Every now and then, the same question gets asked to me… “Can you make money blogging?” The short answer is yes, but I wanted to write a detailed article explaining exactly what it takes to make money with your blog. Now, I have to warn you – this article has both motivating information and also some info that might be a bit discouraging if you plan to make money blogging.
As someone who has been earning a living online for many years, I can tell you that making money using the internet is one of the absolute best ways to earn an income. However, it doesn’t come without setbacks. When researching how to make money with affiliate marketing or blogging, most people come across a lot of really up-beat information from “gurus” and “experts”. Unfortunately, those people usually have bias and incentive to make you think it’s fast and easy. Either they want to sell you some products / services or they want you to subscribe to their email list (so they can sell you some products / services later). Either way, they are biased. This article isn’t.
- LEARN MORE: 7 Legitimate Ways To Make Money Online
How Many Professional Bloggers Are There?
Unfortunately, there is a lot of conflicting information about how many people really make money blogging. There are definitely hundreds of thousands of people who make money blogging and very likely, there are tens of thousands of people who do it as a full time living. I just so happen to be one of them. The exact numbers, however, are difficult to determine.
A Wall Street Journal article says there are nearly as many professional bloggers as lawyers in the United States. But, those of use who actually make a living online find those numbers to be highly suspect.
Whatever the exact numbers are doesn’t really matter all that much. What matters is – it IS possible to make money blogging! That means it’s possible for YOU to make money blogging. Some people do it as a side income and others do it as a full-time income. Usually, it begins as a side income and turns into more. While sometimes this happens on accident, it is much better to start blogging with an actual business plan so you know how you will succeed. Don’t know how to set up a business plan for a professional blogging business? No worries, there is an amazing training course just for that!
If It’s Possible To Make Money Blogging Than How Do You Do It?
There is no “one way” to make money blogging. Some people do it on accident while others try their hardest and never make a dime. But, there are certain things you can do to increase your chances of success. These are just some of the things I believe are important.
-
- Love What You Do: Do you like writing? What if you could write about virtually any topic? You could write about your hobbies, skills, interests, etc. Do you like working with computers and the internet? If this is something you will truly enjoy spending your time on, your chances of success is high.
-
- Work For Free: If you want to succeed at making money blogging, you must be ready to work for free – a LOT. Before you will see any success at all, you will need to build your business from the virtual ground up. I don’t care what the get-rich-quick guru’s tell you. If you put in about 10hrs per week blogging, you might start seeing some money come in after about 6 to 12 months. That might not be a popular thing to say and sometimes the truth hurts, but you deserve to know up front.
-
- Have A Plan: If you were starting any other business, you would probably set up a business plan. You would know what your expenses will be, you would perform market research, you would find a specialty and know exactly how and when you will turn a profit. Treat professional blogging the same way (have you signed up for this training course yet?)
-
- Re-Invest What do you plan to do with the money once it finally starts trickling in? Are you going to pay off your credit cards? Save for a vacation? Put it in your “rainy day” fund? That’s all well and good, but most people who truly make money blogging reinvest 100% of their revenues at first. Everything goes back into the business so that expansion can happen faster. To this day, I still put nearly 50% of the business into growth and expansion. I probably always will.
- Never Stop Learning: You are NEVER an expert at any type of internet marketing, including making money blogging. I challenge anyone who says they are an “expert” at making money online to prove it. The internet simply changes too fast in order to become an expert. As soon as you’ve mastered something, it becomes obsolete. So get used to learning new stuff all the time. Part of learning means getting through your many failures and setbacks. That’s why most people never make it to success.
Why Do 99% Of Online Business Fail?
Ever hear the stat about 75% of small businesses failing within’ their first 5 years. With online businesses, that number is 99%. Actually, it’s higher than that, but we’ll round down. As depressing as that figure is, there is some really good news, too.
An extremely large number of the 99% of online businesses that fail can be easily explained. Either people give up, didn’t have enough knowledge to succeed, or was expecting a get rich quick miracle. I would say close to 99% of online businesses never had a business plan to start with. There was no market research performed, no expanse projections, no known revenue sources, no growth plans… nadda. It’s not surprising those businesses fail. It’s like sailing the Ocean without any navigational aids. Sure, some people might make it to where they are going, but most will just end up stranded on an island somewhere.
Since starting an online business is so cheap and relatively easy (compared to most other small businesses), most people skip the planning phase entirely. They just want to “dip their toes in the water” and don’t want to invest their time in something they are just “testing out.” This is no way to start a business, online or off. Either give it all you’ve got, or find something that excites you a little more the making money blogging.