Does anyone make money from a blog?
I have just created a website/blog related to my hobby. This is really for my friends and family to see things i've made.
Someone suggested I should try to make money from it with advertisers etc. I have no idea how to go about this. Its the basic wordpress one so far thats free.
Has anyone ever made money from this sort of thing and how much? I've only been able to get part time work since being made redundant so I have a lot of time to spend on it
Someone suggested I should try to make money from it with advertisers etc. I have no idea how to go about this. Its the basic wordpress one so far thats free.
Has anyone ever made money from this sort of thing and how much? I've only been able to get part time work since being made redundant so I have a lot of time to spend on it
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On the other hand, if this is something lots of people will go to and you're offering some original content, who knows, you might get a lot of traffic which would make it more worth it.
You wont ever make serious cash this way unless thousands of people are looking at your website every day though. Advertising on the internet doesn't pay very much per impression or even per click depending on how you have it set up.
I run a reasonably successful fitness and lifestyle blog. I run it for fun as a hobby and have over the past couple of years been paid for advertising, sponsored blog posts and I receive several emails from PR companies a week offering me various products and trial sessions - amongst these I've received £60 worth of vouchers to spend on an online fitness website, £150 to spend at Argos, a Polar sports watch, countless pairs of trainers and items of clothing, free entry into races including Brighton Marathon, various food items and most recently, a well known food company have signed me up to be an ambassador for them.
I really enjoy blogging and have been running mine since 2010, although unfortunately lost a lot of blog posts, so I only have posts showing back as far as 2012. I think it took about a year for my first PR offer to come through, but they've been pretty frequent ever since.
It really depends how much work you put into it - the most successful bloggers will blog daily with original content and use social media etc to really promote their blogs. It doesn't happen overnight, but once you have your niche and persevere, it does happen. I consider myself a part-time blogger for fun and have had moderate success with it.
This video has some figures but bear in mind that his income from YouTube is a minor concern compared with the income and outgoings related to his trucking operations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKnMW3UybO0
Wow that sounds great. I'd be quite happy with some free stuff or vouchers. However if it doesn't work out i'll still coninue for fun
I'm sure if he can make money like that, it's possible for anyone!
I push it on Twitter and it automatically links to my FB account, although as that is only a small account for my friends/family, that hardly counts. So I don't make any money at all directly from my blog (visitors in the high hundred/sometimes breaking 1000 per day, so it's not a big blog as it's quite niche) but it does get bums on seats when I do talks/workshops where I can make money. And it lets people know I am still around. And it is a neat way to share interesting things with people who'd love it.
Hobbywise though you will probably only make money indirectly if you then do something like have an Etsy shop, or are a writer/teacher, so need to have a bit of a profile. You never know who is reading your blog - I nearly fell through the floor when a link to my blog was re-tweeted last year by the largest, best known fashion magazine on the planet!
Ideally, it would be worth your while working out how many visitors you get and then signing up to a paid hosting account where you get your own domain name (www.yourblogorwhatever.co.uk). You can get hosting for around £5 a month with enough server space, bandwidth (how many pages people can access before you reach your limit), and with a control panel that will allow you to set up something like WordPress on your own. I know WordPress has a lot of add-ons that you can insert your Google AdSense (adsense.google.com) account and then display ads. The benefit of this is that you have more control over what ads are being displayed (your blog is anti smoking, but you've got ads for cheap ciggies for instance) and you can put as much or as little advertising in as you want.
I'd also echo what Hogzilla says about promotion. Get a twitter account and facebook and set them up to automatically publish what you're blogging. Also, with the blog, make sure you use an add-on that will allow people to +1, like you, retweet or whatever in regards to your blog. This will get you a certain level of indirect promotion.
Something else to consider is getting Amazon or affiliate accounts. Basically you sign up for affiliate schemes and then if your hobby requires a certain material you can then insert a link to the product with your affiliate ID, so it looks like this... Now it's a little more subtle than "in your face" advertising, and there's a chance people will buy it.
You could also approach companies to send you samples in return for free advertising. OK, it's not cold hard cash, but you're getting freebies and I've heard of people sending out free samples they've received as little "competitions" on blogs.
As to whether it's worth it, then it depends on how many people view your blog. If it's you and a few mates then I wouldn't really bother. If you're slowly and surely gaining followers then it may be worth it.
You can also see what terms people use to search for you. Then make sure you use those in tags, etc.
This.
Also, google the search terms that you would expect people to use to find your blog. You will probably find websites with similar content - have a look at their articles etc and try to use similar keywords and tags.
Syndicate by any chance?
As far as I'm aware he's only 21 and if what I have read is correct, he has earned over a million pounds just by making videos on YouTube. He's getting his own 4 bedroomed house built with small swimming pool and small cinema.
Is that Stampylongnose by any chance? My kids watch his Minecraft videos daily - I can't seem to prise them away!
They seem to get a lot of one off deals with companies too- netflix they give you a month free off them. Think they will get a backhander into them.
They also do merchandise! And there seems to be a bit of a tour.
The one I watch the couple who make the videos is in a band which is doing well it seems
I think I'd been blogging for fun for well over a year before I was first offered free samples for review. Nowadays I get offered quite a lot of review samples - I've not totted up the value, but it's a fair amount, although nowhere near as much as most of the other blogs in the same subject area as me. But I don't earn any actual money. And I only blog for the pleasure of it, to be doing something creative and to share my interest. If I didn't get the review samples I'd still be blogging.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-single-mother-who-turned-9p-meals-into-a-publishing-deal-with-a-girl-called-jack-blog-8611806.html