Earlier this month, I interviewed Julia Scott, the blogger and CEO behind Bargain Babe, for a website assignment. Julia left her full time journalism job and launched Bargain Babe in January. In less than a year, her blog has gotten buzz from The Los Angeles Times, Reader's Digest, and countless other publications. She's also managed to make it profitable! Since that's a goal for many bloggers, I'm including excerpts from our interview, including some of Julia's tips on blogging ethics, earning money from a blog, and more.Urban Muse: What methods do you use to monetize your blog? Julia: My main sources of revenue are advertising, syndication, and freelance work. What has worked for me was at first I focused on increasing the profile of my blog. That means building really good SEO. The way you build SEO is by getting people to link to you and linking back to them. They calculate your ranking based on how many people are linking to you. Your content must be good and it must be valuable.
A lot of networking online is just like you would network in person. Ask people, "would you consider linking to me?" It does take a lot of time. I spent a lot of time doing that, but it's incredibly important. You can also network with people online through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. I recommend focusing on one or two channels rather than trying to be everywhere at once. Reserve your username even if those sites aren't active.
It's about inserting yourself into the community. It's kind of scary to think about how blogs there are, but the vast majority are not active. Introduce yourself. Show up to the party. Be friendly and out-going... UM: What do you use to quantify your blog's value and entice advertisers? J: I recommend PRchecker.info. You can type in any URL, check yours, your competitors, and other sites you admire. Page rank on a scale of 0 to 10.
Having a good page rank is crucial to getting advertisers. Google Adsense is your first step but never your last step. Do not rely on it for significant revenue. Everybody knows about it. It's a very broad ad network. The more targeted the ad is, the higher the ad rate you're likely to get. Ad rates on Adsense are low because they aren't sure who they're reaching. What's even better is finding an ad network that is specific to your community. You're more likely to make money off of advertising if you seek out an ad network in your community. It's smart to seek out better paying ad networks.
Affiliate programs are also important. That's a way people can make money off their sites. Two main programs are CommissionJunction.com and LinkShare.com. That can be really valuable around the holidays, so it's a lot about shopping and coupons. My blog has this natural commercial element. But a friend of mine writes a science blog, and he makes 50% of his income just by recommending products. So, don't write off affiliate programs even if you're not an overtly commercial blog.UM: What about transparency? Should you tell blog readers you're part of an affiliate or advertising program? J: I'm a huge proponent of transparency, so I let readers know what is paid content. As someone who has gone from being editorial and advertising, I can tell you that transparency will save you. A lot of times it's not actually clear what is paid content. On blogs, you have a responsibility to be clear. On my About page, I have an ethics policy. When I do run paid content, I let people know. Basically, I'm following the NPR model. They have a "shop NPR" tab.
UM: What tips would you give to new bloggers? J: One thing I think is really important is to think about what your goals are. Not that you have to figure it out immediately. But if your goal is to become the next TMZ then you'll do things differently than if your goal is to use it as a scratchpad. If you are going to make this into a professional venture, think how am I going to do that? What can I do to get publicity? What are my readers interested in? What makes your site essential to readers? Ask yourself what are the actions you want your readers to take? Do you want them to buy your book? You've got to have things for them to buy? Do you want your readers to spend 30 minutes on your site?
If you don't know, then just start. People have this idea that because it's a blog that it's public and everybody's gonna know about it instantly. In a vast majority of cases, nobody is reading. Generally, nobody is gonna find your blog [until you promote it]. You also need to narrow down your topic so you can grab that niche audience. If you're broad or too specific you won't interest people.UM: Anything you'd like to add? J: The one thing I would add is going back to revenue through syndicating my content. I resell the content on my blog to traditional publishers including the New Jersey Star Ledger. You can resell your content if you're adhering to traditional journalism standards and your information is practical and useful and in demand. You might consider approaching a traditional syndication company or syndicating posts yourself.
Thanks so much, Julia! To read more from Julia Scott or sign up for her email updates, check out Bargain Babe.