Aug 10
Are Greg’s Blogs Doomed To Failure?
Recently over at one of Greg’s blog Revenue Blogging, he asked a couple of questions to his readers. I think these are all pretty important questions and ones that we as bloggers have all faced at one time or another.
In responding to him a day or two ago, my response started to turn into a post of its own, so I decided to take the hint and put it up on here. I’m hoping that everyone will chime in and really give him some things to think about.
Now I’m paraphrasing his questions a bit from his post but in a nutshell here they are:
- Do you always have to blog on a schedule?
- Why are RSS subscriptions important?
- My mortgage blog and credit card blog are being designed as search engine optimized destinations and perhaps are doomed to failure because I am not approaching them with this “build a fan following†mentality or goal.
Do You Always Have to Blog on a Schedule?
I don’t think you have to blog on a schedule but more on a consistent basis which I think is what you really saying. Especially at the beginning when you don’t have any search engine traffic or subscribers to your feeds, posting on a consistent basis is going to show everyone your site is worth their time. And that goes for readers, fellow bloggers and advertisers. The first two of course are critical if you want your site to grow. I know there have been times where I’ve read a FANtastic post on a site and then I check the feed for a week or two and nothing else is posted! Without really thinking about it, I unsubscribed to the feed. Why? Again (without thinking about it) I just felt the blog was “dead”.
Why are RSS Subscriptions Important?
I wrote a whole post about the topic on the Power of RSS, so I won’t completely rehash what I said but I will offer you this quote from the post:
So if you’re a new blogger and trying to get your stats up, you should make sure you have your RSS on lockdown. And even if you’re not a blogger but are looking for a good way to promote your site, don’t sleep on RSS feeds. I’m thinking about adding one to my other site to get some new visitors, and keep old ones coming back!
Remember, RSS Feeds ensure that people come back to your site, give you constant traffic help build your community and help to keep your site fresh in people’s minds.
Without a “Community” Feel, Are My Blogs Doomed to Failure?
I think of the whole lot, this is probably the most interesting of your questions. My first inclination is to say that if you are indeed successful with making these sites “seo destinations” as you put them, they won’t be doomed to failure. I point to Everton over at Connected Internet and his post “Why My AdSense Earnings are Better Than Other Blogs”. He says 70% of his traffic comes from search engines. Compare that with his earnings of last month of over $8000 with $4000 of it coming from AdSense revenue. From his own mouth he says that search engine traffic is crucial to success with AdSense. So let’s assume that he just didn’t have 30% of his traffic (the traffic aside from search engine traffic) $4000 * 70% = $2800. Even though that’s a super rough calculation, that’s still a fine amount of change to be making from just AdSense alone not to mention other programs he has setup.
What is Success?
In the end, it all comes from how you define it. With those certain blogs of yours I have noticed how it’s a bit disjointed. Every post does kind of stand on its own and I think that’s ok depending on what your goals are. If you goal is to make money, I think you’re ok. If you want to build a community and have a good interaction between your readers, I don’t think this is really gonna work.
August 10th, 2007 at 10:01 am
very rough calc!!! I think about 90% of my adsense earnings comes from that 70% of traffic i.e. the propensity to click on ads is significantly higher
August 10th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Hello Bush! I appreciate you taking your time to assess my situation. You’ve identified some really interesting points.
My goal is definately to make money. I made $70.14 on my mortgage blog in July. $15.67 from Adsense; $8.97 from CJ; $26 from ClickBank and $19.50 from SponsoredReviews. I am pleased with that given the blog was only launched in June. Remember my goal is to make $1000 a month with it.
Your comment about the posts being disjointed is true. So is my niche to broad? I wanted to create a blog about making money and saving money with real esate. Perhaps I should have a blog focused on homeowners and a blog focused on investors. I will give this serious thought.
Is it important for a technical blog like Court’s cell phone how to’s to be read everyday, if people know about it and go there as a trusted source when they need the information it is likely to provide or they google for something and his site pops up as providing the answer?
August 10th, 2007 at 10:57 am
@Everyton - HA HA. I was writing this post late at night. I tried writing what you said like 3 times and it didn’t come out right. Thanks for tying up my loose ends!
@Greg - Interesting points and questions and again, I hope others take the opp to jump in!
In re: “is my niche to broad…” Again, if you can successfully get the se traffic, you’ll be in “ok” shape. But I think focusing more on your TARGET audience like you pointed out might yield better dividends. I mean, you should be able to do the SEO AND write to a certain audience right?
In re: “Court’s cell phone how to’s…” I think he’s writing to an audience and I’m sure he’s getting the benefits of traffic and LINKS for traffic and PR and Alexa and the rest. Getting to be the “go to” for a particular subject has so many benefits it would take multiple posts to list them.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Greg–
Three rules:
1. Stand out
2. Promise and deliver content of interest
3. Market according to best practices
Do those things, and you will not be doomed to failure. Fail to do any of those three, and you will have a hard time getting traction.
August 11th, 2007 at 3:51 am
I don’t know if his blogs are going to die but I do know that you have been tagged!
August 11th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
@Chuck - You guys better listen to Chuck. THAT GUY is on the up and up!
@MS. Ad Tracker - You crafty little minx. (#):)
August 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
[…] Bush Mackel for : With those certain blogs of yours I have noticed how it’s a bit disjointed. Every post does kind of stand on its own and I think that’s ok depending on what your goals are. If you goal is to make money, I think you’re ok. If you want to build a community and have a good interaction between your readers, I don’t think this is really gonna work. […]
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:23 pm
[…] feel better after reading Bush Mackell’s Q&A with Greg of RevenueBlogging since I focus a lot on RSS subscribers and blogging […]