How Much is that Bloggy in the Window?

Do you remember the song "How Much is That Doggy in The Window?" Americans use the phrase to poke fun when they are embarrassed to ask the price of something. The Internet business seem to be embarrassed of prices. You may ask yourself Why? Fees and costs are embarrassing in most business negotiations when a product content or benefit are not well defined. In my opinion the Internet has many amazing capabilities to offer businesses and individuals. So prices and costs should not embarrass consumers or providers of Internet services (i.e. blog design, writing and editing.) Designing and building blogs and social networking accounts is hard work. To some companies a blog is their only Internet presence, they want to make sure the design and the content reflect a professional image. To some business managers defining blog articles require thinking about their strategy first, clearly understanding competitive messages in the market or even a complete organization of corporate communication (goals, ROI, internal cooperation.) On the technical side there are many details to define and implement. Blogs look simple enough from the "front" but a blog server like WordPress or Drupal can become a big site by itself with many discreet elements. Running a big blog is no different than a static web site using a CMS server (Content Management System: large programs to manage high volume content and reader traffic.) Once advertising, linking and social tagging is added, the blog becomes a business tool with management capability, monetizing issues, analytics (tracking and analysis of viewer traffic,) and ongoing comments and links maintenance (image and message maintenance) a blog is real work. It can get complicated if you let it. It can stay simple if you organize, plan and control the content flow, overall message changes and style demands. If you are selling anything on a blog that also means running an order system or linking to one. With merchandise sales other issues like security and order tracking need to be managed. Most companies do not design and deploy a complicated blog in one initial step. The good news: many blog design and operation elements can be added gradually. Also, you can buy services from different specialists and they can work independently of each other. So, how much is that blog? (with that great business advantage?)

Writing, Editing, Articles:

Writers and editors charge between $10 to $50 a page or an hour. The wide variation in price depends on the amount of work (from a single article to a series of 10 to 20 articles,) the specialization and experience of the writer (technical and professional writers can demand professional rates,) and the overall quality, number of review cycles and other factors. You can rate a writer by hour / article / page: each page takes a "working hour" which will make it to the blog as one article. Researched and well developed articles for large blogs can cost $100 each. The articles you see as "the ten best new video apps for the iPhone..." or "ten best boutique hotels in Mumbai" are usually written to order and would cost anywhere from $100 and up. Search for freelance writers on the net and look for portals with rating and past work. Also see if anyone in your business domain can recommend someone. Finally, get recommendations from designers and programmers who work together with writers. A few specialists usually form loose teams and work together well.

Blog Setup:

This is a one time cost and you may need to refresh your look or optimize the database once a year. There are many blog hosting and ready to use design templates. Hosting goes between a few dollars a month up to hundreds of dollars. The price range depends on the quality of service (the reliability of the site's availability on the net) and the amount of storage and network traffic. You can start small and grow as you need. Some companies sell simple blog packages which cost about $100 and have a monthly upkeep of $10 to $50. Freelance sites with registered specialists like oDesk.COM and LivePerson.COM can be a source of designers and programmers to set up a blog site.

If you hire a blogger or a designer to do the work it can cost from $500 to $5,000 and take from days to weeks. It depends on how much you want to customize a design, how much original writing and photo editing needs to be done. The business blog universe is huge and you can choose a blog design from traditional large Internet site design companies all the way to independent home based freelances. A business professor with a long running blog on Type Pad just hired a student in the computer science department to customize and update his site. The first week he complained like crazy, but I encouraged him to stick with the work and see what happens. Two months later he is so happy the student is getting referrals from every friend the professor has. Is the work so exceptional? NO! But a good design to fit your need and good design using standard programming methods can make a difference to writers. Search for freelance writers, designers or programmer on portals and blogs. These reference sites change frequently due to the available freelancers and the market need. (In the early days of blogging - 5 years ago - blogs about blogging were a good source of information, take a look at ProBlogger.COM,Lorelle on WordPress and other similar sites.)

Maintenance, Promotion, Additions:

Maintaining a blog interesting requires a series of ongoing articles. A blog needs at least one article per week. If you have a good writer that gives you material you like you can buy articles by the bulk. Here you will also pay as little as $10 a page (850 words) and up. Even if you buy 20 to 50 articles at one time cost may not go down more than 10% to 20%, remember your are paying for time. If you need images, photography, video or audio services (processing, recording, finding and licensing/acquiring/purchasing) you will also pay from $10 per hour and up. If you are just starting out you may need to try out a few individuals to see which ones fit your needs and style. Styles and experience vary widely, this is what you need to figure out in your selection process. Don't give up too quickly, producing a blog can be a big project to keep going, but in the long run it is worth the effort. Get the right people to do the work and it will work out fine. Blog and single article promotion such as social tagging on Technorati.COM or Digg.COM is a service of upcoming freelancers and companies. Blog promotion can also be in the form of writing guest articles in similar blogs and exchanging links. Finally, you can also purchase SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services where content is tagged and optimized for better ranking in search engine results (Google mainly.) All these are traditional Internet services that can be bought from freelancers and small companies. Here prices vary a great deal but with a small investment of $1,000 you can expect a few thousand additional visitors to your blog. Advertising on Google using AdWords campaigns can be done directly by you or you can hire a Google advertising specialist. Here prices vary due to your specific domain (the words you pick and who is competing with you.) The world of promotion and advertising is a whole universe by itself, so get started and you will be there sooner than you think!

Total Blog Cost:

Adding up the costs you still have a wide range.

• Setup cost:                         $500
• Initial writing cost:         $1,000 (10 long articles)
• Monthly writing cost:       $500 (3 long, 6 short)
• Monthly promotional:     $1,000
• Total monthly:                   $1,500
• 3 Month total cost:           $6,000

This is the low end total cost, if you want more design and other services (longer researched articles, launch promotion) you may want to budget two to three times this amount. Compare this to other business promotional methods (trade shows, fliers, direct mail pieces, e-Mail newsletters, sales visits or channel promotions.) From my experience, you may be getting an impression on a few hundred to a few thousand viewers within three months. That is a great deal more effective than any traditional business promotion method.

NEXT: Timing, Style, Money, Quality...