Blogging: Only The Strong and Motivated Can Survive

Posted on | December 19, 2008 | 12 Comments

In the last two weeks I’ve been e-mailed by over a dozen people asking me questions about blogging and how to get into the game. I’ve had questions ranging from “how much money can I make if I blog about real estate?” to “how long will it take till I receive lots of traffic?”. Super general questions that are in a way hard to answer depending on the amount of talent the people asking the questions have and how familiar they are with search engine optimization and such. So, instead, I end up e-mailing back and forth and just answering basic questions. I meet interesting people for a minimal time, and then I can only go so far in assisting others. But…

I always wonder: Where are they now? What happened with the blogs? Did anything I say matter?

Now, these questions might seem to be easily answerable… Just go to the domain and see what’s up. I never really get that far to actually help another choose a domain. It’s such a darn exhausting task at finding a domain that fits you and your subject and makes you happy, that I only end up wasting my weekends trying to find available domains for really close friends. So, that question is rarely ever answered for me–BUT! I found an interesting blog today (coincidentally, I think on Twitter): MomsCashBlog.com. It turns out this blog was one that was created by a blogger who was making some cash blogging and doing things online (the normal stuff) and sold it in April 2008 to (whom I assume to be the current writer) JJ. After making only 11cents online, JJ decided to take advantage of a 72hour window to make an offer to buy an established blog, and her bid was accepted. Kinda cool, huh? I looked over the blog and it has actually been maintained pretty well (but not enough posts, IMO, for a blog that was purchased from someone else). It’s another MMO blog (Make Money Online blog) and how to attract people to your blog and what not… so it’s in a saturated market, yet is unique in its own way. I can confidently say MCB has a loyal reader base–each post has an average of 15-20 comments. Great! What does this have ANYTHING to do with what my blog title? Well, I ended up catching this at the top of the blog: “Would You Like To Create A Blog That Will Make You Money – CLICK HERE To Use My Free Blog Tutorial!”

Check it out… it even has a green background to make it more noticeable:

Blog Tutorial

Blog Tutorial

So what did curious ‘ol me do? I clicked it. I read a little and I’m not going to comment on the tutorial… it is well written and I will probably recommend it to some of the people who e-mailed me (after I read it in full context), but then I reached a part that absolutely gained my interest: Moms Wall of Fame. Whoa! Here are some examples of people who tried to get into blogging first hand, and now I can probably check out “wanting to get into blogging” evolution–and you guessed it–answer my “Where are they now?” question. Of course, I’d be generalizing, but c’mon… fresh bloggers in the wild? I have to waste some time checking this out!

What I discovered absolutely amazed me.

That brings this list to a total of 44 BLOGS. Of these 44 blogs, there are only 11 that have constantly “stayed with the blog” of providing readers with new content. Of course, this probably isn’t the BEST and most accurate way to get stats of how many new bloggers stay consistent with their blogging, but I actually had a couple “live” conversations within the last 48 hours with random people that I met around town and how to start blogging. For most, it seems like a daunting and tedious task… but it’s fairly easy and you end up getting into routine. For Fka200, my goal was to wake up in the morning and post at least 3 times a week. Other than a couple months (vacation), I stuck to my goal. My advice to everyone is to set a goal and that makes sense and slowly build on that. We all saw the sale of BankAHolic.com selling for a cool $15 million. If revenue is your goal, make sure you don’t abuse your readers… especially if you just started. A new blog with ads plastered everywhere is extremely unattractive. If I feel like I might be a good enough candidate to write up on “blogging” and some recommended steps on getting started, I might go for it. I just want people to know that this is extremely cut-throat. The bottom line? Don’t be part of the “33″ blogs that haven’t continued maintaining!

This post was pretty much a “motivational post” for those that do want to setup a blog and get started to actually be serious about it. Learn different ways to monetize the blog and get yourself situated on the net (potential future blog posts) and you should be OK. If you believe in it, it’ll happen. For the last two weeks, I’ve been hearing a lot about people wanting to voice their opinion. My first suggestion is seriously to setup a blog and just start. First step? Get a domain name! A little rant post I made a while ago, but definitely always going to be relevant (IMO).

That’s it on this subject for now. Hopefully this will boost some people who have been looking to get into blogging about something they are passionate about and just get to it. First start the blog out as an awesome hobby and get pumped up to write about subjects such as your favorite sports team, the financial crisis, or about your cooking recipes (I recommend sticking to a certain niche). THEN then worry about revenue. For some who stay consistent, it will definitely be rewarding! Best of luck!

Category: Domaining
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Comments

12 Responses to “Blogging: Only The Strong and Motivated Can Survive”

  1. Mommie
    December 19th, 2008 @ 12:46 pm

    Lol, I’m one of the 11! Yeah! Most of the others listed that are still blogging I end up visiting at least once a week via Entrecard. Honestly I just wrote about the fact that bloggers don’t end up lasting as well.

    MomsCashBlog was actually run by a friend of mine, she helped me a lot and I make decent cash now. Once she sold the blog it tanked almost immediately, kinda sad.

    Mommie
    http://www.mommieshome.net

  2. LaneVids
    December 19th, 2008 @ 2:16 pm

    I am also one of the 11! I first found momscashblog through justin.tv when she would do a live show. I must admit though I have not looked back at her blog ever since she sold it. I have found my fortee to be in video blogging, and I have started to do a live show through blogtv also. I am an avid twitterer, and status updaterer! So follow me if you want! Hopefully I will see you over on the internet. Just to get an idea of traffic to my site, I get about 300- 500 visitors a day depends on the day, and I really starting getting into it about a year or so ago!

    Awww… Shiggity Shank!!! LaneVids

  3. Sammy Ashouri
    December 19th, 2008 @ 4:02 pm

    Great comments! I will definitely be following you on twitter, LaneVids. I just recently “discovered” twitter, but I don’t think I “tweet” as often, LOL.

    It’s hard to stay consistent with blogging, and there are many who fall off the wagon… I have my occasional “burps” when real-life bites me in the @$$, but I truly enjoy writing on the blog. It’s the “publicity” of my opinion being plastered on the net that makes me enjoy it.

    Again, congrats ;) Wish you guys the best of luck. Will be following up on your blogs for sure.

  4. Mominator
    December 21st, 2008 @ 2:08 pm

    Great blog!

    My husband is a domainer/blogger (DNKitchen.com)… Between him and the Mom’s Cash Blog I got inspired to start my own blog. I really like MCB site and visit it often. It’s funny you are writing about the Wall of Fame b/c I had asked to be on it since I was new recently. :)

    I was reminded by you in your post though that I need to set goals about posting. I’ve been doing it sporadically, with no real schedule or sense of…ok I know there will be a post every other day or every two days, so on and so forth. So…Once I get through Christmas I’m going to set a goal of what I want to accomplish and then I’m going blog about it so I have essentially “put myself out there” and will have accountability. Thank you for reminding me. ;)

  5. Sammy Ashouri
    December 22nd, 2008 @ 2:39 am

    Just posted a comment on your blog ;) . I’ve been on your blog before (not exactly sure when), but it’s definitely different now that I know the guy that runs DNKitchen is your husband!

    I loved the kitty pics.

  6. Dave
    December 22nd, 2008 @ 7:44 am

    Well what do you know, I haven’t posted in months and my blog is still on the radar. ha! Glad someone’s talking about it.
    A lot of us followed the first owner of Momscashblog because she said she made loads of money with her blog and we can too. Look what happened to her. She sold her blog in 6 months so you could say she failed too. What’s the difference between selling a blog after 6 months or letting it go? When she sold momscash after 6 months it made me think why would she quit if she was making all that money she talked about in her videos? Now I know you don’t make much in the first 2 or 3 months and she was only there for 6 months.That leaves 3 months to reach Chowlike status. Yeah, right. She was 24 with no experience. I like JJ and I trust her think because she’s real. The way I see it is she had money enough to buy the blog and she knows about business. You make a good point that we shouldn’t worry about the revenue. I plan to start another blog in 09 only I will go into it with eyes wide open. Don’t listen to MMOs who tell you how much they make. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. Over and out.

  7. Sammy Ashouri
    December 22nd, 2008 @ 8:33 am

    “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.”

    Definitely have to agree with that statement regarding a majority of the current MMOs on the net.

    As for the whole “why sell if you’re making $$$”, I definitely 100% agree. Why would you? You’d assume you put in the same amount of work and you’ll end up making more, right? The only problem is, you’ll have some offers where it’s a really great revenue multiplier (let’s say 36 x (current month earnings) which would equal to about 3 years revenue up front, which you could easily invest into a new blog). Perfect example is the BankAHolic.com sale for $15million… 2 year blogger, and sold for millions.

    Thanks a bunch for the comment Dave! Goodluck! When you get your blog started, come back to Fka200.com and make a comment on a post to get some “do-follow” backlinks ;) .

    Happy Holidays!

  8. jj-momscashblog
    January 8th, 2009 @ 4:37 pm

    Hey there Sammy, I was here back in December when you wrote this post and left a comment but it’s not here. Maybe I didn’t hit “submit” (lol) well, it was the week before X-mas so could have been during a storm when my wireless kept going off. So, I will again say thank you for the nice review of MCB and I also want to thank you for all of the legwork you’ve done on the Wall of Fame. I’ve been advised to take the WOF down for SEO purposes, or else put “no follow” tags on it, so your research will definitely come in handy if I go the no follow route.

    About your post.. Your “study” is right in tune with online marketing studies which say the life of an individual blog is very short. Some quit their blog because of health issues, or family matters, etc, some quite because blogging just isn’t their “thing”, but some will come back to their blogs later (since an old blog gets PR points) and some go on to start a second blog in a different niche using the knowledge they gained from the first experience. You made good points for people starting out… set goals but don’t make “revenue” your driving force, and as long as you’re enjoying it, then things will fall into place. It’s true that the MMO biz is saturated and it’s “cut throat” at times since some bloggers like to put each other down, so you need thick skin. All in all, I find that most bloggers are very nice people and I’ve made some wonderful blogging friends in the process and I’m sure you have too. Good luck and thanks.

    P.S. I just want to tell Dave that I don’t think anyone “fails” because they stop blogging. Krysti has a new occupation and I’m very happy for her. I also didn’t pay as much for the blog as some seem to think. I’ve already made my investment back and that’s all that matters to me. :) I can’t imagine a blog being worth millions and I’d tell anyone thinking of buying a blog to look for a cheap one with PR (they can be as low as $50). Techies build the PR and then sell them.

  9. prefabrik
    September 7th, 2009 @ 12:33 am

    thank you very good

  10. prefabrik
    September 7th, 2009 @ 12:34 am

    verygodd very very good

  11. Bisnis di internet
    October 19th, 2009 @ 1:26 am

    If the content blog is our passion, i think it will create good content and draf many visitor.

  12. Browserspiele
    November 16th, 2009 @ 5:23 am

    You have to blog about your passion. And you have to blog often to rank good in search engines.

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