Bidvertiser

Launched in 2003 by Bpatch, Ltd., BidVertiser. burst onto the CPC ad network scene by trying to differentiate itself from the many other contextual networks available. Their innovative business model was, and still is today, to sell their publisher’s ads to the highest advertising bidder on a price-per-click basis.

As such, advertisers bid against each other for a publisher’s ad space, with the highest bidders always getting displayed on the publisher’s website. Competing in the CPC market is not easy for an up-and-coming ad network with the giant Google AdSense towering over its competition and monopolizing the market. However, Bidvertiser has stepped up to the plate and actually offers publishers many benefits over AdSense. The first is that Bidvertiser offers an extremely low minimum payment of only $10. This is one of the smallest minimum payments in the industry, and coupled with the fact that publishers can withdraw via PayPal, Bidvertiser immediately becomes a viable solution for many publishers. Compare this to AdSense which requires a minimum withdrawal of $100, and does not offer payment via PayPal.

Another advantage Bidvertiser has over most other ad networks is that their ads are completely customizable. While many other networks including AdSense allow custom colors, Bidvertiser also allows users to customize additional features such as font and text size, and even the actual size dimensions of the ads. This effectively allows publishers to create ads of any custom size for superlative integration. The last major perk Bidvertiser has over AdSense and other networks is their ease and speed of signing up. Within 5-minutes, a brand new publisher can sign-up to Bidvertiser and have integrated ads up and running on their site. Bidvertiser also serves ads based on their 3rd-generation bidding-based system, which allows them to accept all sites including: flash sites, sites with little content, and password-protected pages. Unfortunately, Bidvertiser excels in all areas except for one: payouts. Sadly, this is arguably the most important element of an ad network. Most publishers report rather poor earnings and conversion rates with Bidvertiser when compared to other CPC networks such as AdSense. This is most likely due to the almost unfair advantage AdSense has with massive advertiser base; while Bidvertiser has a decent advertiser base of their own, Google simply has a lot more, and more advertisers results in higher competition, and thus higher payouts.

Signing Up

BidVertiser offers one of the fastest and easiest sign-ups available. Registration does not require W9 or W8BEN tax forms to be signed and sent in, and after confirming their e-mail address with an e-mailed confirmation code, applicants will receive instant activation and approval. There are no traffic or demographic requirements, and publishers can get started immediately, adding their ad code to their sites the second their accounts are activated. However, it is important to note that in order to help prevent offensive websites from joining their network. Bidvertiser manually reviews and approves each site, usually within 48 hours. During this time, publishers’ ads will display the default Bidvertiser ads.

Control Panel

Bidvertiser sports one of the most impressive control panel’s available. It is extremely user-friendly and straightforward, while both lightning fast and visually appealing at the same time. And, of course, it offers many great features as well. First, Bidvertiser gives publishers absolute control over the look and feel of their ads, allowing them to customize everything including colors, font and text size, and even the actual dimensions of the ads themselves. This makes Bidvertiser the perfect network for publishers who require a specific or custom ad size that no other network offers. In addition, the way Bidvertiser’s ad code is created and managed, publishers never have to update their ad code on their sites. For example, with AdSense, when a publisher wishes to modify the color of their ad, they need to update their site with the new modified code. But with Bidvertiser, the code never needs to be changed, as it is automatically done within the control panel. This offers a major convenience. Publishers can easily filter out any unwanted ads, although each ad has already been pre-screened by Bidvertiser’s editorial team. Publishers can also easily add their other owned websites to their account as well. Bidvertier’s stats are calculated live; impressions are displayed up to a 4-hour delay, but click statistics are updated immediately.

Payment

Bidvertiser pays in monthly installments on Net-15 Payment terms, and offers one of the lowest minimum payouts in the industry at only $10. However the $10 minimum payout is for PayPal withdrawals only. In addition to PayPal, Bidvertiser can also pay by check, but the minimum payment for check is $50. Compared to AdSense, which does not offer PayPal as a payment option and has a much higher minimum payout at $100, Bidvertiser easily wins in the payment category.

Referral Program

BidVertiser offers a referral program and all existing publishers are automatically eligible, only needing to activate it by clicking a button within the referral section of their control panel. All referral earnings are tracked in a separate referral control panel which contains detailed reports and a wide selection of various banners of different sizes and colors. Like their main publisher control panel, Bidvertiser’s referral control panel is extremely easy to use and offers pretty much everything publishers need. Bidvertiser allows publishers to refer both advertisers and publishers, and their payouts are as follows: For the first $10 a referred advertiser spends, the referring publisher will receive $5. When that same referred advertiser spends $50, the referring publisher will receive an additional $20. For the first $10 a referred publisher earns $10, the referring publisher will receive $10. When that same referred publisher earns $50, the referring publisher will receive an additional $40. Earnings from referrals are included and paid out with the publisher’s main account with the same monthly payment cycle and payment methods and terms.

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Making Money Because of Your Blog - Indirect Methods

We now turn our attention to ways of making money from blogging that are more more ‘indirect’ in nature - or how to earn money because of your blog rather than from it.

Many of the following methods are the result of the profile and perceived expertise of the blogger themselves (whereas many of the direct methods mentioned previously are less reliant upon this).

Building a profile as a blogger doesn’t happen quickly and starting a blog with some of these hopes should be seen as a long term thing. My own experience in this area is that now after 18 months of blogging here at ProBlogger that it’s only been in the last few months that I’ve had opportunities open in most of these areas.

• Consulting - when you are perceived as an expert on a topic you will find that people naturally come to you for advice - some of them willing to pay for it. Some niches are probably better positioned than others for their bloggers to get into paid consultancy work of course. I spoke with one blogger recently (blogging in a business/technology field) who was able to charge himself out at $600 per hour to give advice to a large company. Interestingly I’ve heard of a number of companies in the last 6 months who are developing VOIP services that bloggers will be able to add to their sidebars to enable them to be called by readers for consulting. The systems would have per minute rate on them to automate this consulting process.

• Employment Opportunities - Just this last week PR blogger Steve Rubel announced that he’d been hired by a bigger PR firm. While he didn’t say it explicitly in his post I suspect that one of the reasons for him landing the job was the profile he’d built over the last year and a half from blogging. Steve’s case is not the only one - bloggers are increasingly being targeted by companies because of their demonstrated abilities in their field of expertise.
• Business Blogging - Similarly there are some businesses who employ people to blog for them either as their main role or part of their role. One example of a company who employed a couple of bloggers was Vespa who now have two blogs. BloggerJobs is one site worth following if you’re looking for these types of jobs. Most of the jobs there are from blog networks but occasionally they include businesses looking for bloggers also.
• Book Deals - Some days as I read through the RSS feeds that I follow it seems that every blogger I read has a book either in progress or coming out. Once again it’s about being seen as an expert in your field - if you can achieve this you will find publishers are more receptive to having an idea pitched to them and at times will even seek you out. This is becoming more and more common with publishers as they are seeing not only some great writers but that many of them already have large amounts of content on their blogs ready to be pulled together into a book!
• Offline Writing Gigs - Manolo from Shooeblogs recently landed a writing gig in the Washington Post Express after he was discovered via his blog. These types of opportunities can be in the form of newspapers, magazines, trade publications etc.
• Online Writing Gigs - Similarly some bloggers also land jobs writing for other forms of websites as a result of being discovered from their blogs.
• Selling e-resources - I wasn’t sure whether to classify this as direct or indirect (and depending upon how you do it you could probably go either way) but some bloggers are leveraging the expertise they have in an area by putting together their own ‘e-products’ such as e-books, tele-seminars, courses etc and selling them to their readers.
• Business Partnerships - One of the benefits of blogging about a niche topic that interests you is that you will begin to connect with others who have similar interests and expertise. As you interact with them it’s amazing to see the opportunities for working together that arise.
• Speaking Opportunities - Once again this is dependent upon the topic you’re writing about but some lucky bloggers end up with all kinds of opportunities to speak at conferences, workshops and seminars on their topic of choice. Sometimes they are freebies, other times the conference will cover costs and on other occasions there are speakers fees.

If you’re planning to use some of these indirect ways of making money because of your blog it’s important that you think seriously about building your own profile and credibility as a blogger. Think about the types of people that you respect and look to as experts an consider what they offer in their fields.

These people are generally original thinkers that not only report what others are doing, but who provide answers and vision for their industry. They are also often well networked and have the ability to draw others along with them.

What does this mean for your blog? Here’s where I’d start:

• provide useful content that shows an understanding of your niche.
• network within your niche. Work on being connected with other key players (big and small).
• use your blog not only to report and rehash news but to also show initiative in proposing solutions. Be proactive in your blogging and lead the conversation rather than just react to it.

How to Make Money From Your Blog - Direct Methods

Having thought through whether you should blog for money it is now worth taking a look at some of the different models for doing so.

I tend to break the different models that bloggers are using to make money from blogging into two areas - Direct and Indirect methods.

Direct Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income directly FROM their blog.

Indirect Income Earning Methods - these methods are where a blogger earns an income BECAUSE of their blog.

Most blogs tend to fall into one or the other of these methods - although there is nothing to stop bloggers experimenting with elements of both ( I’ve seen a few bloggers get into trouble with this (example: Scenario 1 in the previous post).

In this post I’ll look at 8 direct income earning methods and in the next post of this series I’ll explore indirect methods. Please note that on occasion in the following post there will be few affiliate links to services that I use and have had some success with. These will be marked with (aff) after them.

Direct Income Earning Methods for Bloggers

1. Advertising

There are many ways of selling advertising space on a blog (this could almost be a series of it’s own) but some of the different advertising options that I see bloggers experimenting with include:

• Contextual Advertising - Programs like AdSense and YPN (beta) are very popular with bloggers and are probably the most common income stream being used by them today (MSN are developing one too). In short - these programs scan the content of your blog to assertion what it’s topic is and attempt to put contextually relevant ads (text and image) onto your blog. They are generally simple to use and involve pasting some code into your blog’s templates. Payment is on a ‘per click’ basis (referred to as CPC or ‘cost per click’ ads). Contextual ads suit blogs that have a particular niche topic, especially if it has some sort of commercial angle (ie it has products and services associated with it). They are not so good with ‘general’ type blogs (ie many topics) and/or political/spiritual blogs which argue just one side of a case (this confuses AdSense). I write much more extensively on how to use AdSense on your blog here.
• Other CPC Advertising - There are a variety of other ad systems that pay on a per click basis which are not contextual in nature (which is important as systems like AdSense do not allow you to run contextual ads on the same page view as them). These systems include Chitika’s eMiniMalls (aff) which I reviewed here.
• Impression Based Ads - Impression based ads pay a small amount for every person who views the advertisement. The amount that they pays varies from program to program (and ad to ad) and is generally a fraction of a cent. There are a variety of ad systems around like this including Fastclick (aff) which I reviewed here and Tribal Fusion. Impression based ads won’t earn you much if you don’t have a lot of traffic but can be great if you do.
• Blog Ads - BlogAds have become something of an institution when it comes to advertising on blogs. They traditionally have had a focus upon monetizing political blogs but are expanding their focus lately. The beauty of them is that bloggers set their own rates and can accept or reject advertisers that apply to them to be featured on their blogs. These ads put the control of what ads show and how much they earn into the hands of the blogger. The downside is that if you price them too high you could never have any ads showing at all. They can also be difficult to be accepted into as a publisher as these days they only accept people into the system if they have a someone who is already in ’sponsor’ or recommend the new publisher.
• Text Ads - Another increasingly popular way to sell ads on your blog is to look into text links. The beauty of these are that they don’t take up much room and that depending upon the system you choose to run them you can have control over which advertisers you accept and reject. AdBrite (aff) is one such system that gives you control in a similar way to BlogAds in that you set your own prices and approve all ads. They also other other formats of ads. Text Link Ads (aff) is another text link seller that more and more bloggers are using. The beauty of both of these systems is that they have a pool of advertisers already so you don’t have to go looking for your own advertisers. Their systems are also both very automated and are just a matter of pasting some code onto your blog. I use them both and while they don’t earn anywhere near as much as AdSense or Chitika for me they add up over the year and have done well for me. Bidvertiser and Adzaar are other system that I know are popular with some (we’ve used them quite successfully on b5media although I have little personal experience with them).
• RSS Ads - An increasingly popular way for people to read blogs is via RSS. As a result publishers and ad providers have been keen to find ways to place ads in feeds. These attempts have been met with a variety of success levels. I’m yet to hear of too many people making big dollars with RSS ads yet but the ad systems seem to be improving. AdSense offers RSS ads to some of it’s publishers (you have to have a certain number of impressions first) as does YPN. Feedburner is a tool I’ve used to help monetise my own feeds - they give publishers three options (1. AdSense if you’ve been approved by them, 2. Amazon affiliate program and 3. if you have a lot of subscribers (over 500) they have an Ad Network). Pheedo is another system that you might like to try (although I’ve not had much experience with it).
• Other Ads Systems - In addition to the above systems (most of which I’ve used myself) are many other advertising options which I’ve not had experience with and so won’t personally recommend. I’m sure they are worth experimenting with however as I see many of them being used by bloggers every day. Here they are in no particular order:
• AdGenta, CrispAds, Clicksor, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, Double Click, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, OneMonkey, and TextAds. Feel free to add your own and tell us how you’ve gone with them in comments below.

2. Sponsorship

Another form of advertising that a smaller number of bloggers are using is to find their own advertisers. All of the above systems have the advantage of finding you advertisers (or at least assisting in the automation of ads to your blog) but as your blog grows in profile and influence you might find other options for private deals come up.

The big blog networks have people dedicated to the task of finding advertisers (often working through ad agencies) but smaller bloggers might find this worthwhile also. I’ve been selling ads on my Digital Camera Blog for two years now and as it’s grown in traffic and profile and managed to attract larger companies (who are willing to pay more) to buys space. Currently the blog features ads from Adobe who have bought a combination of banner, newsletter and text ads.

The key if you’re going to take this approach is to target advertisers in your niche that have products that closely relate to what you’re writing about. There are a variety of ads that you can offer them including banner ads, buttons, text links, mentions in newsletters and even individual post sponsorships. I would highly recommend that you always make it clear to readers that your post is a sponsored one when you’re writing a sponsored post.

3. Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are where you take a commission for referring a reader who purchases a product or service to a company. Probably the most common of these for bloggers is Amazon which has tens of thousands of products that you can link to (I reviewed it here). Other affiliate programs that represent many different companies and products include Linkshare, Commission Junction and Clickbank.

Affiliate programs take some work if you want to get the most out of them (perhaps more work than advertising) but can be lucrative if you match the right program with the right blog/topic. If you want to explore affiliate programs more you might like to read 10 tips for using affiliate programs on you blog.

4. Selling/Flipping Blogs

The idea of selling (or flipping) your blog is one that many bloggers have in the back of their minds for ‘one day’ but in reality it is not something that is overly common… yet (I think this is changing). Probably the largest sale is that of Weblogs Inc (a network of blogs) which sold to AOL for a reported $25 million. Of course this is the stuff that most of us can only dream of - but there are examples of smaller blogs being sold, either privately or via auctions on sites like eBay and SitePoint. One such auction was that of the Blog Herald which took place here.

Starting a blog with the main goal of selling it down the track is one that I’ve heard of a number of bloggers doing but few have been successful. Rather than starting with this intention I think if you start with the intention of building a quality site that has a large readership and it’s own good income stream you are more likely to find buyers down the track.

5. Donations and Tip Jars

A very small number of blogs have a history of making good money with these (Jason Kottke being one of them). To be successful with asking for money from readers you’ll want to have a large and loyal readership (and a rich one might help too). Most bloggers just don’t have the critical mass or the cult following to make it work.

6. Merchandise

Another method that some blogs use with reasonable effect is to sell T-Shirts, Mugs, Stickers etc with the blog’s name, logo and/or taglines on it. This is another idea that will probably only work if you either have a brilliantly designed merchandise range and/or you have a cult-like status as a blogger with some fanatical readers who are a little obsessive about your blog. Some blog topics lend themselves to this more than others.

7. Selling Subscriptions

The idea of charging readers for content is one that surfaces from time to time. While there are numerous websites around the web that do this successfully (community membership sites) I’m yet to see many (any) blogs do it well. The problem that most bloggers who have tried it have run into is that most topics that you could think to start a blog about already have free sites available. To make it succeed you would need to have some sort of premium/exclusive content and/or real expertise on a topic.

8. Blog Networks

Another emerging income source for bloggers are blog networks. There are two ways to make money here. Firstly you can start a network and contract bloggers to write for you or secondly you might like to join a blog network as a writer. There are many networks out there and all have their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ll attempt to write a post on what to think about when you’re looking at whether to join a network later in this series.

Next in the series we’ll look at indirect ways of making money because of your blog.

How do bloggers make money from blogs?

I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.

I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.

Income Streams for Bloggers - How to Make Money Blogging

Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.

Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).

Lastly there’s BlogAds - one of the first blog specific ad networks.

RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.

Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.

Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.

Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.

Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.

Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.

Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!

Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.

Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).

Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.

Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.

As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.

A Reality Check about Blogging for Money

Last week’s article in the Wall Street Journal revealed that my blog earnings are in excess of $250,000 per year (a very ballpark figure).

The problem with these type of articles is that they report in a few words just one element of a story - in this case my earnings.

While it’s true that I have built my blogging to a point where I’m able to earn good money blogging there are many things that an article like the one in the WSJ didn’t (and couldn’t) mention about how I was able to build my blogging up to this point.

The impact of this missing ‘back story’ is that much of the reality of blogging for money goes unseen by those looking at blogging as a potential income stream - leading some to naively enter into blogging with false expectations.

Of course when these expectations are not met things can get ugly with disappointment and anger being a common reaction. What disappoints me as a blogger writing on this topic is that I regularly see other bloggers feeding their readers with hype and false hopes about how easy it is to make big money from blogging. This only adds to the distance between their reader’s expectations and the reality of blogging for money.

The Reality of Blogging for Money

So what is the reality of building up one’s blogging to a point where they can make a full time living blogging?

Here are five facts that I’d like to share about my own story to give a more realistic picture to those considering getting into blogging as a way to make a living.

1. It takes a concerted long term effort

I have been blogging for five years. The first year was not for money in any way (although I learned a lot about blogging in that year) and the next two I worked 2-3 jobs at a time (and was studying part time) while I built my blogging up from a hobby, to part time job to a full time venture (more on my story here).

I’m often asked things like - ‘I need to make $xxxx in the next few months - how would you do it with a new blog?’

The average age of blogs in the Technorati Top 100 was over 3 years when I last surveyed it - while the occasional blogger has a fast rise to frame they are the exception. Building a successful blog takes a long time (it takes time to build readership, to work out how to monetize it etc) so take a long term approach and pace yourself.

2. It takes luck

I won’t speak for other bloggers but in my case I was very fortunate on many fronts. I started blogging at a good time (it was a lot less crowded and competitive back then).

• I stumbled on making money from blogs quite accidentally
• I started my first money making blog on the spur of the moment and picked a topic (digital
• photography) without knowing what I was doing - but for the time it was right)
• I met the right people at the right time
• Bigger bloggers discovered me at opportune times

The lucky list could go on - but I was very lucky. Of course some people ‘make their own luck’ and to some extent I agree with this - there are ways to increase your chances of being lucky - but some of it is outside your hands. Sometimes the luck comes and sometimes it doesn’t.

3. It takes a lot of work

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how blogging less can mean more from your blog (example 1 and example 2). While I agree with this - that doesn’t mean you can just come up with a few posts on a whim every few days and expect the traffic (and money) to come rolling in. Over the last 3 years I’ve consistently worked 40-60+ hour weeks on my blogging. At one point I was posting 20-30 posts per day (mainly news related posts back then). Most bloggers that make a full time living from blogging work corresponding hours on it.

4. Many don’t make much money blogging

I’ve often used the analogy of Professional sports people to highlight that in any ‘game’ there are many who play it - less who make a little money from the game, even less who are able to earn a living from it (just) and just a small group who make big money from it. The same is true for bloggers. I’ve run many polls here at ProBlogger on how much people are earning from the medium (eg) and on every single occasion they reveal that the vast majority of bloggers are making very little per month. While it is possible to make amazing money from blogging the sad reality is that most don’t make more than pocket money. Even some blogs who ‘deserve’ to make money blogging don’t.

5. It’s hard

One thing that I’ve found to be common with when I had small/new blogs and now having blogs that are doing reasonably well is that in both instances it can be really hard to keep them going. The pressure to keep coming up with fresh ideas, to respond to critique of others, to deal with jealousy when others do well and more can be difficult to deal with. On some levels it gets easier to deal with as your blog grows - but on other levels the demands that you face from a larger readership can at times be overwhelming. Most bloggers that I know (big and small) have at one point or another been close to giving up - I know I have.

Feeling Depressed?

I don’t want to put a downer on those of you wanting to take your blogs to a level where you could make good money from blogging - the fact is that it is possible and and increasing number of people are making a part time or full time living from the medium - but I do think it’s important to have a realistic picture before getting into blogging for money.

While some bloggers do talk about blogging as a way to make quick money I’ve not had that experience myself. Perhaps others do get rich quick from blogging - but I’ve not met any successful bloggers who’ve told me that yet.

20 Types of Pages that Every Blogger Should Consider

When you use WordPress you’re given the choice when publishing between doing it as a ‘post’ or as a ‘page‘. Posts go up on your blog while ‘pages’ are static pages that you can publish without it having to go up on your blog.

There’s a lot of reasons why you might choose a post over a page or a page over a post (that’s for another post) - but today I thought I’d highlight a few ‘pages’ that I have here on ProBlogger as examples of pages that bloggers might want to develop to promote their blog to different groups of people. Some are more essential in my mind than others but all have been helpful in the development of my own blogs.

1. About Page - perhaps one of the most common uses of the ‘page’ function on WP is the good old ‘about page’. Having an about page is essential in my mind as it gives new readers to your blog a snapshot of who you are and why they should subscribe to your blog. This is the page that I go to every time I hit a new blog - if they don’t have one it decreases my chances of subscribing significantly. Read more on adding an about page to your blog.

2. Contact Page - I’m amazed how many bloggers don’t have any way of contacting them on their blog. While I understand the temptation not to have one you could be missing out of wonderful opportunities by not giving readers, potential partners, press, other bloggers a way of contacting you. Read more on Why your blog’s readers should be able to contact you.

3. Press Page - I don’t promote this page heavily (although do mention it on my ‘About Page‘) but use it more when interacting with journalists and mainstream media outlets. The way I use it is to show journalists what others have written about me. I find that in providing a list of previous articles in mainstream media you gain a little credibility and give journalists a head start in finding an angle to pursue for their own potential articles about you. It’s also handy to be able to provide this page to anyone else that you’re attempting to build credibility with that may not be that ‘new media savvy’. It’s amazing how a mention in mainstream media will open doors for some.

4. Disclaimer Page - I need to update this page but for the interests of transparency have it linked to on every page on my blog to show readers what I get out of this blog - ie that I make money from it and use affiliate programs. I also use this page to dispel some of the myths and untrue assumptions that people have about me and this blog by sharing some of the ‘costs’ of this blog. I find that this balanced ‘disclaimer’ works quite well.

5. FAQ Page - this page was written with a very selfish motive - to cut down my workload. I get asked a lot of question, many of them repeatedly. As an attempt to answer some of these frequently asked questions I put together some answers for them. I still get asked the questions but being able to point to this page helps. I also have it linked to prominently from my Contact Page.

6. Subscribe Page - having a page dedicated to how people can subscribe to your blog can be very useful. I don’t link to this from my sidebar any more (like I do at DPS) but do link to it from within posts at times. I find that having a page like this can be useful as some readers don’t understand the idea of RSS or can be worried about issues of privacy or what it means to ’subscribe’. Sometimes having a page dedicated to walking people through the process can pay off.

7. Advertise with Us Page - looking to sell advertising on your blog? An ‘Advertise’ page is an important part of attracting new advertisers and a well written one can cut down a lot of work for you as it’ll help to filter out people by giving them information that helps them to know if your site is right for them. Further Reading: Finding Advertisers for Your Blog.

8. Series Page - Compilation - I’ve used ‘pages’ in two ways when it comes to series of posts. The first way is to put together a compilation page of all of the posts in a series. I don’t do this that regularly but in the example linked to put together the content from all 25 posts on my series on Battling Bloggers Block. I found that some readers really appreciated having the series all in the one place.

9. Series Page - Central Page - the other approach to managing a series of posts with a ‘page’ is to use one as a ‘central links page’ that you update with a link to each post in your series over time. This is what I did in my 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Series last August. The beauty of this approach over the ‘compilation page’ is that it can drive a lot more page views as readers are ’sneezed’ in multiple directions into your blog. It’s also good because it allows readers to be more selective about which posts in a series they want to read rather than reading the full thing.

10. Affiliate Pre-Sell Pages - having a dedicated page for an affiliate program that you’re running can be a very smart move. If you refer to a product that you’re promoting regularly in your posts - rather than linking to the affiliate program link to a ‘pre-sell’ page on your own blog. This allows you to ‘pre-sell’ the product more with a personal message. This is what I do on my AdSense page here at ProBlogger. This doesn’t work for every affiliate program but I find with AdSense that it works well as their landing page can be a little off putting to new potential users of it. It also gives me a little more flexibility with how I mention AdSense in my posts as their Referrals program doesn’t allow html linking. Further Reading: 5 Tips for Improving AdSense Referral Earnings.

11. Services Pages - If you offer services to readers then develop a dedicated sales page for yourself and link to it prominently on your blog. The example here is my Consulting page - a page I used to point to regularly. These days I don’t offer these services any more (due to workload) so have not promoted it for a while. I find that when you have a dedicated page to selling your services you can sell yourself much more expansively than just a quick mention elsewhere on your blog.

12. Key Information Pages - Do you have information that you’re constantly providing to people over and over again (whether in blog posts, via email or in other ways)? Make a page about it and keep the link handy. That’s what I did with my b5media page and have found it to help me cut down my workload in answering questions about the network. I also link to it in my navigational bar here on ProBlogger and it’s lead to some great opportunities. You could do this with any business or product that you’re associated with.

13. Landing Pages - this page is an example of one over at DPS that I used last year as a landing page for an ad campaign that I ran. If you do choose to run an ad campaign to promote your blog then it’s much wiser to link your ads to a dedicated landing page than the front page of your blog. Read more on Advertising Your Blog and on Landing Pages.

14. Sneeze Pages - one great way to propel people deep within your blog is to develop a Sneeze Page or a ‘Best of’ page that highlights some of the better articles on your blog around a particular theme. Put links to these pages on your sidebar or refer to them in posts and you’ll see your page impressions per visit statistics go up.

15. Testimonial Pages - if you’re selling something (even if it’s yourself) to have some sort of a testimonial page can be very worthwhile. People base buying decisions increasingly upon the opinions of others - so capture some of these opinions and present them.

16. Event Specific Pages - speaking at an event? Create a ‘page’ specifically for those at it and mention that you’ve done so in your presentation. This way you can tailor a specific message to those visitors, their needs, your presentation and ’sell’ something to them (whether it be subscribing to your blog, buying a product, selling your services or getting them to read certain pages on your blog. The example I’ve given is from a conference I did this time last year. I also used to have a section on that page selling a product that I mentioned in the presentation and it converted quite well.

17. 404 Page - when people arrive on your blog to a page that has been deleted, follow a dead link etc and end up on a default error page on your blog you’ve got a wasted opportunity on your hands. Customize your error pages to help readers find what they’re looking for or at least find something else that might interest them. Further Reading: How to Create a Custom 404 Error Page for Your Blog.

18. Special Projects - Last year I participated in a charity event called (Movember). Rather than letting this event completely take over my blog for the month I created a dedicated page for the event that those who were interested in could follow my updates on.

19. Guest Blogger Page - I’ve never spoken publicly about this page on ProBlogger before but it’s a page that I provide to guest bloggers of ProBlogger with some guidelines on how to write for this blog. I’ve done the same thing for DPS and have found that it’s been very useful. I get more posts that are written in a format that I can use and it’s cut down a lot of work for me.

20. Archives Page - there are numerous ways that you can present that archives of your blog. It becomes more challenging the larger your blog grows to be able to direct people back to your best previous work and a dedicated page can be helpful in that process rather than just presenting a list of categories or dates on your site bar. What I’ve attempted to do with mine is to provide a page with dated archives but also categories with some suggested starting points.

Some of the above ‘pages’ can of course be created from ‘posts’ on your blog (and there might be some good reasons for doing so) however my preference is to make them ‘pages’. In most cases this is because I prefer these pages to not be date specific. The way I have my links set up here at ProBlogger posts have dates showing and in the link structure - but pages don’t. In many of the above examples I also didn’t want to page to show up in my blog’s RSS feed or categories - but preferred them to be standalone pages.

What page types would you add to the above list?

Update: Some great suggestions in comments so far. I agree that a privacy page is a good one, as is a comments policy (I have one of these but wrote it as a post - I think it’d be more appropriate as a page though). Another one that I should have included is a ‘resource’ page - a page that lists recommended resources, books, courses etc. Lastly - I should have included a ‘blog roll’ or ‘links’ page. Thanks for everyone’s suggestions - keep them coming.