When blogging first emerged on the scene, it was purely a means of personal expression. It allowed individuals to publish their personal thoughts, opinions, ideas about a particular topic and share them with readers, if they wanted to. Nobody even remotely thought of making money from blogging.
But things changed.
Today, blogging is a far cry from what it was earlier. The reason why most people blog isn’t to get their thoughts out into the world. Of course, they say this is the reason why they blog, but the real motive lies elsewhere. Blogging is primarily being used as means of earning money. The first thing every new blogger looks for are the various ways they can earn money from their blog.
Blogging has become an industry. New blogs are being created every second (not a typo) and their owners want to make money from them. Now this got me thinking. There must be plenty of people out there who had high hopes from their blogging efforts only to realize that these efforts weren’t paying the returns they hoped for. They must be wondering whether all those “experts” who said you can earn money from blogging were lying through their teeth.
The question they must be asking themselves is “Can you actually make money from blogging?”
The answer is yes and a no. No, that’s not as complicated as it sounds!
Let’s try and understand this answer better.
Answer this question first – Are you really serious about blogging?
Every Tom, Dick and Harry seems to be blogging these days; many people see this activity as a way of earning money quickly, without a lot of effort.
These people are dead wrong.
Blogging involves doing the hard yards. It requires the highest levels of commitment from you that sees you publishing new content on your blog regularly. This isn’t easy. It takes time and lot of hard work. You really need to be serious about blogging to earn money from it. It’s like a full time job. Are you prepared to do it? Don’t think of it as an easy way of earning money; because if you do, say goodbye to any chance of monetizing your blog.
It Requires a Rare Degree of Patience
The people who usually do not earn money from their blogs are the ones who expect returns in quick time and because this doesn’t happen, they quit. The most successful bloggers consistently produce fresh content and have been doing so for a very long period of time even when they weren’t getting any returns out of it.
But they still kept at it, built their readership and slowly their blog started delivering returns.
When you meet successful bloggers who seemingly are raking it in, what you might fail to see is how they patiently built their blogs and waited for the returns to follow.
Cutting through the Clutter
Your blog will only earn money if it is saying something that other blogs in the niche aren’t. Your content needs to stand out from the crowd and your style must be your own. If you do not present any new ideas on your blog in a way that is markedly different from your competition, why would people come to your blog? Take for e.g. the content marketing niche; it’s packed to the brim with blogs claiming to offer the most worthwhile information on content marketing and its various aspects. If your blog belongs to this niche, it needs to survive against some stiff competition. It can only do so, if it offers information that others aren’t.
If your blog isn’t earning money, take a very close look at it and check if it is saying the same thing that most other sites in your niche are saying. If it is, you’ve got a reason why your blog is not earning money.
Are You Doing Enough To Engage Readers
A blog becomes profitable on if it is able to attract a large amount of readers. That’s a given, but you also need to engage with them on a one-on-one basis to ensure they keep coming back to your site and interacting with its content.
Just having great content is not good enough.
What! Yes, it isn’t.
It’s important you engage with the readers as much as you can. If a reader has commented on our blog posts, answer back. The comment could be appreciation, criticism, doubt or a question. Every comment deserves an answer. Also make sure you share the links to your blog posts across all social networks (make sure you’ve a presence on all the big networks and keep building a list of friends and followers) and personally interact with your network. Forge a personal bond with your target readers. This is what will make them come to your blog again and again; this will help you earn the returns you are looking for.
Don’t Allow Money to Interfere with Content Experience
I am sure you’ve come across plenty of blogs where Ads stare at you from all corners of the page. There are different CTAs vying for your attention and content takes a back seat. Result – rather than going through the content, you decide to close the site.
What the site has lost is not just a reader who might have clicked on those Ads, but also a part of its reputation. The focus of all blogs and your blogging activity must be on content and nothing but content. The Ads and everything else is secondary. This is actually what will help you earn money from your blogging efforts.
When a visitor lands on your blog, it mustn’t scream “I want money from my blog” at them; what it needs to convey is “I want to offer you the best information possible”. This is what works.
The Wrap
To put it simply, you can only earn money from your blog, if you’ve the right attitude. If you’ve dreams of becoming a millionaire in double quick time with your blogging efforts, that’s not going to happen. Blogging is long term stuff. It requires dedication and long term commitment from your side. This is what successful bloggers do and this helps them earn solid revenue from blogging.