Technical Difficulty
The difficulty of setting up and running these types of sites is almost identical. I would recommend using WordPress as your platform either way and as far as structure goes, there is little difference between these approaches.
Pre-profit Workload
Either approach will require significant work before profits come. I would argue that most bloggers will have to work a lot more to become profitable since most bloggers don’t have an effective plan of attack. However, that doesn’t mean that blogging has to require more work before profitability. People who understand fully how to use both approaches could make either plan work, with about the same amount of pre-profit work.
The glaring differences here are what tasks will have to be done to create profit AND the level of expertise required to create profit.
A blogger will be spending most of their pre-profit time nurturing readers and trying to find new ones. This will require regular posting and interaction. On the other hand, a supersite owner will spend most of their time building traffic: doing keyword research, writing relevant articles, and getting links. A blogger could definitely use the tasks of the supersite owner to improve their blog, but that would increase the amount of pre-profit workload beyond that of a supersite owner.
Some of the more effective bloggers I know started their blogs with a supersite approach. This means that they started off with the intent of building organic traffic first and THEN posted regularly and interacted to develop relationships with their existing traffic base. Other people I know started off with this intention but found themselves happy with the passive nature of the supersite and never made the change to a full-blown blog.
Passive Nature
There’s no real argument here between the passive nature of these types of sites. Blogs really aren’t passive at all. You simply can’t go months at a time without posting on a blog and maintain the income levels you achieved when you nurtured your audience. Supersites are very passive in nature. The income is based primarily on search traffic converting to sales, clicks, or leads.
Upside
Blogs have a tremendous upside because of their list-building capabilities. If you’re able to establish a large readership, it becomes possible to produce remarkable amounts of income. This is especially true for those who understand how to develop/earn trust. A supersite can’t really provide the same combination of list-building and trust and for that reason, a blog will have more upside for people with the necessary talents.
Something that a lot of people don’t really consider before starting a blog is that you have to establish a lot of expertise to make a blog work. The blogosphere is really competitive and there are a lot of people out there who have a lot of talent. You will have to stand out as a blogger to reach your profit potential. Some of you will be able to produce more income with supersites for this reason. If you question your ability to influence, I would recommend starting with a supersite approach and moving on to a blog after you understand more fully what you’re getting yourself into.
Emotional Difficulty
Both of these approaches have emotional aspects that have to be overcome, but there’s no question about which one is more difficult. When you blog, you interact constantly with your readership and some of that readership will be negative. No matter how much expertise you develop, you will have people who disagree with what you have to say. The more successful you become, the more you will be attacked. If you achieve any kind of success, you will be criticized.
With both of these approaches, there is another kind of emotional difficulty – the fact that you will have to work for free for a while. This causes us a lot of problems. We’re taught to trade time for money and we aren’t taught what it takes to start businesses. People generally start to panic when they are starting any type of business. Why? Because they are wired/nurtured/taught to trade time for money. This is something that you will have to learn to overcome no matter which approach you choose.
Tags: blogging, supersites
I definitely prefer the approach of doing keyword research, writing relevant articles, and getting links over nurturing readers and trying to find new ones. It’s less work and typically more profitable.
I disagree with you Court on the statement “you need to keep posting to make money” – Griz is on record more than once saying that he makes more money when he doesn’t post – of course he does get a lot of search traffic …
I also am not sure about the “list” thing – it depends on the niche as suppose but I don’t think in IM anyone really takes the guru regular emails seriously anymore. I know several successful bloggers (again Griz is one) that have no list at all
Lis this actually proves my point exactly – I would argue that Griz’s sites are more like static supersites!
I agree. Griz uses blog platforms but I’d say they are more like static sites than blogs in the way he runs them and builds them.
I guess it depends on what type of blog you run. Most of my blogs get 70-80% of their traffic from search engines, so I could continue making a lot of money for a long time without updating. One of my blogs I haven’t touched since last august just had its best month ever.
Well explained.Keyword research is the first thing to do before adding content on any site. But however i feel that the promotional methods of any site are similar wether its a supersite / blog…
Court,
Interesting discussion but I think the best approach here is to mix the two approaches and start as a blog, but change it into a supersite over time.
With the way I run my site, there’s basically no distinction between the two – every article is written to have long-term value, there are no dates, and I only update it a few times a month. In the future it might become mostly static, though I’ll probably keep comments enabled.
As internet marketers, I don’t think we should be trying to be the next Techcrunch – we should be focused on long-term value, search traffic, list-building and conversion either to our own products or to affiliate offers.
Blogs are actually great for this because it’s so easy to get search traffic. Interestingly, I noticed that even when I don’t update or write anything new for long stretches, my sales don’t fall at all – probably because 70% of traffic comes from search.
Later this year I’m planning to make things even more automated by introducing an autoresponder newsletter to drive traffic and conversions and give the illusion of frequent updates.
I know that’s an advanced topic, but I would love to read more of your thoughts on doing what I described above and morphing a blog into a supersite over time.
For newbies I definitely recommend some small blog sites to get your feet wet. I started out with an authority site in a crowded niche and failed miserably. So now I’m trying some small stuff to see what sticks.
While keyword research is definitely important, I would like to add continuous action on top of the list. I’m certain a great deal of newbies struggle with analysis paralysis. Start with small list (10 or so) keywords and start typing away. Then find another 10 keywords and start typing away. Over time, the big G will find you and then write articles on those search terms.
There’s a difference between using a Blogging Platform (blogger,WP) and Blogging. Using a blogging platform just eases the whole mission of creating a website – considerably.
Once you’ve got a few main pages up, it’s up to you to decide if you want it to be a Blog (by continually posting) or whether you just add a new page now and then and leave it mostly static. Probably a happy medium would be the best answer.
I’m definitely geared more towards a supersite model, but I’m trying my hand at blogging for interaction also, tackling subject matter I know very well.
Started several small niche sites to get into the groove, we’ll see where it takes me.
Looking forward to the challenges, and the design aspects alone intrigue me enough to keep me interested throughout the process…