Greenguy's Board - Human run blogs?

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Human run blogs?

Do you find human run blogs are worth the time and energy to run them?

do you use many RSS blogs? do they work for you?

what tools could we offer that you might like, or need?

I'm putting together a monthly 'blogger pack' that I can email out to help webmasters put together human posts, but I'm not sure if there is a demand for that type of product.

In my experience, RSS fed blogs tend to be ignored by Google. If you can get good traffic from other sources, RSS blogs work fine. My SEO knowledge is very limited, but it just seems Google likes generous amounts of original text that makes sense.

I have a network of sblogs in addition to hand written ones. On the handwritten ones we often start off with a feed and then rewrite the text. Can't say I notice a much of difference as far as traffic or sales between the two.

I just started a mainstream blog that is all hand written and original content. It's less than a month old so too soon to tell how well it will do but so far it is getting listed in Goolge regularly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by James_HotMovies (Post 509000)

I find it helpful to either combine the RSS with orginal posts or take the feed and rewrite it till you have about 30% original content. You can also use plugins to find, replace, and relink like wp-o-matic

but are they worth the time and energy? are there any humans out there still making money?

I have a blog network and it probably makes 1k a month, but when I look at the amount of time it takes to run the network it makes me question. I'm doing better on Google then ever before, maybe my blog network is a part of that. tough to know the hidden value of a blog.

Human blogs have their place in the blogging world and yes, they are worth putting the time into and nurturing. They take time and attract a different type of surfer. You have blogs designed for the impulse buyer, get them to the sponsor site as quickly as possible. Then you have those types of blogs where surfers want to bookmark, come back frequently too, and you kind of build a relationship, trust type of thing with them. It just takes time to build them, but once one gets a loyal base, these people buy from you and often.

Some webmasters probably overlook the type of blog you want to nurture, spend time growing and build a loyal following because they are not instant gratification. They are not instant money earners. But if people add a blog or two that needs some care and time to grow into their mix of other types of blogs and promotions, it works. Short term money earners, impulse buyer blogs, mixed with slow growth, long term sales type blogs isn't a bad thing and worth trying.

Sponsors probably don't encourage them because they want the instant gratification too. They shouldn't be overlooked though. Don't have an affiliate base their entire promotional plan on them, but don't ignore these types of blogs though either.

are any of you actually making any money with human blogs?

I'm making money with my blogs. They are a mix of rewritten RSS feeds, sbolgs and totally hand written blogs so it's hard to know exactly percent of sales are coming from each but the combo of all is profitable and not really that much work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by James_HotMovies (Post 509352)

are any of you actually making any money with human blogs?

Yes

My handwritten ones do significantly better than rss-feeders ...i´d say yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hincapie (Post 509485)

My handwritten ones do significantly better than rss-feeders.

I must confirm that handwritten ones could get clicks from Google pretty easilly, in the other side automated blogs (or blogs with sponsor descriptions) obviously have a problem. The question is, how many % of non-unique text is acceptable within the one blog.