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I mentioned yesterday that I’m missing out on the 140 Conference because I can’t afford to go. That started a chain of emails, tweets, and Facebook messages about how I should better monetize Soap Box Included.
To be honest: I’m not ready to totally monetize this website.
Here’s the path of a profitable blog*
*Assuming it doesn’t suddenly blow-up thanks to online gatekeepers, the media, or other aggregators (Stuff White People Like is a great example of this. So is the Twitter account @ShitmyDadsays . Both of which have book deals that I’m pretty envious of.)
Month 1 to 6: You might make some money, we did, but it’s nothing to quit your day job over. Your primary focus is to build up a lot of awesome content. Which reminds me, SBI’s archive really needs an overhaul.
We also had a pretty strict no advertising policy until September (Month 5). I made most of my money by selling 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and leaving a link to the e-book in most of the blog posts.
Month 6 to 12: Take a look at how you’re doing traffic wise. Since May, we average just over 5,000 unique visitors a month. Not great, but good enough to be 124,612 out of several million American websites (as per Alexa) and 304,030 out of a couple of million websites worldwide (as per Compete.com).
As predicted, search engine traffic has picked up, which is good because we’re way too dependent on Twitter and Facebook to drive in traffic. No, those two won’t ever fully replace search engines, so it’s important to be able to pull in that traffic as much as the social networks.
This is also the time frame you’re supposed to see an increase in revenue. Keep in mind I didn’t say profitability, and that revenue from a blog doesn’t just mean affiliate sales. It could mean speaking engagements or consulting appointments (if you offer that sort of thing.) I did consulting work and mostly hated it, so speaking engagements it is.
In September, I put up a banner for Tucker Max’s “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” movie, and then in October I placed four buttons on the top right hand corner to promote our affiliates. I also swapped out the movie banner for Busted Tees and added a list for Social Publishing MBA books to the right of it on the first.
Year 1 to Year 2:
Let’s talk profitability for a second. My average work hours go from 11am to 11pm, and unless Amanda pulls me out of the house, there are few if any breaks during that time. More often than not, it’s 9am to 3am, but let’s pretend I’m more normal than that for this example.
If you worked 12 hours for minimum wage every weekday, we don’t usually update on the weekend, you would make at least $7.25 an hour in New York.
So. 60 hours a week. comes out to $435 a week. $1,740 a month.
Your annual income: $20,880 a year.
That’s $6,000 less than what I would have made working at Clarkson University, and $10,000 short of my ideal blogging income. If I can do $30,000 a year from blogging, I would be happy.
So, until we hit that number, the blog is not profitable. Figure out what your salary should be. If your blog revenue doesn’t match that number, your blog is not profitable. Each salary is different though, and this is just how I determine mine.
Now, it’s important to point out, any money collected (SBI 800, Validation, business card build-off) doesn’t count toward any of this. All of that money is used exclusively for A Million High Fives (and to be even more specific, the Social Publishing MBA that is placed on all of the laptops we’re collecting and re-distributing.)
Will that happens in a year? I don’t know. I doubt it. Two years? Yes. Granted, I have #AMHF and this website as the focal point of that project, so who knows, but if we’re talking about SBI on its own merits, we’re looking at least two years.
But until we’re at the one year mark, I’m not going to sweat this blog’s profitability (or lack of it). That’s not really what I’m going for here to begin with (see: Astonishing Tales Of Mediocrity), but it’s one of my goals to work toward over time.
So, if you want to talk to me about monetization, come back in May of 2010. Until then, I’m not really thinking about it.
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