How Many Blogs?

[conran]

I've been talking to a buddy of mine who does some posting work on our blogs and we're considering kicking off another network.
I just thought I'd check in with others and ask how many blogs they run as an affiliate?

This is mainly for those who earn a full-time income from affiliate sales, as that's the primary area of business we're looking at expanding right now.
So, if you earn what could be considered a full-time income (I'm guessing maybe between $3 and $4k a month?) through affiliate sales alone, how many blogs do you run, and do you run anything else that gains you a lot of sales?

It's just something we're considering doing, but I'm wondering if we should be diversifying into tubes rather than kicking off another network of blogs. And if we do go down the blog network, should we again go for the sub-domain system (which allows any domain sub for some improved SEO) or kick off numerous individual sites?

Thanks for your thoughts as always :humble:

[HunkyLuke]

I don't earn a full-time income from affiliate sales, but I do have a network of a couple hundred blogs, plus I get to see what other affiliates are doing to make sales. I can confirm that earning $3-4K/mo off one blog is VERY do-able!

Blogs are one of the best sources for good ratio sales, much better than tubes, tgp sites or even free sites. But I would always recommend that affiliates approach their work with the "empire building" attitude - the more types of sites you build, the stronger your empire. And strong empires mean consistent sales. Like for instance, the last google update saw a lot of tube sites pushed up in SERPS. If you had just blogs, you probably felt the pinch. But those with blogs and tubes faired much better.

[conran]

I have to agree with your thinking on that Luke. I've always thought that having more blogs/sites out there just increases your coverage, and adjusting them all to be a little different allows for testing out new formats and layouts for increasing sales too.

Although, I haven't seen any decline in traffic since Google started promoting the Tubes. I don't get what all the fuss has been about, but I also don't understand how I haven't been affected either.
I don't run checks to see where I'm being placed - with over fifteen blogs to check I just don't have the time to run that kind of analysis too often.
But I can certainly say that my blogs have not lost any traffic, even if they have lost in position to some tubes.

The whole tube thing is something I'm looking into at the moment and experimenting with. I don't want to invest too much in it without knowing what the ROI is likely to be, so I think we'll be going with an embed/non member tube version to start with and see how that goes.

Definitely looking at setting up another round of blogs though!
Thanks for your thoughts on it.

[HunkyLuke]

I bet Mary could give us some nice information from QueerClicks, that blog rocks!

[ClickSniper]

I'd get all over Tumblr.. It's an incredible page view machine!

[conran]

I'd get all over Tumblr.. It's an incredible page view machine!

I have actually looked at that a couple of times, but I don't think I understand the process at all. I know that's a little embarrassing to admit!

Are there any resources out there to educate me in how Tumblr can help with affiliate sales? I'd appreciate it.

[SteveParis]

I totally agree that the more blogs you have the better. I have a main blog where I'm around the earning that you guys mentioned, then I have about 5 other smaller blogs that pretty much serve as filler when my main blog doesn't perform too well.

My problem is I don't like to copy and paste content, I like to make it my own (pictures/video/text..) so yeah it's really time consuming, and that's why I only update my main right now. If I could update them all regularly, I could easily double what I earn.

I have yet to check Tumblr cos like Twitter, I'm so out of it

[ClickSniper]

Are there any resources out there to educate me in how Tumblr can help with affiliate sales? I'd appreciate it.

I can't think of any good getting started resources for Tumblr, but I'll try to give you a few tips and insights that I have discovered by playing around with Tumblr blogs...

- Think of Tumblr as a social blog of sorts.. there are 3 main functions in my opinion: #1) posting/sharing your content #2) connecting with other blogs/users (i.e. making friends) #3) sharing good content from your favorite Tumblr friends to help promote their blog (many will then return the favor)

- Pictures and Video are best (anything you post can be hyperlinked - if you are using affiliate content, this could be a good method of driving traffic)

- Add friends (i.e. other Tumblr blogs) that you are interested in and/or have similar content to yours (You can add any tumblr blog as a friend without sending a request or anything - if you have cool content, the majority of users will follow you back)

- Find a good template. There are a lot of great free templates that are simple to use and customize. If you know basic html, advertising/banners can be very easily added to you Tumblr site. If you don't like any of the default themes (i.e templates), just do a quick google search and you can find lots of other options.

- There are lots of tools and add-ons available to automatically post your content from your other non-tumblr blogs, websites, etc... to your tumblr feed. This can save a lot of time and increase your reach without a lot of housekeeping. But you need to build up a following/community in order for people to find your stuff...

- Most people will discover your content on their personal dashboard (like your facebook feed kinda). So they may not actually visit your tumblr site to click,share,interact with you content. keep this in mind as it's important to understand.

I'm reading back over this and realizing that it probably doesn't make much sense to you right now. ! But try it out and play around. It's super easy to set-up and you'll start to pick up how the community works really quick. Then reread these tips and hopefully they will be somewhat helpful. .

If you run into anything along the way, please let me know - happy to help you out. I've been using Tumblr for a couple years now and know my way around pretty well. The main point I guess is to have fun with it and experiment! Also, take a look around to see how others are using their Tumblr blog - there are a lot of cool and creative people using it for both enjoyment and marketing purposes.

[conran]

Thanks for all that. I'm looking into it today and I think I understand the potential for it. I'll have to spend some free time this week really looking into it. Then, as you suggest, I'll come back and check out your tips again!

[Bec]

ClickSniper -- I'd like to see a How to Tumblr in the tutorials section, if you don't mind doing a copy paste of your tutorial post in there for posterity!

[pocoloco]

I have over 100 sites of which 60 blogs. The blogs generate 80% of my income and that's more than what you mentioned in your first post.

I think it's easier to get 1000 visitors per blog than 60K visitors on one big blog. The past 2 months, I have merged some blogs because I wanted to spend more time on certain blogs, but so far I have to say that this wasn't a good choice.

Blog traffic is far more valuable than tube traffic, however it's easier to grow in tube (in traffic numbers). It's all a numbers game.

[ClickSniper]

ClickSniper -- I'd like to see a How to Tumblr in the tutorials section, if you don't mind doing a copy paste of your tutorial post in there for posterity!

For sure Bec! Gladly

[Bec]

For sure Bec! Gladly

Thanks so much!! I'm sure it will give a lot of GWW'ers some ideas on how to use Tumblr for marketing~!!

[thejungle]

Hi!
I too have had a look at tumblr but is it just basically a hosted blog platform a-la Wordpress?

Would I be better off creating blogs and sites using WP or Tumblr?

I would have said WP as I have more control and plugins etc but evryone LUVS Tumblr!

[conran]

I have over 100 sites of which 60 blogs. The blogs generate 80% of my income and that's more than what you mentioned in your first post.

Can I ask if they're all self hosted or do you include Tumblr and Blogspot in those? I'm thinking a cross section of all of those might be a good option?

I've recently invested in some new domains in a popular niche that does well for me, so I think I'll be moving more into daily posting across all those domains.