This post is a commentary on “There’s No Money in the Long Tail of the Blogosphere”.

Many blogs started by aspiring probloggers fall into this “long tail” category in terms of traffic and readership. I haven’t read Chris Anderson’s book but the concept of the long tail is quite simple. We can apply the concept to blogs and websites. For example, having many niche websites is to try to capitalize on the long tail effect. If you have some traffic to all of these sites, the total of all the sites in your network would generate quite substantial traffic.

Instead of building a general catch-all site, build smaller tightly niched sites and capture highly targeted traffic. Then when you think about monetizing those sites, you may see that your conversion rates are higher than if you have a huge general site.

The same goes for blogs. Think about the audience you are writing for. Although blogs in the true sense of the word is a “weblog” i.e. a web journal or a web diary, for probloggers, they are writing mainly for an audience and not for themselves. The question is then how do you monetize your blog based on the audience you are writing for?

The key is to build traffic in your specific niche. Even if you’re not pulling in massive traffic like Engadget or Perez Hilton, you can still build up your traffic base by advertising on other blogs with readers that will be interested in your blog. For example, if you’re a personal finance blogger, your readers may also be readers of blogs about making money online. Tech blog readers will probably also be interested in gadget blogs.

The question isn’t if there IS any money in the long tail. The question is HOW MUCH. How much money is enough?

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