Blogging (short for "web logging"), born
from the Internet age, is one of the newer venues
for freelance writing. The Internet has generated
a lot of news about the financial possibilities open
to bloggers: an audience of potentially millions --
along with possible corporate sponsorship, a byline,
and infinite creative control -- captures the imagination
of many prospective bloggers, and makes blogging seem
like an infinitely desirable, lucrative field.
The truth is it is much more difficult to become a
successful freelance blogger. A good knowledge of
marketing, web design, and being consistent are skills
you need to make a living (or a comfortable extra
income) from this new form of media.
The reason for this is the low barrier of entry. Anyone
with access to web space can start a blog. Sites like
Blogger, Livejournal and even MySpace offer free web
space to anyone willing to sign up. This has resulted
in millions of blogs in existence today, many of them
literate, many of them wildly popular, and nearly
all of them free to read and browse.
That variety of free content makes it difficult to
charge for access to your writing, no matter how good
it is. You could be the greatest expert on foreign
policy or nutrition known to man, and few people would
be willing to pay $5 -- or $1, or one cent -- to read
a blog post by you, the expert, when there are thousands
of semi-qualified (but bright and engaging) writers
giving away similar material.
So your main sources of revenue are going to come
from advertising and from whatever paid content you
can fit into the site. Luckily, web advertising is
becoming less dicey than it was a year ago. Google's
"AdSense" program is a good baseline for
a page, providing targeted advertising based on your
content and paying you, directly, per click-through
(although the pay rate per click is low.) You can
supplement that amount with other forms of web advertising,
from the comparatively unobtrusive banner to pop-up
animations that "float over" the text.
This brings us to the "double-edged sword"
problem in web advertising. The most effective advertising
is obtrusive advertising; that is, advertising that
blocks valuable content until the user clicks on it
either to make it disappear or to take you to a different
website. However, obtrusive advertising also irritates
your readers, which can lead to a lower reputation
for your blog overall. On the Internet, reputation
is the single best determinant of your web traffic.
Using obtrusive advertising can significantly lower
your traffic and make your blog that much less attractive
to potential advertisers.
So you'll need to find a happy medium between heavy
advertising (and light traffic) and little to no advertising
(and high traffic, but little revenue.) Luckily, the
instant responsiveness of the Internet, along with
the commenting features available on nearly all blogging
software, make it easy to ask your readers about exactly
what level of advertising they'd be willing to accept.
Reader connectivity is one of the most important features
of any good blog: not only does it allow you to fine-tune
your blog over time, eliminating features that readers
find irritating or off-putting, but it also allows
you to develop personal connections with your readers,
the kind of connections that build loyal audiences.
There are other ways to make money by blogging, such
as the following:
1) It's possible to sidestep advertising altogether
by making some of your content unavailable, except
to subscribers. For example, you might only keep your
most recent five or six blog entries unlocked, and
require a monthly subscription fee to read the rest
of the archives;
2) Or you might keep your current posts and your
entire regular archives active, but produce some longer
or specialized entries or other content and charge
a set fee for these;
3) You could even compile some of your best entries
into a physical book, along with some new content,
and offer it for sale. Even if all the entries are
available online, you'd be surprised how many people
are willing to pay to have something they can hold
in their hands;
4) Additionally, you could go the Salon.com route
-- make all of your archives available to anyone willing
to watch a short full-screen advertisement -- or you
could rely on readers' willingness to support content
that they find worthwhile by asking for donations
outright.
Many prominent blogs and online content providers
have done this and found themselves able to make rent
and pay all of their bills every month on donations
alone.
No matter how much advertising or subscription services
your blog has, it's all worthless if people don't
want to read you in the first place. And there are
three simple rules to make your blog popular:
1) Write on something you care about 2) Write consistently
and thoughtfully on a regular schedule (daily is best)
3) Read and comment on other blogs
People read blogs because they provide a source of
information and analysis on topics that traditional
media sources only cover sketchily and hastily, or
don't cover at all. Don't try to figure out an ideal
money-making blog topic and proceed from there. People
care about blogs because blogs are about personal,
in-depth viewpoints and thoughts.
If you can provide those to your audience regularly,
and you can set up a minimally-intrusive but still
worthwhile revenue system through advertising or subscriptions,
there's no reason you can't become a successful blogger.
