Ask HN: What do I need to do/know to start a profitable blog?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=541317

by niqolas • 17 years ago

5 5 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Background: I am based in Australia and want to start a blog focused on reviewing and recommending products and/or services to a global, English-speaking audience in a particular niche.

I hope to secure revenues from both advertising (e.g. Adsense, AdBrite, Chitika, etc.) and affiliate links (e.g. Amazon.com affiliate program).

O learned HN gurus, please provide relevant advice, links, tips and suggestions for a novice blogger.

Essentially, I am looking for tips, tricks and things you wish you had known before you started out.

Thanks in advance - Your help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Should I register a company name (LLC or Australian Pty. Ltd.)? OR Should I operate the site personally under my own name?

firebug• 17 years ago

This may not be the best forum for this type of advice. You might want to try: http://www.reddit.com/r/Blogging/

Also, before you quit your day job, read lots of stories like this one:

"Time to Hang Up the Pajamas: I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn't one of them."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183666

olefoo• 17 years ago

This is like asking "How do I start a profitable truck?", yes lot's of businesses are built around trucks and lots of profitable businesses use trucks heavily, but the trucking aspect is somewhat orthogonal to the business aspect.

patio11• 17 years ago

You are not starting a blog, you're starting a business. You need to figure out what niche that business is in, who are its customers, how it distinguishes itself from other competing businesses, etc.

You will probably find that a "thin affiliate" site providing nothing but reviews of products which happen to pay you money does not provide people with an incentive to link to your site, join your community, revisit, or otherwise do things that produce long-term business value.

knightinblue• 17 years ago

First things first - ignore the Daniel Lyons article in Newsweek - http://www.newsweek.com/id/183666. Taking advice from him when it comes to blogging is like taking advice from Dubya on astrophysics. He doesn't have the first clue about running a successful blog and generating revenue. Making money blogging is not easy, but it's definitely not impossible like he makes it sound.

Second, spend a couple hours doing a dedicated search for the major blogs ON blogging. Off the top of my head - problogger.com, shoemoney.com etc. They have blogged about their blogging experience extensively - what worked, what didn't etc. Then spend a few days reading through all their popular posts - a caveat here is that there's going to be blizzard of information, be prepared to absorb it. Take copious notes regarding blog traffic/SEO/security and figure out ways to implement their strategies into your own niche. (Note - their OLDER posts are a lot more meatier than their recent ones - a common problem with becoming successful bloggers)

If you're still conscious after all the reading, register a domain name, find a good hosting company and launch your blog

Generating revenue - whole books can be written on this subject (and they have been). But it can broadly be broken down into five categories -

1. Advertisements - the magic word here is CPM (read up on that). The higher the CPM, higher the payout for you. A word of advice in this matter - adsense is complete horseshit when it comes to CPM. Don't buy into the hype, it's absolutely pathetic (which is exactly why Dan Lyons made peanuts). Same goes for Adbrite, Chitika etc. The real money is in PRIVATE ads. Take a look at the prominent blogs - like techcrunch.com for example - do you see any adsense or other types of nonsense on their blogs? It's mainly used as a placeholder in case any private ad spots weren't bought by advertisers. NEVER rely on adsense for your primary ad revenue. Having said that, you won't have private advertisers till you have good traffic, so it's ok to start with adsense. But as soon as traffic spikes up, dump adsense like it's the plague.

2. Affiliate - this is a bit trickier than ads being that it's not completely straightforward. Amazon is a good start, but they're not the best. The key is finding a good affiliate that fits YOUR blog audience the best. Start reading shoemoney.com for this.

3. Merchandising - you can sell your own stuff on your blog. This can be as complicated as actually creating your own product or as simple as setting up a cafe press store and selling related merchandise (INSANELY easy! Just go to cafepress.com and set up a store for your blog, and they will handle the rest, by taking a commission of your sales.)

4. Job Board - a specific section on your blog where ppl can post or look for jobs. Charge based on traffic. You can either set up your own job board from scratch (check out the problogger job boards on the bottom right of problogger.com) or do some research on alternatives - http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2008/04/29/make-money-with-you... (Job-A-Matic has a good premise). Read up on this.

5. Donations - Bloggers like Steve Pavlina and Leo Babauta use this method and it works out great for them. But it's not for everyone. Your audience has to LOVE you, or at least really appreciate you, for this.

Bottom line - If you're serious about blogging as a living, don't be like Dan Lyons. He thought ife he simply wrote a few articles each day, the money would automatically flow in. It doesn't. It takes hard work, and more importantly, a LOT of time before you start seeing any meaningful revenue. You have to be constantly reading to see all the different angles and soak up as much info as you possibly can before you find the right combo for your particular blog. So don't get into if you're just in it for the short haul.

Other than that, just start blogging. Spend a couple hours each day reading up on what's new in the blogopshere and incorporate the changes as you go along. Within a few weeks, you'll get the hang of it.

Good Luck!

P.S.I don't know how things work in Australia but in the US, you don't have to register a company, not in the beginning anyway. Just register a domain name and start blogging. For any revenue/expenses, save the receipts and file your taxes appropriately. Ask Darren Rowse (problogger.com), who is one of most popular australian bloggers about this.

ChrisXYZ• 17 years ago

You have to put effort into creating good content and in promoting yourself.

Writing good posts is a no brainer, but it's easy to underestimate the importance of marketing yourself. It can take a lot more time than you'd think.

If you look at the most successful bloggers, they write stuff people want to read, but they're also good at networking and self-promotion.

If you're an incredibly good writer, than maybe all you'll need to do is post articles and let word of mouth do the rest. Otherwise, you need to put effort into getting the word out to make up for the slack.

Ask HN: What do I need to do/know to start a profitable blog?

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