Jan 17 2009
The Case of the `Dead and Buried’ Blog
You’ll not want your blog to suffer the fate of a blog I visited yesterday.
The blog was run by an experienced journalist.
In his last post – after about six months of blogging – he writes that his blog is `dead and buried’. Anybody who wants to revive (aka buy) the blog is welcome to contact him. He says there’s much good content in it.
Looking through the blog, I soon learned that the journalist had started it to prove that he can make money blogging.
Months later, he lays his blog to rest saying that he has not lost his desire to make money. Only that he will be doing it in the offline world.
A real case to show how difficult it is to make money online, contrary to what the Internet marketing gurus say.
But then he has made money with another blog – he has sold it for $1000. Now I understand why some people are so keen on blogging.
Anyway, the journalist attempted to salvage his credibility by saying he will write content for other unspecified blogs at the same time contradicting himself by saying he has found a better-paying vocation, more exciting than blogging.
He cited workload as the reason for being unable to continue with the blog. I don’t buy that.
How difficult is it for an experienced journalist to pen a few hundred words at least once a week?
The blog will still be alive, collecting revenue from banner ads and Adsense and most importantly, waiting for a buyer.
As I was about to leave the blog, I spotted a mission statement.
The journalist says he’s going to put all the techniques he has learnt from probloggers (the ones who sell ebooks and other info products on blogging) and see whether he can make tons of money like them.
He will do the experiment for a year.
He lasted six months and on the seventh month he made his last post titled, Still Alive, which means he’s still alive but `as for this blog, it’s dead and buried’.
Obviously the techniques of the `millionaire’ bloggers did not work.
What he did not realize when starting out was the `millionaire’ bloggers have not made their money through blogging but by subtly hoodwinking the greedy to buy their ebooks which claim to reveal the secret techniques used by millionaire bloggers.
These millionaire bloggers know you can’t make millions quickly and easily by running a blog. But you can make millions selling a product which makes people believe they can.
A comment by a reader on the last post, hitting out at the so-called `millionaire’ bloggers says, “I didn’t start a blog so that I can retire (rich), but because I have things to say… you’ve got to write because you want to write, or your writing will suck so much that no one will want to read it a second time.”
A valid comment to bear in mind every time we write a blog post.
By now you’re pretty sure the journalist dug his blog’s grave because his primary aim was to make tons of cash with it.
His experience teaches a good lesson. If you start blogging with $$$$ as your primary aim, your blog will suffer the fate of his.
PS. There’s an interesting link in the blog – How to Write Great Posts.
Click on it and it takes you to another page where there’s a post entitled, “How to Write Successful Blog Posts to Make More Money Blogging.”
I didn’t read it. It was written by a person not qualified to do so, written without any sincerity or passion.
