The Right Blog at the Right Time – 1 Year SEO 2.0
Yes, it's already one year. One year has gone since I started this blog, SEO 2.0. I feel like looking back and analyzing.
- Was it worth it?
- Am I where I expected to be in one years time a year ago?
- Did I reach my goals?
- Does blogging make sense for SEO, business and on a personal level?
- Does SEO 2.0 exist or was it only a fad?
Certainly SEO 2.0 was the right blog at the right time. SEO 2.0 was in the air, it was overdue. You could smell it. Someone needed to make it public, make it known. Obviously it was me. So here I am.
This week I reached 900+ subscribers (920 to be exact) after a huge jump of almost 100 in one day after this post was published. As unreliable as the Feedburner subscriber stats might be it seems not bad for a part time blogger in a rather small niche like SEO/social media/meta-blogging. OK, you see yourself it's not small, a SEO-only blog has a small audience but not my blog which covers SEO 2.0, a far broader topic.
I still remember the joy of having
- my first 100 subscribers
- my first 25 friends on StumbleUpon (now I have 100+ friends and 600+ fans)
- my first posts submitted to SU.
- my first front page appearance on Sphinn (that one was really hard!)
- my first buried story on Digg ;-)
Isn't it melancholic?
To be honest the blog still has the same level of traffic a a year ago, I had thousands back then and I have thousands now. Or rather I have them from time to time and most of the time I have hundreds. As I have turned my back on Google, I was so tired (and still am) of SEO 1.0 that I did not optimize SEO 2.0 much at all. So my traffic last month was still only 8% from Google. The biggest difference is my posting frequency. In the first 6 weeks I posted 3 times as often as now. On the other hand my posts were far less valuable then.
The reason to blog is probably to feel at home on the web. So ironically not the homepage is your home online but your blog. I really feel at home on the web now. I mean I don't feel like this is only a screen I stare at the whole day and a random array of billions of web pages. The contrary is the case, it's like having a house in the hills at the coast and people can see you from afar. Am I getting poetic again? ;-)
So a blog can make your working environment more friendly. This is of course a two edged sword. The more time you spend online the less time you have to meet real people etc. You know the deal. So let's lay aside the emotional chatter.
OK, you want the hard facts instead? You want the ROI? You want to see the money? Tad Chef is not John Chow, I won't show you cheques or earnings. I do have blog related earnings though. Direct and indirect.
Direct blog earnings include:
- Ad revenue
- Guest blogging
- Regular paid blogger jobs
Indirect blog earnings are
- SEO clients I got via the blog
- SEO clients I got due to my blog readers and social media friends
Here you already notice the ROI of blogging which is not measurable in $ or other numbers. I have been invited to the SES due to my blogging and social media activity. I could convince a prospective SEO client of mine to set up a blog and I am still writing daily for it. One big client was referred to me another blogger "I met" virtually during my blogging and social media endeavours.
In fact I found out that the SEO/social media/meta-blogging community is the single friendliest, most helpful, tolerant and cosmopolitan crowd whatsoever.
What did not work?
- Being friends with everybody, some people you have to refuse to have ties with
- Earning money with affiliate banners and text ads, almost no affiliate sales this way
- Getting thousands of visitors regularly, only hundreds
- Becoming independent from Google completely
- Ranking at #1 for SEO worldwide, at least i rank in the top 50 for seo blog by now ;-)
What would I do differently if I would start a new blog today?
- I would choose a different topic. SEO is a too small niche and even if you call it 2.0 many people will still assume that you do evil SEO spam.
- I'd aim at having 70/30 traffic or even 50/50 social media and other sources vs Google traffic.
- I'd sell something related to the blog topic.
In fact I plan to do just that. Selling advertising or affiliate products on a non-A-list blog which nonetheless is a high quality blog is difficult: It's too good for Adsense (Adsense gets only clicked if your content is crap) and not important enough to get the big advertisers.
So other bloggers sell WordPress themes, ebooks, consulting services (OK, I do too in a way) or they offer paid reviews. So yes, now that I have your attention I want to sell you something! Indeed I blogging and social media proved to as much fun as expected, thus I want to do even more blogging and social media. I can't do more than what I do now without getting paid more directly for it though.
So I want to offer to my readers what they really need:
- Links and traffic
- Know How
- Guidance
- Training
There are a few proven online business models to offer just that:
- Web directories
- Ebooks
- Premium content
- Webinars
What do you need and which medium would you prefer to get it?
First of all, congratulations Tad! Not only for your achievements, but also for being honest enough to let us know what did not work for you. You know, many bloggers pretend they are right all the time and never fail. It’s so refreshing to see someone behaving in a different manner. :)
What do I need? Traffic and know how. Which medium do I prefer? Ebooks. Premium content sounds interesting too, as long as it’s only written (no videos, no podcasts).
Congratulations Tad! It’s funny… as a relative new comer myself I’d always assumed your blog had been around forever based on your profile and subscriber count. So to learn it’s just one year old shocked and inspired me.
In terms of future biz models I’d suggest premium content. Directories and ebooks feel like models from 5 years ago to me and I doubt I’d ever buy either. I guess your biggest challenge would be to justify the cost to subscribers when you’re already putting great content out there for free :)
Congrats for making the year and I think I’ve followed you from the start (although you’ve grown bigger than me :))
Premium content might be difficult to push, I’ve personally been wondering the best way to monetise my knowledge and still help as many people as possible. Unless I can get some really great clients I don’t see myself doing much service work in the future so I guess I’ll see how things pan out.
Do let me know what you decide though buddy
Congratulations again, I’m proud to have followed your journey!
Well done. Well done indeed. This is one of the few blogs I still read regularly, despite not really have time to read blogs or even blog on my own blog much. Your blog is a fantastic read! I understand what you are saying about how difficult it can be to monetize blogs of this nature. Pingable (not all that simular, but still) only has a few post level topics which are profitable, and yet one of my niche sites, which is much less work, is now making over 100 a month in Adsense, doesn’t seem fair. Work doesn’t equal profit.
…Anyway, keep this SEO 2.0 going, we love your work.
Thanks people for staying with and for the feedback. Karen: Would you pay for that? how much?
James: I know but you have to pick up the people where thy are. Imagine a taxi driver waiting where nobody needs a cab. A SEO 2.0 web directory would have a twist making it more worthwhile.
Glen: I’m note sure I’m bigger. At my age you’ll be at least ten times as big :-)
Simon: Exactly, targeted microsites earn real money it seems. Not much but in relation to the work invested it seems reasonable. Blogging solely for money is not a good business model.
Such an honest look about the effort that goes into creating a quality blog, and the blogging ROI one can expect these days.
A big lesson I learned: If your hope is to cash in on Adsense revenue, you need to pump out a lot of content, frequently, and if you are a solo blogger, successful blogging is often a tradeoff between quality and content. Better to pump out good content frequently, than well-researched, well-written articles sporadically. It’s amazing to see the success of frequent bloggers, writing fluffy posts for a low-intelligence level audience. You said it in a nutshell:
“Selling advertising or affiliate products on a non-A-list blog which nonetheless is a high quality blog is difficult: It’s too good for Adsense (Adsense gets only clicked if your content is crap) and not important enough to get the big advertisers.”
Congrats on the anniversary! Great job and couldn’t agree more:
“The reason to blog is probably to feel at home on the web.”
Happy Blogiversary, Tad! Hope you stick around for quite a few more years. I’ve only read this blog for a few months (4 or 5 i think) and I absolutely love it!
Hi Tad,
Congratulations on the first year! I thought that you’d been around a lot longer but there we go. I enjoy reading your stuff (it’s one of the few blogs that I always read) and I love your approach to SEO too.
Here’s to the next successful year!
Gregor
Funny you should bring this up Tad, as I’m just getting the logo done for a new business targeting people exactly like yourself. That segment of folks who are experts and recognized as such by a niche audience who reads their blog, but don’t have the traffic to make big dollars off ads/aff.
(So… let me know if you want me to be in touch when the business launches :) ).
Thanks Lorna, Ann, Alina and Gregor, glad to have you as readers or should I say followers as I notice most of you all over the place. Appreciate the feedback. It’s always good to know that web savvy people read my stuff on purpose and not only casual Google users.
Gab: You’re welcome to do so. I’m eager to take a look at it. I guess most SEO bloggers fit in the same category.