It seems that every affiliate these days follows the same formula. They make a little money, then start a blog. There are many good reasons to start blogging. Networking, brand building, making money, helping others, etc.
But if I had it to do all over again, I would not start a blog.
When I started blogging, back in 06 there were not many people blogging about PPC and affiliate stuff. It seemed like a great idea back then. But looking back at the time spent writing the 250+ blog posts I have done, the ROI on that time was not good. In fact, from a pure numbers sense, it was the worst business decision I have ever made.
Figuring 1 hour per post, that is over 6.25 40 hour work weeks spent blogging. If that time would have been spent building new campaigns/sites who knows how much revenue would have been created. Rather than making money, this blog has probably cost me a hundred thousand dollars in lost revenue.
Now of course its not all about money. I do really like helping people and giving back to the community, which is the only reason I continue to blog at this point. And I have met some people I might not have otherwise met.
When I advise new affiliates starting out, I say don’t blog. You don’t need the distraction. Keep focused on building your network of campaigns and content sites. To still get most of the networking benefits of a blog without the work – sign up for Twitter. Spend all the time you save working productively and you will be far ahead of the affiliate blogger crowd. For every John Chow or Shoemoney that makes good money from their blog, there are thousands that never make a dime. But actually doing the stuff you would blog about has a much higher percentage chance of success.
Just my opinion, what do you guys think?
The blogs that fail are the ones that people make with the intent to make money. If you do it because you love writing and love the industry, then it will keep you motivated and help you get many friends and contacts that you’d not normally have.
I completely agree. Twitter and forums are enough for me to network. Also becoming a blogger makes you a target as far as everyone wanting to figure out what you’re doing.
It also comes down to time management. If you know that you can spend a fraction of your time blogging and not just surfing around then the tiem spent can be good.
It you get caught up wasting your time commenting on other’s blog then you’re screwed. Oh wait!
I think you are right.
Your advice to “Keep focused on building your network of campaigns and content sites” is definitely where the (my) focus needs to be.
I started my blog as a means of keeping myself accountable. I make maybe 2 or 3 posts at most a month. I have no desire to become a big time blogger. I’m also on Twitter, but that can also become a distraction if you let it.
Tim
I completely disagree with you and if you dig deep you may understand where I am coming from.
To get to the state where it is easy to write good web content, you have to have good experience of writing for the web. What better way to do this than blogging? Before blogs you could practise with detailed forum posts.
So Idon’t think that you would be able to craft such good web copy without your history of blog posting.
How many newbies can write great web copy off the bat?
Andy
I agree with your post that blogging and social networking in general can be really distracting. It’s also very anti the 4-hour workweek. One thing I like about Twitter is that you can stay connected and network but only use a small fraction of the time you would with blogging.
A large part of John Chow’s success comes down to good timing in my opinion. After his success there were way to many copycats. You had people that were basically newbies trying to tell others how to make money online.
I blog more to make people connections than anything else. If I had to do things over I’d probably blog about a narrower niche in the MMO space.
100 percent agree.
It’s not my calling so I just focus on practicing building authority sites.
After a rough start, my web design skills are increasing/improving in coding and web design.
I think you are right. I am fairly new with A.M. and I also thought abut a blog. It is just too time demanding to get it right. It’s hard enough to focus as it is at times, so no blogging for this guy.
Yea the actual money a blog brings in is fairly low income. It does have other benefits which make up for it though.
I agree nothing can suck up time like writing and reading blogs.
Agree completely. I have lots I would blog about that people would almost certainly want to read, but the ROI is just not there on my time or the lower overall return on the idea I blogged about. I never monetized my blog nor care to, heck I never even changed the template I was using, but it is a time sink that gets in the way of productivity. I have almost gotten to the point where even reading other people’s blogs is not worth it anymore… Only a select few internet marketing blogs left in my feed reader.
I find its a complete waste of time anymore
Yes think twice! It does help me to take some time out of the week to do something ‘different’. But I dont have any expectation money-wise. Just a good tool to brand yourself and network
It depends on your goal for the blog. If making money is your goal then yes its a bad idea to start a blog.
I am really new to this whole ppc stuff and I have a blog. I just started it so that when I post on other blogs about their great posts they can see who I am. I like to check out who people are based on their posts. Plus I only write usually once a week and I wanted a place to keep all the ppc links I wanted to remember.
Blogs = great networking. I got the networking part taken care of and then asked myself why am I still writing this? Didn’t have a good answer, so I shut it down.
Nothing wrong with having a blog. But, if its costing you income make sure there is a specific reason you are running it.
Blogging is a lot more work than I expected. I do love writing, but it takes me way too much time that I could spend on developing more campaigns.
I agree and disagree at the same time.
Blogging can be an intricate tool for networking. It’s much easier to put down all of your information and your site on a business card. When you attend summits and conventions, all you need to do is tell people your web site. Many people can contact you and get in touch with you through your blog, etc, and you can brand yourself as an affiliate marketer and thus gain tons of connections and relationships that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
On the flip side, like you said, it can take away from lost revenue, etc.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve reduced my posting significantly recently and have sooo much more time to do the things that earn me some money.
it seems all the big players and i mean major players i.e reinvent.com, chena.com and if you read their stories from dnjournal.com you get the same thing. THey kept their asses quiet for 3 to 4 years until they really figured things out.
Good Lord, this needed to be said
All the ego’s and desperate need for people to run out and start a blog and be “known” still boggles my mind. BTW, all the focus on “networking” is a bunch of over-hyped garbage. I have been making great money online for 8 years and only deal with a couple people. It’s simple – spend your time working, not filling your insecurities and the net with posts about how you made 50 bucks last month online. Isn’t this business for those of us who usually go against the grain anyways? Be unique.
Affiliates earn commissions in dozens and dozens of different ways. You can design your own business to suit your own skills and interests. Blogging is just one of those choices – and not my choice.
Agree, but THANK YOU for continuing your brief, informative, wise, blog posts here. We appreciate you for that!
Alot of people ad a couple ads, throw in some adsense and think they can quit their job tommorrow. They later become disapointed and disaffected with blogging after they find they’ve made only $50 for a month of work. Making good money from a blog is about diversifying your income sources. No one income source will allow you to quit your dayjob, its a combination of sources that makes bloggers like john chow good money every month. They’ve learned to exploit that to the max and get the most out of their traffic and brand.
New twist to the idea, but you have some extremely valuable points chad. Your right, blogging can just kill a noobie just trying to get started, hard enough to get good at adwords, let alone trying to blog at the same-time.
Very thought provoking post there. If I hadn’t started my blog about making money online I would have probably never even learned about affiliate marketing and stuff like that. Starting my blog has given me skills to be able to make my own website and a lot more knowledge that has made me more web saavy. I agree it is time consuming and most won’t make a ton of money from it, but I feel like it has been a great stepping stone for me
Depends on your intent. If you’re doing it for some illusory, short-lived fame, blogging can be a major timesuck.
If you’re instead using blogging as a medium to verbalize some of the lessons learned along the way, a blog can be used as it’s function when it was first conceived – as a journal/diary-ing medium.
When I look back on some of the stuff I’ve blogged about and do a comparison vs what I’m doing now, I can trace the evolution.
More importantly, if there was a A/B/C pathway and I took path A previously, the blogging allows me to audit what I’ve down and go down route B or C, especially if I haven’t fully exploited/developed an area yet.
It can make business sense, if you have an agenda in mind.