You probably read one or more blogs , at least from time to time. A blog, also called a weblog or web log, is a diary of entries, usually presented on the Web in reverse chronological order. You may even write your own blog. The subject matter of blogs varies wildly, from general rants and raves, to blogs about relationships, to blogs more-or-less devoted to specific technologies, such as my Googleplex Blog (when I don't get too carried away with tangents, my blog is about Google's technology, searching, and research on the Web).
If you think that blogs about a specific subject are an ideal (although narrow) venue for targeted advertising content, you are quite right. Unlike opinion sites that are basically online magazines, blogs are a specifically web phenomenon (sometimes collectively referred to as the blogosphere ). A variety of software mechanisms such as the ability to automatically collect track back links in a blog entry, meaning links to sites or blogs that discuss the original entry make blogging an extremely effective and versatile mechanism for publishing content on the Web. Syndication built into most blog content management software such as Movable Type or WordPress allows easy distribution of the content.
All is not perfect in paradise, though, and there are some problems with blogging as a vehicle for making money from your content. First, there are so many blogs. It's easy to create a blog using hosted services such as Google's Blogger or Six Apart Software 's community sites Type Pad and Live Journal. (Six Apart is the publisher of Movable Type blogging software.)
But it's hard to stand out from the mass of blogs and generate notice and traffic. See Chapter 2 for some ideas about how to drive traffic to a blog and Chapter 10 for information about how to purchase traffic for a blog using Google's AdWords contextual advertising program.
Next, the fact that blogs are essentially unvetted and unedited makes some advertisers leery about placing ads on these sites. If you do expect to make money from advertising on your blog, it's a good idea to be careful with spelling, punctuation, and the overall presentation issues involved with writing.
Finally, most bloggers use hosted blogging services such as Blogger, so they don't have to worry about configuring or maintaining their own blogging software. Installing software like Movable Type is tricky enough that Six Apart, the company that wrote the software, will get it going for you on your own web server for a fee.
But the problem with having a hosted blog is that generally it's not up to you to place advertising on it. If there is contextual advertising, the revenue may go to the blog host. So if you plan to make money from blogging content, you need to either set up your own blogging server software or work with a specialized web hosting organization that handles the technical end of things but still lets you profit from advertising.
"The problem of losing control of the revenue potential of hosted sites can be presented in contexts other than blogging. For example, many smaller e-commerce web sites outsource order processing and shopping cart functionality. This often makes practical sense, but may mean that these pages are no longer available for advertising or that the advertising and profits are controlled by the host rather than you."
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