Day 10 – Saturday
Today's task was to add a bunch of icons for RSS/ATOM subscriptions via different feed readers. However, there is now a standardized feed icon, so there is no need to use all of them and it seems like the word subscribe is better understood by the web novices I know than any icon, including the icon specific to whatever reader they use. Additionally, the instructions were once again for the old Blogger. The Challenge did recommend using FeedBurner to provide these feeds and after trying it out I'm definitely sold on FeedBurner! FeedBurner provides instructions and even widgetization for both versions of Blogger. They also provide instructions for setting up your FeedBurner feed as the "autodiscovery" feed (although I had a bit of a struggle getting my XML exactly right in the template – I think that's because I was actually trying to think and not just follow directions by rote. Sometimes that can get you in trouble.) What sold me on FeedBurner is that you can use it to keep track of how many people who read your feed actually click through to your site, automatically ping blog directories, and allow email subscriptions to your blog.
I also spent quite a bit of time today tweaking my ads – the Challenge's directions for AdBrite ad sizing results in one that is partially cut off and AdBrite directions for AdSense resulted in ads that were even more cut off. Plus, the Blogger AdSense widget has colors that match my blog, but that doesn't work if you want something different than the widget provides, so I had to figure out how to do that within AdSense itself. I also added a search box (using AdSense of course!) and a line of related search/sales items. And I did my 3 posts to related blogs. All in all, I spent another 5 hours.
I made $0.06 on MyLot for yesterday's posts. I made nothing in ads today. I did another post about my site on MyLot though, that might be worth a few cents. So, I'm done with The Blog Challenge, except for the suggestion that I can check out his blog and post a comment with my blog.
My ten day net income is -$18.54 over 43.75 hours, for a total "income" of -$0.42. So obviously, in spite of following the program carefully, I have not managed to make a profitable blog in less than ten days. Should I wait to see results? How long? The two weeks worth of 3 daily posts to other blogs, which is part of the Challenge even though it extends beyond the ten days, seems like the minimum fair wait. Should I wait beyond that? I'd love to hear anyone's opinion.
So, my 10 days are up, but the adventure continues...
This may be purely self-indulgent because I am thoroughly enjoying reading about your experience here (I check several times a day for the new post), but I'd like to see you give it a few more days. But I'm not the one putting in 40+ hours on it either.
Was there any guarantee that it would be profitable?
The big clue: On their front page, the Blog Challenge advertises their service like this:
"Our 10 Day Blog Challenge will make ANY Blog profitable in 10 Days or Less.. GUARANTEED!"
Then, when you click on the FAQ page, they completely contradict that and say this:
"There are no guarantees on the amount of money you can make with The Blog Challenge. No company can advertise money-making guarantees, and our challenge works for many, but we understand that there may be a LOW percentage who will not catch on."
So while some of what they include in their program may be helpful as a long-term traffic building strategy, there is no way in hell any blog is going to leap from zero to 60 in 10 days, unless it is somehow linked to from a very high-trafficked website.
I've got some blogs that have been up for years that get decent traffic and maybe make me $2/month off of Google.
My sci-fi blog at:
http://www.closetscifigeek.com
has a niche market, has tons of content up, and is linked on the blogroll of many other sci-fi blogs, and yet I barely make anything on it.
I don't really put any effort into promoting it, but considering the fact that I'm constantly getting new visitors, you'd think I'd get more money from it. (I am, however, going to put the Google ads on the page more when I get around to it.)
I have to say I'm honestly stumped as to why some certain blogs take off and others don't. I see some blogs get 20 or more comments a day and I can barely understand the writing. But in my opinion, you've got to have that kind of traffic where you're getting 20 or more comments for each post you put up in order to get decent money.
Either that - or you have created a shell that happens to pick up the right Google keywords and then when people come searching they immediately go to your site and click through to something else.
Not to be a total downer - I am at about $100/month now on Google AdSense but that is combining a variety of sites that I own. I need to break through that traffic wall, because at the next level of traffic it should jump up considerably to where I'm getting $100/day on the good days. We'll see.
So, Bedarkened (or anyone else) - how long do you think I should give them to see a profit before asking for a refund? (In real time, it's been 3 weeks.)
Actually, at this point I think periodic updates would be great. Its pretty obvious that the *real* way to make money at this is to create a semi-informative out-of-date system and sell the system.
Thanks for all of your work!
Frankly, I've been inclined to think it's a scam from the beginning - like about 90% of what I see on the web. But I'm a big fan of "profile not speculate," hence my trying it out and keeping records. It's well known fact of marketing that if you offer guarantees and 100% rebates, people will buy thinking they have nothing to lose and then not return the item or mail in the rebate (not to mention the rebates that mysteriously get lost in the mail, like several companies got in trouble for a few years ago.)
The "make money on the web" by buying my program, doing XYZ, and BTW promoting my program to others, is sort of a catch-22 in general. The only way to get your investment of time and money in a program is to promote it and generally promotion for web and writing products seems to be overblown. But does that mean they aren't worthwhile? The Blog Challenge is actually small potatoes compared to a number of programs I've seen, but I wanted to start with something small (and inexpensive) to see how I felt about trying and writing about these kinds of products. (I didn't want to invest a couple of hundred dollars and weeks or months of my time in something if I was going to hate writing about it. Or I couldn't find an audience.)
One of my friends, Lisa Shea, has a great site about working from home. She is currently researching and writing about Avon, and shares a great insight that I think applies (more or less regarding quality of the product and program) to every affiliate/MLM program:
I think they could be much more realistic in what they start with. Avon has incredible income benefits and great products as it is. Just telling the real facts would be great. If you inflate peoples' expectations, that can lead to sad results. (Original Article)
