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A Great Business Idea: Outsourced Blog Updating

Author Cameron Martel

Part One: Business Overview

Blogging is big business. In fact, I can list over over 50 people that I know personally that are making six figures or more per year from their network of blogs, and almost all of them started from nothing. The beauty of the internet is that it doesn’t always take money to make money, and that’s why this business idea is laser-targeted towards the online market: you can start up for no cost and keep all revenue that you bring in.

The Business Overview:

As the blogging community continues to expand there are going to be a core group of people - probably around 1% or so - who are going to become moderately to significantly successful at developing an income from their blog. Websites such as AffiliateWeb (www.affiliateweb.org), Shoemoney (www.shoemoney.com), and John Chow (www.johnchow.com) are all examples of blogs that are making money.

You can take advantage of this in a couple of different ways:

1. Make money with your own blog - This seems to be the most obvious route to take, but it’s also the most difficult. Unless you have SEO experience you will probably never be able to generate any income that’s worth mentioning.
2. Market a product to successful blog owners - Those that can’t do teach, remember? If you are unable to make your own blog make money that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. Start marketing a product to blog owners who are making money and in turn reap the rewards of their success.The only product that I can see maintaining any value to a blog owner is an updating service.

The Product:

An updating service does exactly what the name implies: you update the blog according to a predetermined schedule. If you have negotiated daily updates, for example, you will go in and update the blog once daily. The actual specifics of the updates would also be determined between you and the client.

This product is feasible so long as you have half-decent grammatical sense and are able to write fluently in whatever language the blog is being written in. Writing the updates yourself also provides an immediate income as you simply pay yourself whatever you negotiated with the client, and it has the ability to be scaled up by the inclusion of a third-party content provider (such as www.communicatebetter.org).

Advertising and Promotion:

The first few clients would likely have to be self-generated, meaning that you’re going to have to hard-sell a few successful bloggers into trying out your new service. You are going to have to market yourself in order to generate these clients. Inexpensive and effective marketing can be done via:

• Forum postings - On related forums that allow advertising you will be able to promote your services. A quality introduction and sales copy, along with low initial prices, will bring a few clients your way.
• Website - You will need a website (if you don’t have one now, spend the $10.99 a month at Crucial Web Hosting (affiliate link) and get all the hosting you’ll ever need). Having a website set up that displays your products, prices, and a bit of well-written content will surely convert prospective clients into paid clients. If you sign up for Crucial Web Hosting under my affiliate link I’ll even offer my assistance with the website design and content*.
• PPC/Paid traffic - This will only work if you have a website set up. Sending targeted traffic to your website is like sending people looking to buy a car into a car dealership- it just makes money. You’d be surprised at how many successful people there are out there trying to find reliable outsourced solutions.
• Kijiji/Craigslist - There’s nothing better for immediate profits than free advertising, and both Kijiji (www.kijiji.com) and Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) are free classified ad websites that receive tons of traffic. Offer your services in the appropriate section and you’re sure to pick up a few clients.

Revenue/Profit Potential:

Ahh, this is what you’ve been waiting for isn’t it? The potential revenue for this type of business is actually quite high, and since your operating costs are effectively zero you’re really setting yourself up to score big on the profit side of things.

Revenue is dependent entirely on how much you charge, and there’s no set pricing in place for this kind of business as of yet. Experience has shown that charging around $200 for 20 updates a month (one every business day) seems to be the most appealing to bloggers from both a price and function perspective. 10 clients like this equates to $2,000 a month, and every cent of that is profit.

Your income simply lies on your ability to generate clients at higher prices and your ability to scale. If things go well enough you may need to hire an employee or two of your own.

Doing some basic number math:

• 10 clients at $200 a month - $2,000 in total revenue. The price is probably low enough that many people will be attracted to it, yet it is high enough that there is value for you to attract clients.
• 10 clients at $300 a month - $3,000 in total revenue. Offering the same package but being able to charge more will offer an immediate increase in income without increasing your workload.
• 25 clients at $200 a month - $5,000 in total revenue. This sounds like a very reasonable and achievable goal, and it’s only around 6-7 hours a day of work (assuming you don’t mess around).

*please e-mail me at cmartel@greatbizideas.org with the date/time that you signed up for a new web hosting account so I may verify it’s legitimacy.

Have something to say about this idea? Leave a comment- we’d love to hear it!