Business Models for Blogs

[vangogh]

One thing I see a lot with blogs is a lack of a sound business model in place. I don't mean personal blogs, but those that are clearly meant to make money.

What you often see with blogs is something like AdSense or a desire to sell ads prior to the blog having a large enough readership. Advertising is certainly one business model for a blog that can work, but it usually depends on having a large number of subscribers.

Advertising is far from the only business model you can or should use on a blog.

I came across this post on 10 Innovative Blog Business Models (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/09/22/10-innovative-blog-business-models/).

Now I'm not necessarily sure these are incredibly innovative. All have been around for awhile and are quite common, but some might still be new to you.

A poor business model is probably the #1 reason why a blog (or business) fails so I'd encourage you to take a look at the post and think about what your own business model is.

[KristineS]

You're right Vangogh, I don't believe any of these ideas are new, but they do give you something to think about. I think a lot of people start blogs and don't know what to do with them, so this post would be a good way to spark some ideas.

[vangogh]

The more I see people talking about not making money, the more I see people who don't have a business model. A lot of people think all they need to do is start a blog, slap on AdSense and in a few months have enough money to quit their day job. Sadly it doesn't work that way.

So many focus on traffic to the exclusion of all other things. Some business models don't need much traffic. Others do. If you start with a business model than your marketing, etc can follow from it. Without understanding your business model you could be spending time and money chasing things that aren't going to bring you more revenue.

[KristineS]

That's so true.

I've seen more than one person who thinks they'll put Adsense on their blog and become a millionaire. What they fail to realize is that the people who are making money from their blogs have gone way beyond Adsense. Those people have an entire marketing scheme in place.

Look at Dooce. She started out with a blog and she's now built it into a merchandising empire. She has books, calendars, t-shirts and all sorts of things. She also has ads on her blog, but those are almost secondary at this point. Where she makes her money is on the auxiliary stuff she sells those who come to read the blog.

[vangogh]

I've always had a business model around my blog since it started as a way to help promote the services I offer. Still it took me longer than I'd like to admit to really begin to understand different business models online.

Once I started to really appreciate some of the nuances of different business models, I started making more money

[Harold Mansfield]

I started my blogs as a center piece to draw traffic to other sites. The ads and aff. banners are secondary, and bring little revenue, the main source is the other related sites that sell products.

I did not start with any money to pay anyone else. I knew that I wanted to sell related products on separate sites that could stand alone, yet the sites themselves would have been lost if I had to wait on SEO, and Article Marketing to take effect. Adwords was out of the question. I didn't see the point in paying to draw traffic to the blogs, looking for residual traffic to the sites.

The articles are related to product sites, so it gives me an opportunity to link directly to product pages, and make more per sale, instead of per click, and bookmarks of the site themselves instead of someone else's product page.

There is more to be done, but it is the easiest way to market several related sites at once and also perpetuates it's own smaller niche ideas that I would not have normally considered.

[vangogh]

There's still a business model tied to your blog, even if the ads are secondary. In your case the revenue is generated elsewhere and the blog serves to attract traffic and send it to those other sites.

That's part of what I mean by understanding business models. I think a lot of people miss the point that one site's purpose could be to support another site the same way one page of your site might be there to convince someone to buy or contact you.