Hello ! and Welcome. Have you ever wanted to work from home and make an above average income? Yeah me too 🙂 So I thought I'd try to start a blog in 2020, because ... well, why not? I have time and can afford it..
But how do you actually make money as you start blogging? I have no idea, all I know is that other people do, and maybe I can too. so I've decided to try.
Well whats the first step?
I suppose get a website up and running. Get a domain and all that stuff, Google a bit..
Having no idea, I have done what all clever people do, I went out and found a mentor.... SCREEECH! no I didn't, LOL. No, I'm going to guess and assume, and just jump in and do things, I haven't even really watched any You Tube videos yet. But I will... eventually. LOL
This is the first post on a new adventure.
This really is a recipe for disaster, but as long as I keep trying to move forward, I'll eventually get it right. Right?
LOL, this could end up being really bad...or really amazing.. we'll see..
So what's my uneducated, clueless guess at what it will take?
Coming in after the 2020 Corona Crisis while everyone is going digital, seems a bit late to the game. Maybe having all the tech in place is going to make it easier. WordPress has evolved, I wonder if it's become really awesome, or if it's like a bloated antiquated mess. We will see.
These are the areas I think I need to tackle as I get started, and some questions I will need to address.
- Server set up (The machinary)
- Whats needed?
- What's cost effective?
- Whats best?
- What to avoid? - Blogging Application Setup (WordPress)
- WordPress extensions and plugins
- Whats needed?
- Whats best? - Affiliate Set up (Getting paid)
- Who is essential?
- Who is best?
- Who to avoid?
- Do I need approval? - Advertiser Set up.
- Who is essential?
- Is more better?
- Who is best / Good?
- How Do we set it up?
- Multi site , is there a universal system? - How will I get traffic ?
- Is advertising an option?
- Is SEO a doable thing in 2020?
- Who is my dream customer?
- Where are they dream customers?
- How do I bait them to my site - Marketing
- What do I need to know?
- Who is the dream customer?
- Once I bait them, what do I sell them? - Optimization?
- Whats the best way to create Search friendly articles?
- Whats the best way to put ads on your site?
- Delivery Speed
- Cost effectiveness. - Other?
- Become less clueless somehow (Educate)
Besides all the technical stuff of getting an actual server to work, I need to get paid somehow. I think the technical stuff will actually be the easy part, you can Google anything.
The tricky part in my mind is coming up with an effective strategy that will actually cover costs and generate a profit for years and years. Or at least coming up with some way to generate revenue over the short and long term. How do you get that going?
How much can we make blogging?
My guess is that one of the best ways to get paid, is from clicks to advertisements. I don't know if there's an option to get paid by impressions, I doubt it, that's a good way to get ripped off. Back around 2002, the average search engine PPC clicks were about 1c-7c each, but now they're 10x-100x that. Average click costs on places like Google ad network and Facebook pages is up over $1. Well let's see, Google says, Wordstream has some of the best data and articles on this.
OMG! Search click costs are insane. Check this one... The top 20 keyowords are between $27.80 and $54.91 per click.
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/05/21/how-much-does-adwords-cost#:~:text=In%20the%20US%2C%20if%20you,clicks%20can%20get%20much%20pricier.
Take 'hosting' for example, $31.91 per click. Are hosting services actually paying that? I guess they are. And Google rev-shares like 60% to you of the click, apparently on the Display network, which is different to search network, maybe you get 1/2 there, I don't know, but you get less for sure.
Okay so before we get all excited here.. back to earth..
So Wordstream tells us the average CPC on the Display Network (my site) would be under $1, so I would say, budget for myself 50c per click. Alrighty.
So now we know we're splitting the revenue with Google 60/40, we're going to get about 30c per click.
I have no traffic, but let's assume I can generate 1000 visitors somehow, over some time period.
Now I need to get click through rates up on my ads. I guess that's another tricky science. And if I don't get click through rates up, I need to get exposures up to each visitor I attract. So I'll need to capture and profile and content match them. I'll work all that out later. I'm thinking some kind of dynamic lander system that changes content depending on what we know about the visitor. Like maybe they came from a car site, and we can add car adverts. In addition to landing on some type of page. I'm getting way ahead, but I'll work that out later.
Delayed advertising....
Well I know from experience that putting stuff up on the landing page gets more clicks, but here I'm in a quandary, because I really want to capture this visitors interest first so I can get value from them in future. I mean, I don't want to just send them away. But lets say I give them a way to share email and contact info, AND then I enable adverts on my site. How would I do that? I might have to make that. . Maybe people will buy it as a WordPress plugin? Maybe there's some kind of WordPress plugin. already There has to be. I hope it's not a pain in the butt to use. I will document it when I work it out.
So what is the CTR click through rate on the display network? I'm going to assume the first number I get from Google.. let's see.. whats "average CTR for blogs on Google Display network?" GOOGLE?
Okay, so 30c * 1000 * 0.1% = 30c
LOL, that's pathetic. WTH? I must have something wrong. People are willing to pay $50 for one click, and I get a 1000 visitors and make 30c.
Let me double check that.. Yeah 0.1% would be 1 click in 1000. OMG, I'm ready to quit right now.
Heck, maybe that's just the reality of this game. But don't You Tubers make like $3 per 1000 visitors?
Alright.. I need to continue this later. But I would hope to get about $3 per 1000 at least. There must be a lot more to monetizing a blog.
So maybe I can get 100 visitors per day on a new site. Seems ambitious right now, but that would put on par to make about $0.90c per month. Oh that's just incredible, I can't wait, Lets see I should be able to pay off my first Ferarri in about ... umm.. "hey you got a bigger calculator, this one only has 12 digits."
It seems to me then, that the way to treat Adsense clicks on your site, is just as gravy. It probably makes more sense to create pages that lead to offers, or that are offers, and create reviews and information that answers problems and questions that people who are on a mission (for whatever reason) will find of value.
Maybe my strategy should be... "if you're looking for this (benefit XX).. then here it is over here ---> YY" but if you go through my link here ---> LINK <--- you'll get all these bonuses [problem solved 1] [problem solved 2] [problem solved 3] an extra $XXXXX value just for following my link... (because I'm going to get paid for sending you somewhere, so thank you for supporting me)
Look, I don't know, but 30c per 1000 visitors when you would have to pay like $500-$1000 to get them to come visit your site, yeah that's nuts. I have some homework to make sense of this stuff.
Biggest problem to work out right now, I think, is.. "who do I serve, and how do I bring value to them?", if I can work that out, then it seems all the other pieces will fall in place.
Right now, it seems like the person I serve, is the person who, like me, wants to start a blog, wants to know if it can make money for them, and if it's something they can do with their skill set and time. If they are like me, then they're stuck in quarantine or having to deal with the whole world going insane over fears of a virus that is killing people that are almost dead already and sparing those who are healthy without incident. Whatever the case that leaves us having to support a family from our home in a world without jobs. Yeah, if that's you, then I hope this site becomes a resource and a beacon that can guide your way. And if I be not successful, you will at least know what doesn't work.
Meanwhile.. Welcome to my Journey, I have a list above of questions that I will be exploring over the next weeks and months as I work this blogging thing out.
For anyone experienced in this kind of thing, do have a good laugh, because I'm sure there are some glaring holes, and some fundamentals that I am missing. But it will be fun to work this out.
Actually, leave me a comment.
Are you a new or experienced blogger?
Are you trying to do this stuff too?
What do you find is the most difficult problem.
Please share your 2c worth.
Regards Tony