Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook Talking technology, computers, and the Internet… for the average computer user

This is another segment in my posts about making money blogging. I’m sorry I have neglected this topic recently, after promising to address it! I, umm, totally forgot.
:ermm:
I also plan to continue the discourse here, at the tech blog, where it seems more appropriate.

Previously, I addressed the benefits of getting your own domain and your own web hosting space, and I delved a little into the various blogging-for-pay companies. I want to chat a little about “niche” blogging, something that has become more attractive to advertisers. Last year, I was asked by a few companies to create a handful of niche blogs, which I did. It’s not too difficult to run a dozen blogs or so– people ask me all the time how I do it, but because I divide my time and topics per blog (when I want to discuss technology, I do it here and not at my political blog), it’s quite easy.

A niche blog is a blog dedicated to discussing a particular topic, and which rarely strays from the topic. Posts, links, and sidebar information generally revolves around the niche of the blog. For example, I have links for travel insurance, hotels, and airline companies on my travel blog., It would be outside of the niche to post links or topics about wall insulation or rants about atheism on my travel blog. I have a handful of blogs that all deal with my personal interests: travel, history, home life, politics, home improvement, technology, ranting humor, etc. Blogging comes easy this way. Through niche blogging, I am able to maintain a part-time job of sorts. Last year, I earned almost $13,000 (gross, before business costs), just through blogging. This is phenomenal because I never had to leave home to earn it. I worked hard at it– got professional-looking themes, joined a dozen pay-for-blogging companies, and worked hard at marketing my blogs.

Having niche blogs ONLY within the realm of your personal interest or knowledge is important. Otherwise, your heart won’t be in them, and readers aren’t stupid– they know when you have a blog just to monetize it.

PROS:
• Advertisers prefer niche blogging to the “mixed bag” kind of generalized blog.
• More blogs = more opportunities = more money.
• It’s much easier on your readership. For example, I don’t have too many men visiting my mommy blog, but my humor blog and political blogs are more popular with men than women. Therefore, I can tailor the advertiser’s products more appropriately to a specific audience. It’s a win-win situation.
• Niche blogs get more attention in search engine results. I get more traffic for my New York travel blog from search engine results because I stay very carefully within the confines of travel, travel products, attractions, and New York issues. I rarely stray from the topic of the niche for the certain blog. So in a sense, my niche blog (while still personal) becomes more of an information resource for the particular niche. It’s a bit of a science.
• Building niche blogs does cost money, but the cost is quickly recouped if you monetize the blog. Web hosts often allow you to have unlimited hosting for your domain names. So, once you have purchased your hosting plan, all you need to do is spend $10-20 on a new domain, if you like. I can easily recoup that money in one or two sponsored posts. So, it’s very lucrative.

CONS:
• Creating and maintaining several various blogs can be time-consuming and tiresome, unless you really love what you do.
• Generating traffic, readership, and (hopefully) PageRank can be the most arduous tasks. This is made somewhat easier with social networking, but it’s still a lot of work.
• You must be a “jack of all trades,” building and maintaining your own web design, blogging articles, learning SEO skills, etc.
• It’s more time consuming, because you are essentially forced to write high-quality posts on a continual basis. On a “mixed bag” blog, you can get away with a few “I’m too tired to blog so I’ll just blab” posts, but in niche blogging where the content is much more specific and focused, you need to be on your toes.

So advertisers tend to prefer niche blogging. Specialized products and services fit better within them, For example, it would not be for an advertiser’s best interests to discuss kitchen faucets on my political blog, would it?

Another point I should make before I close is this: try to avoid the temptation to creating a slew of free blogs using Blogger. Advertisers are wary of the “free” blogs out there, and don’t take them seriously. As a matter of fact, almost all the companies I work for ban Blogger blogs. You will be hard-pressed to find much work if you use Blogger or WordPress.com (they don’t allow advertising on your blogs, either– they will delete your blog if they find it). And, as some of you have discovered, it’s an arduous process moving a Blogger blog to your own hosted blog.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions out there. In the next post (and I promise it won’t take me months to write it!), I’ll talk about the look and functionality of your blog and how to generate traffic to it. Thanks for reading!