Apr
Quantifying online success
Mark’s been talking a little of late about the defining or quantifying of the success (or not) of our online ventures.
It’s a fascinating question, to which I’ve directed a lot of thought over the last year or so.
I guess the first question I would ask is what am I trying to achieve with my online (ad)ventures?
I guess for me, I have different definitions for success for different websites:
- I have one site which brings in over 80% of my AdSense income (around $1.50 a day). I do absolutely nothing to maintain this site (it’s a true AIS’er), and it nets me around $45 a month. I keep telling myself I need to add more content to make more money, but am not sure how to tackle this. This site is close to my heart, as it deals with the health issues from which I suffer. I define this site as a success, as about ten pages brings in over $400 a year.
- I have this blog, to which I apply very different criteria to define success. With this blog, it’s all about readership, feed readers, and whether I can engage readers. The funny thing is that although I’m not really trying to make money here (I gave up on that a while ago), I’ve landed two text-link-ads advertisers which earns me about the same as the above-mentioned site does in AdSense earnings.
- I have another blog which I’ve recently started. It’s an Australian political / news / media commentary type blog, which I’ll send some link love from here to once I have a dozen or so articles posted. I’ll look at ways to possibly monetise this blog once it has some regular readers. But again, it’s more about the content than the money.
I’m actually letting a pile of domains go as they expire at the moment. Just a stack of MFA’s and the like, which I don’t love, so off they go.
Overall, I’m not looking to make a living with my online (ad)ventures, so I can be a bit more blase about whether they make money or not. I’m having fun writing in two blogs I enoy on a personal level, the opportunity to make a buck or two is purely gravy.
2 comments so far
[...] I first read about this topic from Mark at 45n5 (and his guest post on Blogtrepreneur), and later from Stu at Pimp My Page Rank in my feed reader. I can’t really agree with Mark 100% as he seems focused on money earned as their primary measurement of success in his online ventures. Stu is closer to my way of thinking- it appears that his sites such as his blog on health issues that he has first hand experience with and his PMPR blog are both first are foremost about sharing knowledge and engaging readers- money earned comes a distant second. [...]
[...] As I wrote in a previous post. I now have the best of both worlds. I keep the blogs I love, and use them as a form of self-expression, I get a payment from adsense every couple of months, text-link-ads are nice enough to drop some cash in my paypal account once a month, and I get to take Mrs. PMPR out for dinner. [...]
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