Is there money in blogging?
Yes and no.
J. LeRoy explains the "no" part of the answer perfectly in this post. He says "Monetizing your blog is like going to a cocktail party and expecting people to pay to talk with you. It's inappropriate and will cause people to avoid you."
Personal blogs, even when written in your professional persona, aren't supposed to make money. Certainly, they create opportunities for professional networking and marketing that may very well lead to contracts, jobs, and collaborative projects. But it's bad manners to try to push a sale or close a deal at the online cocktail party.
The "yes" answer to "Is there money in blogging?" comes when you are blogging on behalf of a client company. Small, fast-paced companies that do much of their business online find that fresh web content, appropriately keyworded, puts their pages higher in search engine rankings and thus draws traffic to their sites. They pay professional marketing writers like me to reseach and then blog about issues that interest their audiences -- just as they pay ad agencies to create their ads and PR agencies to handle their press releases.
Nice, Karen. Thanks for the link to that J. Leroy article. I would totally agree that the blog itself isn't a great moneymaker. I use mine to demonstrate my credibility as a service provider, and that's why my clients create theirs, as well.
ReplyDeleteCan you say what yours is for, or how you think about it related to making money?
As far as making money, my blog is a lousy direct money maker. Advertising revenues, book sales, things like that are minuscule.
ReplyDeleteHowever, having my blogs has made me very comfortable because of indirect revenues. Making my name in the great conversation by typing away has opened amazing opportunities for me.
I would assume that while you personally get $$ for writing blogs for your clients - their actual value from their investment in your writing still comes from indirect sources.
That being said, I'm quite impressed you've been able to make blogging as a part of your portfolio of services! It's amazing.