Should I get out of blogging and focus on AM?

[willyboy104]

Hey guys, well I have been running me SEO Blog for the past 12 months now and although I would like to say its been a succesfull 12 months focusing on this blog alone it really has not.

Although I started to learn about SEO not to make money from blogging with the amount of time spent writing over 140 articles, marketing and promoting the blog I have seen little in return except for the large amount of knowledge I have attained.

Its now got to the stage where I see blogs newer than mine having a more succesfull run taking over my blog in terms of subscribers and profit 10 fold and still ponder to myself why?

Is it my marketing skills, my content, the market, the SEO? I don't know.

I am seriously questioning whether it is time to move on or time to stay focused and keep writing. I could invest a couple of hundred pounds in to a redesign and move it in to wordpress (Yes, believe it or not its not wordpress) or I could try and sell it for a couple of hundred pounds and make no return on 12 months of time and energy that have been injected in to this product.

I realise the advice I could receive maybe lacking in an actual answer but any advice is better than none.

What would you do and what do you think I should do?

Thanks.

[JIMZ]

How much have you made from it? I have only been blogging for about 6 weeks and it is a pain to keep posting, but in a way I am using it to keep notes of what I am doing. when friends ask me about what I do online, I can just send them to my blog to find out!

I doubt it will make me much money, but will see how it goes.

What is your traffic like?

[willyboy104]

The traffic is crap like 150-200 uniques per day but the bounce rate is excellent 2.5% and pagieviews about 3.5

The amount of money I have made has been about $300 since started. I have tried adsense but its rubbish and everything else I tried was crap.

[JeremyWaller]

I was faced with the same decision not too long ago. I have a blog that's been going for a hair over two years now. After two years, traffic is very low. However, I've been able to monitize it fairly well. Its making about $200/month.

The thing is, I was spending 10 hours a week maintaining the blog. That was comming out to a measly $5/hour. I made the decision to keep the blog. However, I only spend an hour to so each month. I still post occassionally, but it is very low on the priority list.

If you enjor blogging, then blog. However, except for the few, you will never earn much of an income off of it.

[JIMZ]

150-200 uniques isn't too bad, I am sure you could sell a few small adverts in the side bar to the right people. even if they were $5 for a month and you sold 4 spots, that is another $240 per year.

[Blackman]

Guys, if you are blogging for money, sooner or later you will get bored/tired of that....

Blogging should be your passion to share with others something that you know better, not to make money ultimately....Monetizing comes later, when you get tons of traffic and offers.

My blog is not making me millions, but I continue, because I simply like doing what I am doing.

[willyboy104]

I too used to be like that Blackman, I used to blog because I loved writing articles and educating others in my own way.

I have just some how been side tracked by the monetizing of blogs trying my hardest to make money from my site. I think I may try and bring back the passion I had for blogging.

See what happens.

[Ganceann]

You can always continue to blog, but less frequently and concentrate more on affiliate marketing to give it more effort.

While doing affiliate marketing you may come across material that is worthy of a blog post... so by continuing to do both you are focusing your money making efforts on affiliate marketing and blogging should therefore become a passion again.

[willyboy104]

Good answer Ganceann. Well I have decided to keep going I think half the reason I was getting so demotivated was because I am not using any sort of CMS software so in order to write an article and post it. It would take me an hour or so to edit each page and upload the article e.t.c

So I have just hired a web designer to redesign my site and bring it up to the new ages with a wordpress.

I ll show you guys when its done and see what you think.

Will
Thanks guys.

[lucidflux]

I think part of the problem is your niche. If you really like it then continue, but the most successful blogs in that market that I've seen while cruising the net have shown people how to make money fast and they integrate a tool(brad callen warschest, hosting package, keyword tool for PPC) into their blog so it seems like you can't make money without it.

If you have a hobby besides SEO that you do everyday, or could do everyday, then it is much, much easier to update a blog with content. Even if there is no affiliate program for it, just contact some companies when it gets a good rank and give them your rates for advertising, and if they are smart they will jump at the opportunity to advertise.

Everyone has an SEO blog or AM blog, because everyone thinks they'll throw what they learn in there and it will be easy content, but the web is littered with everyone's SEO/AM blog. Maybe you just need to put in a little more work to see a lot more money. You never know until you try.

[willyboy104]

Thanks Lucid and you make a valid point there.

I'm not expecting the blog and never have expected the blog to become largely succesfull however I always felt I could make enough money from the blog to keep me motivated each day for writing more valuable content.

Since the blog started I have broadened its markets and I will be doing so again, going in to article marketing and affiliate marketing I hope to cover every aspect of internet marketing and more. I am not sure whether this will work or whether it will die out.

Either way I have no choice now I ve just paid for a redesign. This will be the first investment made in to my blog, a scary thing investment.

[seregap]

150-200 uniques is not bad at all.
study your visitors- where they coming from, what search terms they use to find you, what posts they read most.
find a good clickbank product to promote in your sidebar that you think would be interesting for the majority of your visitors.
with the bounce rate and page views per visitor you have it won't stay unnoticed.
i'm sure you will be able to make a couple of hundred a month this way.

[Ganceann]

Maybe this would inspire you to continue blogging Willyboy104... (I was just reading it)

The Journey to a $15 Million Blog Sale | WebProNews

Naturally, it is when you get your passion for blogging back :P

[arwen54]

Guys, if you are blogging for money, sooner or later you will get bored/tired of that....

Blogging should be your passion to share with others something that you know better, not to make money ultimately....Monetizing comes later, when you get tons of traffic and offers.

My blog is not making me millions, but I continue, because I simply like doing what I am doing.

and the thing is because you're blogging about your passion or whatever, people who visit your blog are drawn to your energy and begin to trust you and so they will buy from you