A couple of years ago, I saw an article titled (Adsense Case Study: PVRBlog). I thought that it would be a good idea to start my own blog and make some money with Adsense.
If you think you can quit your job, start a blog and make money via Adsense … you may want to rethink the idea.
Blog Fail #1: Consumerist Rip-Off
The first blog that I started was to focus on the niche of Consumer Electronics stores. The plan was to post interesting things about Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA etc. Visitors to the site would most likely be interested in the stores and thus would click the Adsense ads. After a couple of months of posting a few blog-worthy stories, I got frustrated because my site traffic was low and was running out of ideas to blog about. I resorted to posting my own blogs to Digg, hoping they would reach the front page. Generating only minimal traffic, a few cents of Adsense revenue, and unknowingly realizing I was trying to re-create the Consumerist.com, I abandoned the blog.
Blog Fail #2: Mac Switcher Rip-Off
I’ve been a Mac user for almost 2 years. For the first couple months I thought it would be a good idea to create a blog for those switching from Windows to Mac. Because I didn’t do my research first – I didn’t realize that there are dozens of sites that provide tips and tricks for Windows users switching to Mac, including Apple. The problem I ended up facing was a lack of original content and a lack of motivation to continue the blog.
Blog Fail #3: App Store Rip-Off
After I bought a Wii, I stumbled upon this great website Virtual Console Mondays that listed the latest releases for the Virtual Console. What I liked about this site was it allowed me to see what was released without having to turn on the Wii and navigate to the Wii Shop Channel. The concept for the website seemed like a good idea and from a maintenance standpoint, the author would only need to post once a week and wouldn’t need produce that much original content. I thought I could capitalize on this concept with the release of the Apple App Store. It seemed like a good idea to start a blog where people could search and browse the latest Apps without needing iTunes. I started started copying/pasting App descriptions from the iTunes App Store into my blog (at the time the App Store was about 1000 apps). It took me about a week to enter about 100 Apps into my blog, then Apple released approx. 500 more apps into the App Store, I gave up shortly after realizing that I would never be able to maintain such a site.
Blog Fail #4: Featured Question of the Week
About 3 months ago I thought it would be a good idea to start an online training business. To drive traffic to my site I thought that I would have a blog where I offered a daily computer tip. Again, I should’ve researched my idea a little bit more because there are many sites that provide daily computer tips and I would be contributing very little original content. I wanted to get on the Twitter bandwagon and try to promote a “Featured Question of the Week” by allowing the winner to receive Adsense revenue, but I haven’t had any takers. I am currently reevaluating my business (Silverfish Technologies) to see what direction that I want to go.
Why another blog?
I’ve already failed at creating 4 blogs previous, why would this one be any different? I am realizing now that my posts need original content and a voice. All of my previous attempts were in posting known information. Well, it is my intention to share original thought and experiences in software development, provide insight into different technologies, and everything else.
How I Went From 4 Failed Blogs to RepeatGeek
A couple of years ago, I saw an article titled (Adsense Case Study: PVRBlog). I thought that it would be a good idea to start my own blog and make some money with Adsense.
If you think you can quit your job, start a blog and make money via Adsense … you may want to rethink the idea.
Blog Fail #1: Consumerist Rip-Off
The first blog that I started was to focus on the niche of Consumer Electronics stores. The plan was to post interesting things about Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA etc. Visitors to the site would most likely be interested in the stores and thus would click the Adsense ads. After a couple of months of posting a few blog-worthy stories, I got frustrated because my site traffic was low and was running out of ideas to blog about. I resorted to posting my own blogs to Digg, hoping they would reach the front page. Generating only minimal traffic, a few cents of Adsense revenue, and unknowingly realizing I was trying to re-create the Consumerist.com, I abandoned the blog.
Blog Fail #2: Mac Switcher Rip-Off
I’ve been a Mac user for almost 2 years. For the first couple months I thought it would be a good idea to create a blog for those switching from Windows to Mac. Because I didn’t do my research first – I didn’t realize that there are dozens of sites that provide tips and tricks for Windows users switching to Mac, including Apple. The problem I ended up facing was a lack of original content and a lack of motivation to continue the blog.
Blog Fail #3: App Store Rip-Off
After I bought a Wii, I stumbled upon this great website Virtual Console Mondays that listed the latest releases for the Virtual Console. What I liked about this site was it allowed me to see what was released without having to turn on the Wii and navigate to the Wii Shop Channel. The concept for the website seemed like a good idea and from a maintenance standpoint, the author would only need to post once a week and wouldn’t need produce that much original content. I thought I could capitalize on this concept with the release of the Apple App Store. It seemed like a good idea to start a blog where people could search and browse the latest Apps without needing iTunes. I started started copying/pasting App descriptions from the iTunes App Store into my blog (at the time the App Store was about 1000 apps). It took me about a week to enter about 100 Apps into my blog, then Apple released approx. 500 more apps into the App Store, I gave up shortly after realizing that I would never be able to maintain such a site.
Blog Fail #4: Featured Question of the Week
About 3 months ago I thought it would be a good idea to start an online training business. To drive traffic to my site I thought that I would have a blog where I offered a daily computer tip. Again, I should’ve researched my idea a little bit more because there are many sites that provide daily computer tips and I would be contributing very little original content. I wanted to get on the Twitter bandwagon and try to promote a “Featured Question of the Week” by allowing the winner to receive Adsense revenue, but I haven’t had any takers. I am currently reevaluating my business (Silverfish Technologies) to see what direction that I want to go.
Why another blog?
I’ve already failed at creating 4 blogs previous, why would this one be any different? I am realizing now that my posts need original content and a voice. All of my previous attempts were in posting known information. Well, it is my intention to share original thought and experiences in software development, provide insight into different technologies, and everything else.
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