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.
