- Sobcon 2007 conference meeting with attendees - photography by Lorelle VanFossen
I am frequently asked about how to make money on the web, especially how to make money with your blog. I find a wide variety of answers around the web, some of them get rich quick schemes, PageRank games, and SEO illusions, but there is only one answer that I want to shout to the roofs, but few people listen.
Blogging as a business is business. It takes business training and skills to make money with your blog.
That’s it. That’s the secret. John Chow, Guy Kawawasaki, Darren Rowse, Seth Godin, these princes of blogging didn’t get rich with their blogs by just having blogs. They used their business sense and know how to make their blogs work for them. They understood that a blog is just another tool in the business arsenal, a business card and resume all wrapped up in one, offering a business a powerful communications tool. In order to make your blog work for you, you have to understand how business works.
To have a “successful” blog and to make your blog work for you, you have to have skills and training in advertising, marketing, economics, finance, writing ability and language skills, public relations, networking, everything any business needs. These are the skills you bring it to your blog to make it a success, earning the money you deserve.
If you don’t have the business skills, where do you get the training you need to flip your blog over into a business and money magnet? You can hang out on the successful problogger’s blogs, digging into their past content and sitting at their knees to learn every day they share another tidbit.
You can take business classes at your local college, university, or community program, taking months or years of training on the basics of business and business communication. You can read a book or three on how others made money, but will it really apply to your specific needs? Maybe. It worked for someone. Or you can get the training you need from fellow bloggers who have “been there done that” with their blog and business expertise and learn from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Article from: Lorelle VanFossen, BlogHerald.com. Read more about her article here.
Tags: business, how to, online business