Blogging for Business vs. Blogging for Self
Our host today is Keith Bloemendaal. If you're interested in getting in front of the readers of Site Sketch 101, check out our guest posting invitation here.
Probably one of the most difficult questions people have to ask themselves when starting and maintaining a blog is whether or not the blog will be personal or business. I treat all of my sites as a business, and while some of them are not directly monetized, or may only have a few ads, there is a business plan for each one. I have seen blogs that claim to be personal, but have ads plastered everywhere and it looks like they are trying to make money on the site (which I have no problem with).
I think there is a difference between a personal site, and a business site. Can you have the best of both in one site? I don’t have the answer for that, but I try to keep them separate.
Business Blog:
A business blog can be a range of types of blogs. Usually I would call a business blog one that has a plan to offer products, affiliates, ads, or to promote an offline business like real estate, contractors, or any other business.
I think that while you should give a business blog some of your personality by doing things like adding your picture and your own personality to the pages. But I also think that if you are serious about making money on a site then you should have a clear plan. I struggle with having a clear plan on a couple of sites, mainly because I haven’t completely figured out how I plan to monetize each one.
Product sites are easy. You have products to sell, so you showcase the products and optimize for search engines for your targeted market. No need to get to personal about it.
Personal Blogs:
Personal blogs to me are ones that write about generic topics and have no plans to monetize. I have seen blogs where the owner claims to have a personal blog so they don’t care about treating it as a business, but they clearly are trying to make money from it with no real business plan.
Examples of a personal blog might be family related blogs, personal ramblings with no real topic, poem blogs, etc… Can these type of blogs become business blogs? Absolutely! But at some point I feel you should differentiate the two models and make a business plan if you are serious about making money with blogging.
Discussion:
I don’t see how you can mix the two. But, that is just me. What do you think? Can you mix business and personal with blogs? Do you have a clear plan for your blog?
Dimi said:
I think there is a lot of blogs that became popular just because the people blogging were being themselves, people liked that and could relate. I do agree however that it is hard to make a business out of blogging about personal rumblings, anything is possible nowadays though right?
I think staying within a niche that you have a passion about, should make it easier to monetizing when the time comes. Your audience will not mind.
Great post though!
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Aminul Islam Sajib said:
Being personal in business blogs is one of the most important requirements in achieving success. If you are not personal, why is blog? Your website is good enough. Hope my point is clear.
Adrienne said:
I’m working on changing from a personal to a business blog. It’s been a good change so far.
I’ve been reading everything I can about the subject.
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Aminul Islam Sajib said:
No doubt personal blogging is also fun. I think should all bloggers out there should maintain a personal blog too, which is sure to help them improve their writing speed and quality.
And, when a personal blog gets huge audience, I think it’s fair to start monetizing it.
Robyn from Sam's Web Guide said:
Very interesting article Keith.
I think personal and business can be mixed on a blog. Its just the nature of blogging.
A blogger can post daily stories from his life and the readers just love it, feel inspired and spread the word. So the blog has amazing traffic and opportunities for advertising arise. The blogger now makes money by inspiring others through his personal stories.
For blogging to be successful, there needs to be a general plan; business or personal.
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Keith said:
I agree that a certain level of personality can help a site, but talking about my daughter on my fence products blog wouldn’t appeal to the readers there.
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Glen said:
I think a lot of people start off with a personal blog and later turn it into a business blog.
Initially most people don’t have the authority required to make money from their blogs but over time their authority on a topic grows as does the potential to make money.
I get where you are coming from. You are (were) using your blog to sell products you had expertise in.
But for someone like a Chris Brogan how could you sell a product like social media until you built authority through blogging about it for years..
Keith said:
Chris Brogan is a perfect example, while he may have had to work up to his level of authority, I can promise you there was a business plan from the start.
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Glen said:
Thanks for the clarification Keith.
I get what you are saying now..
Jennae @ Green Your Decor said:
I agree that very personal blogs can be somewhat difficult to monetize, but I also believe that business blogs can be made very personal. I knew that I wanted to monetize my blog from the very beginning, so I always treated it as a business, starting off with a product blog model. However, I also noticed that writing JUST about the products, with no personality attached, was getting me nowhere. My blog didn’t start to take off until I started putting a LOT more of myself into it. And now, my readers know just as much, if not more, about ME as they do about my blog. And I love that balance
And because I am in such a specific niche, I have become an authority on my subject that my readers listen to.
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Keith said:
Perfect example here, yes you need to add your own personality to a blog (I believe), but if you are serious about turning it into an income stream, then a plan from the start will help in achieving those goals.
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MariamCisse said:
I think it all start with an idea. And if the idea is to run a business one day, then you start blogging in a completely different way.
In my opinion you cam combine business blogging and personal blogging, but it depends on the niche you’re in.If you’re into photography for example, why not monetizing even if it’s more of a personal thing? There are so many advertisers out there that are willing to pay someone who’s into that topic no matter if it’s a business or personal blog. But you’re delivering to their targeted audience.
I started blogging in order to make my dream come true and to figure out what kind of person I am. And now I’m about to found a business. I always treated my blog as that because I wanted it to become a business.
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Dennis Edell said:
A TRUE personal blog that talks about Mom being bitchy, the cat vomiting on the dog and the dog peeing on the cat…
No.
Then you have the “Personal Business Blog”; one of the most popular being Caroline Middlebrook.
On these they talk about the journey from start to finish.
Most end up turning these into really bad MMO blogs, but the real ones merely talk about – I haven’t done this yet, this is what I want to do, I’ll let you know how it turns out….etc.
Those are clear differences to me.
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Gautam Hans @ Blog Godown said:
I had the same problem at first, I was not able to monetize, but now i have a pla and so i am able to make some money out of my blog
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Dana @ Blogging Update said:
I think It is can not mix but It may be some personal blog can make a decent money. Of course, that personal blog will be make more if treat as business.
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Eric said:
Haven’t been around for a while with the birth of our first born daughter and baby in general.
I think you can have both but I also feel it helps to have a particular plan and idea for each one. If it’s business, add a bit of personality but keep it professional so that business gets done. Keep the money coming in by providing unlimited value as much as possible.
If it’s personal then keep it that way unless you want to start making money. At that point, announce it so it’s not a shock to everyone and again, add personality but keep it professional from that point on.
What does everyone think?
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Nathan Hangen said:
Don’t know how I didn’t find this one before Keith, but my favorite line was:
“I don’t see how you can mix the two.”
and I agree.
My position is that many of the people that say they’re doing it for fun are really business bloggers that use “hobby blogging” as an excuse in case they fail and as a result, they never move to the next level.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Nathan Hangen » That’s so incredibly true. That really sums it up perfectly. In their fear of failure, people are holding themselves back in the way that will actually help result in their failure.
MariamCisse said:
Attention please! The master himself is talking
No worries, Nathan is one of my menthors so I think I can get away with teasing him;)
But yes, I agree. It’s always easy to hide behind “just for fun”. You’re not taking any responsibilities and have always someone to blame, except yourself.
I learned that lesson too. But I’m thankful because that’s been the kick in my oh so sexy butt I needed to grow and realize what the real life is about.
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Martin said:
Very interesting and relevant for me at this point in my blog life! I am truly a hobby blogger who has just recently been hired by a few companies to build them a rather generic, staight forward website. The income made me think about expanding!
As you’ll see from my site though, it is still a mixture of my life and my services. Honestly because my time is so limited, I don’t want to maintain seperate sites. So my idea is to simply develop my name as my brand (I have a catchy name if I do say so myself), and really just develop business clients locally with a personal touch.
If I build 3 or 4 websites per year this will pay for our vacations to Florida and that suits me fine!:)