Helpful Talk

Sitting in your underpants writing about something you enjoy (blogging) and making money from your website visitors is certainly an attractive thought.

Inevitably, the possibility of making money online is achievable, but it does require an ungodly amount of effort on your part, the blogger.

While anyone has the potential to make lots of money blogging, the majority of us never will. Blogging is like a business, most blogs don’t last beyond their first year.

Blogging is much more than just writing an article and waiting for people to read and click on your ads. You have to be a sales person and market your blog; you will have to publicize your blog and yourself. You also need to keep your blog Technically up to date.. There’s a lot more to having a cash-generating blog than most new bloggers know.

These are the twelve top reasons for failure, and the things you want to avoid, IMHO:

1. Lack of Commitment - You have to put the hours in. Yes, actually hundreds of hours. This can be particularly difficult if you have a full time job or family commitments.
2. Lack of Focus - Focus is crucial in everything one does; blogs are no different. It is easy for aspiring entrepreneurs to fall in the trap of spreading themselves to thin by starting multiple blogs and not having the time or effort to develop any of them to maturity.
3. Lack of Writing Skills - like it or not, blogging requires that you know how to write, how to capture your readers’ attention and keep it. Unless you are a good writer your blog will most likely struggle.
4. Inappropriate Topics - Some topics are easier than others to write about. Some are easier to find significant income streams for. There are topics, for instance “Making Money Online” that the Internet is saturated with and you’d do yourself a favor if you looked for a better niche.
5. Lack of Diversification - You need to find sponsorships, build advertiser relationships, sell products, or sell affiliate services and products. Many of us shrug at the idea of selling and dealing with customers, customer service, and public relations; but these are a crucial part of having a money-generating blog, or any website for that matter. Consider packaging your content and selling it as e-books, online courses, video tutorials or audio.
6. Lack of Technical Acumen - Your blog must be SEO optimized, submitted to search engines, and be coded correctly to help search engines index you. You also need to keep it up to date with the latest technical trends.
7. Lack of Faith - Don’t expect instant gratification. Like any business, any rewards will come months down the line.
8. Lack of Passion - Like they say, do what you love, and the money will follow. If you lack in passion you wont have enough drive, interest or knowledge to succeed in writing attractive article. If you lack passion it will show.
9. Giving Up too Soon - Most successful blogs don’t generate any income til they are at least 12 months old. Generating any income will only start months after building your website traffic, reputation and readership.
10. Breaking the Rules - It may be tempting to get greedy and break the rules, either of the ad programs they use, or the unwritten rules of blogging.
11. No Unique Content - sometimes a blog’s success hinges on a lucky moment, a breaking story, exclusive content, and unique content. Being able to recognize and take advantage of the opportunities that come your way is important.
12. Taking Readers for Granted - Your customers, the readers, are your main audience. Your blog exists for them, not for your own self gratification.

Making money blogging is not easy and is not for everyone. It’s not impossible either. If you want to profit off your blog you have to treat it as a business.

Harry Truman once said “A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities, and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.”

It may seem impossible to make money blogging, but read the quote from Harry Truman again… do it now.

Done? Now you have to decide if you are a pessimist or an optimist.

Next, you have to decide if you can avoid the twelve pitfalls mentioned above.

Lastly, remember, if you want to make money off your blog you have to think of it as a business.

All your comments are welcomed.

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Ethan Blogging, Make Money Online Making Money Online