Thanks to that famous $100,000 Google check and the whole “make money online” craze, everyone who blogs thinks they’re going to earn enough money so they can quit their day jobs and retire in style. It’s a nice thought. Realistically very few people make hundreds of thousands of dollars blogging each year. It’s not a stretch to earn a livable wage as a blogger, however.
If you’re spending all your time blogging and have very little in the bank to show for it, you may be taking the wrong approach. Whether you blog on your own, or blog for someone else, there are plenty of factors to ensure a profitability. Not knowing enough about what it takes to make it as a professional blogger, or making the wrong choices can hinder your success.
1. You’re Not Giving it Enough Time
Blogging takes time. If you’re starting your own blog, or your pay is contingent upon traffic, please know you’re not a failure if you don’t have thousands of hits and page views in the first few months. Very few bloggers become overnight sensations. How can you gain immediate traffic if no one knows you’re around. You have to build up a community first. Read up on traffic building techniques and become involved in other like minded communities. You’ll find a slow steady rise in traffic helps to build buzz. Promoting a blog is a full time job in itself.
If you blog for someone else and your employer expects heavy traffic immediately out of the gate, find articles and blog posts on building traffic and help him to realize this doesn’t happen right away. If you’re starting a brand new blog, chances are it’s not going to earn any money for some time. If your pay is contingent on traffic, remember you’re only going to be earning pennies for at least the first few months, and probably some time after that.
2. You’re Not Working for the Right People
So here it is. If you’re only earning a portion of revenue or traffic bonuses, you’re not going to earn much money, especially if it’s a new blog. And even more especially if it’s for a name or brand no one has ever hear of. (and yes, grammar police, I know what I just typed so please hold off on your hate mail.)
As noted above, blogs don’t make money off the bat. Your client or employer may have a genius idea, but that doesn’t mean squat if no one knows about it. Before accepting any jobs for revenue or traffic bonuses find out how much revenue the blog is receiving or projected to receive and how much traffic is coming in, or predicted. Do the math before you agree to the job and you won’t waste your time stocking a blog with content for little or no money. If you wish to earn a living as a blogger, try applying for salaried positions or gigs offering you a flat fee. If you’re expected to promote your blog, in addition to writing, make sure that’s included in the price. You can’t expect to make a living as a blogger by blogging for someone who pays chump change.
3. You’re Not Using the Right Advertising Formula
Monetizing a blog is tough. The FWJ network is doing ok, but I know it can do better. I’m finally finding a good formula. It took years of studying my community and other communities in the same niche. If you’re monetizing your own blog learn about your community. Are they clickers or buyers? What are their interests? What sorts of products are they most likely to buy? What do they search for – what search terms did they use to find your blog? Play around with the different types of advertising until you learn which types bring in money and which types don’t. It’s not enough to slap up some ads, you’ll also need to learn something about your demographic.
4. You’re Not Doing Enough Shameless Self Promotion
Bloggers self promote, if they didn’t no one would know about their blogs. It’s not enough to only post, however.Successful bloggers take advantage of social networks, forums, guest blogging opportunities and more in hopes of raising awareness to their own blogs. Notice I didn’t say spam? There’s a difference between self promotion and spam – if you want folks to become interested in you and what you do, join in the conversation rather than spam with links.
5. You’re Not Choosing the Right Niche
Nichey blogs are cool and fun but they’re not always good for making money. How much money do you think a blog about click beetles or paperclips will earn? If you’re going to get nichey think about how many people you will actually reach and what types of advertising opportunties are available for your genre. Research to see if there are other blogs in this area and what they’re doing. This is why a lot of network blogs don’t do as well as the owners had hoped, they’re too nichey. There’s not enough traffic and advertising opportunities to earn a decent wage.
I personally find paperclips and click beetles fascinating.
Interesting and to the point. I like.
I’d love to learn more about self promotion. I want to increase awareness of my writing, but often I feel like I’d be forcing things if I did.
Here are some of my questions.
-What do others see as acceptable promotion, and what is only annoying?
-What are the best ways and places to link bait respectfully?
-How should we network with other bloggers properly, specifically when trying to establish a link exchanging relationship?
I’ll be looking forward to reading your suggestions! Thank you.
-Luke H
@Yolander – Oh me too, just can’t make a living off them!
@Luke – We’ll explore self promotion techniques. There are plenty of ways to do this without being spammy.
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Thanks for the quick conformation Deb! I’m looking forward to reading some more good articles of yours.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll be impressed enough to start subscribing.
I also would like more tips about self promotion (without being spammy) in the future.
Regarding writing blogs for some paying entity, would it be helpful at all to quote wages that you know people are earning for writing blogs? And the approximate word count for same or the number of hours spent?
Because it seems to me that most people imagine many thousands of dollars are involved, and my feeling is that maybe a few hundred is more realistic. But it could be even less. For instance, despite much self-promotion, a lot of e-book authors don’t seem to be making enough in royalties to buy a plane ticket to the coast. Any coast.
Others have asked you general questions. But if you have specifics, that would ground us all in reality.
Great post Deb and right on target.
Regarding revenue shares, getting a decent wage from an unknown blog through a revenue share is risky at best.
A trend that I’m seeing is that many writers are looking at revenue shares as a sure thing. They seem to feel that, if they wait long enough, the revenue blog will become profitable and they will get a decent return.
It’s important to remember that many revenue share sites never become profitable.
If a writer wants to play with revenue shares, I always recommend an upfront payment/share combination. That way, at least you get something for your efforts.
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I found people are a lot more interested in some topics than others. Music seems to have a big following.
Good article, Deb! Three days ago I was saying I’d be happy if I could earn milk money blogging. Then the fit hit the shan and the other half lost his job (thank you, our darling US economy. What recession?)
Drive to get the website redone and more search engine friendly, has hit the ceiling and the old “too shy to self-promote” has been cast to the winds!
I always appreciate your sound advice!
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Deb, I can’t say it enough what a great resource this site is! I am still very new to the freelance writing business and love the blog platform, but I do find it hard to come up with ways to actually earn money from my blogging. I write articles and do other writing gigs as I can (tough to get in the freelance door!), but would like to be able to make some money from my blog as well. I appreciate you tips here, and was curious as to what others have found that work for them. Do you do any affiliate marketing, and do you do that in the writing niche, or do you have a separate blog geared towards that? I’m just a bit stuck on how to get my writing blog to be a profit, or should I choose a different niche. What kinds of products do you other guys promote and what niches did you choose? I’m just interested in hearing some ideas and picking some brains!
Thanks so much you guys!
Caitlin,
The revenue coming from FWJ is a mix of affiliates, clicky ads such as Adsense, and private ad sales. Choosing products to sell for this niche is tricky. The best affiliates (in my opinion) are reputable ebooks,books and courses for writers.
Thanks Deb,
I thought writing may be a tough affiliate niche, but courses and good ebooks would make the most sense. I’m sure you get hounded with plenty of people who ask you to advertise for them, and how do you find the quality products over the, well less than helpful shall we say?
Do you often get a trial or such? I’ve got a lot of background in health and fitness, have done lots of articles in that area, and started a blog geared toward that outside of my writing one, and was thinking that one may be my affiliate niche, but I don’t want to sell out and promote a lot of the gimmicks out there that I don’t believe in or wouldn’t want to use myself, you know! I don’t think pedaling liquid fasts and diet drinks, or promising people to lose 30 pounds in 10 days in an unhealthy, and unrealistic, manner is right and it looks like there are just tons of those products out there. I had signed up with Clickbank as an affiliate service, but in their health and fitness there are a lot of those kinds of things. Do you know of a better affiliate program to go with? I’m sorry to ask u all these questions…yikes, I just feel kinda stuck as what to do with my blogs. :/
Hi Caitlin -
The problem with ebooks is that everyone can write them and they don’t even have to be an expert in the niche. When you place an affiliate ad,it’s like you’re endorsing that ebook. As you want to create a bond of trust with your readers, you have to choose wisely. When choosing products to sell on an affiliate basis, do a lot of research. Find the books that have been reviewed and recommended by reputable people.
Also, everyone has their own favorite programs. Research them all to find the one working best for you. I use Social Spark, Commission Junction and private affiliate sales for the best results – and I’m still tweaking. Find the products that appeal to you the most and approach the brand directly about an affiliation.
Thanks so much for all your advice and insight, Deb! I completely agree that by recommending anything to sell to readers we are also issuing our own endorsements and attaching our name to the product. That’s why I wanted to make sure it was actually quality; because like you said anyone can write and ebook about virtually anything.
Thanks for the tips on how to find out how to best research products, and for the affiliates you have found to work well for you. It seems that having a contact with the respective affiliate is the best route to ensure that what they’re selling can back up its promotion and be worth it! Thanks!