Why Blogging Sucks!
Nearing the end of 2008, it is time for a re-appraisal of what is working for me and what is not working for me with regard to my rather limited spare time.
Here is a screen shot from Google Analytics of the traffic for this blog, since I started it(roughly 18 months ago):-
(Most of the referring traffic is from Entrecard - which is of notoriously poor quality).
Here is a summary of approximately how much money my blog has earned me directly during that time:-
ZERO!
I certainly don't update this blog every day, but if I was to add up all the time I had spent on it so far, I think I would break down and cry! :-(I think, in short - if you have a lot of spare time on your hands, and you really love blogging, then by all means give it a shot. But if you think that it is an easy path to riches then you are sadly mistaken...
NB - one of the main aims of this blog was to bring traffic to http://www.irishviews.com/, at which I have had a small amount of success. But compared to the amount of traffic that I get from other sources with much less effort, it cannot be called an unmitigated success!
Are there too many blogs?
Am I clogging up the internet with yet more garbage that practically no-one wants to read?
The answer to both above questions is, I think - Yes!
*Disclaimer* - I don't know everything, and am very far from being one of the best bloggers - but I still maintain that there are far easier ways to make money (online and offline)...
If anyone else has had similar experiences with blogs (or disagrees completely with me) - please leave a comment!
Thanks!
PS...
This post is inspired by the following from Andy Beard :-
http://andybeard.eu/2007/10/why-blogs-suck.html
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7 comments:
I have the same thing with my music blog. I post almost daily something on it, but make about zero $.
The only reason I do it is because I love the music and that I love to see my readership grow (just passed 200 RSS subscribers, yay) ;)
But yeah, I'm seriously thinking about how I'm using my time online. I think I should concentrate more on the areas where I actually do make some money.
Well let me stop in and cheer you up, looking at your stats .52 ave time etc, have you tried to improve it ? your a photo site & about making money from them yet i see not one picture to view ? no look here to see all top pictures / no extra subjects like how to take good photo's linked to a aff link to best cameras to buy and the list goes on.
It is easy to spend a lot of time but if your not monitoring improvements and always looking at ways to improve then i would say like have said and walk away.
If not stop your bietching roll up your sleeves and make the impossible work, the web is not a place for pussy's anymore.
Yes i am one of those poor quality entrecard users ;-)
Thanks both for the comments...
Anonymous - I am NOT complaining about it being hard to make money from the internet!
I am saying that, in my experience so far, it is a lot harder to make money directly from this blog than it is from my main photo web site
I don't understand how a "Make Money From Photos" blog doesn't make a single cent. Maybe I could accept it, if it was a figure of how much PROFIT you made, but total gross income, I don't believe it. And with 44,000+ visitors, no way! My blog is random, but even with just the few posts I make with pictures posted to ShareaPic, I've made a couple bucks. Maybe you should check it out: http://tinyurl.com/shareapic4u
Best of luck to you with this and your other site, keep plugging and I'm certain the money will come, as long as you provide some kind of value to people.
Good point - I did not explain that I was talking about profit.
But even taking this into account, this blog still earns approx $5 or $6 per month.
I could increase this a little Adsense as well, but even so, why would anyone want to spend hours (and hours and hours) per month on a blog for the sake of $5! ??
NB - Shareapic is a bad idea. If yu want to make money form your photos, you should set up your own web site and keep all the advertising revenue rather than share it with someone else.. (e.g. IrishViews.com - which DOES make a tidy sum every month...)
Here is a further comment from 'Anonymous' who contacted me via entrecard:-
"Anonymous :-)
Hello Champ I am annonymus re your post.
The post more in line to motivate and i hope you seen it that way.
I have had a look ayt your main site / re read your post etc.
My question ( and I am a dummy ) is this, why do you not add the blog / a blog to your main site, tying the 2 into into 1 complete unit ?
This way all of your energy can be focused, all you need do is add a blog tag to titles in the main site and place your blog there
Then in the blogs you write you can refrence to other parts of your site, for increased exposure.
Stay with entrecard as you blog section of support for your site, in that still bring the viewers into this part which would increase hits to your main site / alexia etc
the references to other parts of your site in the blogs will increase page views and time on your main site as well
Also then in your main site you can include references to your blog, this will have the same effects of increasing time and page views
with the adsense it may need some adjusting to improve it all but here is another option that may work for you
it is not affiliate or anything so not trying to push it etc
https://www.projectwonderful.com/
this is one of the better ones i have found
anyway i hope i have not wobbled on to much for you and appreciate your support of our site and we in turn look forward to coninuing support for your site next year.
also have a look around the site and wee where i have interlocked all parts into other parts, I still have a long way to go on this but getting there....
wishing you a peacful holiday and a prosporus new year"
To answer the points above.
.I have added a blog to my main web site - see http://www.irishviews.com/blog
(Since my main web site is a 'photo' web site - I am adding new photos to the blog at the same time as the main web site - so people can keep up to date with new additions by RSS etc if they so desire..
I am keeping this blog separate - as it is not really the same subject matter as my main web site (people looking for free photos are unlikely to want to subscribe to a 'make money' type blog.
.I am no using adsense on this blog in case my Adsense account is 'Smart Priced'.
.Projectwonderful is quite good - but unless you have hundreds of blogs - you're unlikely to make a decent income from it.
Thanks! (Feedback is *always* appreciated).
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