pay to blog

robwatts — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:19:26 +0000

Blogging for profit?

Ok, not everyone wants to monetise their blog – some people equate money and blogging as some kind of dirty word almost. Some people still like to write for the hell of it and couldn’t really give a rats arse for any kind of monetary payback. Their payback is the reward that comes from getting people involved or simply venting their spleen on a topic near and dear to them.

Its not for me to pour scorn on any money hating anti capitalistic mindset, we can all rant and rave about market inequalities and the evils of money until the cows come home, yet nothing changes the reality of life, which is, we all need the stuff and to have a productive life, we tend to get out and find ways of acquiring it. The easier that task the better no? why work for the man, when you don’t have to, or at least not as hard maybe.

Earning yourself a passive income stream

Blogging and monetising that writing is an excellent way of creating passive streams of income. Passive streams of income are like bank accounts with lots of dosh in them. You get interest monthly and you don’t have to do very much for it.

Getting affiliate cheques every month is quite a pleasant feeling, trust me.
Blogging for profit isn’t like traditional methods of selling ones labour. You can actually own the means of production, which is you, yourself and sell yourself as that product. Decide upon how much you charge, how much you are paid, when you take your breaks. IOW, it really has the potential to free you from traditional forms of work. Your traffic and authority levels can truly give you what you need. All you have to do is do the leg work and build something of value.

Blog Optimisation Experimentation and Cultivating your Niche

So, having tentatively established that there isn’t anything really evil about making money from your blog/s I just wanted to share some of the programs Ive used and see if I could get a little feedback from people with regard to their own experiences.

We all know that there are lots of ways of monetising ones blog. I’ve blogged on quite a few programs and have shared some of my experiences and gave opinions too. I’ve dabbled with paid reviews, and have recently added the buy me a beer plugin too, just to see if anyone actually uses the thing. After all it cost me $0.00 and took me 22 seconds to install. If I get one beer bought for me, I’m quids in

It is very much early days for me. Many of my past web monetisation efforts have been in affiliate market sectors outside of the blogosphere. This is kinda cool though really, because Ive learnt a great deal about what it takes to get traffic and getting people to click through to stuff and funneling them along various paths which is absolutely central to any monetisation aim. I’m continually experimenting with the blogs I use and the methods I employ too, you have to, why wouldn’t you even, call it BO (Blog Optimisation) without any stink.

It’s a well known fact that some markets are definitely more lucrative than others. People also tend to guard their niches with their lives, as a saturated niche becomes that much harder to play in and compete with.

Every niche is different. Different people interact in different ways dependant upon what they are after. If you can ID those behaviours and tap them in to what you do and how and why you do it, then that’s a very good start in understanding what they are all about; as obvious as it is to say, it needs to be said nonetheless knowing your readership and giving them what they want is a key component in successfully monetising your blogging efforts. Sure, you can’t be all things to all men, but you can certainly be the populist and appeal to your greatest constituency.

Blog Monetization feedback

I put up a little poll recently and some of my readers have clicked on the ‘other’ option. Perhaps I should have added other options that covered the various sponsored blog type options that exist. Sponsored Reviews , Pay Per Post, ReviewMe then there is the buy-me-a beer thing that seems to have gotten people chin wagging all over the shop, ebay and Amazon, auctionAds, Azoogle and a few more I’ve probably forgotten about already.

I don’t have one to hand, but it would be kind of useful to have a list of all the various programs out there today and hear of peoples experiences with them. None of those check out my affiliate link type posts please, I’ll delete those in a heartbeat, but if you do have some experience of a program that you’ve used and are really happy with or sad with even! Then I’d love to hear all about it.

Maybe a quick Pros and Cons type comment even.

Cheers

pay to blog

robwatts — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:18:02 +0000

ReviewMe! just sent me an email announcing some changes to their product.

ReviewMe is a service that enables bloggers to write reviews on companies and products and get paid for doing so. The price they are paid was, prior to this upgrade based upon a number of key metrics relative to Alexa, Technorati and RSS feed subscribers. They’ve since changed this and enabled you to set your own price.

I think this is a useful change as it enables me to pitch my time at a level thats more acceptable to me. My blog for example, is relatively new. My metrics therefore are relatively low; this equated to a low price being generated by their auto calculation system. As I can now set my price to something that I feel is more reflective of my time and viewpoints, I’m happy to put up a little badge here and invite you guys to have your product or blog, or site even reviewed.

If you are an advertiser then its a great way of getting people to write about what you do. You’ll get some unbiased killer feedback on what you do. If I think your service is lacking, I’ll tell you and I’ll say why too. If I think its great, then again, I’ll do the very same.So, if you have a great product or service that you believe in and would like to have bloggers in your niche talking about it, then here is a great opportunity. Check out ReviewMe!