Blogging as a Business: Introduction
March 8, 2008 – 2:43 pmBloggers write for all kinds of different reasons. Some start a site as a hobby; others compile compelling content to attempt to help others and break niché news. An interesting phenomenon that appeals to most authors that are pitched the idea to is making money with your blog. If I told you that you could view your blog as a business entity that makes money, is that something you might be interested in?
Welcome to a brand new series on ChuckMcKenzie.net — Blogging as a Business! This series will be structured like a business plan for a startup, with the following sections (subject to amending at a later date): the Introduction, Marketing, Finances, and Operating Procedures.
Here’s the point that makes this series a worthwhile read for you. An absolute staple of any B-School is the ubiquitous teaching tool — the case study. Since I’m going through this process for Chuck McKenzie dot Net anyway, this site will be used as an example for the process. Let’s learn!
The Importance of a Business Plan
I know what you might be thinking. “Business Plan?! What is this nonsense? This is a blog, not a mom-and-pop shop selling cupcakes!” Well, if you want to make money blogging, you need to view your blog as a business. So, you need to properly plan for your business in order for it to succeed. That is the goal of this series…to lay out a plan for the business success of your blog.
How do I make money?
Here is the $64,000 question. Look at your blog like a television network. How do ABC, Fox, and NBC make their dough? Advertising. Bingo. This analogy continues to include the key to getting viewers/readers: quality content. The higher the quality of your content, the more you can maximize your advertising revenue. So, as an aspiring blog entrepreneur, you cannot lose focus of writing quality posts. Sure, if you are trying to make money, there are other concerns; but if your posts are less thought-provoking than John Madden, you won’t keep readership.
There are many avenues for advertising on your blog, and literally millions of articles available online for blog advertising strategies. I won’t beat a dead horse. That’s just mean. This series will attempt to focus on global business topics as opposed to micromanaging blog ad strategeries.
Conclusion to the Introduction
You can think of this post as a sort of executive summary for the business plan of Chuck McKenzie dot net. In the coming days/weeks/months*, action plans will be laid out concerning marketing, finances, and day-to-day operating procedures for this blog that will be general enough to scale to other blogs, so hopefully you can learn from the process.
* I haven’t decided how long this series will span, so I covered my bases here.
Tags: blogging as a business, strategery
3 Responses to “Blogging as a Business: Introduction”
Hey Chuckster-
JClyde told me he wanted to start doing a little bit of blogging. I told him to use your site. He said he wanted to create his own. You should hit him up.
By Naf Naf Baby too cold, too cold. By the way, i'm too cold. on Mar 14, 2008
@NAF Thanks for the heads up, buddy. I’m pretty sure JClyde is a good canidate for blogging, what with his witty sense of humor. Maybe you can get a blog going too, and we’ll start a blog club. All the cool kids are doing it.
By Chuck McKenzie on Mar 20, 2008