Darren Rowse of ProBlogger is getting inundated with the news of the 1 Man Blog Sells for $15 Million Dollars
The question at the back of EVERY blogger’s mind when they hear news of a blog sale is, “I wonder how much MY blog would bring?”
For John Wu, the sole author of Bankaholic the answer is a cool $15 Million.
Darren reports:
the blog has an Alexa ranking of 42,168 and averages less than 20 comments per post. The blog does seem to rank very well for a lot of bank terms and I’m sure drives targetted traffic.
That’s the key – TARGETED TRAFFIC. The blog buyer is Bankrate, which is acting very much like Google in this acquisition. It’s the old, “let someone ELSE do the hard work” and then the big guy with deep pockets sweeps in to collect. John Wu got to perform the hard work – building up the blog over a period of 26 months. He did the digging and Bankrate gets the gold and John’s labor is being WELL rewarded with a ROI of $576,923 per month for his efforts.
However, I think it’s important to remember that he didn’t launch this blog with this payday in mind. Instead he set out to create a tightly targeted blog focusing on attractive and tightly targeted keywords. Now a big player wants his blog and is paying handsomely for John’s hard work. Congratulations John.
Oh, and in a medium where community is everything, this blog is a bit light on that aspect. Blog posts don’t get a lot of comments, but the blog delivers where it counts and that’s on desirable keywords and targeted traffic!
Oh, and for what it’s worth – Bankaholic is a Wordpress blog.
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All I can say is “congratulations John!”
As for me, I’m not sure that I’d sell my little piece of real estate in the vast blog-o-sphere. ‘Ribeezie’ is all me and I’m not sure I could put a price tag on it. Sounds silly or naive of me to say right? But that’s just how I’m feeling about it right now.
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You’re right, your blog really is ALL YOU! It’s about promoting YOU, your expertise and your services! FANTASTIC! John obviously started his blog with another goal in mind – dominating on tightly targeted keywords.
A problem I see a LOT is people who start their blogs without an goal in mind. You don’t have that problem – but others do!
Hi Kathy – that is awesome. I love hearing these stories. Sometimes I regret using my name for my main blog though – it makes it far more difficult to even consider selling.
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This guy was DEFINITELY not blogging to build community but was drilling for dollars when he launched his blog.
You, on the other hand have a cozy coffee shop where a LARGE group of readers gather to chat over coffee.
By the way, there’s no reason you CAN’T go drilling for dollars as well – you just won’t be doing it at the Cathlawson.com blog!
Hi Kathy – I’ve been thinking about that today. I think I would definitely have to build something else. I guess selling my blog would mean giving up the right to my name – unless I change my name again.
Now I can go read your page rank post. I ran out of charge right after I commented last night.
Wow, only if I could make a blog like that. That’s a lot of money.