Anyone else making money with free Blogger blogs?

[KateD]

Hey Guys,

Wordpress tends to be very popular right now. But is anyone else making money with free Blogger blogs?

People tend to downplay it because of the fact that Blogger is free. But I have been consistently making money using them for the past 6 months.

I know it sounds crazy. But they are just so simple to create and maintain. Yes, I know that I am at the risk of having my blog disappear.

But for so many that aren't taking action because they don't know how to create a self hosted Wordpress blog, why not go the Blogger route?

I have about 15 Blogger blogs currently, and am working on several more.

Anyone else making money with Blogger blogs?

KateD

[nicholasb]

this is how I started before I had money to invest, but my profits have drastically increased since I purchased my own website

[rondo]

I use a few of them to link to my own sites.


Andrew

[Simon_Sezs]

Yes. Most people tend to discount blogger blogs. I think it is a combination of everyone repeating what someone else says (I think you need a host because everyone say so...so it must be true) and affiliate marketers who are pushing hosting (You need to own your site..btw, here is link to who I host with).

The reality is that a site is a site is a site and if you are going the information route, then a blogger blog could rank just as highly as a self hosted blog. To put it frankly, google doesn't care if you spent the money or not...you still have to do the legwork regardless of what you choose.

[howdo-i]

How are you getting traffic to your blogs. I have some blogs on blogspot. I keep posting and posting and bookmarking and pinging at pingoat but I'm getting close to zero visitors. I must be doing something wrong :-(

Steve

[Debbie Allen]

I also have a few - they link to my websites and to affiliate links. I am seeing some sales.

[Debbie Allen]

Most of my blog traffic comes from Twitter and the links in my resource boxes

[Chri5123]

This is the perfect way to start and you can even build a list with Blogger blogs and then move onto to getting your own site or even better, your own hosted Wordpress blog and this way you own all your content.

If you find that you do not want to stay in the niche in the future and you have a well ranking Wordpress blog you can sell it for big profits.

All the best

Chris

[ShayRockhold]

Yep! I use the free Blogger blogs.

(Maybe I will upgrade one of these days....)

[DENNYBOY]

Wordpress are also easy to maintain.

I think wordpress blogs get index faster then blogger blogs

Denny

[bgmacaw]

Yes, over 50 at last count.

As for getting traffic, and I'm talking about targeted organic search traffic from Google, the answer is links, links and more links.

[Simon_Sezs]

Originally Posted by howdo-i

How are you getting traffic to your blogs. I have some blogs on blogspot. I keep posting and posting and bookmarking and pinging at pingoat but I'm getting close to zero visitors. I must be doing something wrong :-(

Steve

All of my traffic is organic. Basically here is the formula I have been using:

1. Find a market and check market share.
2. Do keyword research...find a couple juicy keywords.
3. Grab a blogger blog with the main keyword in the url.
4. Write 5-10 posts and link them together (keyword snipe)
5. Get links.
6. Repeat.

I typically monetize with adsense and move on. It can be hit and miss. I have several blogs that are getting 500-600 uniques a day. I have others that get nothing. I have a couple blogs that are getting 1000+ a day.

The key is getting organic traffic. If you aren't getting organic traffic, you are working too hard.

[Phil]

Originally Posted by KateD

Hey Guys,

Wordpress tends to be very popular right now. But is anyone else making money with free Blogger blogs?

People tend to downplay it because of the fact that Blogger is free. But I have been consistently making money using them for the past 6 months.

I know it sounds crazy. But they are just so simple to create and maintain. Yes, I know that I am at the risk of having my blog disappear.

But for so many that aren't taking action because they don't know how to create a self hosted Wordpress blog, why not go the Blogger route?

I have about 15 Blogger blogs currently, and am working on several more.

Anyone else making money with Blogger blogs?

KateD

Interesting. I came here to ask a similar question.

What I would like to know is - does anyone use self-hosted
Blogger blogs? Surely this is how you get around the danger
of losing your content since you own the host - but take
advantage of the free domain name and Google Blog
network.

Anyone?

Phil

[Cash37]

Preload your Blogger.com Blogs

[KateD]

Originally Posted by Simon_Sezs

All of my traffic is organic. Basically here is the formula I have been using:

1. Find a market and check market share.
2. Do keyword research...find a couple juicy keywords.
3. Grab a blogger blog with the main keyword in the url.
4. Write 5-10 posts and link them together (keyword snipe)
5. Get links.
6. Repeat.

I typically monetize with adsense and move on. It can be hit and miss. I have several blogs that are getting 500-600 uniques a day. I have others that get nothing. I have a couple blogs that are getting 1000+ a day.

The key is getting organic traffic. If you aren't getting organic traffic, you are working too hard.

Simon,

This is very similar to what I'm doing (although I'm not getting as much traffic daily as you are).

When you say "get links", what do you mean? I tend to write and submit articles to EZA. What methods are you using to generate good backlinks?

KateD

[dsmpublishing]

I never had the chance to make money with blogger the day i registered it before i even had the chance to post they took it down. to me it just wasnt worth the risk.

i was using a free wordpress blog but ive changed it over to a paid one as i wanted to see how much more traffic i could create.

[Dana_W]

Originally Posted by howdo-i

How are you getting traffic to your blogs. I have some blogs on blogspot. I keep posting and posting and bookmarking and pinging at pingoat but I'm getting close to zero visitors. I must be doing something wrong :-(

Steve

I get a TON of traffic from Twitter - although I wouldn't necessarily use Twitter to drive traffic to a blog with affiliate products. I drive traffic to my press release site.

Other than that, try article marketing - ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, and associatedcontent.com, are really good for driving traffic.

[Jillian Slack]

Blogger blogs are free, but so are WordPress blogs, right?

For those who like Blogger, I recently saw some beautiful themes that only work in Blogger. They're probably more "girlie" than most men would be comfortable with. Actually, I thought they looked to be more appropriate for a personal blog or a business with a mostly female target audience.

Here's a link:

The Cutest Blog on the Block - Blog Backgrounds, layouts and more!

[wsbmllc]

The problem with free blogs is they are not yours. So, you work extremely hard to build a steady flow of traffic to someone else's site. Because, really, is this your site?

If you insist on using a free blog, you would be better suited to purchase a domain name and redirect it to the free blog. This way, when your free blog goes away, you just send the traffic to another site.

Personally, I would only use a free blog for link generation. Stick with your own hosting account and your own blog.

Mike

[Lance K]

Originally Posted by KateD

But for so many that aren't taking action because they don't know how to create a self hosted Wordpress blog...

I don't buy that excuse. I would be surprised if anyone with a pulse couldn't figure it out in 30 minutes or so.

[ninja newbie]

Originally Posted by howdo-i

How are you getting traffic to your blogs. I have some blogs on blogspot. I keep posting and posting and bookmarking and pinging at pingoat but I'm getting close to zero visitors. I must be doing something wrong :-(

Steve

Hey Steve for some great traffic tips from a professional blogger (Yaro Starak) click the first link in my sig file and read his guest post on my free wordpress hosted blog. My blog is a little over a month old now and Ihave seen a dramatic increase in traffic since I started doing what he suggests.

[ninja newbie]

OH BTW Wordpress 2.7 upgrade goes live today...and it's also free

Terry

[KateD]

Originally Posted by Lance K

I don't buy that excuse. I would be surprised if anyone with a pulse couldn't figure it out in 30 minutes or so.

Whether they can figure it out and whether they THINK they can figure it out are two different things.

Sure, it's simple enough.

- Buy a domain name.
- Get some hosting.
- Upload the Wordpress theme/template (I think my hosting provider already has some).
-Modify and you're done.

But most newbies don't realize that it can be this easy.

I do have some self hosted blogs by the way. It's just that with my current project, I need lots of blogs. So instead of purchasing domain names and hosting for each one, going the free route works for me.

KateD

[Ben_Curtis]

Anybody know of a free report that could instruct someone in how to build a wordpress blog? I've got a blogger.com blog, but I can see the sense in having Wordpress.
Thanks.

[DIY Lawyer]

I am currently blogging on Vox but I have not been able to find a way to measure traffic to my blog or links to my hosted website.

Can you do this with blogger or wordpress?

Thanks

[KateD]

Originally Posted by Ben_Curtis

Anybody know of a free report that could instruct someone in how to build a wordpress blog? I've got a blogger.com blog, but I can see the sense in having Wordpress.
Thanks.

Ben,

Here's a really good free guide on using Wordpress:

The Warrior Forum - A Virtual Tour | Caroline Middlebrook

Best of luck,

KateD

[justnewbie]

Originally Posted by DIY Lawyer

I am currently blogging on Vox but I have not been able to find a way to measure traffic to my blog or links to my hosted website.

Can you do this with blogger or wordpress?

Thanks

DIY, I'm using google analytics and feedjit. they tell u where traffic hails from. Good luck.

[ShayRockhold]

Originally Posted by howdo-i

How are you getting traffic to your blogs. I have some blogs on blogspot. I keep posting and posting and bookmarking and pinging at pingoat but I'm getting close to zero visitors. I must be doing something wrong :-(

Steve

I get traffic from Twitter and also from forums in each blog's niche.

[KateD]

Originally Posted by DIY Lawyer

I am currently blogging on Vox but I have not been able to find a way to measure traffic to my blog or links to my hosted website.

Can you do this with blogger or wordpress?

Thanks

DIY,

Another option you might want to look into to track your traffic is:

StatCounter Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats

Oh, and it's free. You simply add a few bits of html code to your blog/site, and it keeps track of a variety of statistics like unique visitors, which pages visitors came from, which links they clicked to leave the blog/site, where they are located geographically, plus various other things that can provide you with valuable info.

KateD

[jazzyjeff]

KateD,

Have you ever gotten warnings from Blogger that they suspect your site to be spam? Also, are all 15 sites under one email account? I heard that the maximum number of sites you should have under one email account is 5.

Jeff

[KateD]

Originally Posted by jazzyjeff

KateD,

Have you ever gotten warnings from Blogger that they suspect your site to be spam? Also, are all 15 sites under one email account? I heard that the maximum number of sites you should have under one email account is 5.

Jeff

Jeff,

No, I have never received any warnings from Blogger at all. And for good reason: my blogs are not spam.

Sure, I have 15 and plan to have much more, but they are not spam. They each contain unique content (either written by me or outsourced) that provides value to the reader.

Where did you hear about the 5 blog max? I haven't seen that posted anywhere in their TOS (I looked, but I may have not seen that). Do you have a link where they state that?

KateD

[KateD]

Originally Posted by Mari_Quint

I have one blog on free blogger. I don't make much money from it.

I'm planning to buy my own domain from blogger, too. So that I could retain all traffic generated by the old blog.

Would love to try out Wordpress but I'm not familiar with their platform.

How much daily traffic do you get to your blog? Nevermind. Did you know that anyone could check out the stats on your blog by clicking on the SiteMeter button at the bottom of the page?

KateD

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by KateD

Where did you hear about the 5 blog max? I haven't seen that posted anywhere in their TOS (I looked, but I may have not seen that). Do you have a link where they state that?

It's often recommended to keep the number of blogs per account under 10 to avoid attracting the attention of the anti-spam bot and triggering an automated lock-out and/or visual inspection. Of course, if your blog is squeaky clean the visual inspection is no problem except that you're offline a few days which can impact sales and search engine placement. But, if you're using dupe content (article directory or PLR articles), poor quality content (cheap outsourced or obviously spun articles), have a lot of ads and/or outbound links or if the Google engineer's free cappuccino wasn't the right temperature that morning you might lose your blog.

[ShayRockhold]

I have 11 blogs. No problems for me so far.

[Skribblez]

Great for promoting Clickbank products.

[KateD]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

It's often recommended to keep the number of blogs per account under 10 to avoid attracting the attention of the anti-spam bot and triggering an automated lock-out and/or visual inspection. Of course, if your blog is squeaky clean the visual inspection is no problem except that you're offline a few days which can impact sales and search engine placement. But, if you're using dupe content (article directory or PLR articles), poor quality content (cheap outsourced or obviously spun articles), have a lot of ads and/or outbound links or if the Google engineer's free cappuccino wasn't the right temperature that morning you might lose your blog.

I appreciate your feedback. I truly do. With free Blogger blogs, there's always that possibility of having them disappear.

I will say that Blogger blogs is not the main focus of my IM activities. I have several static websites, as well as a couple of hosted blogs using the Wordpress script.

But there are times when using Blogger makes sense to me (especially when you are trying to test out the profitability of certain niches).

Thanks again for your input.

KateD

[KateD]

Originally Posted by Dimitrovski

Better start selling some digital goods.

Are you serious?

I do. Most people here do (or at least try to). Not sure what you were trying to add to the conversation.

KateD

[Richard Hermanto]

I have 5 blogs and yes I earn money from my blogger's account. Not much right now but I'm satisfy with the result. I am a part time blogger and I'm happy with my current earning. Although I'm considering to move them to a paid hosting when I have free time.

Richard

[robert100]

I've been using my blogger blog for over 12 months now ... and I make money from it.

I get traffic from these methods:

PPC
Direct Mail
Articles
Organic

The problem I have is that I've wanted to move my blog to a wordpress blog and use my own domain name for sometime now, but with hundreds of regular visitors, I'm worried that I'll lose a lot of free traffic ... so I'm sticking with blogger for the foreseeable.

Rob

[Loren Woirhaye]

The Free Wordpress blog community is more restrictive
than the Blogger one.

With Blogger you can do shameless self-promotion for
just about anything... maybe not sex and porn, but a lot
of stuff.

With free WP blogs your blog can get wiped ou t if you
don't follow the TOS - which are more restrictive than
Blogger's - or at least morre enforced.

[KateD]

Originally Posted by ste25

You cant establish yourself as an authority using a free blogger blog so I dont bother with them. A real website is the way to go if you're serious.

Ok for a hobby type site though.

True. But.....sometimes its better to appear amateurish. For example:

Let's say that I want to promote a Clickbank product on Panic Attacks. If I come across as too "professional", the blog visitor might suspect that I am just a marketer trying to make a buck.

But if the blog appears to be written by your average Joe just talking about a product that actually helped, then the blog visitor is less likely to put up their sales resistance.

That's just my take though.

KateD

[Michael Motley]

I don't have a problem with the free blogger blogs they almost as good as your own domain.

But the bonus that having your own domain gives is the ability to brand. Anyone thats been in marketing for any length of time at all, or even just selling their own product online will probably tell you of the importance of branding for name recognition in any market place. On the internet, the biggest part of branding is your own domain name.

But the benefit that places like blogger.com or wordpress.com or any other blogger community has is pagerank. The more popular or longer existing any community is, usually the more people make it a regular haunt and start seeing the community as a whole as a reliable source of info, and do things like linking from /to other sites. Which means that these sites purely because of the popularity end up being favorites with google's searches.

In my experience its been better to have your own domain, own server, but still set up either presale or straight redirect sites in communities like blogger.com or wp.com to direct traffic back to your home base so you can dazzle them with your sales letter.

Even making a half decent page on the free sites that pre-qualifies people who are purchasing from you on your site, with the addition of ppc or maybe even affiliate links can really do nothing but add more money in your pocket when things get rolling.

[valerieSONORA]

I was under the impression that you normally couldn't make more than a few cents with blogger blogs. I guess I'm wrong? I only have wordpress, but I wouldn't mind trying out blogger sometimes if its worth it to see if I can get decent results.

[KateD]

Originally Posted by annoyedgirl

I was under the impression that you normally couldn't make more than a few cents with blogger blogs. I guess I'm wrong? I only have wordpress, but I wouldn't mind trying out blogger sometimes if its worth it to see if I can get decent results.

Hi....

Yes, you can make much more than a few cents with a Blogger blog. I have a one page Blogger blog that has been generating about $26 per month over the last few months (about $11 a month in Adsense, and another $15 a month in Clickbank commissions).

But it's not making money because its a Blogger blog. It makes money because its based around a high search/low competition keyword phrase.

It would make as much (or possibly more) if it were a Wordpress blog hosted by me. But I was initially unsure of the profitability of the keyword phrase, so I just threw together a quick, free Blogger blog to test it out.

KateD

[KateD]

Originally Posted by kathijabanu

.i see your article .it is good .

Which article are you referring to?

KateD

[valerieSONORA]

He doesn't know what article he's talking about, it's spam.

[Jared Alberghini]

Originally Posted by annoyedgirl

He doesn't know what article he's talking about, it's spam.

Isn't the WF becoming such a fun playground?

- Jared

[David]

Originally Posted by ninja newbie

Hey Steve for some great traffic tips from a professional blogger (Yaro Starak) click the first link in my sig file and read his guest post on my free wordpress hosted blog. My blog is a little over a month old now and Ihave seen a dramatic increase in traffic since I started doing what he suggests.

Yup, me too... I subbed to Yaro couple years ago.
What he suggested sounded a lot like what Joe Vitale said in Hypnotic Writing: Just write (just blog) don't worry about the end product, you're not there yet... You gotta have content first.

I'm almost exclusvily using blogspot blogs, I just started using wordpress.com ones... I sell one to two ebooks daily from them.

One of my wordpress blogs got written up in the local paper (I made it for a client, my name isn't mentioned but it wasn't supposed to be, I'm the ghost writer kinda sorta)

IF a blogspot blog is so crappy, how come mine outrank conventional websites?

Google this: Frederick Airport Transportation

case closed

I'll move higher up the food chain with a domain names, and then hosting...

I just bartered with a seo client, he's paying for my own hosting acct.

but the original question was this: are blogger blogs ok?

no problem on my end.

[KateD]

Great job David!

Selling one to two ebooks a day from them is awesome. Can I ask you a couple of questions:

How much traffic are you getting on a daily basis from them? How are you marketing them?

I always like to hear success stories. You can learn a lot.

KateD

[Dana_W]

You know, for all the talk about the potential for people's blogspot blogs being shut down...how often does this really happen? I mean, for that matter, if Godaddy feels that you are violating THEIR terms of service they can take back the domain name that you registered with them. All kinds of things CAN happen online, and I am not saying that completely innocent people never get inconvenienced by this kind of thing, but I truly don't believe that the odds are really that great that it's going to happen.

When I say "completely innocent" in this context, I think that if you have a blogspot blog and it has original content on it and isn't selling pharmaceuticals or porn, I just don't see why blogspot would shut you down. I have several blogspot blogs up, and I've never had a problem. They are GREAT for instantly throwing up a blog for free, easily dropping in HTML code to create payment buttons and links...I've been very happy with them.