Once you start thinking about how to make money online with your blog, there are bad things that may happen. It’s not always the case. But sometimes, in one’s quest to make money online there can be a lot of bumps along the way.
The seeds that you need to start a blog, oh, they can be cheap.
Stories of internet marketers making big money with their blogs and affiliate niche websites
Compare that to the rewards that come with a successful blog – think of all the great stories we read of internet marketers (and people who didn’t know what a blog was until may be a few months ago) making big money after publishing just a few hundred articles in their little niche site.
Doesn’t hurt to pay a little for the seeds (a domain name, hosting and internet access) if the fruit that follows a few weeks or months down the road is of the juicy and fleshy variety, right?
Will the effort you put in make you money with your blog?
But who knows how things always end up?
After all, merely following a case study or being pumped up about this blogging thing doesn’t guarantee that things will be any different for you compared to the other millions of bloggers who are frustrated and desperate for more juicy and fleshy fruits.
We still all want to make money though, at least enough money to pay for the blog’s hosting, domain name renewal, a WordPress premium theme and a few awesome WordPress plugins that you can’t get for free – essential plugins that you may do without if you are not in a rush to benefit from the solutions they provide.
Dollar signs – misleading? Come on!
But dollar signs, they can sometimes mislead. Let you walk west when you should head east.
And woe unto the bloggers who don’t have a sound plan. Or those with awesome plans they never follow – sort of like walking with eyes closed, when really, you are not a blind person.
And guess one of the things that cause bloggers sleepless nights?
Dollar signs.
‘I mean, why can’t I have more with all the effort I’m putting into building a successful blog?’
‘Or are the gurus just lying to us?’
‘Or may be I am not selling my products and services hard enough?’
‘Or may be if I increase my web traffic, pageviews and email subscriber numbers by more than 50% the current number, I can then make more from Google AdSense ad clicks and affiliate programs? ’
‘Or am I late into the game – and this blogging thing just works for people who started their sites years ago?’
‘Or is it because I am not getting more organic traffic from countries where large numbers of the population have large disposal incomes like the US, Canada, UK and Australia?’ [for those targeting English speaking populations.]
‘Or may be all I need is more backlinks – more quality links need to be built?’
See the many questions that pop up when a blogger starts thinking too much about how they can make more – money – from their blog?
And the more they do this, the more distracted they become, trying all manner of tips and tricks at the same time – which is a recipe for disaster!
For sitting down for long hours throwing stones – in the dark – in different directions hoping that we hit our target, that is a scary thought. One that makes the head spin even more.
That’s how bad things start happening.
That’s how many bloggers never build successful sites.
That’s why many blogs are abandoned.
Replicating other people’s strategies to build successful blogs and profitable websites
Most of the times, we hear of a success story and try to model it.
Often the wrong way.
Because:
- We don’t take into consideration, how long it took the blogger to achieve the success they have with their own site.
- We don’t take into account how they went about building their site. I mean there are many people out there with successful blogs who don’t waste their time getting distracted about the a million tips and strategies spewed on the net on a daily basis.
They just focus on the core reason for their blog’s existence and publish a lot of articles (or videos or podcasts or graphics) every week (some every day) consistently over long periods of time and over time they attract more and more readers.
We don’t take into consideration the number of blogs out there that already offer the same solution we do.
Or think of a way to differentiate how we present our content compared to the thousands of other blogs that may be targeting the people in the same niche we are a part of.
The quest to make more money blogging
And what do all this lead to?
The quest to make more money.
Which leads to spending more time out there consuming other people’s content (reading posts, watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, downloading free ebooks, buying ebooks, enrolling for free online courses, buying courses) in search for the best way to go about making more money doing this blogging thing.
As you have guessed, doing that will pull you in different directions, as the different people who you get advice from have different experiences and approach the same topic in a different way.
And most of them believe they have the right answer to your questions. They hail their story – their success – as the way to breaking the bank.
Here’s how to get more distracted and confused about how to make money with a blog
So, if you want to be confused and get distracted, keep on reading those kinds of posts even if you already know what it is you should be doing to earn more income and build a profitable blog.
Read twenty different stories (case studies, whatever) – and you might just learn twenty new ways to keep spinning your wheels, a frustrated blogger Philos.
What it takes to grow your blog and make money from it
The consensus is: content is king.
Create more of it.
Create it quickly as you can.
Publish it when there is value to be had from it by the people who are eventually going to consume it.
What it doesn’t take to make money blogging
It doesn’t take worrying about how little you are making to make more.
It doesn’t take spending hours upon hours reading how other bloggers make money blogging to make more.
It doesn’t take hopping from social network to social network to make more.
What it takes, the core that one needs to focus on, is creating content that helps other people achieve their goals.
Brick by brick, that’s how the house gets built.
I know you can do this. When you do, good things will happen.
Promotion, using ads to get more traffic (customers!), links, mentions – all these are spices that make things a little better. Use them. Just don’t stray from the core.
How are things working for you and your blog? Suffering from the kind of distraction I mention in the article? Share your experiences and question in the comments below.