Getting on for three years ago I started an experiment in writing a blog.   It started from scratch in a completely new field – nothing to do with direct mail, email marketing and all the things I do in my business life.  I just wanted to see what could be achieved.

During the past week I’ve had three different high profile companies offering me money to have their product mentioned within an article on the site.  The income is not huge – a few hundred dollars – but it is another small indicator that suggests that the world of blogs is constantly moving in a direction of its own.  In July this year the number of hits per month went over 300,000 for the first time.

Of course when it comes to web sites what we are all used to seeing are banner adverts, but the truth is that most sites that take such adverts find that the adverts themselves don’t bring in much money.

But product placement seems to be growing, and is a much more effective approach.  One company we trade simply emails us each week with a list of links that they have to individual words on my blog.  If I agree, they do all the technical stuff, and simply add the sum (just £20 each time).  All I have to do is click a button saying yes, that word can be linked to their client’s site.

As I said, not huge money, but it is growing – and the site is now earning a decent sum from advertising.  In addition it earns some money from product sale (I wrote a book relating to the site) and there is a real sense that this whole business is growing.

If you don’t have a blog, and would like to see another very contrasting blog looks like, try these:

They could not be more different, and while I would say that with the former, a glance at one article will give you a clear indication what it is all about, with the latter (which is the original blog I set up, just to find out how it can be done) the articles are so varied, (and we have so many guest writers now) that you might want to skim through a couple.

If you would like to set up a blog for the first time http://www.hamilton-house.com/blogs might help.  If you are already at this stage and want to go further forward, just let me know the details of your blog, I’ll have a look, and see if I can offer any suggestions.

Tony