Blogging vs Internet Marketing

There are a lot of articles on blogging out there…and there are a lot of articles on internet marketing. They are mostly treated as two separate endeavors. Are blogging and internet marketing truly two different subjects? Not for my readers. At least I hope not.

Blogging is mostly the activity of posting content on a regular basis in a specific niche, etc. When “internet marketing” is mentioned, most people think of squeeze pages, affiliate landing pages, sales pages of other various kinds, etc. My hope for this post is simple: I’d like to blur the lines a little bit and hopefully get you to realize, if you don’t already…that if you’re blogging to make money online, you are an internet marketer. And it will benefit you greatly to think of yourself as such.

Business blogging and internet marketing are the same thing. It’s important to view every post on your blog as a landing page.

If You Want to Make Money Online With Your Blog…

Bottom line: if you want to make money online with your blog, you need to sell things. This means you are in sales. That’s internet marketing!

Many bloggers do not think of themselves as marketers or salespeople. And then they wonder why they’re not getting the results they want. There is a lot more involved than just writing blog posts.

You Can’t Make Much Money Blogging

The reason I decided to write this post is because there seems to be a line in many people’s minds that divides internet marketing and blogging, and there really needn’t be. Here’s something that may surprise you to hear: you can’t make much money blogging. Really. You can make a bit. If you happen to be building your blog in a high traffic niche, and are successful in building a high traffic site, you might be able to make some cash through advertising. But honestly, this does not apply to most blogs.

If I’m being honest with you, you are probably not going to be the next TechCrunch. I’m not one to be a dream crusher…if you have an idea and a plan, you should work it, and no doubt there will continue to be many huge success stories like this. My point is this: MOST blogs in the vast scheme of things just aren’t going to be high traffic blogs. And that’s OK. You can STILL make a killing!

One more point about this: there are many sites out there that make as much money as TechCrunch does, and you have likely never even heard of them. Popularity does not necessarily correlate to success, or to income. Sales skills, business skills and skillful execution however, usually do.

Low Traffic Blog Niches Rock!

So what about all those innumerable niches out there that just aren’t high traffic niches? Those are my focus and specialty! Look, there are a TON of ways to make great money online. High traffic is just one, and in my opinion it’s far from the best one.

Yes, there are a lot of gurus out there that will tell you magical ways to explode your traffic and build your email list to staggering numbers, but what many of them will fail to mention is that a lot of niches just don’t have the kind of mass appeal that’s necessary to build a high traffic site.

And it’s important to understand that this is NOT a problem…but it SHOULD affect your monetization plan!

For example, you’re not going to get 100k visitors a month to your Lentil Recipes blog, no matter how hard you try. At least probably not :). I’ll say it this way, if you’re the lentil recipe guru of the world, and your success depends on getting tons of traffic, you do not have a good plan, and you probably haven’t done your research.

However, there are a lot of ways to make that niche profitable. There are good ways to make any useful niche highly profitable, and I’m going to be going over specific ways to do this in upcoming posts on this blog.

The Often Overlooked, Money-Making Benefit of Low Traffic

To suffice for now…how do you make a low traffic niche profitable? You learn to sell! In other words…internet marketing. Personal interaction is king in the low traffic arena. See, you can do that when you have a low traffic niche. You can literally build a great, intimate relationship with your audience. It’s not that possible when you’re getting several thousand visitors a day…the level of personal attention goes down.

Both high traffic and low traffic niches have their advantages. So don’t think because you’re only getting a few thousand visitors a month right now that you’re at a disadvantage. The fact is that you’re in a great place! Use what you’ve got. The fact that you can interact with and engage your audience on a highly personal level means that you can create a lot more value for each individual who reads you blog, and when you create more value…you can make more money.

So I will be covering different ways to monetize like this in more detail in coming posts over the next several weeks. I hope you can bookmark this site or subscribe, so you can get this information when it comes out.

I think it’s absolutely essential to do a few things here:

1. Stop thinking high traffic and huge subscriber lists are the only way to make a good living with your blog.
2. Start thinking of yourself as an internet marketer, and open yourself up to the idea that you are a salesperson. Sales skills will be what enable you to make good money online in whatever niche you choose. Realize that if you apply high traffic methods of monetizing on a low traffic site, your results will always be disappointing. However, learn to apply the right techniques to your business, and your results will be impressive.
3. Study different methods of monetizing that I will be discussing here in the coming weeks, and write a plan for your blog that makes sure you can get the results you’re looking for…don’t just assume you’re going to follow the same model of another blogger you like. Do your own research, and write a plan that’s appropriate for your own niche. Follow your own path!

This is the crux of blogging vs internet marketing…if you’re blogging for business and to make money, you ARE an internet marketer. You are a salesperson. You do not have to embrace these things, and I will admit that most bloggers do not. I will also tell you that there is a REASON most blogs fail :). The difference between blogging and internet marketing? When it comes to making your business successful, there is NO difference!