Don't Quit Your Day Job to Start a CAD Blog
If you listen to the buzz about blogs and bloggers you may get the wrong impression and you may assume you can quit your day job and start blogging, with Google AdSense as the new reliable source of income. If you take a closer look at the key numbers you may find out that a blogger's life is not so easy.
you may get the wrong impression you can quit your day job and start blogging
Bloggers' income from ads is now a hot topic after the recent post by Guy Kawasaki, the charismatic Silicon Valley evangelist and venture capitalist. Guy's post was quickly picked up by many bloggers. Particularly interesting is Chris Anderson's post. (Chris is the author of the Long Tail business-model and book.)
In 2006 Guy Kawasaki's blog served an average of 203,000 pages per month generating about $280/month from ads. This equals about $1.4 every 1K page views. Not really a big source of income, considering that according to Technorati Guy's blog in the same period was ranked among the top 35-45 blogs. (Technorati ranking explained here.)
Going through the comments on Guy's post I read that Ralph Grabowski, the most popular blogger in the CAD industry, makes about $150/month from his blog. On his blog, Ralph tells us that during 2006 he had an average of 203,000 page views per month. About $5.4 every 1K pages. Better than Guy Kawasaki. Good job Ralph!
Why are these people investing their time in blogging? Surely not for AdSense revenues, more likely for marketing, visibility, and networking reasons.
Here is the Technorati ranking for the most popular CAD blogs (the smaller the ranking, the more popular the blog.) I'll leave it to you to figure out how much these blogs make or could make selling ads.
| #3 | Ranking | Blog | Author |
| 1 | 53,094 | Between the Lines | Shaan Hurley |
| 2 | 82,598 | RobiNZ CAD blog | Robin Capper |
| 3 | 98,003 | Beyond the Paper | Scott Sheppard |
| 4 | 130,510 | WorldCAD Access | Ralph Grabowski |
| 5 | 135,990 | CAD Insider | Roopinder Tara |
| 6 | 191,548 | JTB World blog | Jimmy Bergmark |
| 7 | 246,415 | Beside the Cursor | Richard Binning |
| 8 | 340,275 | SolidWorks blog | Fielder Hiss |
| 9 | 340,275 | Lynn Allen's blog1 | Lynn Allen |
| 10 | 374,181 | CAD Manager blog | Mark W. Kiker |
| 11 | 466,290 | PR, Marketing & CAD | Rachael Dalton |
| 12 | 530,888 | ChrisKelley.org | Chris Kelley |
| 13 | 614,545 | CAD Panacea | R.K. McSwain |
| 14 | 726,715 | NOVEDGE blog2 | Franco Folini |
| 15 | 726,715 | Alibre CEO blog | Greg Milliken |
| 16 | 893,486 | Deelip Menezes | Deelip Menezes |
| 17 | 893,486 | Outside the Box | Owen Vengerd |
| 18 | 893,486 | TL Consulting1 | Tracy Lincoln |
| 19 | 1,150,259 | 3D Mojo | Alex Neihaus |
| 20 | n/a | The CAD industry | Evan Yares |
I'm sure I may have missed more some important CAD blogs. Just leave a comment and I will update the list. Thank you.
Franco Folini
UPDATE: See my answer to the comments on this post.
Notes:
(1) Technically speaking Lynn Allen's blog and TL Consulting are not true blogs. They don't accept comments and trackbacks. Without comments a blog is more a monologue than a dialog.
(See TechCrunch post for a discussion on what constitutes a blog.)
(2) NOVEDGE blog is the youngest of the group. The Technorati ranking therefore is not yet meaningful.
(3) In the case of two blogs with the same Technorati rank, the blog with more incoming links comes first.
AdSense is definately not a reason to blog but I got something out of it anyway. Even more than Ralph. ;-)
Posted by: Jimmy Bergmark | January 07, 2007 at 01:19 PM
Too quick on posting. I just noticed that this included AdSense for my website www.jtbworld.com as well. The AdSense for only my blog is not as much. :(
Posted by: Jimmy Bergmark | January 07, 2007 at 01:25 PM
There are many benefits from blogging but, from my experience anyway, don't expect to get rich!
Posted by: Robin Capper | January 07, 2007 at 01:41 PM
I suppose I should have hooked my blog up to Technorati some time ago. In any case, my traffic is split between www.evanyares.com and www.evanyares.com/the-cad-industry... so the rating isn't really that representative. No ads on my blog at this point.
Posted by: Evan Yares | January 07, 2007 at 10:04 PM
Hey, just had to check it out after Shaan posted it. Good to see where we rank, and good to know that I'm not losing out on my fortune by not using adsense.
Good research, Franco!
Posted by: James Wedding | January 08, 2007 at 10:08 AM
Hey man, Civil 3D Rocks made a grand total of $.36 in adsense in the month of December! That's good money.... or at least that is what I mutter to myself when I go to sleep at 4AM.
Posted by: Dana Breig Probert | January 08, 2007 at 10:36 AM
Where would other "related" blogs such as All Points Blog fit into this?
I think the largest blog I subscribe to is James Fee's blog, but his isn't CAD so probably not really relevant.
Posted by: David Davis | January 08, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Don't forget RobiNZ (Robin Capper) CAD blog that ranks real high.
http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd
Rank: 82,598
Posted by: Jimmy Bergmark | January 08, 2007 at 03:01 PM
@Jimmy: Thank you for the suggestion! I added the popular RobiNZ blog to the list (almost at the top!)
@Dana: I'll give you some time to improve your blog Technorati ranking. Next list I promise to include your blog.
Posted by: Franco Folini | January 08, 2007 at 03:20 PM
From the comments here, I theorize that all those millions of pages are served to only a small handful of fellow bloggers that spend most of their time checking out the competition. And for the record, I got here via Shaan Hurley's blog. :)
Posted by: Owen Wengerd | January 08, 2007 at 03:26 PM
You know, civil3d.com has a Technorati score of 171,678
http://www.technorati.com/blogs/www.civil3d.com
If James hadn't forced me to abandon Civil 3D Rocks in August (OK, just kidding James, I left willingly) I am sure rocks would have a better score than 2.4Million. :)
Posted by: Dana Breig Probert | January 08, 2007 at 05:00 PM
Hi Dana,
I found your name on Civil 3D Rocks, a blog with a low score (2.4 Million). I didn't know you are also writing on the more popular Civil3D. At this point, I'm not sure makes sense to keep updating the original list. Also, the situation is very fluid, many ranks are already different. I'll wait a while and I will publish an updated version and I make sure to include Civil 3D.
Posted by: Franco Folini | January 08, 2007 at 05:22 PM
The interesting thing is, that despite having such a low (meaning high) technorati score, Civil 3D Rocks still, despite being abadonded from a technical perspective, still receives between 250-500 page loads on weekdays. Is there a way to throw hits/page loads into the mix? And because we all get paid so much for blogging (cough cough) I am sure we can talk everyone in to forming an elaborate registry and statistics compiling organization, right? ;)
Posted by: Dana Breig Probert | January 09, 2007 at 05:47 AM
Three quick comments:
1 - I have no intent to make any money with adsense on my blog. Merely cover my hosting charges at GoDaddy...which is working fine so far.
2 - I also don't consider myself a CAD blogger (or PLM, PDM, CAE, etc.) . As I said in a post to respond to my "outing" by Ralph, my blog is a personal one (some may call it a 'cat' blog) and while I work at UGS and post some things related to my job, I don't want people coming to my blog expecting 24 hour coverage of the newest CAD widget and get disappointed when I write about my latest exploits with a post hole digger on my farm.
3 - it's kellEy with an extra e...
Posted by: chris | January 09, 2007 at 06:17 AM
Hmm, good to know I'm not losing out on anything. I didn't start a blog to make money. I started it to supplement and then replace a time-consuming newsletter for my Local User Group. A quick way to give them news (because their email clients send my messages straight to the bin) and some AutoCAD tips, of course, I'm in a niche field (Facilities Management), so it's no suprise if my score stays low, because even my CAD tips tend to have more of a document management use much moreso than drafting/design.
I do read all of the CAD blogs I come across, you never know what interesting/handy thing you'll stumble on. It's pretty seldom that I click on ad links, though.
Posted by: Melanie Perry | January 09, 2007 at 08:00 AM
Nice post, Franco! I have a CAD-related programming blog at:
http://blogs.autodesk.com/through-the-interface
[the more direct link is http://through-the-interface.typepad.com, which has a better score given the individual posts are all under this URL rather than the redirecting one]
Living in the intersection between CAD and programming blogs is pretty nichy, but there you go. The ranking seems pretty decent, considering.
Posted by: Kean | January 09, 2007 at 08:59 AM
This really is not a true representation of the "popularity" of CAD blogs. My site has continually been underrepresented by Technorati because of the "custom" blog type interface I have (which is tired into a discussion forum as the comment system). A better rating system would be page view or Google Page Rank. I've posted a bit more info at:
http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7135
Posted by: Sean Dotson | January 09, 2007 at 09:10 AM
Why do I blog? Because I am obsessive about writing.
I wonder if it would be legit to add in the numbers for my other two blogs, Gizmos Grabowski and The Digital Camera Fan.
I need to clarify that the $150 (or so) I make from Google ads each month is from all ad locations -- the three blogs plus my upFronteZine.com Web site.
Posted by: ralphg | January 09, 2007 at 09:53 AM
Ralph... You bring up something interesting there.
I also blog because I'm obsessive about writing... but, I also fear editorial rejection and living up to the standards of a person/company who pays me for my words. Yes, I have query letters... but, I never send them. ;-p
So, if we didn't have our blogs, what would we do? I think I'd print out my ramblings and start sticking them under people's windshield wipers.
:-/ Yes, I could see me in the middle of a windy parking lot... brr.
Posted by: Melanie Perry | January 09, 2007 at 11:59 AM
Wow - I am joining the comment game a little late here. That is because I don't really read a whole lot of blogs. I read them, but do so randomly and not consistently.
I write my blog, journal and web site because I want to raise the bar on what a CAD Manager is and does. I desire to see everyone with that title be the best they can be. I want the title to mean something. I want the industries we serve to respect the position.
Posted by: Mark W. Kiker | January 10, 2007 at 12:42 PM
I must be doing something wrong (g). I'm not listed above, I'm not using Google AdSense, and I am making good money. Not good enough to be my sole source of income--yet--but still it's a profitable business. I (try to) run AECnews in a professional fashion. I know it looks like a blog, but I call it an "online journal." I guess that comes from my training and experience as a journalist. Your mileage may vary.
Posted by: Randall Newton | January 10, 2007 at 09:58 PM
Hi folks, just found you via Ralph's site, and it's an interesting topic... Seems to be mainly Autodesk-related sites mentioned, since they're more popular and appeal to a wider audience, but here's a couple of Pro/E-related offerings: Pro/E FAQ and CADminBlog
Ed
Posted by: Edwin Muirhead | January 12, 2007 at 02:26 AM
Man I was left off the list and my site is ranked higher than Lynn's; which puts her at #10. Anyways I turned ads on my site for 1 month to see how much could be pulled in, and I for one didn't see the benefit behind it and it makes the site not as professional looking in my opinion. Anyways, congrats on those that are pulling in some cash to at least pay for their blog.
Posted by: Lee Ambrosius | January 13, 2007 at 01:41 PM