Bad Entrepreneur

This is probably one of the oldest questions around in blogging circles and probably the one which leads to the most debate and the most pipe-dreams being sold.

You’ll notice that I have capitalised the YOU in the header of this post because I get irritated reading about how a friend of so and so makes money by blogging but nobody can ever quite work out how or even who this friend is.

The short answer to the question is what do you define as “money”?

If you are trying to save R150 – R200 a month to put toward a child’s education policy or December vacation then yes you can probably quite easily make a few bucks blogging.

If on the other hand you’re contemplating chucking in your job at Investec to become a full-time blogger then I’d suggest maybe you need to re-think.

To try and put it in context. As it stands at the moment – on my spreadsheet I run for my commissions from Google, AD:Dynamo, TrafficSynergy and OfferForge and a TINY piece from Adgator, I will probably make between R1700 and R2000 this month (assuming I don’t make any decent sales from the programs).

I’ve asked around a bit and here are some numbers from other people that might contextualise what you can earn from blogging. I’d be keen for bloggers to comment about whether they are way out from their own experiences.

I’ve tried to take a very average / new blogger who is trying their hand at making money online.

Google AdSense

You could reasonably expect to make between R125 and R160 a month but bear in mind that you need to earn more than the $100 payment threshold and then pay to get the AdSense cheque into South Africa.

AD:Dynamo

Bloggers that I’ve spoken to have said that they are earning less from AD:Dynamo than AdSense at the moment. I know the team are working hard at picking up new advertisers and I blogged recently about how my highest pay-per-click value (R55.08) came via AD:Dynamo.

This will also change as more and more advertiser sign up so be careful about making direct comparisons with AdSense.

I stand under correction but I think the payment threshold for AD:Dynamo is R100 and there are no costs for getting the money into your SA account – it is done via electronic transfer.

TrafficSynergy

I get very mixed reports here. Some people report anything between R2000 and R5000. Others (like me) make bugger all – I’ve made R1025 in the last year but then I hadn’t really twigged as to how it works so ask me again in the next few months as I experiment a bit.

If you think you can make money with TrafficSynergy Click Here

Adgator

If you serve bugger all traffic then Adgator will drive you nuts. If your blog is going to serve 20 impressions a day (like mine sometimes does) then you will find you will be earning 25c a day and that will take a LONG time to make anything.

However these are the top 10 earners from March 2010 though as an indication of what you might be able to make:

1 R5,891.44
2 R2,612.90
3 R1,917.54
4 R1,872.46
5 R1,048.82
6 R988.97
7 R927.75
8 R884.62
9 R804.19
10 R793.77
Conclusion

I don’t know whether that answers the question of whether or not you can make money but I hope it at least gives some context for the debate. Welcome to hear feedback from other bloggers trying to make a few bucks extra each month.

Look forward to your feedback.

When I presented at the AD:Dynamo seminar earlier in the year I did a small exercise which I thought might be useful for aspirant bloggers.

One of the big complaints that most bloggers have is that people don’t post comments on their blogs and they never really become an interactive “hub” or meeting place where people exchange thoughts and ideas.

The blogger throws the post out to the blogosphere and sits and waits expecting people to contribute and then becomes disappointed and disillusioned when they dont. Some become a little bit desperate and start looking to buy these solutions that will supposedly send stacks of traffic to their site.

My issue is that many of these aspirant bloggers are desperate for this thing called “traffic” – because hopefully it will monetise their blog and make it more interactive – that they forget what “traffic” actually is.

What I did during my presentation was to get everybody in the room to stand up and go and introduce themselves to three different members of the audience. They had to exchange cards, tell one another about what it is they do and why they might be interested in them.

This is what traffic is and if you’re not getting any responses to your posts, then maybe you need to be putting yourself out there a bit more and interacting with other people.

Bloggers tend to look at their traffic stats and talk and view their visitors as numbers/leads/sales. The traffic you want (even if you are planning to monetise your site) are real people. They are not just a nameless, faceless number. 

Instead of this grandiose idea of thousands of visitors and impressions being generated by your “traffic”, maybe start approaching it as one value adding contributor to your community at a time. From there let the value of adding to the blog and exchanging ideas be the catalyst for new visitors and community members.

I have been meaning to blog on this subject for a while now but have always found myself being side-tracked.

Fortunately Chris over at the iMod blog indirectly hit on the subject and I’ve decided it is now time to sit down and write it. Chris was talking about the different ways that he uses advertising channels AdGator, AD:Dynamo and Google AdSense and amidst all of the back and forth comments we both agreed that we’d far rather support the local entrepreneurs – Justin and Sean – than see our money being shipped overseas to support the Google monolith.

Obviously as publishers we need to weigh up the economic sense of it but in principle our preference is to support SA entrepreneurs, technology and business.

I’m not arguing the pro’s and cons of support Google AdWords but I’d love to know how much money goes off South African credit cards each month and flows to the US or Ireland to land up in Google’s accounts. Even if it is 1000 advertisers spending R500 a month, that’s half a million bucks going offshore and not being ploughed back into local business.

Remind me again what our unemployment rate is in South Africa and why people have given up looking for jobs?

It is the same when you hear that the World Cup mascot figurines are being manufactured in China. Yes there are economic realities around manufacturing which need to be taken into account but bigger picture is that the country has missed out on developing skills and keeping money in the country.

I had coffee with Pavlo Phitidis from Aurik last night and he raised a really good point – the Americans are not taking this recession and collapse in their employment rate lying down. It’s a big machine to turn but every American is being urged to buy locally manufactured products and services. Suddenly you see companies like Ford returning to profitability – they innovate, they grow and the jobs will follow either directly or downstream.

It’s a generalisation but in general as South African consumers we just sit back and assume that whatever comes from overseas is better than what we can produce locally.

You cannot turn around and say that there are no opportunities for local entrepreneurs if you are not prepared to support those that are standing right in front of you and have taken all the risk to get their product there.

Do me a favour when you’ve finished reading this post: Go out and buy a book by a South African author or a bottle of South African wine. If you are spending money every month with Google then go and divert some of that to AD:Dynamo or send Justin an e-mail and say you’re keen to advertise with AdGator.

You want a video game? Stop sending money to people at EA and Nintendo and take some time to find out what local guys are doing.

There are plenty of ideas and opportunities to support local entrepreneurs but you have to see them and understand why it is important to support them. Feel free to post other really obvious places where people are sending money to non South African businesses while we flounder and have no clue where our next jobs are going to come from.

Just remember – one day it might be you or your child twiddling your thumbs in an office wondering where your next client might come from while potential customers are busy creating jobs overseas… just a thought use it, don’t use it.