The Easy Way To Content and Money
This has been bothering me a lot lately. I am starting to get the feeling that people who read sites like this one and ProBlogger and any other forums concerning making money online start to develop an idea that making money from ‘blogs’ (don’t want to use that anymore, I will explain later) is an easy concept. Start a few niche blogs, find entries and articles on other sites to link to and Voila! Money in the bank.
What this concept has done is sprung out a ton of blog networks that follow this concept of syndicate or reporting sites. Sure there is still room for more of these type of sites. You could argue that the world could stand another entry into the gadget blog arena to compete with Engadget and Gizmodo. But I guarantee that new competitor cannot do things the way Engadget and Gizmodo do things to be successful.
For example, I own and run Insert 25 a video gaming site. There are a ton of gaming blogs/sites out there and the two big blog networks have some of their own (Kotaku and Joystiq). Insert 25 isn’t any diifferent from these sites. Sometimes it has small original pieces, but other times it is a linkdump with commentary. It can’t “win” against Kotaku and Joystiq working like this because all it does is provide more of the same.
Insert 25 has to find a way to differentiate itself from the field and things are currently being worked on to give it that edge. Till then it is just another content site that reports on the same news as the rest. It receives traffic, but could receive more if done differently.
Too many blogs have simply become copycat blogs and that is going to hurt a lot of people down the road. For the short, term sure you can start another topic blog and drive some search engine traffic your way to make some money, but I really do question the ability of this model in the long term. I can’t really explain why and I could be totally wrong, but the lack of innovation with these sites is going to disappoint a lot of people expecting to make an easy buck.
So No More Gadget Blogs?
Not at all. I am working on a Digital Camera and Mobile Phone blog right now because they do have the potential to make money. However, even though they will contain the same news you might find in other places (of course with different commentary) I am looking to add other features that the current crop of sites lack.
When starting a blog/site to make money you really do have to treat it like a business. People only have so much time in the day to spend online and read sites so what will make your site any different from the ones they already read? What is going to happen when the search engines stop sending you traffic? Do you have a community in place that will keep you afloat?
Look at Weblogs, Inc. as an example. I am going to assume that the majority of the blogs generate traffic through search engines. If Google decides to drop them in the rankings how much will that effect the revenue of WIN? I can’t answer that since I don’t have the details on the traffic of the network, but it’s something I would be very interested to hear about. I ask because looking at most of the blogs you will see many without comments showing a lack of community and readership.
On a sidenote is it merely a coincidence that the highest linked entry on Engdaget this month (maybe this year) is the original Bill Gate interview? I think not.
I Could Be Wrong
I could be looking at this completely the wrong way. Maybe starting up a ton of syndicate sites is the way to go and will always work in the short term and long term. I will have a couple of these mixed into the network that are syndicae sites, but I will also have a ton of original content sites (as should already be seen).
If you are first to the market with a niche blog then you can succeed with a syndicate site. Once the market is saturated though people will tire of reading more of the same. That is my opinion, but I have come to learn that the masses think differently than I do at times.
Content is king and making quality content and money is not easy. Sorry.
Read part II for more on this topic.
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POSTED IN: Personal Thoughts
8 opinions for The Easy Way To Content and Money
Danger Stevens
May 4, 2005 at 1:30 pm
The ‘blog boom’ of 2005 and the ‘blog bust’ of 2006. It seems like everybody’s getting into the game now and I agree that not everybody can do/is doing it right.
I’ve found that even with my own blogs I’ve had to abandon some that were just reporting the news with links to other sources, and focus on ones that have a special flare to them.
Hopefully enough people make the switch to real content before they get too frustrated with blogs. I hope it works for me too (but I’ll be keeping my day job).
Michael Moncur
May 4, 2005 at 2:07 pm
I’ll go one step further–even if you create your own original, compelling content, making money is hard. It takes lots of work getting links, dealing with advertisers, and so on.
As with any new business, unless you’re really lucky you should expect to work very hard with very little income for at least the first year…
Eoghann Irving
May 4, 2005 at 2:30 pm
The catch is however, that an active community does not equal money. In fact if anything, my experience suggests that community oriented sites are harder to make money off.
Traditional advertising is particularly ineffective with regular readers. You could take the Craig’s List approach perhaps.
Bottom line is that I don’t think having regular readers will save you if you’re dumped from the search engines.
The balance of original to reported content is an interesting one though, and I am actively trying to increase the amount of original content on several of my blogs because of this very issue.
Scrivs
May 4, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Goes along with the 2004 Amazon Store Boom and 2005 Amazon Store Bust.
There are ways to make money from highly focused community-based sites, but it takes a little more ingenuity than making it from search engine, click-based readers.
As for having a consistent readership save you when the search engines let you down I mean that these people will continue to link to you bringing traffic that you would otherwise be missing.
James Paden
May 4, 2005 at 4:16 pm
Actually, my perception was that the Amazon Store busted back in 01-02…but maybe it had a reemergence that I missed :-)
Michael G. Cohen
May 4, 2005 at 7:02 pm
I think a great direction for Insert 25 would be to follow the business of game design rather than be another review site. People love to feel like they have an inside scoop, what about talking to big companies like EA or Take Two and asking them if a designer or developer could write a series about development on a specific game. Also you could follow gaming hopefuls who were trying to break into the industry.
I agree that blogging for dollars is a tough gig, but you have already crossed a series hump in establishing the 9Rules network (it has a brand appeal) and therefore can differentiate your blogs if they are given a direction.
Ryan Latham
May 5, 2005 at 12:38 am
Well that is my actually pretty much the next project I am doing. I like to stay focused and have a blog on a topic as opposed to what I call the venture into the self-centered and egotistical concept of online journals.
Topics sell, but after time it is one site saying something in another way. My next project is fun. Basically taking facts, news, etc on a certain topic and spinning it a certain way. Fun for both the writers and the reader. It’s partially opinion, but mainly factual. I don’t know how to explain it; I’m pumped about it though, the concept is just so fun.
Leon
May 5, 2005 at 11:11 am
Scrivs is right. You cannot just make the same content to compete. Without differentiate yourself from the pack, you never can gain visitors.
Another way to gain competitive advantage is low cost producer. However as free content provider (blog), we cannot use this strategy.
So unique content / services is the key of competitive advantage on web content (blogging).
Now I think I am going to sit down and think more on this topic…
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