This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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There’s an old saying … "you get what you pay for." Meaning, like if you get something for free, that’s about what it’s worth.
Au contraire.
Recently, I’ve noticed a trend in the blog world. The trend is you can
get some pretty valuable stuff for free. Well, not quite free. It may
cost you some time to actually read the stuff. Wanna know what I mean.
Here it is. Nick Momrik, who writes the blog Nicked Up, recently mentioned that he’s become a five figure blogger since he began implementing advice of Problogger, Darren Rowse.
"There are many people out blogging professionally now. One of these
people has helped me out a great deal over the past several months.
That person is Darren from ProBlogger.
He hasn’t directly helped me, except for one or two quick questions
I’ve emailed his way, but the tips on his site are priceless. I’ve been
following his blog on a daily basis for several months now so I stay on
top of the blogging world …"With Darren’s tips I’ve taken my Google Adsense revenue to levels I
never imagined making from blogs. I’ve earned more from advertising in
the past 3 months than I had in the previous 6 …"I’ll say that I’ve become a 5-figure blogger over the past 12 months,
but as you can see I left off specific numbers."
I suppose you could say this is the old magazine advertising model
wherein if you create great content and draw enough interested
eyeballs, the advertising dollars will follow. After all, Darren is a
six figure blogger. And most of revenue is from advertising dollars. He
doesn’t charge people for his content. Not even a monthly subscription
fee like magazine do. And obviously, his content has tremendous value
(you probloggers out there know what I mean). Nick is proof of that.
The difference is you don’t have to invest the millions it takes to
start a magazine. You can just launch a blog for 14.95/month. Okay, so
it’s not THAT easy to make a buck, but hell, you can talk about
stuff you’re really passionate about, even if you do it part time for a
couple of years, and build you readership. The point, if I have a
point, is there’s a market out there for free content, and free content
can be valuable, and you can make a buck doing it. And you don’t have
to sell your soul to the devil (unless you want to).
So, my friends, my fellow savvy solopreneurs, pick a niche … pick
something about which you’re passionate and would enjoy spending
hours on end researching and writing about, and share it with the
world. And follow Darren’s advice.