A while ago, I spotted a great post by Elaine Ramos on Blogging Tips called “Blogging Bought Me”. One of the most depressing niches of blog is “Make Money Online Quests”. Most of the blogs are rubbish, don’t add value, and usually end up failing. I try not to be in that niche, but occassionally do post about it. The reason is - after 5 years or so of blogging - I’m beginning to get financially rewarded via blogging, and I feel at least a little justified posting on the subject. It’s not enough to retire on, but it is enough to live a life which I wouldn’t normally be able to afford.
So, what I liked about the post is saying “yeah, you may not quit your job, but here’s a bunch of cool things you can do with your blogging wealth”. Now, as I’m on a “No blogging about making money online or other boring stuff which everybody else talks about” thing for Lent (which I am actually quite enjoying, cheers Lottie!), I’m not going to list the things that blogging has bought me, rather what blogging has got me. Subtle difference, but I want to focus more on the social aspect, rather than the moneterial aspect.
Three Things That Blogging Has Got Me
1. Friends
I love the social aspect of blogging more than anything else. I’m rather sociable by nature, and blog posts and comments mean quite a lot to me, as it’s like going down the pub for me. Ironically, I am rather terrible at commenting on other people’s blogs. I really don’t have a hell of a lot of time to comment on all the blogs I read. So I apologise profusely.
However, I consider most, if not all of you good friends, and would be mortally offended if you went to North Wales, and didn’t come out with me for a pint. I admit, you could be crazy and a nut case, but after going on the previous experience with the bloggers I have met, I have a feeling you are not.
2. Abroad
It really is no coincidence that the amount of foreign travel has coincided with the amount of cash I get from my blogging exploits. Although I made a concensous decision not to spend any of my blogging income on my trip to Latvia, I could’ve paid easily for the whole trip on it. The reason being is that I’m using that money for my summer holiday, which is being planned as we speak (I know where I’m going, just need to sort out the intricaces).
Either way, blogging financially has brought me holidays to places I couldn’t have seen before, and that is a good thing.
3. Laid
Oh yeah baby. Bollocks to adsense earnings and CTR’s and Super Affiliates and all that crap people whitter about. This is the real hole grail of blogging. Lets see John Chow beat that in one of his monthly roundups:-
Direct Advertising: $2000
Affiliate Sales: $1000
Adsense Earnings: $200
Total: $3200
Blogging Groupies Nailed: 0
He doesn’t look so impressive now, does he?
So, dear readers, what has blogging got you?
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Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay.
that wasn’t crass - but I spose I could also say #3! and definitely #1!
#2 is something I cba/dont know how to do!
#1, #3 *and* a job (albeit freelance) and a mention in a book. Beat that
Mind you, I’ve also had to hide from people at parties…
#1 and #3, but as for money… my blog costs about ten times more in hosting than I make from adsense. All hosting has however been paid for by a tiny portion of what I make doing freelance design work.
it’s gotten me nothing.
Nice. I have a feeling #3 is starting to cause some green eyes.
It’s gotten me a hobby. I started with web design (please, I believed it was design when I made sites in Microsoft Word!) and progressed to blogging from there. So, instead of sitting up half the night learning code, I stay up half the night commenting on blogs.
Much better way to spend my time!
What a great post. Well for me, i do blogging simply because i love it. I have absolutely no interest in monetizing my blog, but i do love blogging! I am always in and out of hospital, and i have found that blogging is something you can do, wherever you are, which is perfect for what i need.
I have just started blogging. But I aim to make big in blogging. Make good friends, and of course a lot of money.
Blogging has gotten me into lots of trouble with a particular story I wrote about a particular person and I used their name with various links to photos of that person on respectable websites (she was a model, and was on HEAPS of websites for various reasons, usually winning competitions) and me SEO couldn’t have been better (this was before I knew what the fuck SEO was) and I ranked up first on the second page of google when you searched this persons name. So my small blog which only a handful of people actually knew about, ranked very highly and I got in trouble with the person in question, and she never spoke to me again (so I missed out on the #3 part). Never will do that again!