I am constantly trying to squeeze more money out of my niche blogs. I think I have learned quite a bit within the last few days. I almost feel like certain things have just opened up to me and slapped me in the face.
I haven’t really had much trouble scoring money with my niche blogs. As many know, I primarily make most of my money online using Google Adsense. Granted, I feel like I would like to have more than that. But, I guess too that I should be very happy with what I have at hand. And I am… totally. But I do want more.
Formally, most of my niche blogs really weren’t considered blogs. Granted they were powered using WordPress and had an RSS feed, etc… but by visual appearance, they didn’t look or feel like blogs. They looked like web sites, even more… they looked like they were MFA (made for Adsense). I don’t want that. Don’t get me wrong, these sites worked, they made money and life is (or was great) but like I said, I want more.
I believe that there is a plateau. I believe that there is a barrier with how much a blog of my style can make. With my style of niche blogs I need traffic. The more traffic I get, the more money I make. Traditionally, the whole reason for formatting my niche blogs the way I did was to combat the issue of not having traffic. And guess what, this works! and works well. But, I am not going to get rich from this. Each of my niche blogs (minus a few popular ones) get around 100 visits per day and also make a few bucks per day.
This is a no brainer… I can do that in my sleep. But what does it take to push a blog to the next level? How can I make a blog make more than a few dollars per day? And that is where I am currently at today. I am now trying to push these niche blogs into the next level.
In order for me to do that, I had to recognize where I was failing. Well, I don’t want to say “failing” so let say this: I had to recognize what elements were limiting my niche sites from moving on into the realm of a higher level. The problem that I come to believe was the way my sites were designed.
Most of my niche blogs looked like web sites. Granted they did very well in the SERPs for the long tail keywords I set out to rank. And that is awesome! Nothing wrong with that. However, the only way for me to grow these sites is to keep producing pages. For what it seems, every two pages I created one would drop off the index. So it was a constant battle to keep plugging away with producing pages. In other words, there is a hole in the system that just bleeds pages that I create.
I can’t have that. I need something that runs itself. I need niche sites that grow because they are cool, not because I need to constantly add coal to the fire. Unfortunately, I am not going to achieve that when my niche blogs look like web sites. The solution is this: I need BLOGS!
I need something that people can subscribe to. I need something that people can drop comments and say, “wow, nice article dude”. I need something that will encourage people to link to my content. All these things will not happen when you have a web site that looks like it is MFA.
On the flip side, if I convert my niche blogs from looking spammy and MFA and actually redesign them back into a more traditional blog and actually write content on them as a normal blogger would, then the likelihood of scoring regular readers increases. The likelihood of getting trackbacks, backlinks, Digg votes and Stumbles increases. No one is going to link to a MFA site… nor will anyone visit a MFA for a second time.
So that has been my learning and I am in the process of remapping quite a few of my blogs. If you’d like to see some examples I have a few that I can show you.
- Optical Blog – This is a blog where I write content related to contact lenses, eyeglasses and the general eye care business. Being a former optician of 11+ years, I know quite a bit about the business. The blog caters to both the consumer and affiliated individual in the business.
- Airplane Blog – This is a blog where multiple writers including myself write about airplanes, aviation news and related stories about airplanes for sale. This blog caters to the aviation enthusiasts, pilots and general aviation business associates.
- Blog Classifieds - This is a blog where Christine Senter writes about various classifieds, deals and savings. These topics are also coupled content that teach people how to do things within this niche. Examples would be: how to list an item on eBay, how to get the best deals at garage sales, etc…
Before when I wrote, I tried to pitch and sell things rather than just be a blogger and blog about things. People don’t like things pushed on them and the same goes with content on the Internet. However, people enjoy blogs and also enjoy getting the inside scoop on things. People want to have an edge and be ahead of the curve. So, when you read a blog and score killer information related to topics that interest you, more of a connection is made. So all in all, I am working less of pitching items and more on just having fun with freestyle blogging.
Don’t hold these thoughts as law. I would like to call myself an experimental niche blogger. I was reading my older content on this blog and a lot changes with my believes, strategies and tactics. Lately because I have opened up my archives, I notice a lot more traffic coming into my older posts. I encourage you to read my old content, but while keeping this in mind. I am an experimental blogger. I constantly adapt, change and evolve as I learn new things. I am not a rich man but make a decent living doing what I do. But just like everyone in this world, I want more and work hard to achieve more.
Shifting my niche blogs into more of a traditional blog style will help me gain more regular readers, which will then give me more returning traffic. This will also increase the likelihood of scoring more backlinks, which will then increase my chances of scoring a higher PageRank. With a higher PageRank I can then start to compete for more competitive search terms, which in return will make me more money.
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Date/Time: 2-16-2008 20:24:48 Comment #11635
Garry,
Do you think that this will decrease your adsense clicks? Every thing that I hear is that regular readers do not click adsense ads. How will you combat this?
Date/Time: 2-16-2008 21:37:00 Comment #11636
Excellent question… I’ll be happy to answer that.
When you host a blog that caters to regular readers… you host an environment that harbors excellent content that is interesting to people. A blog that caters to regular readers becomes a source of information that people tend to naturally link to. That is defined as organic links, e.g. the links that people people try to manipulate through programs that offer paid and sponsored posts and links. Organic linking is very powerful, especially when the links are found in blog posts.
Having a blog that caters to regular readers and one that harbors excellent quality that people organically link to allows this blog to gain authority on the Internet. The more authority a site has on the Internet the better the individual pages within rank for higher competitive words and phrases in the major search engines.
Regular readers of a blog are attracted to the individual post pages as well as the home page. Most of the content is viewed in RSS or directly on the individual post page. Understand that, this still leaves many other sections of a blog that go untapped.
I agree with you 110% about regular readers not clicking Adsense ads. It is obvious that not much money can be made off of regular reader traffic. However, as mentioned above, there are many sections of a blog that majority of regular readers never visit. Consequently, these same sections that regular readers fail to visit are sections that rank extremely well in the search engines.
I have learned that you CAN have your cake and eat it too. The cake is building a blog that caters to regular readers and the eating it too relates to being successful with effectively monetizing the blog in a way that doesn’t aggravate regular readers traffic but caters to providing useful connections for search engine traffic.
My new blog theme and setup is an excellent example of this. My home page as well as individual post pages don’t have Adsense displayed. There are two reasons why. One reasons leads to the other. The first reason is simple, not many regular readers on GCDC will click the ads, and that is totally understandable. The second reason which is a result of the first, is the fact that it cost me money to display the ads on my home page and post pages. The reason being is the unproven myth about smart pricing. I say unproven because I can’t find any documentation supporting this theory. I can say this though, my stats do suffer when I have Adsense displayed on a site that doesn’t cater very well to the advertiser.
Having that said, if you look a little deeper into GCDC, you’ll notice my Tag section. I have some pretty powerful tag pages going, one of which is my Make Money Online tag section. When users come into my tag section direct from a lead such as a search engine referral, they will have the option of clicking on a Google Adsense ad or clicking and viewing a post that I have written which is relevant to the assigned tag.
Granted, a few regular readers will seep into the tag sections and search page sections. If they do, then awesome! These sections are made available for users so that they can quickly find things that I have written in the past that interest them. I believe that they are monetized with a very comfortable balance. I believe that these advertisements are also very useful for users because of their advanced level of relevancy. Also, I focus on maintaining a click through rate of about 10%. Any lower, then I consider I am losing money, any higher and then I consider I am losing potential visitors who could become regular readers.
In this example of my own personal blog, this isn’t going to get you rich. But it is very likely that it will get you the minimum $100 dollar check each month and then some.
Niche blogs that cater to regular reader traffic can make money online. As I have mentioned the example of how you can monetize various sections of your blog that don’t get seen by regular readers, there is also tons of money to be made with the home page and individual post pages. That is when private advertisers kick in.
One thing that regular readers do for sure is click on button advertisements. I know that I do… when I visit John COW or even John CHOW, I click on the buttons because I am curious to discover who in their right mind payed all that money to get listed there. That in itself is part of the reason why John Chow’s ads are so successful. People know that it cost a lot of money to have your ad on his blog. For me, its out of sheer curiosity to see who the hell this advertisers is whom paid all that money to be there.
I hope this comment that almost exceeds the word count of the original post helps.
Best Regards,
Garry Conn
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 03:55:21 Comment #11640
Great job Garry, and as always your BLOGS look great!
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 10:30:43 Comment #11644
Hi Garry, I also believe in building systems, then moving on to the next system and maintaining the previous systems I have built. Niche blogs are ’systems’ and if you are able to outsource some of the work to other writers whilst still breaking even or making a profit then you are onto a winner.
This is what I tend to do with many of my smaller sites. I re-invest the money I earn back into them until they grow into larger sites that then make me a profit after the writer has been paid.
Then I move onto the next system….
Obviously the ideal solution is to not have to pay a writer, but instead use the traffic the blog gets to encourage guest writers who then benefit from your blogs traffic.
How many blogs do you personally author and add content to, and how often do you tend to post new content? Obviously the more blogs you have the harder it becomes.
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 12:31:46 Comment #11646
Wow, nice article dude!
Oh wait, you wanted that on one of your niche blogs. My bad.
Actually, this is very timely in that I’ve been thinking of ways to make changes to my niche blogs. One of the things that I’ve been struggling with is ad placement and figuring out how to modify the code to fit what I see in my mind.
I know that historically you’ve had your ads placed on the left, which stands to reason since we read left to right. But as you pointed out, making your niche blogs actually look like blogs, then we find that most of them have their ads on the right sidebars.
So in a way, this eases my mind knowing that maybe I’m doing myself a favor by focusing on themes that are structured with a right sidebar. Would you agree?
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 14:02:21 Comment #11647
Hey Mark!
You’re a busy guy these days! I believe that ad placement is very important. Not only positionwise but locationwise.
Meaning less ads on regular reader sections and more ads on one hit wonder sections.
Here is a great example of a niche blog that I am just about done with. Visit The Airplane Blog. I might be wrong, but this should be a good balance of Adsense. Eventually I will not display Adsense at all on the post pages as they will distract from what I want readers to focus on. However, the tag sections are all game.
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 14:23:01 Comment #11648
For sure your new tactic will bring more returning readers to your blogs, altough this will mean also that you have to provide more quality content and more interaction for socialization, this equals to more time and energy that you have to put in that blogs.
Will this extra energy be paid back with more income ?
You’ll know only trying.
I wish you good luck !
ciao
alex
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 14:43:14 Comment #11649
Time will be a factorization, that is why I am only doing this with a handful of sites that are most important to me. Secondly, quite a few of these sites have full time writers assigned. Airplane Blog actually has 4 at the moment. Optical Blog content flows very freely with all the 11+ years of experience I have in that business.
Time is totally a factorization, so I’ll be taking only a few sites at a time into manageable pieces. We’ll just have to take things day by day. The great thing is time. The longer these sites are online the better they get and the more money they make.
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 15:36:58 Comment #11652
Hello Garry,
my name is Nicola and i am a new reader of your blog.
My compliments for the quality of your articles
I am an italian web designer and internet marketer and i am quite new to the blog world…. i have just started my own blog (in my own language) and i am planning to start a few niche blogs too, so your article is very inspirating to me.
I am just wondering which is the best way to start a new niche blog, without spending a fortune on hiring writers or purchasing PLR content…. i need to start at some point…. well i will investigate more on your past articles
Cheers,
Nicola
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 19:20:39 Comment #11654
Hello Nicola,
Nice to meet you and thanks for dropping a comment on my blog. You can start a new niche blog with little to zero cost. I would choose a topic that you are very comfortable with, something that can give you almost an endless amount of material to write about. At first, don’t worry about having other writers. Have fun and enjoy writing things yourself. The posts don’t have to be long. Many people feel like they do. You can easily build a very wonderful blog in a few months with some solid work and solid decisions.
As your blog grows, then it will become a place where people won’t mind writing on your blog for free because they know that they’ll benefit from the traffic instead.
Take your time, really think and plot out what you want to do and don’t make hasty decisions. I think having a good head on your shoulders will help you in your journey.
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 20:25:34 Comment #11655
Garry,
Thank you very much for explaining how you will monetize these blogs. Your explanation was great.
Date/Time: 2-17-2008 22:55:20 Comment #11660
I have been trying to figure out this monetization thing for a while. I finally added a template that had monetization already built into it so I wouldn’t have to worry about doing it on my own.
I love what you have done with your blog and look forward to reading your other post. I kept reading different blogs that told how to properly monetize but they were all different when explaining it or telling what they thought was best. I like the way you explain everything to your readers so that they understand. Keep up the great work.
Date/Time: 2-18-2008 00:06:24 Comment #11661
I would choose a topic that you are very comfortable with, something that can give you almost an endless amount of material to write about.
I was just wondering, despite this common advise and the fact that you have such a long experience as an optician, why did you started only recently an optical blog ?
For what it seems, every two pages I created one would drop off the index.
Hmm, are you saying that you write 2 posts, Google index them, but at the same time G dumps one of your older posts ?
I thought that ones a page is indexed (unless the page isn’t anymore reachable) it will stay always in the index. Why should G want to remove pages ? It’s why everybody uses it, because it has the most pages indexed !
ciao
alex
Date/Time: 2-18-2008 00:15:12 Comment #11664
Sometimes things are so obvious that they become hidden. I just never put two and two together. Either that, or subconsciously I was running from the topic.
I can only guess why, as I don’t work for them. I would guess that pages drop off because they have low authoritative and quality value to them. I don’t think Google is all about indexing all the pages in the Internet. Yes, they have a very extensive database, but I think they focus both on quality as well as quantity.
I have a site that has around 2500 pages in the index and it has been that way for awhile. Yet no matter how many new pages I get indexed, the number constantly stays around 2500. So, to me, it would seem like pages are dropping off.
Date/Time: 2-18-2008 01:59:31 Comment #11665
Maybe 2500 is the limit Google puts for a single site (or at least for a given PR of the site).
though very interesting argument. Somebody else has experienced disappeareing from indexed pages ? David ?
ciao
alex
Date/Time: 2-18-2008 02:02:02 Comment #11666
Hello Garry,
thanks for your advise
I have just started a blog, and a new one is on the way…
I am wondering what to do if i would start a blog in english language, because i have the feeling that italian market is not ready yet for professional blogging… but writing in english…. that’s why i asked about hiring writers…
What is your opinion?
Date/Time: 2-18-2008 03:14:15 Comment #11668
Man… I wouldn’t discount international blogging one bit. I have a few blogs that I run that target South Africa as well as New Zealand.
Here is my theory behind that… so many people around the world focus on dot Com and USA that they tend to forget their own native folk. Guys like me capitalize on that and fulfill user needs expected from country specific publishers.
There is a HUGE market for international blogging! My next blog, and no joke, I will be using Google Translation to convert my English written content into a foreign language.
As far as these blogs go… don’t ask, I am not ready to tell anyone. No one until now has asked me this question before, so I am coming SOMEWHAT out of the closet.
USA Niche blogging is great… don’t get me wrong… but International is less competitive and Google has unique rankings for many different countries.
One who ranks #1 in USA GOOG doesn’t necessarily rank #1 in GOOG .co.nz.
Date/Time: 2-18-2008 13:39:45 Comment #11676
OK mate,
message is clear enough!
I will concentrate on my two blogs in italian language
Maybe in the meantime i will develop also an english content blog, because i have a very good dot com domain name in my possess, registered in 1997, and it’s a pity not using it actually
Thanks for sharing with me your ideas
Date/Time: 2-18-2008 13:50:51 Comment #11678
Oh indeed… develop your dot Com for sure, but don’t neglect the International either… a lot of opportunities with the International market.
Date/Time: 2-19-2008 05:59:30 Comment #11690
I used to have the problem of the more articles I wrote the most they ended up in supplemental. However now I re-write nearly all my articles and submit them to Article Marketer and some other places. That has been working very well for me know.
Date/Time: 2-19-2008 15:53:39 Comment #11698
Hi April!
Talk to me more about this Article Marketer and other places…
I’d like to learn more and collect your thoughts on that.
Date/Time: 2-19-2008 16:29:41 Comment #11701
I use Article Marketer because of Courtney Tuttle, if you do a search on his site you’ll get more info. I also do another rough re-write to submit to buzzle.com goarticles.com and also create a squidoo lens and a page at hubpages.com. With hubpages however you have to keep your score up to above 75 so that you don’t get the no follow tag attached to outgoing links.
I’ve actually written about it on my little blog http://dailydosh.blogspot.com/ I don’t really promote this blog as it’s just me rambling and getting backlinks but it might still be of interest to you.
Date/Time: 2-19-2008 16:31:42 Comment #11702
Thanks for coming back and adding the references. I’ll be sure to check them out including your blog.