How Bloggers Can Make More Money
Technorati’s chart I’m using above shows that there were less than 5000 corporate bloggers when it was created. Maybe David Sifry can drop by and give us an update. Whatever the number is, it’s too low. Whatever the number of general info product blogs is, it’s too high.
I’m out to change that chart and makes it obsolete. I want to see more bloggers working on and in their local communities in a positive and professional manner.
In my last post I hinted at a way for bloggers to make a lot more money than a the majority of them do now. It will also enable them to become a more vital part of their community, which will enable them to make even more money. Which, in turn, will give them more time to spend on themselves, which will make them even more money. It’s a delicious cycle, rather than a viscious one.
There’s a lot of blogging going on today that makes no sense and very little from AdSense. Tired of that pitiful little monthly check ? Do you even make enough to get paid monthly. I do. But I make about 5 times as much by selling ads on my blogs than I do from AdSense revenue. And I’ll make 10 times more than that as I blog for the corporate/local business world. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting that check from Google, but there’s a LOT more money out there and I’m gonna tell you how you can make more than you ever dreamed of from blogging.
If you saw my last post, you know there’s a lot of businesses out there today that have no clue as to how to spend their advertising and/or marketing dollars.
Think about this for a few minutes and let’s see if we can make this into something that will make bloggers more valuable, more accepted and more money.
How many local companies like this do you do business with :
• Restaurants
• Doctors
• Chiropractors
• Dentists
• Eye Doctors
• Lawyers
• Furniture Dealers
• Car Dealers
• Dry Cleaners
• Coffee Shops
• Repair Shops
The list could go on and on, but you see where I’m going with this. Any business that sells a product or especially a service oriented business can benefit from a blogger. Especially if that blogger knows anything at all about marketing.
Start them off with a blog, then move them into email marketing. Capture their customers email addresses and then, after they figure out what day is their slow day, you email their list with a special for that day only.
Got a hairdresser who can’t get anybody in the chair on Tuesday ? During your blogging for that hairdresser, make a comment about how slow it is on Tuesday and send out an email with a special for Tuesday. 25% off for the first 12 people who call and make an appoitment.
If you have more than 12 people call and have some who can’t get an appointment, don’t make ‘em mad, make ‘em an appointment and give them the same 25% off.
Got a dental hygenist who ends up with no appointments on Wednesday’s ? Create a Wednesday Frenzy and then email their list with 20% off coupons for anybody who calls and gets an appointment for Wednesday.
Same thing applies. Don’t make those who are a little late mad. Make ‘em an appointment ! Give them the same discount.
Chiropractors offices are prime examples of someone who could use marketing help. They have a lot of info they could share in a blog. All they need is for you, expert blogger that you are, to take their content and put it in blog form. And if you can help them fill all their free time with email marketing like I’ve already explained, you’re now a valuable member of their team.
Surely a chiropractor can afford to pay you well for making his time profitable. Maybe you can even barter some adjustments for you and your family. Same thing for your hairdresser. Your mechanic. Your drycleaner. Your favorite restaurant. Your dentist. Any service you spend money on every week is a prime example of someone who needs you to blog for them.
The cell phone companies don’t need you to reblog about a blog post that was blogged about 31 times already. The less we hear about Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, the better off we’ll all be.
I see more opportunities for bloggers to make good money and become more involved in their local economies than if they hide behind a keyboard and talk about their cats, what they ate for dinner or their non-existent love life.
Get out and talk to the people that you do business with. Start blogging about what they can do for their customers and less about your inability to make money from AdSense.
Instead of blogging about gadgets and products in general, spend your time blogging about some specific products and services. Believe me, the corporate world has a lot of money to spend on marketing and advertising and it’s time for bloggers to start making some of it.
Don’t want to work for only one person in a specific field ? Then start a blog about all the services in your local area and sell ad space on it.
The blogosphere doesn’t need another blog about cats, gadgets, celebs, politics, music, games, blogwatching, or any of the other popular topics. What the blogosphere needs is for bloggers to step up and make a difference in their local communities in a professional manner.
Need more answers to your questions ? Leave me a comment.
Need more ideas ? Ask and ye shall receive.
Want to help ? A Trackback and post from your own blog would go a long way.
I’ve told several bloggers that they’d make more money if they tried this and, to my knowledge, none of them have done it yet. It’s time for me to take this to the masses and see if we can get somebody besides me to try it.
Some will, some won’t, so what, so who’s next.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
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Good stuff Mike!
I put some more comments on my site regarding your idea - you’ve convinced me this could be useful - and I’m not easy to convince.
This is a great idea. As I read your article, I immediately thought of a business that could use such a service. Thanks for sharing it with the world.
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Thanks for this simplified outlook on blogging for business!
Chad H.
Mike,
Great ideas and great post! Neighborhood-based small businesses stand to benefit from blogging, big time. Problem (or opportunity) is, local business owners, generally speaking, don’t understand blogs and are hesitant to dip their toe into the blogoshpere. Compounding that issue is the the fact the bloggers (and those who sell blogs) are perceived only as geeks, or super-techies or just a bunch of TechCrunch readers
Local business owners are in a unique position to be seen as local experts. For instance, a hairdresser could give tips for dealing with your hair stlye during the high-humidity summer. A local bike shop owner could blog about new bike trails in the area, and offer a bike tune-up discount to folks that come in and mention the trail.
I could go on and on; the possibilities are endless. And so are the opportunities.
Works for me, Cortland. In fact it just did with a five figure deal I just signed….and it might spin off into several more.
I’ll take 10 of these per year and go away quiet, happy and smiling.
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Great Post Mike Sigers,
Really good content that you are providing and speaking from experience, it’s hard to really make good money through blogging as people’s mentality when visiting blogs are usually not geared to click on ads on the blog as compared to someone searching for relevant information on a content site filled with adsense and other advertising avenues…
All in all, in my experience, contents sites make way much more money than blogs due to the users mentality….
Cheers,
Little Guy Can Succeed Online
http://www.Monitorinvest.com
You’re right O’ Investing One - Bloggers would be much better off to create quality content, sell ad space or sponsorships and the create infoproducts to educate their readers about their topic/niche, then we’d see fewer dead blogs with no posts added in months.
Not much uglier than a dead, abandoned blog.
Thanks for the comment.
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I found this post after reading your post about Craigslist.org … and how simple it is and that it’s original purpose was to tell friends about ‘local’ events.
I’m putting together a list of businesses to talk to about using blogs for this purpose.
On the subject of staying targeted…do you think it’d be wise to also do a “whole town” blog tying it all together or stick with using either one business per blog and/or one type of business…
My own answer would be to test it all ways and see what works.
Anyway, thanks for the idea for local marketing, and I’ll keep you posted.
Andy
Hey Andy,
One blog per business will be far and away more effective, but a “whole town” blog would be great as a place to get them seen, so i’d do both.
Hi Mike,
Where is that Digg button. I so want to Digg this
Your blog is now in my favorites!
What an excellent post with some amazing insight. I’ve always been trying to tell my friends that Adsense isn’t the best monetization for small sites like blogs. Adsense is for big sites that can’t manage each of their pages, therefore they need something that would automatically match their content.
Small sites like blogs, should concentrate on visitor experience and work on building credibility instead of trying to send people away from their blog for a measely 5 cents.
After the credibility is built, then a blogger can recommend great services or products to his visitors and make money from sales.
Blogging should be about “solving problems”. And you have brought an excelent idea about monetization of a blog. If someone from St Louis is looking for a St Louis Dentist and then finds a great blog that belongs to a dentist, then this quickly becomes HUGE!
I think I am going to take you up on this idea and see what I can do to sell myself to some of the local business owners that are looking to expand their business.
Your awesome!
Best Regards,
CageyBee
Thanks CB.
We operate 5 corporate/small-business blogs for owners that need a bloggers expertise and don’t mind paying for it.
If I had more time, I’d do more of these, but a bloggers gotta have a life too.
Thanks for coming by.
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