Julia Scott is a print reporter turned online journalist who left a steady gig at a newspaper to launch her blog BargainBabe.com in January 2009. She began turning a profit in her first month.
“Monetizing a blog is possible, but it’s a ton of work,” says Scott. She spends 10-12 hours a day working, plus a few hours over the weekend, but says: “I’ve been able to make money off of my passion, and it’s really rewarding.” Scott doesn’t charge for content (“although I’ve toyed with the idea”) — but rather makes money from advertising, freelancing and self-syndicating her content. “News outlets are desperate for great content and, in exchange for a very low fee, I negotiate a non-exclusive contract,” she says.
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While those with a writing background are well-suited to monetizing content they create, blogging requires some additional skills, says Scott. Making money online means becoming more than “just a writer.” You need to become, in essence, an entrepreneur. “You have to be so much more entrepreneurial than you ever had to be as a reporter or editor in a newsroom,” she says. “You really have to learn to be a self-promoter.”
Scott’s story is not unique. In fact, she is one of many journalists who are making a good — sometimes exceptional — living by monetizing Web content.
Start up, then start generating revenue
Amy Lemley Bailey is publisher of My Scoop, an online fashion magazine or, as Bailey describes it: “a Southern fashionista’s source for style.” My Scoop started as a part-time blog that Bailey posted to five or six times a month. Then she started doing an email blast, and readership grew. Still employed full-time in sales for a national magazine, Bailey started to get inquiries from people interested in advertising on her site. “I decided it was time to take the leap and do my own thing,” she says. My Scoop immediately began generating revenue through advertising, she says.
In December, 2007, the Web zine was launched with daily updated articles. She hired a sales rep and was soon averaging about $15,000-20,000 each month in ad revenue. She’s since moved out of her home office into office space and now has three sales reps, a marketing director and several interns. And, she’s getting ready to launch sites in Nashville, Tenn., and Birmington, Ala., — with plans to continue launching in other cities.
Nicole Feliciano is editor of Momtrends, a site for — you guessed it — moms! Feliciano started out by blogging for others: Mom Central, Pampered Puppy and Babble.com. Then, she says, she figured out “the simple tools required to create my own blog.” Now, two years later, says Feliciano, “I have enough revenue to drop some clients and rely upon my own ad stream.” Feliciano sells ad space directly to other small business owners: “Space on Momtrends is a great value and trackable. Businesses can see every lead that comes their way through my site.”
She also uses affiliate links to generate revenue. “Whenever I write about a new product, I see if there is an available link that will generate cash off of a sale,” she says. One caution, though: “It’s essential to keep your integrity. My readers trust me, and I won’t let them down by being bought out for a review.”
Wendy Limauge began blogging six months ago and now makes close to $1500 a month blogging. She hopes to earn “full-time money” by the end of the year.
The key, says Limauge, is finding and sticking to a topic. “When I started, I made the big mistake of trying to write everything in one blog,” she says. “The readers your blog attracts will not come to your blog for everything. They come to you for usually one or two specific things.” In addition, she adds, search engines can be “confused” if your blog has too many topics. Have more to say than can be accomplished on one blog? Have several blogs. That’s what Limauge has done: “I have multiple blogs each featuring a specific topic — and I have different readers on each blog, she says.
Michelle Madhok started her blog SheFinds.com in 2004. Last fall, she sold a minority share of it for $1.3 million. The site generates about $500 thousand yearly in revenue. According to Madhok, the key to success is to “focus on a sellable category.” In her case, that category is fashion and beauty. “There are a lot of advertisers that want to be in that space and it gives us a number of revenue streams,” she says. These include: advertising, commissions, syndication and spokesperson opportunities.
Develop a money-making strategy and follow through
Monetizing your Web site can be done. The question is: How? Scott points to four “best practices” for making money through Web content:
1. Pick a topic that you’re both passionate about and that has a lot of potential. In Scott’s case, she focused on helping people save money — a hot topic, and a personal passion. “I’ve always been a cheapskate, and now I’m able to make money off my passion,” she says.
2. Focus on providing interesting content in a way that’s engaging for readers. “I like to draw my readers in with great stories, questions to get comments, polls, videos — anything that’s interactive,” says Scott. “Blogs are, above all, interactive; people coming from print or traditional media backgrounds need to embrace that interactivity.”
3. Consider syndicating your content for profit. “Develop a list of who might want to buy your content — and not just newspapers,” recommends Scott. “Think about what Web sites, radio stations, TV stations, trade publications or corporate outlets might be interested. You can really expand your platform.”
4. Start now — don’t wait to “quit your day job.” It takes a lot of time to build up traffic, Scott says. “You want to have a track record established before you’re really counting on people to link to you.”
The beauty of Web content, of course, is that it can be quickly changed. It is relatively easy to experiment with different topics, different audiences and different approaches. The key, again, is to focus on a topic that you’re passionate about — and that others share your passion for.
Lin Grensing-Pophal is a freelance business journalist and independent marketing communication consultant.
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