I make money online through blogging, and by offering consultancy services. So, if you are probably asking whether I have earned the right to write on the topic, that's to reassure you that I am a living testimony. If you are a new blogger, who want to make money online, my advice to you is to take note of every bit of what you read here on this blog, it will help you avoid some mistakes, and better place you towards earning a living online through blogging.
Enough of the rant, let's get straight to business. My mission here is to tell you what I think are the biggest reasons you, and a score of others have failed at making money online. According to Technorati, over 175,000 new blogs join the blogsphere on a daily basis. A significant percentage of these new bloggers are in it for cash because they might have come across stories of some a college dropout making over $800,000 a year just by blogging about myspace themes.
Making money online is not as easy as some make it seem. I made my first few dollars from the google ad program using a free blogspot blog because I had the determination to make money with a free blog, and till date, I still get some bucks online. But, many newbie bloggers fail to make money from their blogs. Why? From mentoring some people who wanted to start a blog like me, I have discovered the following reasons.
I hope this info helps? Feel free to share this post with your friends using the Like and Send, Tweet, Digg, Stumble Upon and Delicious buttons.
Enough of the rant, let's get straight to business. My mission here is to tell you what I think are the biggest reasons you, and a score of others have failed at making money online. According to Technorati, over 175,000 new blogs join the blogsphere on a daily basis. A significant percentage of these new bloggers are in it for cash because they might have come across stories of some a college dropout making over $800,000 a year just by blogging about myspace themes.
Making money online is not as easy as some make it seem. I made my first few dollars from the google ad program using a free blogspot blog because I had the determination to make money with a free blog, and till date, I still get some bucks online. But, many newbie bloggers fail to make money from their blogs. Why? From mentoring some people who wanted to start a blog like me, I have discovered the following reasons.
- They Think It's Get Rich Quick
Oh Yes! Many new bloggers think that all it takes to make money from a blog is to create one, monetize it and wait for the cash to start flowing.They might have read of some fellow making $40,000 monthly from a blog effortlessly, but what they never care to find out is how that person started, and the processes it took for them to reach that level. If you have ever mentored a newbie, you will discover that his/her paramount quest is getting an approved Google Adsense account so that he/she could monetize the blog.
My Advice: The first thing you should be concerned with is how to provide value. Write as if there is no tomorrow, and at the same time read about SEO (on-page and off-page) to get your blog a high enough PR, and backlink. - They Fail To Take It Seriously
In case you don't know, a blog is a business. Many new bloggers don't treat their blogs as such. To them, the blog is simply an ATM that provides them cash without much attention. As a result, they don’t take it as seriously as they should. If you observe big bloggers like John Chow, Darren Rowse, Jeremy Schoemaker, etc, you'll notice that they are run their blog like brick-and-mortar businesses. They took blogging seriously from day one by actively and diligently working seriously on their blog, mostly posting at least once daily. While so many newbies see this as a lot of work, that's how much you need to sacrifice to get the income you dream of from your blog.
My Advice: Treat your blog as a serious business. Create a simple plan of how much time, money and effort you will invest into it for the first six months without expecting a dime from the blog. While this may sound so difficult, it's the sure way to seriously focus on positioning your blog for a serious money-making exercise in the nearest future when you eventually monetize. - They Think It's Zero Risk
Starting a blog today is as cheap as $0 on Google's Blogger®. It's low risk but not Zero risk. Because owning a new blog is this cheap (and you can start with zero dollars), most bloggers feel they don’t have much to lose if it does not give them money as fast as they want it. So, they start a blog, put a few articles on it, expect to see some nice income rolling in. Unfortunately, when the blog makes nothing, they quit. This is the reason why many bloggers don't care to find a way when their blog is not giving them what they want (cash). If only it costed a few hundred dollars to start, I believe this wouldn't be so.
My Advice: Even if you are planning on using Blogger, invest a few dollars to get a custom domain name. Then, if you can afford, invest also on a mini laptop, and Internet connectivity so that you can actively work on a daily basis on your blog. This way, you know that you have committed some hard-earned cash into it, and would work towards getting this sum out no matter how small. - They Blog Strictly for Money
Many of us are into blogging to make money. But, some new bloggers take this too far. They believe that every second of work on a blog should proportionately amount to some instant cash. So, they scout for the next hot niche in the blogosphere, and blog about them. They are just after the money, and the belief is that only a hot niche can bring them the money. That will get you nowhere, cos when I started, I was one of those who fell in for the trap that some keywords are very high earners and all it takes is to blog about them and the sky will be your limit in terms of income. That turned out to be a total waste of my time, and today, I'm ready to blog about the most unpopular topic on the Internet, cos that's where the money is.
My Advice: Blog on what you are passionate about. You can't blog for too long if you do otherwise. - They Choose A Highly Competitive Niche
Just because Darren Rowse is hitting it big with the Digital Photography School Blog, is not enough reason why you should start a blog on the same niche. Just like in real world business, competition exists in blogging. So, when starting out, be sure not to start a blog on niches which are already too competitive. Unless you have passion for that niche, you are going to feel burdened anytime you want to update your blog, and this might draw down your frequency of updates, and an isolated and dead blog. Even if you had the persistence to keep updating, it's going to take some level of hard work, and a great deal of time to rank high for that niche.
My Advice: Choose a niche that's of moderate-low competition, but make sure it is one you have the passion for. - They Run Too Many Parallel Blogs
Many new bloggers have read the story of how some man somewhere made $1 from 1000 different domains, amounting to up to $1,000 daily income. So, they think it's better to start many different blogs at the same time with the hope of achieving the same. This is one way to get disappointed so fast. If you really want to make money blogging, I advice you to do the exact opposite: start with one blog and build it up until five figures before ever thinking of building another. By running a single blog, you can spend quality time on the blog to create quality articles instead of rushing up your contents on different blogs with different niches thereby draining your resources without putting out an equivalent content on any of the different blogs.
My Advice: Focus! Focus!! Focus!!! Start with one blog and build it until it starts yielding five figure income. - They Value Off-site SEO Than Contents
If you're an SEO student/guru, you would agree with me that Content is the best SEO that your site or blog would ever need. Content should therefore be your priority when it comes to blogging, but many newbie bloggers create as few as 15 articles on a blog and divert their attention on link building. So they start spamming blogs with comments, forums, etc. Trust Google Panda with it's big Hammer, their blog article soon become very low-ranked or even totally removed from search engines.
My Advice: Trust me, my website has been hit hard by Google Panda, and it's not a palatable experience. So, keep your blog regularly updated with quality articles, and after a short while, it will attracts natural links. - They Under-Monetize Their Blog
My primary affiliate income is Google Adsense, and I know that for many bloggers, this is equally true. A blog may fail to produce up to expectation if under-monetized. There are several articles online to help you position as well as tweak the appearance of adsense code so well on your blog, and I would leave you to find out by using Google search. My blog earning used to be as low as $0, until recently when I made a little change in position of the ads. That worked like miracle, and changed all that. my blogs with ads in positions which hardly gets people’s attention leading to low conversion rates. This is the common mistake by many even today, people keep using ad units which converts poorly and place the ads in positions which never gets the reader’s attention.
My Advice: Research on how to increase Adsense CTR using Google, but don't expect any significant earning until your traffic builds up to a substantial level. - They Fail To Use Onpage SEO
Many new bloggers think we just craft articles out of our thick skull without some analysis. If you have been writing articles without using tools like Google Keyword Tool External or Google Insights For Search, I wonder how you are gonna get the search engine to pass on traffic to your blog. Organic search traffic is your best, but without proper use of the keywords users use on search engine, your blog will never surface as one of the options in search results.
My Advice: Do keyword analysis with Google Keyword Tool and Google Insights for Search. Use the keywords you get in your titles, and in the contents within the blog. Also improving internal linking by deep-linking your posts. This way, you can spread more link juice within your blog, and announce undiscovered articles to the search engine. This will help in improving the pages rank of your blog in a short period of time. - I’m sure there are more. Feel free to add to the list in the comment box below.
I hope this info helps? Feel free to share this post with your friends using the Like and Send, Tweet, Digg, Stumble Upon and Delicious buttons.
