Ever since Linda Ikeji bought the 2014 Range Rover Sports Supercharged for N24,000,000 a few weeks ago, a lot of noise has been made about how this young lady really makes her money. And it didn't take long before people started comparing Linda Ikeji's blog with Nairaland, and debating on which website makes more money. Although lindaikeji.com and Nairaland.com are two separate entities; the former is a blog, while the latter is a forum, people see the two as the biggest online communities in Nigeria right now.
Some people that are ignorant of how money is made online have it at the back of their mind that Linda has to be doing something else to spend the way she has been spending. This, and the fact that I have read articles with a similar title as mine in the last couple of days, and I feel the authors of those articles didn't do justice to their write-ups, urged me to write this article. I don't claim to be an expert, and I don't know Linda personally. But as a blogger myself, I just felt I had to lend my voice to this debate. I can't claim to have made 1% of the money Linda Ikeji has made so far from blogging, but I know all the ways money can be made, and using obvious statistics, I can convince a logical, non partial thinking brain, that Linda Ikeji makes more money from her blog that Seun Osewa makes from Nairaland.com.
I'm going to try and make this as easy to digest as possible. Are you ready? Walk with me.
5. Nairaland Has a Lot of Childish Users
Nairaland has far more visitors/page-views than Linda Ikeji blog, but most of the people that come on Nairaland drop very childish comments, even on very serious threads. This might be a lot of fun for the regulars on Nairaland, but serious advertisers would go with another option because of the singular factor.
4. Linda Ikeji's Blog Has More Advert Placements On It
Go on Nairaland right now, and even though there are lots and lots of sections and sub-sections, there are lots and lots of empty spaces where you would see this text "How to Place Targeted Ads on Nairaland." Seun Osewa stopped using Google Adsense on Nairaland in 2012 so as to generate more income from direct advertisers, but he definitely hasn't gotten a hang of it yet.
Go on Linda Ikeji right now, and the whole landing page is packed with Ads. She has Google Adsense ads on her blog, as well as ads from direct advertisers. The whole left and right sides of the blog is filled with square and rectangular box Ads; these are Ads from direct advertisers. And according to her 2012 interview with Toolz (on The Juice), she said it cost N300,000 to have those ads up on her blog for a month (30 days). I just went on there right now, and counted 20 of those box Ads (separate from the long Google Adsense ads)...Do the math yourself, I don't want to scare you. Also, during the same interview with Toolz back in 2012, she said the Ad in the background of her blog cost the advertisers N1,000,000 for a month. At the time of my writing this post (30th day of September, 2014,) there is an OMO Ad with red background on her blog.
This isn't even all. Each day, Linda puts up posts promoting a certain new artists, or product, and she gets paid N50,000 for those sort of promo. I have watched her the last couple of days, and she puts up at least 4 of those each day. That is N200,000 easy, daily. This alone should let people understand the earning power of the brand this lady has created. I will leave you to decide whether or not Linda Ikeji's blog makes more money than Nairaland or not. You don't even need to read this article to the end to know the answer to that.
3. Nairaland Users are Mostly Intellectual Individuals
You might ask how these affects the earning power of a website. Let me explain this. Nairaland is filled with highly intelligent people (even though they like to act childish most times), and most of them know a lot of how the Internet works, and with time they become "blind" to Ads. Nairaland might get 14 million page-views a month (according to Trafficestimate.com), but most of those people are probably not clicking on Ads. And even though Linda Ikeji gets an average of 5 million page-views monthly, the traffic coverts better for advertisers, cos most of the users on there are not tech gurus, just regular people who still find online advertisement fascinating, so it catches their attention, and that translate to clicks.
Making money with a website is all about traffic, but that traffic also has to covert highly. The higher the CTR (Click Through Rate), the better for both the publisher (owner of the website), and the website owner. Let me give you a personal example. I have a particular book I sell that a lot of men need. I sell this book online as an eBook and advertise it through Google and Facebook. Sometimes I might not have money on my credit card to pay for Ads, so I would leave comments on Nairaland with the link to the sales page of the book. I did this for about 6 freaking weeks earlier this year, in a sub-section on Nairaland where the information I was selling is really needed, and I didn't make ONE sale. In August, I decided to try Linda Ikej's comment section. The very first week I started it, I sold two copies of the book. I have sold 7 copies so far of the book, and the book goes for N5,000. Thank you Linda...I LOVE YOU. LOL!
2. Linda Ikeji's Blog Has a Face To It
Linda Ikeji is a former model, and had a couple of friends in the entertainment world before she even went into Blogging. This helped her on her come-up, and it is still helping her. Her face is known in the society; she is more of a celebrity blogger now than anything. On the other hand, the very recluse introvert, Mr. Seun Osewa is, most times, sitting at the back of his system in his home on the outskirts of Lagos, monitoring his website. Below is his picture. I am sure 7 out of 10 people reading this (not talking of the regulars on Nairaland) are seeing his face for the first time.
1. Majority of People Love Gossip and Easy to Digest Information
Think about it, what kind of stories do majority of people in any community prefer to hear or read about? What they NEED to know, or what they WANT to know? SERIOUS information, or GOSSIP? People want to know about the latest car in Kcee's garage; or whether or not Tiwa Savage is really separated from her 'manager-turned-husband;' or who who Flavor is currently dating. These FACTS, add to the reasons why someone like Linda Ikeji, even though has a website ranked behind Nairaland (According to Alexa.com, Nairaland is currently ranked at 915 in the world, while Lindaikeji.blogspot.com is ranked at 2,013) can command so much money from Advertisers.
That's all folks!
Some people that are ignorant of how money is made online have it at the back of their mind that Linda has to be doing something else to spend the way she has been spending. This, and the fact that I have read articles with a similar title as mine in the last couple of days, and I feel the authors of those articles didn't do justice to their write-ups, urged me to write this article. I don't claim to be an expert, and I don't know Linda personally. But as a blogger myself, I just felt I had to lend my voice to this debate. I can't claim to have made 1% of the money Linda Ikeji has made so far from blogging, but I know all the ways money can be made, and using obvious statistics, I can convince a logical, non partial thinking brain, that Linda Ikeji makes more money from her blog that Seun Osewa makes from Nairaland.com.
I'm going to try and make this as easy to digest as possible. Are you ready? Walk with me.
5. Nairaland Has a Lot of Childish Users
Nairaland has far more visitors/page-views than Linda Ikeji blog, but most of the people that come on Nairaland drop very childish comments, even on very serious threads. This might be a lot of fun for the regulars on Nairaland, but serious advertisers would go with another option because of the singular factor.
4. Linda Ikeji's Blog Has More Advert Placements On It
Go on Nairaland right now, and even though there are lots and lots of sections and sub-sections, there are lots and lots of empty spaces where you would see this text "How to Place Targeted Ads on Nairaland." Seun Osewa stopped using Google Adsense on Nairaland in 2012 so as to generate more income from direct advertisers, but he definitely hasn't gotten a hang of it yet.
Go on Linda Ikeji right now, and the whole landing page is packed with Ads. She has Google Adsense ads on her blog, as well as ads from direct advertisers. The whole left and right sides of the blog is filled with square and rectangular box Ads; these are Ads from direct advertisers. And according to her 2012 interview with Toolz (on The Juice), she said it cost N300,000 to have those ads up on her blog for a month (30 days). I just went on there right now, and counted 20 of those box Ads (separate from the long Google Adsense ads)...Do the math yourself, I don't want to scare you. Also, during the same interview with Toolz back in 2012, she said the Ad in the background of her blog cost the advertisers N1,000,000 for a month. At the time of my writing this post (30th day of September, 2014,) there is an OMO Ad with red background on her blog.
This isn't even all. Each day, Linda puts up posts promoting a certain new artists, or product, and she gets paid N50,000 for those sort of promo. I have watched her the last couple of days, and she puts up at least 4 of those each day. That is N200,000 easy, daily. This alone should let people understand the earning power of the brand this lady has created. I will leave you to decide whether or not Linda Ikeji's blog makes more money than Nairaland or not. You don't even need to read this article to the end to know the answer to that.
3. Nairaland Users are Mostly Intellectual Individuals
You might ask how these affects the earning power of a website. Let me explain this. Nairaland is filled with highly intelligent people (even though they like to act childish most times), and most of them know a lot of how the Internet works, and with time they become "blind" to Ads. Nairaland might get 14 million page-views a month (according to Trafficestimate.com), but most of those people are probably not clicking on Ads. And even though Linda Ikeji gets an average of 5 million page-views monthly, the traffic coverts better for advertisers, cos most of the users on there are not tech gurus, just regular people who still find online advertisement fascinating, so it catches their attention, and that translate to clicks.
Making money with a website is all about traffic, but that traffic also has to covert highly. The higher the CTR (Click Through Rate), the better for both the publisher (owner of the website), and the website owner. Let me give you a personal example. I have a particular book I sell that a lot of men need. I sell this book online as an eBook and advertise it through Google and Facebook. Sometimes I might not have money on my credit card to pay for Ads, so I would leave comments on Nairaland with the link to the sales page of the book. I did this for about 6 freaking weeks earlier this year, in a sub-section on Nairaland where the information I was selling is really needed, and I didn't make ONE sale. In August, I decided to try Linda Ikej's comment section. The very first week I started it, I sold two copies of the book. I have sold 7 copies so far of the book, and the book goes for N5,000. Thank you Linda...I LOVE YOU. LOL!
2. Linda Ikeji's Blog Has a Face To It
Linda Ikeji is a former model, and had a couple of friends in the entertainment world before she even went into Blogging. This helped her on her come-up, and it is still helping her. Her face is known in the society; she is more of a celebrity blogger now than anything. On the other hand, the very recluse introvert, Mr. Seun Osewa is, most times, sitting at the back of his system in his home on the outskirts of Lagos, monitoring his website. Below is his picture. I am sure 7 out of 10 people reading this (not talking of the regulars on Nairaland) are seeing his face for the first time.
1. Majority of People Love Gossip and Easy to Digest Information
Think about it, what kind of stories do majority of people in any community prefer to hear or read about? What they NEED to know, or what they WANT to know? SERIOUS information, or GOSSIP? People want to know about the latest car in Kcee's garage; or whether or not Tiwa Savage is really separated from her 'manager-turned-husband;' or who who Flavor is currently dating. These FACTS, add to the reasons why someone like Linda Ikeji, even though has a website ranked behind Nairaland (According to Alexa.com, Nairaland is currently ranked at 915 in the world, while Lindaikeji.blogspot.com is ranked at 2,013) can command so much money from Advertisers.
That's all folks!
I have taken my time to read through your article letter after letter and it makes a lot of sense. Amongst the numerous bloggers I look up to in blogging, you are obviously one of the few I like to identify with.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this comment. Sorry this is coming late.
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ReplyDeleteGoing through all your articles and av become a fan
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information. You are not doing bad at all. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThank you.
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