Who doesn't want to make money blogging? After all, if we put a good amount of time and hard work to establish and market our blogs, then this has to have a purpose.
Of course some blogs are started for fun – kind of like an online journal. Some start blogs to keep a journal of their life and happenings They enjoy writing about their family. Some start blogs to share fun, informative or other kind of stuff to a close circle – friends and family.
Neither of these kinds of bloggers are very serious about generating income from their blogs, because they do it for fun or as a hobby. Nothing wrong with that.
But I am speaking to those bloggers who want to set up an online business and those who want to use blogging as a source of income for them. So am I talking to you? I hope so!
If yes, in this post I am going to share some facts you should know before you expect your blogging efforts to produce an income. Some will be hard to accept and even bitter. But they're facts (at least from my experience). Let me start.
Blogging, on it's own, is not a business
Don't get me wrong here! I'm not discouraging you to go do some other business. The point is this: Your blog is your marketing tool.
You should have a business. And then you use your blog to “market” your business. You can use content marketing, or any other marketing approach to funnel your prospects through your blog to your actual business.
Your actual business can be anything that you have expertise in – web designing service, SEO service, freelancing, your products, whatever. And your blog should serve as a sales person who markets your services/products to your prospects and customers.
So where does this business model go? You should have “something” to sell in the first place. If you don't have anything to sell, blogging will simply create a collection of pointless posts that don't serve any purpose for your business.
Of course you can earn with services like Adsense, but you can't make a decent income.
Do you care if your blog is “ready” to make money?
I ask this because many don't. I mean, have you decided on a niche? Have you decided on a name for your blog? Or is it “just another WordPress blog”? Have you bought a domain name for your blog? Do you have a clean and professionally looking theme?
Most important of all, does your blog *help* your readers?
Oh wait, do you have any target audience? I mean, if I ask you now: “To whom you are writing your blog posts?”, can you give me a specific answer?
Specific – don't tell me I write blog posts for people who read blogs!
I hope you get my point.
Are you ready to spend… um.. sorry… invest?
Any business needs some kind of investment – a start up cost. This applies to both online and offline business.
Blogging is no different.
When you think about starting a blog and settle down with a decent income, you must be prepared to invest! Yes that's the start up cost. You should buy a domain name, get a good hosting, get a good design (or a ready-made theme/skin). In addition to this, you might want to invest on premium plugins, SEO tools, software that could help you with your business and so on.
Not just that, you should be prepared to invest something more valuable: your time and effort.
Yes, you would have heard this already many times. But let me repeat: Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. There is no silver bullet. There is no push button.
So be prepared to spend, I mean, invest some time and money in your blog.
I missed something…. oh yes, the LIST
Build your list from day one or you will be banging your head against a brick wall as I did. May be if you're starting out, you won't realize the importance of building a list right away.
I didn't realize that as well, when I started out.
But back those days, no one told me I should. May be if someone had insisted, I would have listened.
Anyway – now I am here telling you this: Start building your list TODAY. Not just me; but you would have noticed a lot of experienced, successful bloggers insisting on this.
Blogging To Make Money: Takeaway
I've highlighted some of the very simple facts you should be knowing if you are either planning to start a blog and make money or if you've already started.
I hope you would have got a sneak peek of what it looks like on the other side of the “make money blogging” wall.