Comments on: Blog Earnings Reports – Do They Make Sense?

By: dreamon

dreamon — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:08:37 +0000

I totally agree with the guy “SEO Tips South Africa”. Quality or the quantity whatever the measurement is the out come that counts. There can be few successful blog and few successful journalists in a site. If anyone wait for a blog to hit spotlight and do nothing he may loose his traffic flow. And for the time value, to write a hit the spot blog definitely requires more time, cause you will have to wait for those good journalists to provide you the post.

By: SEO Tips South Africa

SEO Tips South Africa — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:17:18 +0000

Point well taken. The old “Quality vs Quantity” argument holds true in cyberspace too. The quoting of raw figures are definitely there to act as an ego-boost / inspiration / indication of success.

By: MLRebecca

MLRebecca — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:28:55 +0000

This is a great way to evaluate a blog’s success. It’s not as important to look at the total earnings, but at the ARPU. The smaller blog in your example is doing something right. Great post!

By: Cananito

Cananito — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:01:19 +0000

Wow, wish I could do such ammount of cash a month, I can barely do 5 dlls lol, guess I have to seek for new techniques.

By: peter

peter — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:51:35 +0000

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Companies listed on the NASDAQ live and die by their financial ratios. Itâ€™s more than an â€œego boostâ€.

Notice Blogging and Companies which are listed in the NASDAQ are two totally different creatures & should be treated as such.

Focus on Net Profitability and Cashflow if you’re a small business & not on your ARPU. There is little point in monitoring this until you grow above a certain size.

A Blogger should be treated more as a “penny stock” and not as a company on the NASDAQ. Hence , by improving your net profit & cashflow , you can try to grow to the size of being listed on the NASDAQ and worry about your ARPU & other fancy financial ratios then.

By: Kok Choon

Kok Choon — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:00:45 +0000

I think it is not easy to indicate if a blog is successful, but basically if a blog with tons of visitors, it should be “successful”.

However, building a business online is different case, you need to earn as much money as possible. Be it using a blog traffic or normal traffic strategy, your end goal is to make money, and a lot of money.

I agree that Blogging for traffic might not be the best way / effective way to make money, having said that, still depends on how you provide value, build relationship and finally monitize your blog.

PPC affiliate marketer can easily earn 100K per month, I have yet seen any blogger earn that much, most probably blog is not easy to automate, you need GOOD content…!

Andrew, do you think a professional blogger can automate the blogging like PPC marketer? I think you need to outsource your blog to some writer before you can expand…?

May be outsourcing is the key to scale up blogging business, what do you think?

By: Andrew Wee

Andrew Wee — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:44:19 +0000

There’s no rehash of anything.

This is a basic concept in accounting.

Within the tech industry, telcos and ISPs use ARPU as a key metric.

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Going by the example you cited, the fatter margin gives you room to scale your business, while the thinner margin gives you less room to try new things.

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Companies listed on the NASDAQ live and die by their financial ratios. It’s more than an “ego boost”.

By: peter

peter — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:45:47 +0000

This is just a similar re-hashing of the argument for PPC whether its
Net Profit which matters / ROI.

I would take 50 000 net profit monthly with a ROI of 25 – 50% versus
a 100% ROI with 10 000 PPC spend.

The only thing ARPU does is make the smaller blogs feel happy that they’ve a higher ARPU versus the big blogs. Nothing but an ego boost.

By: Andrew Wee

Andrew Wee — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:14:05 +0000

Care to explain why the whole income is better than the ARPU I mentioned above?

I didn’t go into more depth, like looking at the ROI in terms of time spent blogging, which is usually much higher for bloggers compared to SEO and PPC marketers.

By: Andrew Wee

Andrew Wee — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:06:26 +0000

Hi Zac,
Blog earnings are a good motivation and if there’s an analysis of the various income streams and the amount being generated and their effectiveness, it can be a good instructional exercise for the readers and a good branding exercise for the blogger.

I like how you’ve broken down your income into the various channels and someone who goes beyond the surface, can see that affiliate marketing and referrals gives a better ROI than advertising (with the exception of possibly private ad sales).

I look forward to checking out the compilation.

By: Norhafidz

Norhafidz — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:31:26 +0000

IMO, it is more appropriate to look at the whole income as a way to measure a blog success. At the end of the day not the statistically ARPU that counts, but the whole value of that profits.

By: Zac Johnson

Zac Johnson — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:28:43 +0000

Blogging is not the best way to make money, nor is it my preferred. I initially started posted my monthly blog earnings report, 7 months after my blog went live, which is also when it first went generated revenues and offered advertising.

The original plan (and still) is to do a one year case study, then stop posting the monthly earnings report. At the end of the one year case study, I will then provide the final case study as a free ebook.

As you mentioned, I also can see how many find monthly revenue reports to be an “in your face/bragging” form of advertising/flattery, but it was never the intention (for me at least), which is why after the one year case study, the reports will end. However, I feel these posts/reports are much more of a motivational factor than anything else.

How many people started blogging as a result of seeing John Chow earning $30k+ a month?