Today a new ‘make money blogging fast‘ product is being launched into the blogosphere that promises those who buy it that they can make big money blogging – fast.
As this thing is launching and I’m already getting emails about it from readers asking if they should buy it – let me give you a few quick reactions to it and other products I’ve seen like it.
Do keep in mind, I’ve not bought the product so I’m making these calls based solely upon what I’ve seen in the sales material and what I’ve heard from charter members. Much of what I have written below applies to most of these kinds of products (and there are many).
Note: I’m not naming the product here (and I’m certainly not going to try to make a quick buck with an affiliate promotion), I just don’t feel good about promoting it in any way – for reasons that I guess will become clear below.
Make Fast Money Blogging?
Here’s the main thing – making money from blogging instantly… immediately… quickly… fast isn’t something I’ve seen too many people achieve (I’m actually yet to meet any). I have seen bloggers make A LOT of money blogging – millions of dollars in fact. It’s certainly possible to do – however in every case that I’ve seen the blogger has worked their butts off blogging for a long time, building their authority, credibility and by writing content that is original and useful – well before their blog started making money.
If you think you can flick a switch or change to a new system and instantly make a lot of money fast – you’re in for a fall. Don’t fall for that line – to make money in this game you’re going to have to work really hard and have a long term view of things.
Lots of Blogs Each Earning Little Bits of Money
OK – the methodology of this program is that you need to start a blog network – multiple blogs that each earn a relatively small amount of money, that mounts up to be a significant amount.
Sounds like a reasonable way to approach things and there is actually some truth to the methodology. I know a number of bloggers who have made some money this way, a few that even make a full time living from it.
I’m not going to knock people for taking on this model – it can work and I guess people do need to make a living. I even did it for a little while myself. However keep in mind that there is a cost of this method – something that I learned for myself the hard way.
The problem with maintaining lots of blogs is that while they each might make a little money that adds up to a reasonable amount – you end up with lots of blogs that don’t really amount to anything in and of themselves on any other level than that they earn a little money.
Perhaps that’s all your dream is (to make a little money from lots of blogs that no one has ever heard of) but what I love about blogs is the way that they open up other opportunities for a blogger. A blog can build your brand and profile to the point that it opens up doors for new jobs, partnerships, book deals, speaking engagements, friendships, business ideas…. etc. The problem is that most bloggers who have experienced these opportunities have worked hard to build a small number of blogs (usually a single one) which they’ve worked hard at – rather than spreading themselves thinly across multiple blogs.
My experience of a small network of blogs was that it while I was able to sustain 10-20 blogs (20-30 posts a day) that the quality of what I was producing was pretty low. I did get a little traffic to each from Google – but never really generated any regular readers, never had anyone comment, never had any opportunities open up as a result of those blogs.
It was only when I switched to having 1-2 blogs with quality, useful and original content that things opened up. As a result I slowly started to make real money blogging and more importantly started to see opportunities to leverage the profile of my blogs to bigger and better opportunities.
Using Other People’s Content
One of the main methods taught by many make money blogging products is to use other people’s content on your blog for the bulk of your posts. This one teaches that you should use other people’s content for the bulk of your posts and throw in some original stuff from time to time. They even give you tools to find and import other people’s content quickly (remember you need lots of blogs to make this work – so you need to do it quickly).
Again – this is something I dabbled in for a while. I did it all manually and tried to use the content in a way that added value rather than just copying and pasting in content (I also did it with the blessing of those whose content I aggregated and always acknowledge sources) – but in the end I dropped it as a method for a couple of reasons.
Firstly it was the most boring thing I had ever done (and I’ve worked on conveyor belts on production lines for 12 hour shifts – so I know boring). Blogging can be an amazingly uplifting experience – but copying and pasting in content is not fun.
Secondly it’s only marginally useful – there are ways of aggregating content from other sites that can be useful, but it always takes work and extra effort for this to happen. The method demonstrated in the product I’m referring to just mashes up a load of content from other sites in a way that doesn’t really help anyone. As a result a blog that does this as the bulk of its content isn’t really useful to anyone, except the blogger making a few dollars from it. The demonstrator describes the post as quality content – it’s not really. It’s on topic, it might do ok in Google, but it doesn’t really help anyone.
Thirdly – you end up a blog that isn’t really unique or original. This comes back to my points above about creating blogs that actually help build a brand or profile for you. If all you do with the bulk of your content is rehash and mashup other people’s content you’ll never get a name for being anything much more than someone who reads, quotes and links to other people’s content. Perhaps I’m crazy – but I’d rather be known for someone who has original, interesting and useful ideas than someone who whips up mashups of other people’s stuff all day every day. But maybe that’s just me?
Fourthly – while search engines unfortunately do rank this kind of content, I’m finding that they’re getting better and better at identifying truly useful content and junky content like this that is created purely to get search traffic. Sites like this can and do rank well but often they fall out of the rankings and in the long term don’t tend to rank well.
Note: at least the teaching offered in today’s course acknowledges sources of content with links and only uses short quotes from those sources – I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as some tools that scrape content, strip links and acknowledgements and automatically produce very spammy content.
Final Thoughts
In the end people will believe that they can make fast money blogging if they want to. Some people just want to believe the dream and nothing I can say will convince them. They’ll happily pay their $67 a month, create a few of these ‘blogs’ and a few months later realise that this isn’t a ‘fast’ or particularly ‘easy’ game.
If you’re tempted then please just pause for a moment and think about your objectives for blogging. If you’re looking to purely make money and you don’t want any real personal satisfaction or have any goals of building a brand or profile – then this type of model may actually work for you.
But if your dream is to build something that grows your profile as someone with authority in your niche, or to land a job or book deal, or to get invited to speak at an industry event, or to be quoted in mainstream media about your topic, or it’s just to build a blog that has loyal readers who keep coming back because you’re helping them…. then perhaps this isn’t the type of blogging model for you.
Your Thoughts?
PS: Interestingly the sales page of this new product highlights some successful blogs that make a lot of money blogging. They include Dooce and Mashable. I would argue that these blogs pretty much prove my point. They’re all about original and useful content. They are not about creating lots of blogs that each a little money – they’re about putting in a lot of work to produce useful and original content over a long period of time and don’t resemble anything I’ve seen about the actual product being promoted on the page.
I couldn’t agree more on this one! Unreasonable promises create unreasonable expectations. Unfortunately – making money blogging is a fairly slow process unless combined with other aspects such as email marketing and info product creation – then it speeds up but still not instant.
What I think is even worse – “make money blogging” products that teach people how to create whole bunch of splogs filled with regurgitated crap from other sites, like one just released few days ago.
Quite sad in my opinion, as they teach spam generation from the get go!
Must admit, Darren, I have been a sucker for such products before. Over the years during my on-line business, I’ve tried them all. Numerous blogs. Didn’t work for me and I got bored of doing the same thing day in, day out.
I’m currently putting my own course together and I may not sell many because I’m saying to make money on-line takes hard work, commitment, persistence, patience and a bit of luck!
My course is no silver bullet. How’s that for a sales page…but as least it’s honest!
Andrew
I’ve been wondering about this approach–there are several products/courses which supposedly teach you how to do this. I’m glad to finally hear an unbiased opinion on it.
Having other people’s content as the core of your blog rarely leads to anything positive. There is a difference between aggregate sites that work (Reddit, Digg, etc) and scraper sites (which what this money making thing appears to be).
I think you nailed it pretty good on being unique and useful; that’s how a person becomes a successful blogger.
I think this ist only quick and dirty and you can make some bucks. Only with a true passion for your topic you get real success. (in my opinion)
The other is only like work on a assembly line…
Thank you for that insightful look. I have seen these products and they did perk my interest, but you just confirmed my suspicions. I have also wondered about the Product Launch Formula. How is that going?
Another great article Darren. Plenty of sound advice. There’s certainly enough information in here to go and start your own profitable blog without buying anything!
I was once told I can make money with my blogs taking other’s content (they didn’t explicitly said it but that’s how it sounds). My blogs aren’t mine anymore if the content is not mine! In addition, I didn’t want to waste money. How much money do i need to make to cover the monthly fee?
People should realize that there’s no easy money. They need to work for it!
I have 2 main blogs that I run. It seems to be working great and I am getting a lot of traffic to them. I have been dabbling in some auto content generated blogs and adding them to my list to promote. So far they have not been doing that well.
Well, obviously there is no shortcut to sucess. You need to work hard and that too with great discipline and dedication for long time to achieve success.
Shortcut methods may give you short term success but it wont get converted into something big. So better start working if you wana a big blogger.
I agree with your analysis. Many of these products do nothing more than clog the blogosphere with copies or successful blogger’s posts. They also create a lot of cookie cutter sites so clogged with adsense and other ad networks that they are an eyesore to anyone that happens to click on them in their search results.
There is more to blogging and life than money. Making money from blogging is important to many of us, but not in a way that makes us machines.
Provide value in a well defined topic area then find ways to monetize that value by consulting, writing ebooks, or speaking. That is the best way I know to make money from blogging.
Agreed Darren. Some types of such business is only a new breed of online scam. Scammers used to say “Get rich quick”, and now they say “Get rich quick through blogging”. It has not much of a difference I guess.
I personally doubt that something like “get rich quick” does exist, other than through robbing a bank, hacking a credit card account, black market trading, or other crimes.
Even the true scammers know hard-work (in scamming), learning (how to scam successfully and evade arrest), persistence (not to give up in the scamming). They know very well that there is no such thing as “get rich quick”. Or not ;-)
Hi Darren,
I ran multiple sites on Blogger, WordPress etc all of which generated some traffic and in some cases brought more traffic that more ‘professional’ sites with their own domains.
Same content, but different Google ranking. So I kept these for a while but then decided to focus on 3 sites.
Why?
You have to develop a brand at some point, otherwise you’re just another blog. You also have to differentiate yourself as otherwise you also end up (potentially) cannibalizing your own material.
The attraction of running multiple single blogs appeal to SEO driven sites where the webmaster is only after ads, e.g. Adsense sites.
But if you want to sell your own products, you need to develop your own site, brand and following.
Finally, the biggest mistake I made in blogging was not doing enough business planning. The more I sit back and look at the bigger picture, i.e. strategic decisions, the more successful the business becomes.
Regards,
Ivan
All great outlooks. Again people will always be attracted to the FAST buck. First it was BIG money with MLM, then BIG money with Internet Marketing, Now it’s BIG money blogging.
It is all BS, all it takes is hard work, hard work everyday, learn new things each day, and offer good quality content that is helpful, motivational, inspiring, thoughtful etc…
I am a newbie blogger, and I do everything manually,
twitter,
social media,
SEO
bookmarking etc..
I do nothing fancy at all, yet I have dropped my alexa score by 800,000 google rank of 2 and rank great on some kw and not to bad on big time kw right near big blogs of 10 yrs.
I have a 6 mnth blog, that I even took 2 mnths off from posting “jaded reflection was needed..lol” so all this on basically a 4mnth old blog.
This comes from work, and work everyday.
Your article is well timed, Darren. I’ve just started my blog, and am realizing how much work it is. Yes, I need to make some additional money, and I’m hoping to do it through my blog. Yet, I am not prepared to do it at any cost.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to work hard, and give people something that is worth while. Your blogs, and personal integrity, provide the rest of us with a worthy bench mark.
Joe
It’s sad to know that there are so many ‘get rich quick schemes’ out there as it is, AND it’s growing in such a fashion where they are now hitting the blogosphere by pushing those to believe that they can be an overnight success by lifting the content of those that have truly worked hard to get where they are.
Thanks for speaking out on this, Darren. Folks that have truly built their worth by providing true and useful information shouldn’t have to worry about the next Joe Blogger paying $XX per month in an attempt to build a reputation only by ‘taking’ ideas from the worthy.
I like to look on this from slightly different angles because I have experienced all kinds of training products and systems.
I am a fan of quality content but I am also a realist that not everyone is going to reach the pinnacle of blogging authority, or find a way to leverage authority (theirs or someone else’s) into a paid membership site or ebook.
A network of blogs can mean many things but lets look at your example first of all.
Lots of people use Twitter and suggest links – many claim that provides value, so a link from twitter to a blog post that contains 2 or 4 links with some additional commentary probably has value for some people, and to search engines.
You are assuming that you have to do all the work yourself, thus to create content on 10 blogs is going to take away your life which I agree is important to consider.
The flip side of this is that when you have an income, you can hire people to create the blogs for you, and they don’t have to be low quality or lacking personality.
Income from one channel can be used to leverage other projects that are more meaningful.
Blogs can be created with all kinds of high quality “unique” content and if you raise the bar just a little, the blogs could be good enough to attract subscribers and guest bloggers.
Networks of blogs can easily be leveraged as index drivers for ecommerce sites.
Ultimately, if you had a system in place that was making money, but you didn’t like doing the work yourself, or it wasn’t an effective use of your time, surely that was the time to outsource the work?
Well said. Your opinion means a lot to me.
I started my blog and after about 3 weeks, deciding to launch another one, big mistake. I haven’t had any time to update it and people still look at it and probably think “what a waste”… With one blog posting 2-4 times a day (1 business related post, 1 video (usually), the other 1-2 being q&a with other Etsy sellers) and that’s time consuming enough.
This is sort of off topic, but how do you keep track of all your email!?? I’m having a hard time with the large floods I get from time to time.
Although on my own site and in general I go for the long haul approach, ironically my first site took off from week 1!
I think I know whose product you’re talking about.
I just watched all the video posted on the sales page. It gives me some ideas to post. My opinion, if someone feel that he can manage several blogs well then he can go with the business model. otherwise build one long lasting blog.
The more I market online, and the more I want to see good quality stuff.
these techniques work for a fact, but what people don’t really understand is that mentality of “quick cash” is what prevent people to make money. They want it now, fast. While building a real business takes time and patience, whether its online or not.
Franck
the Body Guard marketer
I truly don’t believe in such things, I believe that there is no short cut in life, But i believe that you should create your own short cut.
It just smells of another get rich quick scheme. Now I haven’t and probably won’t know what this system entails, so I can’t be for certain it doesn’t hold value. It’ll get chalked up as just another hiccup in the blog world.
Great Insight Darren… I’ve about just hitting the 6month mark now since the launch of my blog however its been a long and often very emotional roller coaster.
I have on countless occasions attempted to find if there is an easier or faster way and have stumbled on these kinds of products many times. Luckily i’ve been in business before offline and have learned my lessons of opportunity hopping, and purchasing or buying into these products is the same.
My personal opinion is buying these products are like buying a lottery ticket, your buying the hope! each time you buy a product you’re buying new hope that you’ll achieve whatever it is ur goals are.
If these products do work for you then great! please share it with us! these are just my personal views!
cheers
I am always amazed at how hard people fall for hype and “get rich quick” schemes. Someone is always selling snake oil in every industry and someone is always ready to buy it.
Your BS switch should go on immediately if you hear the words “make money”, “blogging” and “fast” in the same sentence. A lot of products like this give you a “rinse and repeat” method – which is fine if you’re just starting out and need to build up something by following instructions, but once you “get it” you can go on to bigger and better things.
Hello Darren. This comment might be a little off topic. But I have spent much of this morning, and much of yesterday evening digging into this vexing question: How to send trackbacks from your Blogger blog? This is a technical question. Could you please get some expert to write a guest post for you that gives a comprehensive answer to this question please? Thanks.
Hmmmm. This is NOT new at all.
As few years ago when I started online I fell for one of those programs and I had like 50 blogs making little money. I couldn’t even remember my URL because I had so many.
Most niches were of no interest to me.
In the end, I shut all of them down and then started a real blog in 2007. I’ve launched a second one this year and for 2010 I intend on launching a third one with the help of an editor. I will also work at launching products like you have Darren.
Bottom line is that you do HAVE to work hard at being successful and it takes time.
These systems work for the people creating them, but not for the people buying them.
Krizia
In the past five or six years I have witnessed two people “make money fast” with blogging. But – and it’s a big but – they don’t make money any more fromblogging. They made what seemed like a big pile of cash very quickly, but soon the money dried up. Had they got a job stacking shelves in the local supermarket they would have made more money overall in the past five years or so. In other words, some “get rich quick” schemes can work….but they are not long-term, fruitful strategies.
From a psychological perspective people end up feeling more negative than they did before their desire to get rich quick. Such schemes tend to attract people who are feeling somewhat down, perhaps depressed, because their luck is low and their finances are not good. The thought of “instant riches” becomes attractive and they are hooked. With a little effort they get the income rolling in, but soon it disappears as the potential marketplace becomes saturated (thanks to a large array of competitors using the same get rich quick product). That leads to self-doubt and worries that the person is not good enough at the scheme, reducing their motivation and making it less likely they’ll earn enough. They enter a downward spiral of negativity.
This new blogging product MAY enable you to get rich quick, though I doubt it. Much more important is the likely psychological impact such a scheme will have on people in the longer term.
Hey Darren!
Thanks for another great insight!
I didn’t know the microwave oven and instant noodle culture has slipped itself into the blogosphere.
I guess the only person who is making fast money blogging is the guy who’s selling the product! And the people who’re tempted to buy it are people who’re having the culture I alluded to earlier. Well, it takes two hands to clap…
Thanks, Darren. I totally agree with you. When I started investigating the blogging world several months ago, I was initially a bit disheartened because I kept encountering crap like this. I thought maybe this was the only way to be successful.
Fortunately, I never went that route, and I instead to decided to create on blog that provides high-quality content in an area I am passionate about. This was the right decision.
Totally agree! I have come across all these products; I also used it on some of my blogs as a trial but to be honest, i do not believe in this system! You can make some money through adsense etc but its not worth it if you are serious about making serious money with blogging..
I won’t lie; I’d love it if someone dropped a million dollars in my lap today just for having a blog. ;)
That said, working towards a goal, and then achieving it, gives a greater feeling of success and pride.
It’s an excellent article. I appreciate your being so honest in writing about your past experiences. This is how a blog gets rated highly. Honesty pays in the end, not copying contents from other blogs as a shortcut for making money. I’m in full agreement with the views expressed in this article.
Darren
I am not shocked like others who have commented that the get rich scheme has hit the blogging arena. It was inevitable as blogging started to get really really popular. There are the folks who have been at it for 11+ years and deserve to be leaders and making money. For people to copy their work as a strategy to make money is socking to say the least.
when you walked out of college with that big fat bach degree did you expect to get a CEO job in 6 figures? No so why would people expect to that a product will make them super rich in 6 months.
Here is a strategy: write useful stuff, build your blog and name by working hard. Hard work = money.
I read your post with interest. I briefly tried a WordPress plug-in that brought in content from other sites such as Ezine Articles. I did one post with this but felt uncomfortable re-purposing someone else’s content. Thanks for sharing!
Couldn’t agree more Mr.Rowse. Well said. My thoughts exactly. I’ve written two articles on the same topic. You might wanna read them.
http://www.nibrasbawa.net/2009/12/social-media-guru-surplus.html
http://www.nibrasbawa.net/2009/12/so-who-is-genuine-social-media-guru-how.html
It’s funny how some can be blinded by the desire to make a quick buck that they would even contemplate buying into a ‘Get Rich Quick Scheme’.
Their laziness, greed and stupidity leaves more valid, trusted and lucrative opportunities available for the hardworking bloggers of the world.
Thanks Darren, for giving us a heads up. It’s unfortunate that there’ll always be people attracted to the words “easy money” in the blogosphere and that’s how marketers come up with products like these, to fill a “demand”.
Add to that the misconceptions about what “true” blogging is about and you have your vics, ready to be convinced.
There is no easy way, especially not in blogging. That egg has to be broken.
I’ve been on the other end of this tactic, namely my content being taken and posted all over ugly blog templates. They link back to me, but it still seems like a waste of resources to me.
Completely agree, some people are often afraid of the hard work and commitment it takes to earn a living online and will take any shortcut they can find. Of course people will offer products to fill that need, my upcoming project will require dedication and effort, but the rewards will hopefully be there!
I have been wondering if there is validity to that method. I’ve heard about it and we all have to decide which route we are going to take with your blog. It’s good to hear your opinion since you certainly have been in this business longer than many of us. Thanks!
Extra kudos for saying “junky content”! My sister read this as well and was laughing as “junky” has been her catch phrase for a while now… ;D
There is no such thing as a quick buck and no such thing as a free lunch… that’s it! Actually nothing more needs to be said!!!
Another great article Darren. I have 3 main blogs that seems to be working great.
In my experience, there is no shortcut to sucess. Making money online takes hard work, persistence, a bit of luck, and a lot of patience.
However, in my view, monetize by writing ebooks on a well defined topic is the best way to make money from blogging.
getting to the top in blogging really isn’t that hard all it takes is a massive amount of hard work and patience. You’d need to be very lucky to make money instantly (possibly start a blog around a totally new subject and be the market leader from the start). The thing that worries me most is that there is clearly a market out there for these sorts of things as people are tempted to buy it, shame really.
I enjoy juggling several blogs but the reality is most new bloggers would be overwhelmed. Just a single blog done right is a full-time job for many folks.
If someone is looking to earn instant income, sponsored tweeting is probably the quickest way. It won’t be a windfall but even a newbie can get followers and earn $10 in the first few weeks. That’s $10 more than a new blog site.
I agree wholeheartedly with you… not to mention the personal satisfaction I get from slowly working my way up there, and the lack of guilt from using other people’s content (that they worked hard on, not me)… personally, I want to feel as if I earned my own success, and didn’t step on anyone else to get it. :)
Hey Darren,
You mentioned that they reuse other peoples content – is this word for word with a credit to the original author or is this the rewording of original content and call it your own technique?
Either way that kind of blog would not get any business from me.
The products I have bought in the blogging world have been quality products from people that have established trust with me (like some of your products). To establish this trust you need to be in the game for quite some time and have a good reputation.
You can’t do that overnight.
Sarge | BeginnerBlogger.com
I totally empathise with this post.
I used a tool that pulled in articles from RSS feeds to a few blogs I was running for a while. The links were live and led straight back to the original blog in each case, which meant the articles were properly attributed, but I never felt comfortable doing it.
Plus, as you’ve experienced, the blogs never did that well.
I also received a complaint once because one of the articles I pulled in via RSS had incorrectly used a company name. Since I’d not see the content before it was posted I didn’t even know the error had been made until I received an email from the company asking me to correct it.
I canned this approach nearly 18 months ago and have never ever been tempted to try it again.
Cheers,
Martin.