Five Dangers of Tenant Blogging
Feb 7th, 2009 | By admin | Category: A.B.C. OF BLOGGING
Having shown you the MINDSET of a successful and prosperous blogger last week, now, I am going to show you the booby-trap lurking on your way to monetized and prosperous blogging. Remember, that I defined a Tenant Blogger as an amateur blogger who is dwelling in a free-host blogging platform.
In sharp contrast, a landlord blogger is one who registered and paid for his or her own domain name, and also for hosting it. A landlord blogger does not exist at the mercy of anybody. All the labor of a landlord blogger goes directly into building his or her web reputation, blog traffic, blog rank, blog authority and brand name, in the blogosphere.
There are two schools of thought. One says you need the tenant blogging to practice and make your mistakes in blogging before transiting to landlord blogging. Another says it is better to start with landlord blogging and make all your mistakes there while perfecting your blogging and optimization skills.
I belong to the second school because, landlord blogging does not drop from the sky, and it is a learning process you must go through. Why waste precious time learning about tenant blogging (which is limited in scope and not so profitable), when you can learn the ‘real thing’ and begin making good money sooner online.
PRE- BLOGGING DANGERS
All the free blogging platforms are Pre-Blogging experimentation ground. But I always advise my students and corporate clients never to dwell too long on any free-hosting platform.
The fact that Robert Kiyosaki, the foremost American investor and mentor on Rich dad Poor dad, came to use free blog platform in March 2008 is no justification for you to use it. He came there purposely for social networking with his investment fans, not for making money. In your case your first goal is to make money online with blogging, so, don’t copy Kiyosaki.
These are the five dangers associated with tenant blogging:
1. Vanity of Labor
The first disadvantage of Tenant blogging is that, it is laboring to increase the rank, traffic, reputation, authority and brand name of the hosting platform to your own detriment.
If such free labours were invested into self-hosted or paid hosted blog, the speed of promotion of that blog’s authority would be great and fully rewarding. I know of some of my students who applied my teachings and got promoted by Google to page rank 5 in three months! That is a rank higher than most newspapers and banks websites in Nigeria today!
I always advise my students and corporate clients never to turn the shadow of tenant blogging into a substance.
2. Lose Alexa Rank:
Another danger of free hosted blogging platforms is that, when eventually you decide to transfer to your own paid hosted blog, you will lose all your former blog ranks, like Alexa & Technorati ranks.
The only thing you can carry over is your former content and not your former credits or attributes. In this blogging business, those credits and rankings are what separate the ‘boys’ from the ‘men’, also separating poor pre-bloggers from 4-figure or 5-figure bloggers!
3. Lose Blog Authority:
Blog authority acquired over months and years of blogging is not transferable. It is only your personal reputation as a blogger that you can carry over, even then, it would take time before the new blog can measure up to your reputation. That is why it is better to take off from the beginning with landlord blogging.
4. Lose Subscribers
A good blog would naturally have followership of loyal fans. That followership, which is openly flaunted in your feed counts, particularly when you have over 700 syndicated feed subscribers, is a cool source on money for you. If you have such followership on your tenant blog, it is unfortunate because you cannot transfer that followership to your landlord blog when you want to begin to make real money, you will automatically lose those precious subscribers once you transfer. There is no carry-over.
5. Can’t Sell Your Blog
The 5th danger of free hosted blog platform is that, you cannot sell your blog. In the Blogosphere, (old wines are sweeter), the older your blog, the more profitable and attractive it becomes to internet marketers and Dot Com merchants, who may want to buy it.
These are a group of web professionals who may not know how to build a successful blog from the scratch like you are trying to do now, but once it is successful, they know how to sustain and increase that success.
A free hosted blog cannot be sold because it is not yours; you are merely a ‘tenant’ dwelling freely in another man’s house, which you cannot sell without his consent.
Recently, two of my blogging friends sold their less-than-one-year-old blogs. One for U$D 20,000 and the other for U$D 15,000. It is like a stock you acquired last year at almost =N=25,000 (that is the standard cost of setting up a landlord blog), and now disposing it for over =N=2 million Naira. That is almost 10,000% gain in one year!
A big multinational media-buying organization approached me in April this year (2008), to buy one of my blogs for, 1 Million Naira. I would have sold, but for the legal clause which stated that, I cannot build another blog for the next 3 years, to avoid rivalry and competition.
I was not prepared for a 3 year sabbatical from blogging (if I had accepted, I would not be here today writing and showing you the tips of making money online with blogging), nor was I ready for premature retirement from blogging, so, I rejected the offer. I told them to pay me =N=36 million upfront, to take me out of circulation from the blogosphere for the next 36 months.
LANDLORD BLOGGING
All the rewards (monetary, ranking, branding etc.) of landlord blogging come directly to him or her. A landlord blogger has every right to offer for sale and sell his or her blog in the market place of the blogosphere. Next week I would continue with the thrilling experience of Landlord blogging, and how to be a landlord blogger.
I am also looking forward to a swell time meeting you at the BLOGGING TO THE BANK SEMINAR on Saturday, June 28th, 2008. Register now, before the D-Day. It is only =N=10,000.00
HAPPY & PROSPEROUS BLOGGING!
_________________________________________________________________
Aderemi Ojikutu is the Chief Blogging Officer (CBO) of Blogging Resources International Ventures.
Telephone: +234-7033342535 ceo@web-konsult.com
(Member of the Search Engine Strategies International Group) SES
