7 Tips to Make your Blog Profitable

Last night I read an interesting piece by Dan Lyons that must have sent a shockwave to many bloggers with dreams of working from home. 

Dan describes how he posted 10 or 20 items a day to his site (he was the infamous Fake Steve Jobs), blogged from cabs, blogged in the middle of the night, but never made enough to quit his day job.

Of course there are many other benefits he got from doing that blog, but I will share with you, and the rest of the blogosphere, a list of simple rules that I believe can make your blog your main source of income, and once for all quit that stinking 9 to 5. Having said that, the first rule is:

1. Don’t quit your day job.

Technorati’s “State of the Blogosphere 2008″ reported that more than half of the bloggers they polled have a separate full time job. The key number to look at from the report is that “100 thousand visitors will bring you about $75,000 a year”. But to reach that many visitors will require a major effort on your part (and to closely follow the other 6 rules below).

2. Don’t write “because you have to”.

You are trying to become the next Mashable or TechCrunch, writing 10 or 20 posts each day. The problem is that if those posts aren’t meaningful to you, they won’t be meaningful to anyone else. You need to write because you can’t imagine yourself not doing it. Personal blogging is not about quantity, it’s about quality.

3. Each post has to have a payload.

Every article you write should be a small nugget of knowledge, something that changes the reader’s life. Imagine yourself as Bob, the accountant in Kansas who is visiting your blog, who has no knowledge on a topic you’re writing about. Read the post. Sit down and think: did Bob learn something new after reading it? If he didn’t, rewrite it. We need to make readers better persons when they consume your content, that is the only way your audience will grow.

4. Don’t publish just yet.

When you have a great idea for a post, write it down down as a draft, don’t publish it immediately. Leave the breaking news business to CNN.

Let posts simmer for a while, next to the other drafts. The next day you’ll see that most of those ideas weren’t very good and that a good one can become an even better one with a little more polish or research. Remember, writing is rewriting.

5. Compromise between business and voice.

I know for a fact that Google AdSense works. I have personally logged to AdSense accounts that are making enough money for you and your wife to quit your day jobs. The problem is that these sites are usually tied with content that can be monetized. So, potentially, you could make a lot of money writing reviews about electronic products (Gizmodo does make a lot of money).

But do you want your blog to be electronic product revies? Your inner voice has the answer. Just make sure you realize that writing about the things you really like might not necessarily make you enough money. But you can slant your writing enough so that the article includes monetizable keywords without totally selling out. <start sellout content>I love my iPod<end of sellout content>.

6. Longevity is key.

The great thing about blogs is that, over time, they show the inner struggles of the author finding his true voice over time. I love to go to popular blogs and look at their first posts. They are, 99% of the time, nothing like the posts the author writes today. Some blogs even start with a totally different focus. So don’t be afraid to radically change direction one day and try something else. Just don’t delete the old posts, think of them as the aging process of a good wine.

Most succesful money making blogs started at least three years ago. So keep on writing, not because of the long tail, but because your writing skills and inner voice will eventually come through. And that’s what attracts thousands of readers.

7. Don’t look at statistics, look at trends.

I’m a stats addict. I really am. In my needy days, I see Feedburner, Analytics, AdSense in a sick carousel ten times or more per day.

Of course, this only brings depression.

You need to stop looking at stats every day, it’s more productive to see them on a weekly basis. So set an alarm to remind you to see your stats on Monday morning. Look at what posts had more hits and try to figure out what made them work.

But, more importantly, don’t see your stats on a one-day basis, but look at trends. For example, in Google Analytics, select the “compare to past” option on the date pulldown, and see how much you’ve grown on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. A good rule of thumb is a month-by-month growth of at least 20%. If you’re not seeing that, you should probably change your blog focus a little bit or try out new things.

Also, on FeedBurner look at the subscriber stats in a year or all time setting, and make sure you’re seeing an upward trend.

Of course none of these rules apply if you are only blogging for pleasure or to produce other types of benefits, like consulting gigs or promoting books. But for the rest of us, our blogs are our “pennies from heaven” that we’d like to keep growing.

Fred Wilson sums it up nicely on the comments section of that article: “Blogging works best for people who have something to say but don’t write for money. ”

Are you making any money from your blog? What techniques do you follow to make your blog a better business?

Tagged as: Blogging, business, profitable, tips