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Which way will make my blog more money?

by bsurb
13 replies
I manage to run a blog about a particular conference full of teams in college called the SEC and I cover all sports within that conference. Well this morning I was checking old AWSTATS through my cpanel and I came across an old college sports site I use to run and it covered the Florida Gators (A team within the SEC conference) and it brought back memories. I started this site back in 2008 when I was 17 years old, I was making about $300 per month on ad sales/blogroll links sales, things like that and my traffic was mind blowing. (Well for me) Now that I understand a lot more about marketing and blogs, I was an IDIOT for selling the site back then.

I sold the old site after about 3-4 years and I sold it for a little over $4,000. But at 19 I thought that was a lot of $. And looking at my traffic, I was getting 1,500 unique visitors per day. I paid for SEO, I was ranked on the 1st page for the biggest keyword things like that.....

Now back on topic, running a blog covering lots of teams in one conference, will that be a better chance at making money?? It is a lot more work I tell you because I'm covering several teams and their news but would it be better to cover all these teams or just the one team again?? I'm passionate about the SEC in general but my favorite team is within the conference. But I could hire writers to write for the other teams.

What is the best solution to make money, rank in google, and which way is better for competition?
#blog #make #money
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by bsurb View Post

    What is the best solution to make money, rank in google
    Those two objectives can be close to "mutually exclusive", for many people's purposes: search-engine traffic is about the hardest/worst to monetize, for many purposes. It's explained in a little more detail in this thread (much of which doesn't actually apply only to affiliate marketing): http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post8659398

    Originally Posted by bsurb View Post

    and which way is better for competition?
    I hope all my competition continues to use SEO to generate traffic.

    .
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  • Profile picture of the author bsurb
    So would it be better to cover the entire conference of teams or ONE individual team?
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      Originally Posted by bsurb View Post

      So would it be better to cover the entire conference of teams or ONE individual team?

      You're asking the wrong question. It would be better to ask "How can I find and contact a very targeted audience that is passionate about my topic?"

      I would guess fans are much more passionate about their one team than about a conference. That's not to say you can't talk about the rest of the conference on your site about one team. You can always expand later with a broader topic once you have conquered the single team market.

      In summary, just to be clear, go where you can find the rabid audience and don't focus on the search engines.

      Steve
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      Steve Browne, online business strategies, tips, guidance, and resources
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      • Profile picture of the author bsurb
        Originally Posted by Steve B View Post

        You're asking the wrong question. It would be better to ask "How can I find and contact a very targeted audience that is passionate about my topic?"

        I would guess fans are much more passionate about their one team than about a conference. That's not to say you can't talk about the rest of the conference on your site about one team. You can always expand later with a broader topic once you have conquered the single team market.

        In summary, just to be clear, go where you can find the rabid audience and don't focus on the search engines.

        Steve
        See before I was spending literally ALL of my time and investing all of my money into the website when I was covering ONE certain team. The whole website was based on that one team... I advertised on forums related to the team, things like that. But Im wondering if its wiser to jut cover the entire conference that way I can find writers who are passionate about the other teams, and I can focus on just the team I am passionate about?
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  • Profile picture of the author skjaat
    it's many way to make money online.
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    10 Facts You Don't Know 10 Surprising Thing You Don't Know

    Everything You Didn't know
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  • Profile picture of the author bsurb
    A way to make money could be ticket affiliate program. Is this company legit? They offer 12% commission rate.

    TicketNetwork Affiliate Program. Post Ads. Make Money. Become an affiliate and get high commission.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Since even collegiate major sports have become a year-round affair, I'd spend a bit of time investigating whether it would be worth your while to cover one conference and one sport, say SEC football or men's basketball.

      There are both fans and fantasy geeks (I use the term positively) who will devour any source of information about their chosen sport/conference/team. It also opens more affiliate possibilities with fantasy guides and leagues, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author bsurb
    Well I believe the blog for the whole conference may run into some copyright issues with the name so I may have to stick to ONE team. But I could cover lets say football, basketball,baseball and a few other sports at the college.

    FootballFanatics offers a 10% commission rate.

    I know there are several news sites based on this team Im talking about but 5 years ago when I ran the blog I was making money and ranking on the first page right behind ESPN and wika. So I know it can be done.
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      It seems like you have done well in past with generating SE traffic. I think SE traffic has its relevance in many cases.

      If I am not mistaken your Ad sales are based on the amount of traffic you are getting and more specifically that has a lot to do with Organic Traffic.

      And if you are monetizing with Adsense then this Organic Traffic from Google even becomes more relevant.

      Also as a Tennessee Vols alumni, I would NOT necessarily just focus on the One team in SEC.

      Anyone who is familiar with the SEC knows that we are NOT just rabid about our Home Team but we are Rabid about what is going on with ALL the teams in the SEC ( especially in football).

      ( For instance,. I am so intrigued by Miss. State and Ole Miss. I just cannot get enough of the news about them )

      So Do not just focus on just One team.

      As a huge SEC fan myself you are cutting yourself short if you do, imo


      - Robert Andrew.
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      • Profile picture of the author bsurb
        Originally Posted by discrat View Post

        It seems like you have done well in past with generating SE traffic. I think SE traffic has its relevance in many cases.

        If I am not mistaken your Ad sales are based on the amount of traffic you are getting and more specifically that has a lot to do with Organic Traffic.

        And if you are monetizing with Adsense then this Organic Traffic from Google even becomes more relevant.

        Also as a Tennessee Vols alumni, I would NOT necessarily just focus on the One team in SEC.

        Anyone who is familiar with the SEC knows that we are NOT just rabid about our Home Team but we are Rabid about what is going on with ALL the teams in the SEC ( especially in football).

        ( For instance,. I am so intrigued by Miss. State and Ole Miss. I just cannot get enough of the news about them )

        So Do not just focus on just One team.

        As a huge SEC fan myself you are cutting yourself short if you do, imo


        - Robert Andrew.
        See right now I am currently covering the entire SEC. But I was told that having SEC in domain name could trademark / legal issues...

        If that is the case, I have another domain saturdaytoremember.com but see that is basically all about football and will cut out every other sport....
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        • Profile picture of the author discrat
          bsurb,
          I do not want to make this any more confusing for you. But if it was me I would just stick with SEC football
          ( and maybe basketball too)

          Thats just me , though
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          • Profile picture of the author bsurb
            Originally Posted by discrat View Post

            bsurb,
            I do not want to make this any more confusing for you. But if it was me I would just stick with SEC football
            ( and maybe basketball too)

            Thats just me , though
            True.. Because all the other smaller sports don't necessarily create the buzz I'm looking for.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by bsurb View Post

      Well I believe the blog for the whole conference may run into some copyright issues with the name so I may have to stick to ONE team. But I could cover lets say football, basketball,baseball and a few other sports at the college.

      FootballFanatics offers a 10% commission rate.

      I know there are several news sites based on this team Im talking about but 5 years ago when I ran the blog I was making money and ranking on the first page right behind ESPN and wika. So I know it can be done.
      Seems like you have your mind made up.

      So, to paraphrase our so-called governor, quit wasting time here and "get to work." Just do a better job of building a functional web site than the state of Florida seems capable of.
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