Adnan is a young guy from the UK who after buying and selling the latest craze to his friends at school discovered the blogging world and started learning how to make money online. Since starting Blogtrepreneur in February 2006 he has grown a good audience and the dollars have started to roll in as he has experimented with a range of monetization options. The popular topics on the site include entrepreneurship, making money online, blog promotion and personal development.

Is making money from blogs entrepreneurial?

I definitely think that making money from blogs is entrepreneurial. Everyone has their own little definition of what being an entrepreneur is, and I suppose I classify mine as someone who is able to turn around any situation (whether you’re a blogger, photographer, dentist, etc), and innovate and use it to their profitable advantage.

Only a few years ago, blogging itself was brand new, and making money off of them was novel, so when I stepped into the ’sphere back in February 2006, I was doing something pretty new for both myself and for the internet.

Even now when the competition is so fierce, making money blogging is definitely entrepreneurial, as you’re using the internet to your advantage. So long as you think of new exciting ways to make that money, I’m sure even more money will continue to flow around the blogosphere.

“Build it and they will come” doesn’t apply to most websites, as you discovered with a golf forum a few years back that never took off. You have now grown Blogtrepreneur from nothing to over 10,000 hits per month - now that you have some experience in getting started what steps would you take to get your first 1,000 subscribers in the future?

I’m not sure if I agree with your first statement. Whilst I didn’t have any success with the golf forum, I know of a lot of people who do adopt the “Build it and they will come” strategy, which seems to workout nicely with a little bit of Search Engine Optimisation knowledge. Whilst this same tactic is beginning to pay off less due to the immense amount of people competing in jam-packed niches, I still think it’s possible to create a site, and let it sit and gain traction on its own.

To answer your other question, I’ve definitely learnt a lot of tips and tricks which could help me get my first 1000 subscribers if I was to start again, and these are the sort of things which I have been teaching my clients as part of my Blog Consulting program. Most importantly, and I know that it is repeated a whole load, but content really is the king of the internet and will help you not only gain recognition but valuable links and search engine credibility. Writing these types of viral posts for social networking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon would definitely be one which I would take advantage of, even though they bring short inflows of sudden traffic.

You said you spent nothing on advertising and you chose to do that for the challenge, how would you change those steps if you had money to spend?

If I did have money to spend, I still don’t think that I would spend it on advertising. I’m of the mindset that believes that you don’t need to spend money to make money, unlike some others (although there are obvious examples to counter that premise). However, if I was being forced to spend, I would probably buy a review. I think that if they are done with 100% legitimacy and transparency, and if they are being purchased on a relatively popular site (think JohnChow), that they can help to drive phenomenal levels of traffic and attract a whole plethora of new subscribers.

We are seeing a lot more involvement in social networks for blog promotion - for example people can follow Hatchthat on twitter, and become a ‘fan’ to get updates through the Hatchthat.com Facebook page, all my friends on Facebook get notified of updates through my profile feed, and this site gets quite a lot of traffic through StumbleUpon - how do you think blogs and blog promotion will evolve in the next few years?

Good question - and to be honest, I’m not sure. As you say, blogging has become more social over the past year or so with the opening of platforms such as MyBlogLog and the like. Maybe in the future bloggers will take their promotion into the offline world which is something that I haven’t seen a lot of myself, eg. television adverts, sponsoring programs etc. I haven’t really thought much about the future though I guess it would be profitable to do so!

If people are wanting to get into blogging or making money onlinehow would you suggest they get started? What are the best resources? Should they learn it themselves or hire somebody else who is already an expert?

If people want to get started in blogging in order to make money online, then I think the first thing you need to do, is to start regularly reading a major blog, someone like Problogger would be a good read. Flick through the archives to see what nuggets you can come up with, and visualize yourself as a blogger: what niche would you work in, how many posts per day, what new marketing tactics would you use, how would you attract visitors to YOUR site?

After you’ve decided on those things, then I would pretty much be split on the paths you could take, to which there are certain pros and cons. Going it on your own would obviously free and enable you to learn as you go along. However the whole process of learning and constantly reading can take a very long time - it took me nearly 2 years to get where I am today. In contrast, hiring someone (like me) could save you a lot of time, and could be the difference in achieving success in the first month or first year. Again though, the downside is the fee. I guess it would depend on the person that is wanting to start blogging, and whether they had the capital to invest into a quicker start.

In terms of resources, there’s only one site that has answered all my blogging questions, and that’s the big G.

Once people have built up a good number of subscribers and traffic what are the different ways they can make money from a blog? Which have been the most successful for you and are there any others that you would like to try?

The number 1 earner for me has always been TextLinkAds. The company themselves have been great in communication (Patrick Gavin has been on hand whenever I have had a problem), and their payouts are punctual and pleasing for the first day of the month. However, with the recent shenanigans I can see them losing tempo. My second and third best earners have been private ads and reviews. These two can be organised by yourself which means that you don’t pay any nasty fees to the brokers and keep 100% of the profits. Obviously having the subscribers and the traffic is important here otherwise no-one will know about your ad spaces.

I would like to try introducing the industry standard 125×125 pixel banners. With my redesign I opted for a new size of ad banner, however, I’ve started to see this more as an inconvenience as many advertisers have their own 125×125 ads which they want to use and it comes down to me to redesign those. Maybe video ads or a new type of media advert could convert well if placed correctly into the context of a blog too.

What do you think you will you be doing in 5 years time?

What I would have liked to achieve in 5 years time is a top notch degree from a top notch University. I’m hoping to study Economics at Uni next year, and if possible would love a job in the city (London) after that. I’ve had my sights set on investment banking, however I’ve heard horror stories about the long hours and the stress, but I suppose don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

Interviewed by Ross Hill, an Australian entrepreneur with a strong interest in the social web - his current projects include Yabble, Rentoid, CoverHunt and The Hive.

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Posted on January 10th, 2008 by Ross