Making money online is a 50 50 split
One of the most common mistakes that a newbie blogger makes is that he or she doesn’t spend enough time marketing his or her blog. After you write your post, you should market that post. If you’re just starting out, you probably don’t have regular visitors. You probably don’t show up in search engines. That means that your blog post will only be read by you, and your mommy. That’s why you have to actively market you blog post. This is crucial in the early stages of blog development. If you want to make money online, you better market your blog posts. I think you should spend 50% of you blogging time on blogging, and the other 50% on marketing. Making money online is a 50 50 split.
I’ve seen newbie bloggers hold pretty sweet contests. They spend money on the prizes for a promotion that doesn’t get a lot of buzz. This is just bad business. This type of contest is a waste of money. What good is it to give out a prize worth $100 when you only have three visits to that post. That’s why you should check out the contest promotion list that i made up. Blogging isn’t just about writing good content. It’s about getting traffic to you site. Generally speaking, if you write good content, people will come. But, this could take months to years. That’s why you have to actively get people to visit. You don’t want to spend years growing a blog do you?
Manage your time wisely. There are a lot of distractions online. Social networking sites can drain the time you spend online. I think most of the big companies block such sites because it lowers employee productivity. People are addicted to facebook like it’s crack. Make a list of things that waste you time. Know your weaknesses. If you’re the type of person who constantly checks stats, don’t login to google analytics. If you have a facebook (crack) addiction, block it from your browser. You should be spending this time on building links and networking.
Try the 50 50 split. If you spend about an hour a day on your blog, divide that time into two parts. Spend 30 mins writing. This can include posting articles and replying to comments. After your 30 min is us, spend 30 mins building links by commenting on high PR dofollow blogs. This will announce your blog to others and help you get free PR links. Hit up the web forums and start up discussions and thread. Rinse and repeat and you’ll have a nice clean blog in no time.
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August 4th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’m busy building contents and I guess I forgot to market my posts more
Waiting for the search engines to catch up will require some months and/or maybe years, as you said
August 4th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
michael aulia- i think you’re doing a great job on your blog. your traffic is amazing and congrats on the PR update and the $11 click.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
This was helpful. Thank you
The littlest suggestions go the longest way.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
krystyl- you’re welcome. i agree, little things added up make a big difference. blogging is really basic, there really isn’t much to it. it’s just a matter of dotting your i-s and putting up a few pictures and typing some words. the ones that are good are the ones that keep doing it.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:12 am
I usually focus on my seo and have traffic coming from search engine. I know it’s a hard way to get traffic but if I think long term, my traffic can only be stable never less.
I agree dont just write posts that nobody will notice about it. Find many sources that people can find you. If you are everywhere, you are popular!
August 5th, 2008 at 5:45 am
I am lurker and don’t really post that much on forums and other people’s blog. I am someone that needs to start marketing my posts more.
Greg
http://www.gregellison.net
August 5th, 2008 at 8:48 am
This is a great post. I find that I do spend my time advertising; however, I don’t know how effective my advertising really is.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:21 am
kiwipulse- that’s great that you were able to work the search engines. google traffic is by far the best type of traffic. totally agree, make sure that your “brand”, link, url shows up everywhere. no such thing as overexposure with blogs.
greg ellison- it’s cool to test things out by just being a quiet observer in the beginning. but once u get serious about webmastering, u have to be a participant.
beau71- i think you should compare traffic stats with every advertising campaign and promotion. I usually analysis my traffic data after each contest posts. or after each promotion.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I couldn’t agree more. Marketing your blog should include half your time and blogging the other half. I do see the marketing angle is a little more difficult and I feel a little more time consuming, yet it is so worth it.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Your post makes a lot of sense. I’m going to work at the 50-50 split and see what happens. Thanks!
August 5th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
This is good advise.
What techniques or steps do you use to promote your posts?
August 5th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
This is very good advice. I enjoy reading your blog in the midst of my entrecard dropping.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Totally agree. Blogging is a matter of marketing. And I tend to think that Marketing is slightly more important than writing. In fact, you can write the best content and still have no readers because you don’t market. On the other hand, you can write an average content and have a great marketing, and unfortunately you can have a lot of readers. The long term continuity of the blog is disputable with the second scenario, but it shows how important marketing can get.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:55 am
I’ve seen you advertise a lot more on Entrecard in the past week and I was wondering how you decide when it’s time to start an ad campaign. Do you just wait for the creds to pile up?
August 6th, 2008 at 2:13 am
[...] Making money online is a 50 50 split [...]
August 6th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Excellent post! I agree 110%. I found my greatest success came when I stopped dropping on so many blogs and instead spent time reading content and commenting on high traffic blogs. Good networking in general. Those that visit my site and drop more than 30 times I add to my blogroll too to show appreciation. Thanks for this post!
August 6th, 2008 at 2:59 am
I like the idea of the 30 drops, trench.
August 6th, 2008 at 5:18 am
great advise indeed! blog marketing is a must!
and your pic is just as great…haha! talking about split!
August 6th, 2008 at 7:46 am
People are addicted to facebook like it’s crack.
Notice you dind’t mention BC LOL
I started to do exactly that and it seems to help my stats. At least my new visitors are climbing more.
It does make a huge difference if we don’t market our posts. I missed a couple of days and was amazed how fast it dropped down from 425 to 132.
Have to improve those though Any suggestions??
August 6th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Advertising campaign…..hmmm, I never even track my advertising. I got some serious work to do!!
August 6th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Thanks for this post. I should really spend more time on marketing rather than staring at the stats.
August 6th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
This is excellent advice. I totally agree. I’ve managed to stay pretty “unhooked” with facebook, but I do spend far to much time looking at analytics.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Excellent and useful advice!
August 6th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
So true so true, I see Entre card is mentioned in the comments above, great for traffic.
Blog Catalogue, Mybloglog and so many other Blog Communities are great traffic builders also as long as you put in that 50% marketing time to introduce yourself.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I think it’s not 50-50 split, but 30-70 split which 30% goes to writing good content, 70% goes to link building.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I’ve been blogging since Dec but I didn’t spend any time doing any type of marketing until about a month ago. Now I spend maybe an hour blogging and 3 or 4 marketing. I’m probably not the most efficient marketer since I’m just starting up the learning curve. Every hour marketing feels like being back in school. I’m still fighting for each and every visit. I’m starting to get a few google search visits but I can tell from their search words that they probably weren’t looking for me.
anyway, back to class, I mean marketing.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:57 am
steve- i think in the beginning, marketing is pretty hard. but after you get more comfortable with it, and u get more practice, you’ll start seeing what works and what is a waste of time.
steve v4.7- thanks. im all about logic.
debo hobo- i will write a followup post about my techniques for promoting my posts. but it’s nothing special. i just have lists of various places to promote different type of posts. if i run a contest, i know which outlets to hit up. if i’m giving out advice or blogging tips, then i hit up a different set of forums/blogs/websites.
renee- thanks for taking the time to read while u drop.
o. messaoud- i might have to agree with you. i wrote about making money without having real readers. if u look at the popular blogs, it’s not really about content. it’s more about branding and marketing. u can have a shit blog but still attract a lot of traffic cause of your marketing campaign.
tom- yeah. i’ve been focusing a little more of my time on entercard. i want to try to remain on top of the popular entrecard page incase entrecard blows up to be a major player in the blogosphere. u asked a good question. i think entrecard is still a baby. if u look at the member list, it’s still hasn’t even scratched the surface of the whole of the blogging community. so it’ll grow bigger in time. currently, i’ve worked it to where i get 300-500 visits from entrecard. if the member base doubles up by the end of the year, i can expect double that traffic. i like to advertise on other popular entrecard blogs. i see some bloggers advertising on chow’s blog for a lot of credits. this is the stupidest thing to do with your credits. you should look for deals. chow’s visitors are not going to click on the entrecard widget. the people who click thru EC’s widget are other EC members. so it’s best to advertise on the popular EC blogs. i now earn 1000-2000 credits a day. so i use that all up when i get em. if i need more credits, i usually buy them on ebay. u can buy 1k credits for about $3.30.
trench- i think it’s good to do little promotions like that. it makes your visitors feel special and that is a form of marketing and brand building.
o messaoud- yeah. trench is on to something.
naomi- haha. u got that. i don’t randomly put up images of celebs. i carefully select each image to mean something from that particular post.
only someone as naughty as me would have caught that. naughty naomi.
wendy- yeah BC members are addicts. but unlike facebook, you’re constantly building up your brand when ur on bc. facebook doesn’t do anything for your blog or website. i’ll try to post a few on marketing tricks or things i do to that have worked well.
calvin- i used to do that a lot. even when my stats wouldn’t change, i would constantly check that sucker. yeah it’s a big timesuck.
dan blackburn- yup yup. i try to check once a day now. i either check when i wake up in the morning, or if i’m up late, i’ll check right when it tallys that day’s count.
digital polaroids- thanks!
donssite- yeah, EC, BC, all good for networking and traffic building. marketing should extend more tho. the more u put in, the more u’ll take out.
pandu blogging- i agree. good content could probably be found on a lot of unpopular blogs. it’s a shame cause those blogs won’t ever be found. not even by google, cause u need links to be indexed properly. it’s mostly about marketing.
xmarks- you’re putting in a lot of hours. i think you’ll be able to cut the time u put in, and get better results in no time. in the beginning, it’s hard for everyone. that’s true of everything we are new too. good job and keep on blogging hard.