The news continues to be full of economic gloom and doom (although here in Australia we seem to have avoided being in recession and there seems to be some confidence around) yet I continue to talk to bloggers whose income is actually on the rise.
But is this just a few bloggers who’ve avoided a downturn in their earnings (and seen them rise) or is this more common?
I’d be interested to hear your experience. Is blogging income up? Down? About the Same?
If there’s been a change what’s been behind it? Is it a decrease in advertising CPM, a change in traffic levels or more to do with your own change in focus?
My Situation:
Back in March I wrote a post on how the economy had been impacting my blogging. Things are similar now – I’d summarise my own earnings as:
- Overall they’re up (around 15% on last year)
- Ad Revenue has been a little down on the last few months when it comes to private Ad Sales
- Ad network revenue has been up quite a bit (I’m filling in a few of the private ad spots with them but also seeing more advertisers targetting my photography blog via AdSense)
- Affiliate revenue has continued to grow (partly because I’ve had an increase in traffic and partly because I’ve focused more upon affiliate marketing)
- Diversifying by releasing the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook certainly was helpful in making up for some of the private advertising revenue lost
In short – things have risen. I think because I’d been expecting the worst I decided to do some diversification. This has led to an overall increase – mainly because the decreases were not as bad as I’d expected and the diversifications paid off. In a strange way the economic downturn has actually been beneficial to me as it forced me into this diversification and new income streams.
How’s it been for you?
PS: Check out this post I wrote late in 2008 called – 13 Tips to Recession Proof Your Blog.
I guess I took my own advice in many of the points (particularly with points #7 and #9) and it paid off. I still think point #1 is key – keep building your blog, keep increasing the quality of it’s content and you’ll position yourself well for when things do bounce back.
The waning economy makes it better for my business. Since mine deals with making money online, which many may look to start heading for.
I’m lucky to have a blog about a product that’s thriving despite the economy, the Apple iPhone. My earnings have been increasing significantly lately — especially every time Apple issues a new iPhone or an iPhone software update.
I think in general, Internet businesses are a good idea in a recession because of the wide reach you can attain. People from all over the world read my blog, whereas if I owned a brick and mortar store I would only have customers from my town.
I started during the recession, at least when I started using adsense. I just recently started using affiliates and adsense for search, and my income has increased consistently every month. I’m getting smarter everyday with it and learning how to make it more effective for my site. God has blessed me during this time!
things have been down but you have to stay positive about the future
The recession doesn’t seem to have much affect on my blog. Nowadays, with the right promotion, I am earning more than I did in the past months. The more effort you put into your blogs, the more you will earn.
My blogging income hit the six-figure market in June, I believe. Highest ever year for me. The key is not to be reactive, but be proactive. Build your brand, build products, and build a business.
I’ve noticed a drop in my ad sales, but I’m not sure if it’s related to the recession or not. My blog is still under a year old, so I have a number of other factors to consider, and it may just be a “recession” in my blog itself.
My blog-income has fallen… And risen again!
And then fallen again… And risen again!
I feel that through the economic troubles, income goes down, but by simply not giving in to it, and trying out other things instead of sitting by the road, you can manage to increase, and even be stronger then ever before.
Wonder what that will bring once recession is over ;-)
I think that affiliate marketing is the best choice when you have lots of traffic, it is a way to lifelong advertising.
Best Regards,
I don’t think, that the present economy has any impact on my blog because I am not concentrating on monetizing my blog.
HI Darren, The economy has taken a hit pretty bad. I sell Hellraiser Puzzle Boxes on Ebay and they aren’t even selling that well. even at a 50% discount, or a signed one from one of the actors of the movie Hellraiser. I have a post about luxury vs need and my Hellraiser puzzle boxes here:
http://www.thenichethinktank.com/hellraiser-puzzle-box/
which sort of tells how the economy has affected a lot of different sectors, namely luxury and want sectors. Not need and necessity.
Good tips on your other post as well. Thanks and have a great day.
Larry C.
My earnings are up considerably, and rose throughout the recession, but that’s more due to my own timing. My site is about a year and a half old, and it took me 6 months to get settled into a groove with it. I focus on personal finance and investment topics, which I suspect also benefited from the recession, with people seeking out some of that kind of information. In another year I will have a much more accurate picture of what consistent earnings look like.
adsense had a dramatic drop, but that was countered by the increase in sales of my ebooks (increase in traffic)
I work for a field marketing agency so work is particularly reflective of the state of the economy. Whislt the last few months have been reather slow, it looks like things are rapidly starting to turnaround now.
earnings went down with 30% due to Adsense going down with 90% in earnings and this with the same amount of clicks. I countered part of it with other ways of advertising.
Look at it like this: if you can more or less keep your earnings under control during this recession then you will be possibly earning more than usual when the economy gets back on its feet.
My friend’s earnings got down on his clickbank sale.
My main blog is focused on investing and I’ve noticed that my revenue per click has gone down quite a bit. However, it’s been more than offset by a huge improvement in my CTR – I figured out that only about 3 of 200 blog posts generated clicks, so I started writing more like em!
I have only had my blog up and running for around 2 months, so I have no real justification to comment on sales.
The general feeling I get from looking around, is that people seem to be doing about the same, certainly in the IM niche.
High ticket items seem to be much slower to shift though.
Paul
I have no income from my blog :)
I can’t say earnings have went down, but I can say that the economy has pushed me to keep going and work harder.
why is it that my ads revenue is down?
Income went down in 08 when the US was falling apart, but since then, things are up.
You learn more about your business and yourself in hard times. This makes you more creative and innovative. It obviously depends what market you are in. I sold my Japanese engine import business in 08 and since then the sales have gone down. With my current business sales are going good because I am offering services and products that people need in a recession. So all in all you have to be smart, innvative and creative. I am sure many great businessmen will come out stong after this recession.
Just set up a new business, so although it doesn’t seem like a great time to be doing so, we’ve done surprisingly well.
Blogging is a great way to earn income for yourself especially during these times. We are offering a new way to monetize your blog through pay-per-lead.
We are looking for blog users to help us out in our beta testing and get feedback so we can provide a quality service and help website and blog owners make money.
Check us out at http://leadolution.com
Economy really has impact
I think most people, like yourself are making a lot more money from this recession ironically.
There’s more money out there than we can ever imagine, and it’s just the media saying things are bad. Wherease you yourself have proved to us things are pretty good!
Best,
FS