I had thought it was all about traffic?

My blogging project is chugging along nicely so far and has sort of met my expectations so far. Modest traffic and some earnings, while learning a bit about how it all works and getting my brain around the ways of the web. So far so good I was thinking, and was also beginning to settle into that slightly smug feeling you get when everything is under control and going according to plan. Then yesterday something shook me out of that mind set. I had thought, its all about traffic isn't it. Spot the niches that generate traffic, optimise to pull in eyeballs then work out how to turn that traffic into income. Well over June I was pulling in steady adsense revenue, 10-30p a day and with an upward trend. Just what I was expecting basically. But yesterday I had a quite normal day in terms of traffic and number of people clicking. But for some reason adsense rewarded me out of all proportion. I pulled in a well over £1. If anything, yesterday was one of my lower days traffic-wise. This has really got me thinking. If I can get the return per click up by 250% just like that, maybe I should give more attention to what adverts I am attracting than I have. It might be much more valuable than chasing that which simply generates a lot of visits to my sites. I need to go back to Google Analytics and see what analysis tools are available to work out not just where my visitors are coming from, but what is the most lucrative thing I can do with them once I get them. Having said that, I mustn't lose sight of the goal of having other income sources than Adsense. I love the ease with which Adsense allows you to make money from a blog but especially for the locally orientated blogs I really need to sell direct advertising space to businesses. Quite apart from the financial considerations, I think if I am to be able to look myself in the eye and think that I am a professional blogger, albeit a part-time one, I have to have proper customers who pay me via an invoice because they value the service I am offering them.

Blogging -Tactics: the 15 minute blog post

I think the prospects for a blogger to make money are not very high. If there is serious money to be made the lone individual writing on his laptop somewhere is at a real disadvantage against the professional journalist. The pro knows how to get the copy together, has the support of colleagues and the infrastructure of his organisation and is able to devote the time to get the job done properly. I think it is a bit like musicians. There will always be the odd talented amateur who can break into show business. But these are few and far between and most of the income generated by music goes firmly into the pockets of the music industry and its trained members. We are already seeing the emergence of totally professional blogs like Gawker.com where the whole show is run with ruthless efficiency by ex print journalists who know just what they are doing. So if I am going to make any headway in my quest to generate a substantial second income from blogging I need an inspiring overall strategy and effective techniques. The key is to be able to generate compelling content to compete with the pros. The tactics first. I need to be able to throw up a readable post in a very short period of time and I need plenty of them. I don't yet know what is possible so to find out I am starting with a target. I want to be able to produce a post every day, and I want to be able to produce that post in exactly 15 minutes. I will try this regime for a few days. I might need to extend it a bit - it is vital that the posts I produce are readable and either entertaining or carry some value. So plan A comprises - - choose a subject - set the clock for 15 minutes - write up to the deadline - allow a minute or two to review for obvious spelling howlers or grammar obscenities - post onto the blog And if you are wondering, yes this post did take exactly the 15 minutes I allocated. Next post will be about strategy.