny bit.

Andy: Right, every time they click [and see it].

Julieanne: Right. OK. Thanks. Actually I’ve got another question here for you.

The Digital Photography Blog, do you host that on the WordPress or is that on

your own hosting system?

Darren: That one is hosted, the platform behind that is Movable Type, which is

quite similar to word press. That is hosted on a private hosting system. A friend

of mine hosted that for me.

Julieanne: OK. Thanks.

Darren: No problem. Any more questions?

Does Google AdSense Require a Lot of Custom Coding?

Steve: Darren I have one. This is Steve Murphy. I’m looking at your digital photo

blog and do you find that you have to do a lot of custom coding to get all the

different ad information into each post and to maintain, like the Google AdSense

in terms of service?

http://www.engadget.com/

http://www.fastclick.com/

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Darren: It’s not actually too bad. The beauty of blogs, and this is probably one of

the things I should have said in that introduction is that really it’s just a matter of

changing the template so you’re not actually having to build each ad into your

post. You’re just building them into a template. When you do that, it comes up

that way on every page on your site. If you’re on that page at the moment, if you

click on the first post there, you’ll see there, that’s the Olympic one, you’ll see

there on the left, at the top of the post, some ads by Google for ads, the rectangle

type things, that is just an ad which I simply included in one piece to code in my

individual page template. That just comes up automatically on every page on my

site as a result of that. If I wanted to move it over to the right, it is just as simple

as making one small change in that code and rebuilding that site and the will be

transferred over to the site. So it is quite low maintenance. Affiliate programs can

be a little more fiddly. You’ll see on that particular post that say, “Get the latest

price on this camera.” Later, I’d have to hard code it into every post. I haven’t

found out a system yet that really does that for me really well automatically. So

there is some work in some of the tough spots and less in others.

Steve: OK great. Being with WordPress now though automatically puts AdSense

ads in a few things, some hacks but I’m curious because you have so much on

each page that builds out.

Darren: Yes. There are some automatic things in WordPress that I find just

using a template does it just as well.

Steve: Great. Thank you.

Darren: No problem.

Contextual Ads Automatically Align With Content

Andy: And just to reiterate with the contextual advertising, Darren’s not having

to choose for this particular post these ads are going to be Olympus cameras ads.

Google is going to be able to scan that page and say, “You know, I think this is

page looks like it’s about this camera so I’m going to throw up any of the ads that


Six Figure Blogging


17

are for this camera.” So again, Darren’s not having to find the ad per post, he’s

just saying ads go here and Google takes care of the rest with contextual

advertising.

Darren: That’s right, and there’s ways to actually help AdSense out and tell

AdSense what your post is about. But really, it does a pretty good job, I find. Any

more questions?

Geographically Targeted Ads

Participant: Yes, I’ve got another question. I’m from Australia, as you can tell.

We use Google AdSense, can they tell what IP address I’m on and in Australia. Is

that why Australian ads come up all the time for me?

Darren: Yes, you’ve got a spot on there that’s geographically targeted so the ads

that Andy will be seeing on that page are quite different to ones that you and I are

seeing on that page at the moment. I am seeing some Australian ads and that’s

got some advantages. Obviously that increases the relevancy of your ads but also

means that if you want to block ads for instance because AdSense allows you to

block ads from a particular URL so it’s difficult to know which ones to block

because you can’t read what is being seen on your site in other places of the

world. Whereas, a system like Blogads, you have complete control over which

ads. With AdSense it is out of your control.

Participant: Thank you.

Darren: No problem.

How Much Do You Charge For a Link On Your Site?

Alex: Hello Darren?

Darren: Yes.

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Alex: Hi, this is Alex from Nova Scotia and I‘ve got a question for you. I had

someone email me about a week ago offering to purchase a link off my website for

two months. I think he offered, I think it was twenty dollars a month. How do I

know what a text link off my website actually worked?

Darren: That’s the eternal question. I guess, I don’t have a way of working that

out. I personally try to get a feel for where they are at. Part of me says that twenty

dollars is a better than nothing.

Alex: I agree.

Darren: So that is good. But over time, you’ll get an experience, an idea for that.

You may want to look at other sites. One good way maybe is to look at AdBrite.

With AdBrite, you can go through their different sites and actually see what

they’re charging and so you may find a sight that is on a similar topic to yours,

that has got similar traffic levels to yours that may give you a gauge as to what

people are paying. I say that twenty dollars a month isn’t massive, but I guess if

you have ten of those, it would actually be OK. Another way to do it is if you had

AdSense on your site and you’re going to have to get rid of those ads to put in

another one then often, I would work out what the AdSense ads are paying in

addition and then charge that. If that makes sense. That is really about

experimenting so I’d probably say give it a go, maybe try and bump it up a little

bit, give it a go, and over time, you’ll work out what they are worth.

Alex: OK. Thanks.

Darren: No problem. Shall we move on Andy to the network?

Creating a Blog Network

Andy: Yes. Alright, the next topic that we want to cover is to really about what

happens when you get this whole blog thing going and you have successes with

one blog and you decide to move into a network of blogs. What we’re going to be

looking at now is a couple of existing blog, networks or empires that are out

Six Figure Blogging


19

there. One of the reasons you might consider building a blog network is because

you can build a cloud of traffic around a different topic or a different niche. So if

you’ve got any additional cameras over here, you might have additional printers

or other related products on different blogs so that way the blogs are able to trade

traffic back and forth and you are able to keep those visitors within your network

of blogs and also be able to host across the entire network. So you can talk to

advertisers and say, “I’m not just going to put your ad on this blog, but your ad is

relevant to these other blogs that I have on my network.”

Weblogs, Inc.

Darren: That is right. That is what the network is like at Weblogs, Inc. They are

doing really well in particularly as is the Gawker network. They are cross

promoting their blogs which is fantastic.

Andy: If you want to take a look at the Weblogs, Inc. empire, that’s at

www.weblogsinc.com. This is a pretty broad network of, I’d say over a hundred

blogs and the guy that runs it, his name is Jason Calcanis and he hires bloggers

on different topics and some of them are experts, some of them are normal

people that are obsessed with a certain topic and they get paid per post, I think,

and they have to do maybe five posts a day. The focus is a broad base of topics

around a whole network of different topics. You’ll find that the network bloggers

are a little bit grownup than other networks out there like Gawker. With Weblogs,

Inc., it’s really about creating different clouds around technology or consumer

interests. There is a whole wireless section of blogs. There’s one just on video

games, on different platforms of video games, he’s got one on life sciences, like

blogs with people who have cancer or diabetes, as well as a whole section on

media entertainment. That’s over at www.weblogsinc.com. If you go to that front

page, you’ll see on the right side is a list of all those blogs. He’s got one for

advertising, there’s one on hacking, there’s one just for web designers, there’s one

just of Microsoft Office users. So again, it’s that tight super focused niche. It

really allows this network to command ad revenue that is going to get people to

http://www.weblogsinc.com/

http://www.calacanis.com/

http://gawker.com/

http://www.weblogsinc.com/

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that content and people interested in that content to see ads related to that

content.

Darren: I guess it is one of the ultimate examples. It’s one of a large scale of

networks that are out there. Personally, when I look at it, I think, I could never do

something that big as I think you’ve said, he’s got over a hundred people working

for him on that thing. It’s making significant amounts of money. I think he is on

track for a million dollars this year in the next twelve months from AdSense

alone. So it’s big bucks. It’s big business. The beauty of what he’s doing there is

that it is actually a model that you can do on a smaller level. You can have two

blogs that link to each other that has the same sort of benefit to what he is doing

there. There is an increasing amount of networks that are out there beginning to

do that. The other thing I would suggest is to actually write for networks. That is

actually an option. I would recommend some people consider doing this

especially when they are just getting into blogging, you can learn a lot by signing

up as one of their offers. Their payments may not be huge. I think they are paying

between four and five dollars per post but the experience and exposure that you

can get through that may be beneficial, it maybe worth it…

Gawker Media

Andy: Right and then another one of the networks that is popular is the Gawker

Media Empire. Which is at www.gawker.com. Gawker started off as I think really

as a New York City type of blog and they’ve since grown. If you’ve heard of blogs

like Wonkette which is on American politics, Defamer, which is on Hollywood,

Gizmodo… You’ll find each empire to have at least one gadget blog. There’s one

just on, if people are just interested in Japanese animation culture. There’s one

for pornography (fleshbot.com). So again, this is a different approach where the

guy who runs this empire is Nick Denton.

I remember him talking about that he really got a trisector of his main group is

young men and that are using that online. So it is really youth culture and the

trifecta here is porn, gadgets and video games that that is really where his money

http://www.gawker.com/

http://wonkette.com/

http://defamer.com/

http://gizmodo.com/

http://fleshbot.com/

http://www.nickdenton.org/

Six Figure Blogging


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is being made because he is able to attract these consumers that are young men

that advertisers everywhere are trying to reach because this demographics

doesn’t watch TV as much as they use to so again he has created this empire

focused, really on getting advertisers and match up with young men who are

consumers. Again that is at gawker.com.

About.com

Andy: A third empire that really didn’t start out as a blog empire but they

leveraged in there. If you remember About.com, back in the internet boom, I

remember they had all these editors, guest editors and everybody has a certain

topic and a certain way to write about things and then they have this whole back

log of archived of past content. But now they’ve added blogs to each of their

channels. If you go to www.about.com and on the left side, you’ll see a huge list of

channels on many different topics. Each one has a content editor or moderator or

a head honcho in charge of that topic and each channel also has a blog. So now do

only have this past content that is accumulating but you also have a blog format

which helps to keep it live, keep it more intimate, you get to know the person in

charge of that particular topic. So again, it is that human connection where it is

not just about.com but it is this particular person who has a passion about this

particular topic and has a blog and its about.com.

Darren: That right and About.com sold to the New York time in the last few

month for four hundred and ten million dollars. So it’s a really amazing story

there that they got this new type of software that runs their blogs so really what

they are doing is no different to what you and I are doing it’s just doing it in an

automatic style.

Andy: Right and they are running, if not a couple of hundred, at least five

hundred of these a day so there are a ton of different channels. So it’s another

example of, in this case you may not know that these are blogs when you go to

About.com. It’s just updated news, updated stuff, so you don’t always have to call

http://www.gawker.com/

http://www.about.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About.com


http://www.writenews.com/2005/031805_nytimes_about.htm

http://www.writenews.com/2005/031805_nytimes_about.htm


Six Figure Blogging


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a blog a blog. As long as it is current and is being mentionable tool, I guess it is a

blog. People don’t have to always know that it is just a blog.

Competition Is Not Just with Other Blogs

Darren: That’s right. I think a lot of bloggers get trapped into thinking that they

only are competing with other blogs and that is a trap. You are competing, in your

topic, with hundreds of websites and a lot of them aren’t blog. So to go out there

and say, “I’m a blog. I’m a blog.” It may not be beneficial. There are times to do

that but to differentiate yourself from the crowd but think beyond than just

blogging.

Andy: Yes and as I think that blogs become sort of less sexy and cool and from

the media standpoint, it will be sort of old habit, “Of course it’s a blog. I know

what it looks like.” The first one is going to say, “Well this company has a blog,

we’re not going to pay attention on that.” Or “GM is blogging.” Or “Nike has blogs

now.” I think that is going to die away soon because the hype is just crazy. But

again, to reiterate, these networks all have staff of bloggers and administrators,

designers and marketing, a sales department and this is kind of might be the end

goal for you maybe in a year or at least a few months.

Start Small

Andy: We’re starting small with the one blog. We wanted to show examples of

where people have taken this idea of not just being the content author, but also

maybe being the producer of the entire media channel or the entire group of

blogs, an entire media empire. I’m guessing that eventually you’re going to see

groups like Weblogs, Inc., who have archives and archives of content, will start

publishing books that cough up that content into a book format. I’m guessing that

is going to be their second generation is to move from strictly on line publishing

to going to books because they have these experts that have been creating these

content for probably for a couple of years.

http://www.gmblogs.com/

http://www.gawker.com/artofspeed/

http://www.gawker.com/artofspeed/

Six Figure Blogging


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Darren: That’s right and they are building in expertise. So Peter, from Engadget,

he is now a world wide expert on gadgets through blogging. So if he writes a book

on gadgets, it would sell big time. If he does speaking tours on gadgets, he would

do really well. There’s benefits of not only making money through the blogs but

down the track, it actually opens up all kinds of doors for you to actually become

an expert in a field.

Andy: Darren, you’ve had companies send you cameras to test right?

Darren: Yes, I’m regularly getting…a camera arrived yesterday and I didn’t even

know it was coming. I have two to three weeks to test out. As you build your

reputation, people will seek you out and will submit things for you to put on to

your blog.

Andy: So again, because Darren is able to have this tightly focused audience that

is just about digital photography, he is able to get that. People want that access to

those consumers. Other networks to look at are Weblog Empire. This one is still

in the growth stages. There’s a couple of different channels they have and

different topics. That is another example of an emerging web blog empire. As well

as Shiny Media, which is an empire that is strictly done on TypePad.

Darren: That is right. It’s a UK-based enterprise and I met the guys there last

year and they are quite interesting. They are going for the female market. They

are almost doing the flip side of what Gawker is doing for young guys. They are

actually going for young women. They are doing fashion blogs, and gadgets for

girl type blogs. So they are focusing in on a wider nation than doing sub-niche

blogs in the midst of that.

Andy: How about another one that is in the works, it’s Shoe Blogs. There is a

blog per shoe brand. It’s the idea on the internet: There is always someone crazy

about a topic and if you can find those people they’ll buy anything related to that

topic because they are obsessed with shoes or Prada. Again that’s at

shoeblogs.com, I think.

http://www.peterrojas.com/

http://www.engadget.com/

http://weblogempire.com/

http://shinymedia.com/

http://shoeblogs.com/

http://www.shoeblogs.com/

Six Figure Blogging


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Darren: Yes, that’s a guy, The Manolo who’s doing quite well out of it.

Andy: So those of examples of kind of taking this to a macro level. Again, we’re

going to zoom back on down next week to a micro level.

Fieldwork for Week One

Andy: Darren, I was going to get into the fieldwork. Did you have anything else

to cover before we talk about what we’re going to leave people to think about for

the coming week?

Establish Goals

Darren: I guess leading to it, thinking through goals. That is one of the things

we want people to think through this week is to actually think about what is it

that you want to achieve with your blogging? Is it about making money or is it

some goal over along side that? If it’s about making money, how do you want to

do that? Do you want to do that through [elevating] your profile? I guess that is

where we are headed through our fieldwork. It’s really crucial especially through

the beginning on the course like this and to be clear about what you’re doing.

Those are eleven different ways of money through your blogs do fit differently

depending on what your goals are. It is really clear to put that up front. I’m really

interested to see what people’s goals are in the ecampus. So share some of those

goals with us so that we keep them around and we can talk about what might suit

you better and actually discover some of that stuff together.

Andy: Yes, I think it is important to define that success that you’re trying to

achieve so when you achieve it, you know that you’re there. You may not be

wanting to build an entire blog during this six-week course. I know some of

people just sort of like to sit back through a course and absorb it all and try it out

later or you might want to try it all tonight and say, “Where’s week two, I want to

get to it now.” Decide what you’re learning style is going to be for this course,

whether your going to sit back and absorb it and have the osmosis thing, or if

you’re really going to try and get in there and practice this thing every week and

Six Figure Blogging


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really build that out because the content is going to be here when you come back

to it.

Peruse Existing Blog Networks

So these are some of the things we want you to think about along with you

successes and your goals and all that good stuff is start looking at these networks

that are out there and see on Weblogs, Inc., what are some blogs that are related

by certain topic or niche? Where are these clouds of consumers and these clouds

of content coming from? As well, do these networks have outliers or orphan blogs

that don’t really relate to the rest of the network and how might those be

maximized by adding other blogs around that outlier blog so it may start to create

more interest around itself.

Take a look at how ads are being host across different networks, across different

blogs in general. See if you can start to figure out, because it is this size, because it

say this at the bottom and because it’s the structure of the ads like this. Over here,

this is a Google ad because it says it’s an ad by Google but there’s different ad

structures within the Google stuff as well as with AdBrite and different other

networks. So start to be conscious of how people are blending the ads into the

content so it may be on the interface yet, that is an ad, I can tell it’s an ad because

of the way it is styled. Over here, these of kind of sneaky ads because they’re right

next to navigation in the same font style and color as the navigation. Take a look

and see how are the blogs are being interlinked. How obvious is the connections

these different blogs are in the same network. Again, these question will be in the

ecampus so don’t freak our about trying to write them all down.

What are some common interface and design elements? Do all blogs in the

networks have the same in general look and feel with maybe a different banner or

a different set of colors. Is this making the network appear more unified or is it

kind of causing interface blindness where people click from one blog to another

and they all look the same so they are not really registering where the ads are

popping out. As well are these networks using a full domain as oppose as a sub

http://www.weblogsinc.ocm/

Six Figure Blogging


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domain. Is it something like Weblogs, Inc. or does each blog have it’s own unique

particular domain? Those are some things to think about as we look at some of

the macro level of blog networks that are out there. They maybe in your future or

not. Again, you can certainly be in awe from all these networks and sort of get a

handle on how they work and how they work with their writers. As well, use them

as inspirations and say, “You know what, I’m just going to be a blog author, I

want to be a producer and get a whole set of content channels together.” Again,

those are some of the things to think about over the coming week. Then, next

week, I know we’re taking about hardcore niche and there’s a tone of niche of

stuff on niche to talk about. Do you have anything to add Darren?

Darren: All I want to say is the way I’ve learned most of what I learnt about

blogging is by observing what others do. Don’t be ashamed about doing some

analysis on another blog. I try and find a new commercial, pro blog, a type blog

each week and I’ll spend an hour or two just looking over it, just looking the

statistics, their public statistics, finding out where their traffic comes from,

looking at their design, looking at how they use their ads, looking at what sort of

systems they use. It maybe that you discover a system of advertisers that you

could use that would be suited to your blog. It is about doing research and

looking into it. Just with any business, you wouldn’t just rush into a business at

just set up a shop without thinking about what is around you and what

competition you’ve got. So do that ground work and share what you find with us.

I’m really fascinated to see what you observed about the networks because I’m

sure you’re going to come up with something I never notice about them also

Andy: Right, what I think you talk about is the big point of the second generation

of bloggers where to set up a blog is so easy and fast that it is so easy to forget the

strategy behind it. So were are trying to do this on purpose so that that way this

success happens instead of just , “Well I’ve had the blog up and I’ve had it up for

six weeks, but it’s not doing anything and I really didn’t have any strategy but I

am publishing.” We really want to be mindful of that as we set up

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Topic: ‘Ransom’ Income Model

Participant: I have a question. I heard some people talking about ransom

software saying, “I won’t release it to the public until I get some dollars donated.”

What do you think about that idea?

Andy: I’ve heard of programmers doing that with software too. I haven’t heard of

people doing that with blogs, have you Darren?

Darren: I’ve heard of a couple people who’ve tried it but not …again, like I said

before, I think if you are an expert, if you’re the only person writing that content

and they cannot get it anywhere else, you probably could do it. But I wouldn’t

think normal bloggers would be able to get that. I wouldn’t be doing that.

What Blog Platform to Choose?

Bill: I have a question, it’s Bill. In the development of our blog, can we continue

to use TypePad or should we be looking at something else?

Andy: We’re probably, in the end, going to recommend that people sell posts

eventually but you can definitely do most of the stuff we’re talking about during

this course with TypePad. Darren, did you have an input on that.

Darren: I’ve seen some bloggers use TypePad really well. They’ve done

significant blogs and made significant money through it but I think most of the

big ones out there on other systems like WordPress or Movable Type or those

types of systems. So if you’re looking the for future of a flexible system then

probably type pads isn’t the most flexible. It’s a great starting place though. I

would consider moving toward something a little bit more flexible than that.

William: This is William. Are we going to be talking about moving our sites to a

like a community traffic versus a search engine traffic. I’m interested in that.

Andy: What do you mean about a community traffic?

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/12/17/192642/73

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/12/17/192642/73

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William: People coming back to the community traffic versus search engine

traffic specifically.

Darren: That is something that we can probably fit in through the weeks. It is

important so I’ll make note that we cover that.

Paul: Is there a location that have a large listing of URLs that have fairly popular

blogs that we could look at?

Andy: You can go to Technorati. You can see the top blogs there as well as

Feedster as well also has a top list.

Participant: And if you’re looking for political blogs, truthlalidbear.com also

has a great list.

Andy: Yes, Truth Laid Bear and that is bear as in the animal bear correct?

Darren: It’s wider than political there. I know a lot of my blogs are being listed

there. I’m not political. I think they started with the political kind of niche and

but are getting wider as well which is quite handy.

Andy: Again, these links will be in your notes. If you didn’t get them tonight,

we’ll have them for you. We are a little bit over, so we’ll go a head and signoff.

Everybody, that you for joining use tonight and we’ll get the recording and

transcript up and everybody have a fantastic evening.

Thank you, bye.

http://technorati.com/

http://feedster.com/

http://truthlaidbear.com/

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Six Figure Blogging Call 1 Worksheets Questions and Considerations

1. Why do I want to make money from my blogs?

2. Why do I think I can make money from my blogs?

3. What are my expectations about making money from my blogs? What are my

short-term and long terms goals?

• Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual money goals

• Lifestyle money goals

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Methods of Making Money from Blogs Considerations My Blog

Goals: What are the goals and objectives of my blog?

Traffic Levels: What are my traffic levels and are they sufficient to reach my goals and objectives?

Reader Demographics: How do reader profiles influence my traffic / readership?

Topic: Does my topic lend itself to creating blog income?

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Examples of Each Method

Method Example

Traditional Advertising Blogads

Adsense

Text Ad Systems AdBrite

Impression Based Ads Fastclick, Tribal Fusion

Affiliate Programs Amazon

Donation Buttons/Tip Jars Jason Kottke’s; Andrew Sullivan’s blog

Sell Merchandise Cafe Press

Consulting

Sponsorship

Charge for content

http://www.blogads.com/

http://www.google.com/adsense

http://www.adbright.com/

http://www.fastclick.com/

http://www.tribalfusion.com/

http://www.associates.amazon.com/

http://www.kottke.org/

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/

http://www.cafepress.com/

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Applying These Methods to My Own Blog

What methods of making money do I want to use with my blogs? How can I apply each of these possibilities to my blog?

Method How Can I Apply this Method?

Traditional Advertising

Text Ad Systems

Impression Based Ads

Affiliate Programs

Donation Buttons/Tip Jars

Sell Merchandise

Consulting

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Sponsorship

Charge for Content

Comparing Blog Networks

What blogs in a network are related by topic or niche?

What networks have ‘outlier’ or ‘orphan’ blogs that don’t appear related to the rest of the network?

How are ads hosted similarly across a network versus blog-to-blog?

How obvious is the connection between the different blogs of a network?

What interface/design elements are common across a particular network? Do contribute to a networks ‘unity’ or cause interface ‘blindness’?

Which networks use a full unique domain for each blog versus a subdomain?

What other blog networks do you find?

6 figure blogging 1

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