In June, I retired my blog Back in
Skinny Jeans which was a popular and high traffic blog by an individual in the
healthy living niche. In the blog's goodbye post, "When It's Time to Let Go of the Skinny Jeans,"
I shared the emotional and mental reasons behind my decision to retire the blog.
Today, I'd like to share some of the
business reasons behind my decision because I think it's a good reminder that
when you make money from your blogging you are not only a blogger but a
business owner as well. From my observations, the bloggers who operate
understanding this fact are the ones who end up making more money, growing
their brands, and landing opportunities that extend into bigger media.
As well, it is a balancing act being
a content creator, a more right-brain activity, and a business owner, a more
left-brain activity all in the same body. As many of you know, it's not easy to
be 2-in-1 like that. Most of us tend to favor or be much better at one activity
over the other.
To give you a better picture of the business side of Back in Skinny Jeans, here are some key stats over the blog's life, 3 years and 8 months:
-
Almost 3 million lifetime page views
- Over 12 million page views of Back in Skinny Jeans
posts featured via Blogburst on various mainstream media sites like Fox
News, USA Today, iVillage, and Livestrong.
- Over 22K RSS subscribers
- Top in search results for key words including: jeans (BISJ at one point was the first blog to appear in a "jeans" search), skinny, muffin top, diet, healthy living
The primary source of revenue
generation was advertising from Google AdWords and various ad networks like
BlogHer Ads, Six Apart Ads, and Buzz Logic. I’ve weeded through plenty of ad
networks, and these 3 have met my needs as a publisher the best, not ideally,
but good enough.
I've also walked down the path of
selling my own ads directly which is a whole separate blog post for later. The
secondary revenue source was the Amazon affiliate program. I also generated
some consulting work because of the blog. I looked into other forms of revenue
generation but decided against them which I'll explain more later in another
blog post.
Now statistically, Back in Skinny
Jeans was pulling in some good numbers and it put me in a position of being an
influencer of influencers which is one of the best positions to be in as
potential big brand advertisers/sponsors and big media sites seek bloggers with
that kind of influence.
So why then with all this good mojo would I pull the plug on the blog especially too on the surface it appeared that the big pay off was starting to come to life after all those years of hard work?
The business owner in me has to make a tough choice
Besides the emotional and mental
reason for wanting to move onto a new blog topic, the primary business reason
that pushed me over the edge was the fact that the effort-to-revenue ratio no
longer made sense from a business perspective.
Every company whether you are one
person or Fortune 100 has to make a decision of when to pull the plug or pull
out all the stops when it is operating in the red. Yes, as a company, my blog
was producing awesome content. I was helping to bring some sense to a space
that is making women young and old feel like they are not enough. Back in
Skinny Jeans was making a positive difference in the world in its special
unique way.
But...
At the end of the day, the blog was
not making enough revenue to support me. A girl has to eat and put a roof over
her head, and I've always been up front from day one, that I blog to make a
living. It’s tough to change the world when you can’t pay your rent or internet
bill.
And to be honest, I did struggle for
about a year with deciding the fate of BISJ because the blog was not just about
tips & advice on healthy living, but also a platform for me to share things
about my personal life and to bond with other women who were going through
similar issues as me. Blogatherapy and having an online community to bond with
has become a very important part of my personal support system.
And importantly, I built my online brand around the “skinny jeans” theme. My Twitter account which has 45K+ Followers is called @skinnyjeans. I did consider the marketing implications of shutting down the blog, but I believe that I’ve built enough social capital around Stephanie Quilao, the person, that I feel confident about being able to duplicate my BISJ success (and much faster now because I know more) into my other blog ventures. I still have mediums to generate buzz and promote Back in Skinny Jeans the book when it comes out…soon.
The best way to end it
Common ways people end their blog or
their active participation in the blog include:
-
Keeping the blog alive but hiring a new editor and
writers. You still own the blog but no longer blog day-to-day.
- Retiring the blog, and shutting it down completely.
- Selling the blog.
In weighing all the options, again, from a business perspective, I chose to retire the blog versus handing the reigns over to new voices or selling because I still need a website for the book promotion, so it makes sense to keep the url alive until the book is ready.
And lastly, I wanted to end my blog while it was on top. I didn't want the blog to nose dive into oblivion or be the last to leave the party. I wanted Back in Skinny Jeans the blog to go out with style and class like my favorite sports hero Cal Ripken Jr. The blog had a good run, and made a difference to many people, and for that I feel proud and honored.
I hope my back story on the business
reasons on how I came to retire the popular blog Back in Skinny Jeans was
helpful. Have you retired a blog and what was one primary factor that played into
your decision?
