Money, Money, Money
Readers ask me How long to make money blogging? When I first started blogging, I had no intention of making any money. It was merely an outlet for my thoughts. Fast forward a couple of years, around 2008 when “blogging” suddenly appeared on the public sphere of discourse.
How long to make money blogging?
Big names started to make the news. People like Darren Rowse or Tim Ferris, or J. Money — all people who were making small to large fortunes off of writing on blogs.
However, actual numbers on profit or earnings from blogging were usually shrouded in secrete. It’s not usually very polite to talk about your income. But blogging was a new “career” and there was very little data to even make estimates on.
Do bloggers make money?
It wasn’t until I saw Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income, that I truly saw the potential of blogging. Pat made a blog about trying to make money on the internet after he was laid off working as an architect.
He made one seminal post on a now completely archaic back-linking strategy and his blog blew up. His blog on making money on the internet garnered a huge audience due to his one gimmick.
Pat Flynn actually posted his monthly income, every month, with full breakdowns from each source.
How much money can you make from a blog?
This was pretty ballsy. Initially, he was making mid 4 figures USD per month. But as his blog grew he started to get a lot more income. Funnily enough most of his money comes from blogging, and not the niche websites that he created.
It just goes to show how lucrative blogs about finance or business can be. Remember it was the people who sold the shovels who made the killing in the gold rush!
I believe if you head over to Pat’s website you can see that he makes a solid mid-5-figures USD per month. Which is incredible considering most of it is passive. Compare that to an average household income of about $48,000 and you will start to wonder if it is possible that even YOU can make that kind of money.
Can you make money on blogging?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is yes, but probably not much.
How long to make money blogging?
You see it is really only the superstars of the blogging world that will see 6 figure annual incomes. Most people will never see those numbers.
But that’s okay! Even if you can make a decent 1000$ per month from blogging (totally doable!) that will be amazing. That kind of money can pay off a car payment or even your rent. How would you like for a website to pay for your car or rent?
How to start a blog for free and make money?
Many of my blogging friends who write even on smallish no-name blogs can attract a decent-sized following due to the way we can scale our reach in the internet age. They also pull in maybe a couple of thousand dollars/month.
Take advantage of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You would be surprised how much traffic well-written and engaging content can gather.
If you’ve decided to support yourself blogging; you’re writing great content, you’ve set up AdSense… and so far, the returns haven’t been what you were hoping for. You’re just not getting enough page views, and not enough readers are clicking your ads.
Not to worry, we’ll go through the process step-by-step to help your blog start pulling traffic, getting clicks, and How long to make money blogging.
1. Decide on a theme
If you’re running a generic cooking blog, you’re competing with giants like AllRecipes.com and The Food Network, and no matter how great it is, your blog will probably never see past page six of Google rankings. Narrow your blog down to some niche. it’ll be much easier to get noticed by writing about Cajun or Korean food (or whatever you’re into).
Before you decide on your niche, do a little research on Google. Let’s suppose you picked Cajun food; lookup phrases that you’d expect people to search for if they wanted to find your blog (something like “crawfish etouffee” for example) and check for two things:
First, are people searching for those things? If only a few people are searching for your chosen keywords, then realize that you may struggle to bring in traffic because there just isn’t that much interest in your niche. On the other hand, it will be easier to top the Google rankings, so you might still have a workable idea.
Second, who pops up on page one of Google for those phrases? If you’re competing with small personal blogs like your own, you’ve got a good shot at topping the rankings and drawing traffic. If the first page is full of big-name blogs, you might consider an alternate or more specific niche.
2. Make sure your content is user-friendly
This is not the same as “writing well” many bloggers are brilliant writers, but they just don’t know how to modify their content for an online audience. People read blog posts and online news articles differently than they would read a book or a magazine, and blogs that recognize that difference get more readers and more return visits.
Look around at big-name blogs; you’ll see the following tips implemented everywhere you look.
Be concise: Most online readers will lose interest after about 1000 words, and keeping your content between 500 and 800 words is the sweet spot that gives you room to provide rich, interesting ideas while leaving the reader wanting more. If you want to say something that takes more than 1000 words, don’t stress, but see if you can divide it into two or three more focused posts.
Numbered lists: Some writing snobs hate these, but they’ve become the most popular format for online content for good reason—organizing your post as a “top 10” list lets the reader know approximately how much time your post will take to read, and divides it into nice bite-sized pieces.
Use images and video: Interspersing your content with a selection of funny pictures and videos also helps break up your content and keeps your page bright and visually interesting.
3. Don’t try to go it alone
If you don’t connect your blog to the larger community, you’ll never rank on a search engine or draw real traffic (“real” meaning “someone besides your mom”). To get hooked in, find the most popular blogs related to your topic, and offer to guest post on their sites.
Most will allow you a small bio at the bottom of your article, with a link back to your site. Send out as many of these as you can, and don’t be afraid to submit great work. it might hurt to sacrifice your content to someone else’s blog, but it will more than pay off as you start to pull visitors from bigger sites.
As you gain notice, other bloggers will start linking back to your site in their posts, which will bump up your Google rankings as well as drawing direct traffic from their sites.
Never stop expanding this network, and don’t be shy about contacting the “big fish” if even one big blog runs your guest post, it can start a chain reaction that will blow up your revenue stream, and turn your blog from a hobby into a real business.
Summary
In closing, don’t let the superstars in blogging get your hopes up too high or discourage you from entering the blogging world. There is more than enough traffic for everyone. You might get an answer about How long to make money blogging.
Find something you are passionate about writing and go and start writing NOW! There is money on the internet. All you need to do is reach out and grasp it!
