Blogging and the new “Products” Wave
The goldrush years of blogging have been over for quite some time already. Back in the good ole days, anybody with a hint of entrepreneurial drive could buy a domain, throw up an ‘advanced’ wordpress blog, and follow ProBlogger’s tips verbatim to make a pretty easy penny. Google Adsense, Text-Link-Ads, and then those beautiful 125X125 buttons. Oh, those were the days.
Flash forward to a year ago: There are a million blogs on every subject. Look at your own efforts, and you’ll probably realize there’s a good chance nobody gives a shit about your self-hosted WordPress blog. Suddenly, a lack of amazing content, real work, and a great brand actually prohibit people from finding success. (Believe me, if you were involved with the early blog gold rush, you would find this odd too).
Fact: It’s become a lot harder to make a real career out of blogging from advertising revenue. Nearly every big profitable niche is already dominated, and the top brands (TechCrunch, LifeHacker, Engadget, HuffingtonPost,etc, etc, etc) which are becoming even more sophisticated and powerful. Ipso facto, your gadget blog probably isn’t going anywhere fast.
What next? well, good question. Right now, we have….. [DrumRoll]……. Products!
Blogging and Products
Products are on fire right now. All the blogging gurus (Darren, Chow, etc) are talking about them constantly, causing every other business blogger to blog about them. Lucky for you, I don’t think you’re too late to the party. The product formula isn’t complicated, yet it’s a lot bigger pain in the ass than the old approach to making money blogging. There’s definitely still something in this idea though, and get on your high horse before this passes you too.
The formula
- Make a blog. Blog a lot, blog well. Be kick ass. Social network. Twitter. Blog often. Be original.
- All this hard work above, give it away for free for 6 months. Don’t bombard readers with ads. Hope your savings and motivation doesn’t run out.
- Once established, make products, and sell them. Keep blogging a bit, but not as much. Leave readers hanging. Sell products. Focus on promotion.
So essentially, the new “Products” are either paid memberships or e-books that have the most niche, valuable content. Sound like a lot of work? well, it is. But this is how people are getting big now, so if you want to get big, I think this is it.
The Role Models
Art of Non Conformity‘s Chris Guillebeau has simply put on a clinic (expression) as to how to own the internet with his products approach. On paper, I would never have guessed he would’ve found success beforehand, but the guy is on fire and has a wealth of info on his blog. Chris focuses on products on traveling and making money unconventionally.
Tim Sykes
Tim Sykes is the perfect example of the membership approach with a slightly more formal, academic niche – stock trading. Before he kills me for grouping him with other financial traders and analysts he despises, he’s anything but conventional which has led to his great brand. His personality, outstanding trading performance (actual objectively great content), and pretty website make the foundation of his success. If you know nothing about him, watch his video via John Chow on making $100,000/month from memberships.
Other Niches
I’ve found some other niches that could still be up for grabs (which I won’t share, naturally). If you’re serious and up for making a career online outside of content based ad revenue, partake in some due diligence and grab a niche and maybe 6 months from now you’ll be pulling some serious cash that trumps your old $100/month Adsense revenue.
Share your thoughts!!!