How should a Blog look like

[sedna888]

I am wondering, how should a blog look like?

It should look like a personal journal? a diary? a media site? a Marketing site? or even a friendship connection site?

I found that a blog is not a blog anymore now a day, it got more and more advertisement and marketing contents in it.

So, should we still call these a blog? or we just call it a new marketing blog (MaBlog)

Sedna

[stephen todd]

Originally Posted by sedna888

I found that a blog is not a blog anymore now a day, it got more and more advertisement and marketing contents in it.

You been looking at some of blog sites?

I use adsense, banner ads, and content written by affiliates fishing for visitors to visit their sites

The reason I build blog sites like this is because I want to make money - why bother spending time and money building blog sites just for fun?

I don't get it - where's the fun in working for nothing?

[sedna888]

Stephen,

I agree with you totally, no doubt about it, everyone want to work for money.

What I mean is how should a blog original look like? Intentionally setup for monetized it or just for personal journal to share with friend and family?

Currently almost all the blogs are monetized, should we still call it a blog?

Just my thought.

Sedan

[The Envoy]

Mine's not. I blog for a hobby. And I post up what I like, whenever I want.

[CommonForte]

Originally Posted by stephen todd

You been looking at some of blog sites?

I use adsense, banner ads, and content written by affiliates fishing for visitors to visit their sites

The reason I build blog sites like this is because I want to make money - why bother spending time and money building blog sites just for fun?

I don't get it - where's the fun in working for nothing?

Hey StephenTodd...if you dont mind me asking. How much money do you make on each site and how many views/clicks do you get??

[Nathan]

Blog designs vary based on your subject and your desired audience. If you want some ideas for a clean, simple design check out Experiment Garden, in my signature. I designed this theme specifically to be fast loading and simple, but attractive and professional at the same time.

That is the goal. You want your blog to look professional and to load fast. Too many graphics irritates users and detracts from the content. Just a few observations on blog themes.

[stephen todd]

Originally Posted by CommonForte

Hey StephenTodd...if you dont mind me asking. How much money do you make on each site and how many views/clicks do you get??

Most people rely on google adsense for site income and the measure is the eCPM - how much do google pay per 1000 page impressions - i.e. if 1000 people see a page with adsense on it, how much do you get from google

Adsense eCPM varies a lot - from site to site - and even the same site earnings vary from day to day - google use a complicated payment formula - and of course advertisers bid varying amounts for the ads in the first place

So far this month my average eCPM across all my blog sites is $8.62 - somebody asked about 10 days ago and it was about a dollar less then - so it really does vary

A lot of my blog sites are only a few months old - and getting less than 100 visitors a day. Some of my sites are a few years old and get 1200 to 1400 visitors a day

Not all sites take-off - the accepted failure rate is about 8 percent - meaning if you do keyword research, standard site design, identical promotion, etc. for some reason some sites are a total waste of time - these I don't bother renewing when the annual domain registration fee is due - I sometimes get hundreds of pages of a site listed with google - but the site doesn't make enough money to justify the ongoing work - so I let them go - e.g. article directories

I also have clickbank ads on my sites - those clicks are usually worth about 40 dollars, but I once had one worth 250 dollars - but refund rates are very high - and you don't get paid per click - its per sale - so you may need thousands of clicks to get a sale that does not refund

[stephen todd]

Originally Posted by CommonForte

Hey StephenTodd...if you dont mind me asking. How much money do you make on each site and how many views/clicks do you get??

I forgot to mention that although I still go after the "big money" - finance, health, make money, etc. my adsense eCPM earnings have halved over the past 2 years - and I expect to see adsense earnings continue to fall - not because I don't know what I'm doing - but because google are paying out less and less to their publishers

For over a year I've thought it really isn't worth it (I used to charge a high hourly rate as a SEO)

I think adding adsense when the site has been indexed by google for about a month - and until you get home page pagerank of 2 or more, and an alexa ranking of less than 2 million, then it's OK for most people - but have a better income plan for when you reach that stage

[Captured Ink]

I think that your blog can be what you make it. If you are looking just to keep your family updated on what you are doing or want to make money.

The main aim is to have a reason for the blog, if its just for the family then is really easy to do. But if you want to make money then you have to do alot of research before you start. As you could run the best blog in the world. But if only two people in the world would buy what you are bloging about then its not worth it.

There is alot of information on this forum, which will help you either way.

[Mkcoy]

Well there is no specific way a blog should look like. It depends on you when you decide on a template for it. However blogs are different from a normal website in that it has more interactivity because you can comment on them etc.

I think there are people that blog for fun and not for money. Some people don't need the money but blog anyway either for personal or fun reasons or purely as an online journal. Of course some people do both. As for me I enjoy it and if I can make a buck out of it at the same time then why not?