Really lost here and in need of help, any help -

I've been lurking this fantastic forum for the last couple of days and, tbh, am still very overwhelmed and feel inundated with a lot of good info. It's just a little hard for me to put it all together.


A person I know has a blogspot where she posts regularly. She has a rather large following, that all are all very real and engaged (the comments section often has 100+ responses). The blog is simply about her life and the very interesting [and LEGAL] work she does. She's a character for sure.


She has yet to monetize it as she is quite busy and is not interested in doing so. She has not done any work at all to bring traffic to the site. That has simply never been her intention as she simply has [up 'till now] merely enjoyed blogging about her life and trials and tribulations. She has legitimately built a following. Has never done anything in the way of whitehat, blackhat, or anything even remotely resembling either of the two. However, after some discussion she has decided to hand over the reigns to me - for a small price - so that I may start to actually monetize this thing. She doesn't care really. Note, this will be mine, I will own it. But I will pay her a tiny amount to make posts throughout the week.

What would be the optimal way of going about this? She has enough followers whereby a messageboard/forum could work and have regular users. Would this be of any benefit? Should I set up a new website with a new domain name or would it be optimal to leave it alone as a blogspot?

I'm just not sure with what to do first here - How do I proceed? I really don't know which direction I should take this. Is there anything I should absolutely be doing, and something I should definitely NOT be doing?

ETA: She also told me that, in between blog entries, the blog gets about 2-4k hits. I asked her to go more into detail like how many unique visitors and the like but she just didn't know or didn't care to look at the time.

I would monetise it with offer within the niches and see how it goes


You can even put adsense on the site to see how it convert


Second. You need to be tracking the traffic and analyze it

Lol, OP you are sitting on a treasure. I may offer you 4 approaches:

1- Adsense
2- Clickbank (you may even sell your product)
3- Amazon
4- Building your own online store.

Skype me for help.

Would you guys keep the blog where it is currently on blogspot or would you create a new domain?

ugh, she informed me today that sometime a while back she was banned by Google (Adsense) for making her blog private for a few days for which she did not realize was a violation of the TOS.

Would I be able to add Adsense under a new name? This is the first major decision and I am already having trouble lol.

I don't know, it just seems like creating a new website with a more optimal name would be better.

Whatever monetization methods you use, start slowly. You don't want to alienate those 4K visitors with a ton of new ads. Analyze the traffic stats and then proceed gradually. Good luck!

New domain? Yeah, that would be better. Redirect the URL to the new domain. With Blogger, Big G can just shut down the blog anytime it wants. Keep in mind, of course, you'll be out a little money for domain, private registration, hosting, etc. But at least it'll be your own site.

Buy a domain and host it urself


After that sign up for adsense under different name and address


Blend ads and track traffic

Ok, so, I'll be buying a new domain. Hostgator still the place to go for this?

Since this is genuinely my very first time setting up a new domain, is there anything else I need to add-on when I am purchasing the domain. I know there are several options you can add, but it seems a lot of those are just a waste of money? I'm not scared of spending money of course but I don't want to throw away money on something I don't really need, y'know? Is it as simple as: --> choose domain name --> Hosting --> Finished?

After that, I'll be setting up Adsense. As well as analyzing and tracking traffic. Anything else I should have up on the site besides Adsense, or will that be too much all at once like MMblack mentioned?

Man I really have so many questions, and to be honest, a lot of them are just so simple you'd think I was an idiot. Sigh. So, apologies for that I guess.

I will pour money into the site as long as it is worthy and will bring in new traffic and income; what else should I be doing to bring in new traffic? Any ideas just throw them out there to me or just direct me to a place where I can look myself.

ETA: What is meant by "blend ads"

I'm struggling with whether to actually move ahead and purchase this blog. I'd be paying ~$110 for the actual blogspot but she's agreed to blog a new site that I will create. I will be paying her ~$50/month to blog on the new website as well. And of course I will have the old blog re-direct to the new website, which won't be a blogspot. I'll also be adding a messageboard/forum as she has many active followers/readers/lurkers who really love posting A LOT in the comments section of every blog entry she makes.

Today, she gave me a Google Analytics report, but it is not very thorough and thus probably provides no value to me but I'll post it here anyway in case someone can get something from it. Also, her Alexa rank is ~4,000,000 if that is significant in the least, which I highly doubt.

This is what she sent me. However I am not even sure what time period this is supposed to represent. She ran the report last night. This is only some of it.



-----------

The report also displays her keywords but there does not appear to be anything of value there.
She's the type who can be very abrasive. However, people like her story and she has people actively engaged in her day-to-day life. I fear, however, that it may just be the same 50-100 people that visit her blog over and over and I just don't know if there is much money to be made off of that. Though there is definitely room for more traffic assuming I actually try.

What do you guys think? Worth it?

How actionable is the blog ? by which I mean is it a money term, are her readers potential customers or just readers ?

If this was a girl who blogged about shoes and handbags(for example) and she had thousands of readers and hundreds of contributors then this is a goldmine(and I wouldnt bother with adsense I would be thinking amazon reviews etc). On the other hand if its just a journal it might be hard to convert readers into buyers.