Blogussion

Building and maintaining a quality blog can be costly in both time and money. Many bloggers dream of creating fantastic content about the subject they love and perhaps even making some pocket money from their efforts.

In this article, we examine a case study of a banking/pension annuity news blog that had to find alternative ways of generating revenues to support its content creation after steadily declining Adwords revenues.

The blog: Banking Times

The Banking Times website has been online since 2007, writing original news stories on topics from the banking and finance industry. Recently it has had a particular focus on pension annuities, annuity rates, and pension provider news. It has a small team of three writers that each contribute around 5-8 posts per week, about half on banking and personal finance topics and the other half related to pension annuities.

According to Geoff, one of the editorial team, the site generates around 500 visits per day. In 2011, the team had to start exploring alternative ways of financing the site after seeing a steady decline in advertising revenues from Google Adwords. They considered the traffic that they were receiving and came to the conclusion that their audience was of value to some companies in the finance industry.

One of the editorial staff said he had a good friend who worked in the personal finance lead generation industry and that they would be interested in helping revive the site’s monetization methods. This company provided leads, including pension reviews, annuity quotes and IFA leads to Independent Financial Advisors throughout the UK.

The company suggested that the Banking Times install some lead generation forms on their website, such as an annuity calculator, pension providers comparisons, and an annuity rates form. Keen on finding alternatives to Adwords dependency, the Banking Times team jumped at the chance.

Successful Partnership

The deal meant that the Banking Times would get a commission from every qualified lead that was completed through the annuity calculator or annuities comparison forms.

So far, the partnership has been beneficial for both parties and allowed the Banking Times team to continue to focus on its main goal of creating great news content for its readers. “We have been generating enough money now to support the website running costs and provide a small regular payment to our writers for their efforts.”

Look for Alternative Revenue Streams

If you are in a similar position as the Banking Times was at one stage, consider looking for alternative ways to monetize your blog or website. Consider who your visitors are valuable to. For example, if you run a blog on fly fishing, you may look to companies who sell fishing tackle or tours and explore ways that you can help them reach potential customers amongst your traffic.

Even if your current revenue streams, be it advertising, affiliate schemes or otherwise, are providing you with enough cash flow to support your site, always keep an eye out for more options because you never know when they’ll come in handy.

It is always wise to diversify, particular in an environment as fast moving and volatile as the internet.

Image credits: Eyes4tech.com, Reviewandassesment.Com