Blogging: A Demanding Task with Few Rewards?
Last week, a reader named Matt sent me an article from Chicago Business about how bloggers are quitting what they call a demanding task with few rewards. It’s a fascinating story that explores some of the problems with blogging as a money-making enterprise.
The article suggests several reasons that blogs and bloggers fail:
- Blogging isn’t as lucrative as people imagine.
- Blogging takes too much time.
- Bloggers aren’t willing to share their personal lives.
- Bloggers run out of material.
- It’s easier to reach people via Facebook or Twitter.
Leaving aside Twitter and Facebook, all of these are valid concerns.
Money
As part of my job, I talk to bloggers all the time. I speak to groups of bloggers at conferences, and I meet them one-on-one for lunch all year round.
From my experience, novice bloggers have no idea how much time and effort it takes to build and maintain a successful site. Yes, you can start a blog in just an hour or two. Yes, you can run a blog as a hobby, and you can even make a little money at it. But for a blog to be a full-time business it has to be, well, a full-time business. Blogging is no easy path to riches.
Based on conversations with hundreds of bloggers, my best guess is that the average blog makes maybe $50-$100 per month. (Well, the average blog makes nothing. The average blog that’s trying to make money earns about $50 to $100 per month.) A very successful blog might make $1000 per month. And some, like Get Rich Slowly, make enough for folks to earn a full-time living.
Blogging can be lucrative if you’re willing to invest the time and effort needed to make a go of it. But successful bloggers don’t just sit on the beach sipping piña coladas and eating mangoes. The full-time bloggers I know treat this just like work. Because it is work. (To be honest, the best bloggers I know are obsessive workaholics. They spend too much time on their blogs.)
Time
One reader wrote recently for advice on starting a blog. To paraphrase:
One of my 2011 Resolutions was to start a blog. The blog is up and running, but it’s quite discouraging that people aren’t visiting it. Do you have any ideas on how to get people to visit the blog?
My reply? “Building an audience for a blog takes years, not days.” Blogs don’t just spring fully-formed into existence, like Athena from Zeus’ head. Building a successful blog takes hundreds or thousands of hours of work.
Even then, many things have to happen right in order for a blog to grow to the size of Get Rich Slowly.
- You need to work hard.
- You need to write well.
- You need to cover a subject that interests people.
- You need to spread the word.
- You need to get lucky.
And, if you want to make money at it, you have to have a subject that can be monetized. (That is, a topic for which advertisers are willing to spend, or from which you can otherwise earn an income, like with e-books.)
All of this takes time — and lots of it.
Details
But time isn’t enough. Your blog has to be interesting, and one of the best ways to make it so is to be sure it tells a compelling story. Most blogs fail to find an audience because they’re just too generic. They’re bland. They could be written by anyone.
The blogs I like have personality. Why do I love Mimi Smartypants? Because she’s so damn funny. What sets Progressive Ruin apart from other comic-book blogs? Mike makes the site personal. (He loves Swamp Thing, for goodness sake.) And what am I always telling the staff writers here at GRS? Write with personality — share your life.
A blog on any subject can be compelling if there’s a story behind it. Sure, readers come to a blog for information. But they also come to be entertained. They come to be part of a community. For these things to happen, they have to feel like they’re sharing your story. If you’re not telling a story, what is there to keep a reader around?
Last July, I spoke to a group of deal-bloggers. I was dismayed at how lifeless their sites were. “To set yourself apart, you have to let your readers identify with you,” I told them. But a lot of people are scared to share too much on the internet. That makes it tough for a blog to succeed.
Material
One final challenge bloggers face is a lack of material. If you’re writing a personal blog, this isn’t an issue. I mean, I can write about cats and comic books for a hundred years and never run out of stories. But there are only so many people who want to read about how much weight I lifted at the gym this morning or look at the latest video I found on YouTube.
If you want to keep an audience, you have to write about a specific topic. And once you’ve narrowed your focus to just one topic, you’ve limited your pool of potential posts. Unless you only write once a week or don’t mind repeating yourself, this is a problem.
Note: I recently spoke with a big-name personal finance columnist. Somehow, we started discussing the problems with writing about money. “It’s tough,” the columnist told me. “There are really only about a dozen topics we cover. But nobody wants to read the same thing all the time. Our job is to find new ways to make these dozen stories interesting.”
To maintain a successful blog, you need to provide a constant flow of new and interesting material. This is much more difficult than you might think. In fact, I’d argue that it’s the fundamental problem that bloggers have to solve. How do you keep covering your subject’s core material without sounding like a broken record?
Solving the Problem
You know what? I’ve faced all of the problems outlined in the Chicago Business article. But instead of quitting, whenever I’ve faced a challenge, I’ve looked for a way to solve the problem. As a result, Get Rich Slowly is not the same blog it was when it started nearly five years ago. This site has evolved, and will continue to do so.
Some of the changes have been obvious. Get Rich Slowly is now a multi-author blog, for example. Plus, there’s a team of social-media elves who take care of Twitter and Facebook so I can focus on my strength — which is writing.
Other changes are less obvious because they’re behind the scenes. (I’ve taken steps to smooth the business side of things, for example. And I switched offices. And GRS may switch publishing platforms. And so on.)
Not every change at Get Rich Slowly pleases every reader. That’s fine. But the bottom line is I have to look out for myself, too. I have to strike a balance between providing what readers want and getting what I need. It’s only by achieving this balance that Get Rich Slowly will survive going forward.
When this balance is achieved, something magical happens. Blogging remains a demanding task, it’s true, but you know what? It’s a demanding task with abundant rewards for everyone.
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There are 77 comments to "Blogging: A Demanding Task with Few Rewards?".
Great advice! Too many start blogs and quit within weeks as it really is demanding and time consuming to get any results. People should read a post like this one before starting just to realise that it is not an easy job. Might make less people start blogging but those who start will be better prepared to put in the effort.
…you can write about blogging as much as you want if you ask me 🙂
Blogging really is tough. I started a blog at the end of August and it is inching very slowly to success. It’s honestly very difficult to stick with it at this point, but I know that if I quit, I’ll certainly make no money. Plus, my site earned me a staff writer position with another! I never would have gotten that without a site of my own.
I am a new blogger, writing about my experiences trying to develop streams of passive income by building monetized niche websites. This topic is covered to death but I am hoping that my writing style and transparency will help me out stand out in the crowd.
It’s very discouraging to write for an audience of one, but JD, you are right, an audience doesn’t come out of the woodwork overnight, and I do have only 3 posts under my belt. But, because I do work full-time, finding the energy to spend an hour or two on my blog after a day of work, spending time with my family, etc, is, well, really challenging.
I imagine this is the same for most new bloggers. They think they will throw up a blog and will be quitting their day job a week later. Then when it turns out it actually takes work, fall back on excuses and quit.
So I guess you have to be a bit of a masochist if you really want to perservere.
I agree — this is great advice and a wake-up call for a lot of would-be bloggers. It’s a nice change from other PF blogs that repeatedly recommend blogging as a great way to earn money on the side. Unfortunately, many people don’t have the talent, passion and drive to sustain a successful blog — and there’s nothing wrong with that. If people want to earn some extra cash, finding a good fit is crucial. Blogging isn’t for everyone.
Thanks for your honesty, J.D.!
I love your stories and advice about blogging! Just because a couple people don’t is no reason to make this kind of feature a one time only thing.
We’re blogging as a hobby. We will stop when it stops being fun or we run out of things to say.
As a novice blogger myself, I really appreciate you sharing this advice. Personally, I’d be thrilled with 50.00 a month from a blog, as its just a hobby at this point, and one that I’ve found I really enjoy.
I’m excited when I get new unique visitors, and am just hopeful that I’m not writing content that no one wants to read. Concerns, I’m sure, that are typical for a new blogger.
Thanks for sharing, your post was very encouraging.
I have been blogging on and off since about May 2007. This week I crested the $100 mark on Adsense for the first time. If I did this for any other reason than the love of sharing (even to a minuscule group), I would have quit long ago.
Readership is clearly akin to compound growth in your bank account. The more content you deposit, the larger your readership grows over time (assuming it’s good content).
Thanks for a great article!
When I read that Chicago Business article, all I could think was that it was a bunch of stories from people who hoped to earn income from their blogs, but had no business model with which to do it. No surprise that they failed. It was almost as if they’d used the classic “profits” meme as their playbook:
Step 1: Blog
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!!!
Blogging and just hoping to make money doesn’t work unless you get extremely lucky.
I think everyone jumps in all excited and then realizes that everything’s pretty much already been said. There have been a plethora of money blogs that have popped up since I started mine over three years ago. I think pretty much every money saving tip has already been discussed.
It does take a lot of time and little monetary reward, but I have earned many friendships through blogging.
I agree that blogging is not like sipping drinks on the beach. It does take hard work to succeed, but if you enjoy the process than it really doesn’t feel much like work.
“But instead of quitting, whenever I’ve faced a challenge, I’ve looked for a way to solve the problem.” –That’s a great point. It’s easy to give up when things don’t work out immediately, but if you do you’ll never succeed at anything.
Thanks for posting, J.D.!
Like you said, to make money you have to treat this like a business. Most businesses fail, so it’s easy to say most blogs will fail.
I’m a Realtor, and have been selling real estate for 3 years. I see people come and go. They say the turn over rate for the first year is 80%. The 20% of people who make it the first year, 90% of them don’t make it the second year.
I just started my blog January 1, and it’s definitely time consuming.
It’s all about hard work and a little luck! 🙂
I do not blog, but I follow several blogs. I cannot begin to tell you how many blogs I’ve visited that are poorly written. If I read a post with lots of grammatical and spelling errors, I stop reading and never return.
Oh blogging is hard work and very time-demanding. But it is possible to make an income out of it. Thanks for this post on blogging; yes it seems a departure from what you usually write but really, it isnt. It’s still about money. Somehow.
I started my blog to post about my son Daniel’s time in Mongolia. So it was aimed at family and friends. Having a personal blog to begin with is great for learning about blogging.
Daniel has returned from Mongolia but I still blog. I even started putting a few ads on it to see how that works. Interestingly, two of my most popular posts are about Mongolia but not about Daniel’s time there, just about Mongolia.
Your post matches what I have learned with my limited experience. I have noticed that financial ads, when clicked on, generate the most money. Maybe that is why there are so many financial blogs.
Thank you for your post.
Would you add networking with other bloggers who have built or are building an audience as an element to a successful blog?
Thanks for sharing JD. I am finding out that blogging on the side is hard work. It’s taking up all my computer game time. I guess that’s for the best really.
I just put up a post today – Blogging is more fun than napping!
Come by for a laugh, it’ll only take 10 seconds. 🙂
http://retireby40.org/2011/01/blogging-fun-napping/
ps. You can delete the link if it’s not relevant. thx.
Totally agree with you, J.D. For most people, it takes a lot of time to build up a decent readership. I blogged for over a year without making any money, and it was fine with me because that wasn’t my main goal.
My blog makes a decent amount of money now (not a full-time income, though!), but I think the reason I’ve been able to earn money is that I didn’t start out with that as my purpose. Most people I see who start blogs for the main purpose of making money don’t do too well. You have to have a passion for your subject, not just a yearning for money.
Although I’m relatively new to blogging, I couldn’t agree more that blogging must be treated like a business if you intend to make money off of it. Like most businesses that you could start in the non-Internet world, it requires a ton of work. There’s a lot of (awful) information out there about generating passive income from the web, and I think many people assume blogging is a way to make a quick and easy buck.
I would love if you wrote more about blogging actually. You have done it for so much longer than so many others that just love to give blogging advice. It is great to get that reminder that a blog will not have instant success.
My blog is a hobby, but I think it has become too big of a hobby. I enjoy it so darn much, but I also work part time and have a few kids. I love learning and when I learn something new, I want to take a day and implement it. But, life does not allow that.
I post daily and I often contemplate if I need to cut back. But then I am afraid of traffic plummeting and giving back what I have worked so hard to get. (Traffic!) Finding balance can be hard.
A business of one’s own, blogging or any other is extremely demanding. Most people are not cut to have their own business and face the longer, harder and less that accompanies most startups the first few years. Particularly these days when everything that’s deemed “successful” has to spring almost fully formed within the first year or it’s deemed a failure. Add that to the writing itself which is a particular talent and the other skills needed to do that on an internet platform, and no surprise. As someone (Fran Leibowitz?) said, there may be a book inside everyone, but it doesn’t mean everyone should write a book. Nuff said.
I’ve been running my movie review and film criticism website CinemaFunk (www.cinemafunk.com) since September 2009. I’ve made enough to pay for hosting, and thats it.
The truly rewarding part of my blog is that I’m getting better at writing reviews and properly constructed (and annotated) film criticism, and the relationships that I’ve accumulated with other bloggers and twitter followers. I doesn’t make me financially rich, but I’m enjoying and providing a far richer experience with others.
Big thank you for sharing mimi smartypants. Her blog made me chuckle several times and is now on my reader to humor me every time she writes!
J.D.: One of the advantages that you have: you are doing what you love. When you do what you love, you put your heart and soul into it. That makes a big difference in the effort you put in and raises the chances for a successful outcome. Many people who are blogging do it because they want to make money, not becuase they really love to write or have a passion about something.
I just started a blog in October of 2010. It is a lot of work, but I love to write (I have been writing short stories since I was four years old) and I have always had an imaginative mind. I welcomethe creative outlet. If I make some money on it in the future, that’s okay. In the meantime, my other creative outlet is my home based baking business, which is doing rather well.
I am doing what I love.
To add to my previous comment… just because I have a ginormous walk-in closet and don’t need to organize it doesn’t mean you should stop April from posting about closet organization. Or just because Tyler K makes a lot of money each month doesn’t mean you should stop Donna Freedman from writing about starting baby emergency funds. Just because some folks aren’t interested in blogging…
I’ve been blogging since 2005 but I still don’t earn enough from blogging to do it for a living. It did provide me with a nice side income last year though. I think this year I might make enough to earn a modest full-time living.
It’s interesting to read about people who’ve made money from blogs. I’ve blogged a few times. The first time, was a personal blog about my first year in University – and was mainly for my family to know what was going on.
This year (Jan 1st), I started a blog on grad school. Not for money, but because I think I need another outlet for all of my thoughts on the subject. Also, I was trying to come up with a topic, and this was one I could quickly generate a lot of topic ideas for.
Are people visiting? The odd person according to the stats, but it doesn’t matter. There’s not tons of content yet, but, if all goes well, by the end of the year there will be. 🙂
We too just started a blog to try to find another source of income. We are in a super niche, it would appear, transcription which you might imagine would have an even more limited amount of topics than finance.
We update our blog three times weekly which is different from other transcription “blogs” which are really just informational and have only static content. We try to include fun and/or comic posts on Fridays, like our latest on the weather rock. 🙂 And our first podcast with a transcription company owner/transcriber will be posting on Monday and we hope it will become a regular feature, trying to make the blog more interactive. But there’s no doubt that it takes time, hard work and creativity to write a blog. The jury is still out on whether we have creativity or not 🙂
And having people commenting is very important. Ann, we missed your comment this week, wherever you are. It’s always something to look forward to. To us, having people post their comments are kind of like dollars, not dollar dollars, but kind of like spiritual dollars or intellectual dollars. Our piggy bank is a little light.
P.S. We’d like to get in touch with those who posted responses to our comment for Sierra Black’s post on January 6 regarding her hands. #30 Marly, #31 Stephanie F, #32 Lyn; #33 PB; #37 Tammy, #60 Karen and #68 Barb. We’re going to do a series on wrist health and potential problems and now to avoid them and would like to hear about your experiences on a podcast, if you might be so kind as to share them with us and our readers.
We have a habit of sometimes getting a little zany and a little wild with the jokes and kidding and the fooling around. We hope that’s a good thing. We don’t know what we’re doing on our blog yet but we’re trying to learn from other people, we’re trying to teach ourselves and at the end of the day we’re just trying to have a good time and if some other people can benefit from that then we’re happy campers. 🙂
I really do think this article would have been enhanced if you would have included a pic of you sitting on the beach, sipping a piña colada and eating a mango. 🙂
Great article! Really gets to the heart of what it’s all about. I’ve been doing my alternative media blog for years and it’s hard, hard work with very involved hours. Yet, due to the semi-obscure subject matter I write about, it doesn’t make enough to be a full-time gig, although I can work on it full-time hours.
At the same time, it’s well respected among the audience I’m writing for and very emotionally satisfying. So, it’s worth all the time I put into it.
Re. comment on #12:
I totally agree with your recommendation that most bloggers should take writing classes and work harder to establish a “voice”. That’s one of my goals this year. Most blogs are completely interchangeable and could be written by anyone.
Blogs which are memorable – like mimismartypants, Penelope Trunk or hyperboleandahalf just stand out in a sea of mediocrity. It seems to take several years to get your voice down (unless you’re like me and experiment with many voices in a schizo way, doing none of them very well).
Hi JD… a lurker who eagerly waits new posts at GRS 🙂
I’ve wanted to start a blog for a long time as a means to improve my writing. Finding the right topic is the challenge….one that I can develop an expertise in and one that resonates with a community… privacy is also a concern.
I guess all bloggers must have an end goal when they start–to make money or just share and the focus of the blog will change based on this…
Thx. for this post.
“I am … trying to develop streams of passive income by building monetized niche websites.”
This is exactly what I don’t like about the “blogging about blogging” phenomenon that J.D. says he’s trying to avoid doing too much. There are a lot of people like this that aren’t really particularly interested in sharing, or community, or discussion, but just want to turn readers into advertising dollars. It’s like an online version of the reality show — you just keep making more and more of them because you know they’ll make money, even if they’re not very good and nobody really loves them.
But blogging the way J.D. does it, where the real priorities are sharing information, entertaining readers, and having useful discussion, really *is* hard. I’ve started several blogs, and they never go anywhere, for a variety of the reasons J.D. mentioned, and I was never tying to make money off them, and I would have been happy with a readership of 50 or 100. It’s hard to invest time into writing that nobody but yourself will read. It also *is* easier to share most things on Facebook. If you’re writing a personal blog, most days, nothing interesting enough happens to warrant writing several paragraphs for a blog post about it, and things like “man, I’m so tired, I just ran seven miles!” tend to fit in with Facebook better than a blog. And you know your friends at least will actually see them, and might even care.
The only blog I started that actually seemed to get people reading it was on restoring an old sailboat, but that was even *more* work, because in addition to writing about it, you had to do all the restoration work, take pictures, etc. It was expensive, too, because sailboat parts aren’t cheap. Eventually I ended up moving and selling the boat, and the blog ended with it (though it’s still online).
Thank you! I’ve been blogging for a year and a half now and still don’t have many readers. People think that all you have to do is write and the masses will come, but it’s simply not true.
I’d like to build my site up and maybe start making a bit of money off of it, but it IS really time consuming. People have no idea!
This is a great article and I’ve been following for over a year now. I finally invested my time and money starting my own website and blog over winter break and I’ve only written one article. (I was so proud!)
You’ve mentioned all the things I felt discouraged about. Starting a blog is a very demanding task and I lack the motivation to build up my audience, especially since I should really be focusing on school and studying.
This article just inspired me to try to start out my blog again. I just have to budget my time with school and my website. 🙂
Ah, this is a timely post for me, JD. I’ve been mulling over the idea of starting a blog, and it’s all because of YOU (see, you never know how you might affect other people’s lives).
It all started with the post you wrote on The Third Stage of finance, which is where I’m presently teetering in my own life. The response was so strong, and people so eager to know more, it made me wonder if that was an opportunity to be seized. I even saved the-third-stage name on Blogspot (no posts yet, though). I don’t need the blog to be a financial success, but there’s not much point in taking a whack of precious time to work on it if there’s no audience. I suppose the plan would be to blather on about the connection between money, happiness, and life purpose as I work it out for myself. Y’know, the Bono vs Charlie Sheen conundrum. :0P
Anyway, thanks for the insight, as always. Sorry about the stream of consciousness comment – I always seem to have one more thing to say!
Great article! It takes consistent action over a long period of time. And your content needs to compel people to keep listening, and to share it with others.
@Tyler – if you read what I posted in my blog, “My Income Lab” was started so I can hold myself accountable and create a venue for myself and readers to talk about online marketing. “My Income Lab” is not monetized (not to say that in the future it won’t be, but for now, I am interested in creating content and building an audience). My goal is to create a humorous, relevant, and information rich blog focusing on passive/online income generation.
I don’t mention my monetized site by name or domain, so it’s not like I am using one blog to make money off of another.
I invite you to follow my blog and am very open to feedback.
JD, I do not mean to highjack the comments, but I felt like I needed to respond.
Thank you
Lonnie
I had google ads. I had guest posts, interviews from big names in that realm. I linked to products that I got a percentage of if someone bought them… after 2 years… I earned $70.
The big reward came when my boss offered a $500 a year raise as a result of my blog. I worked for a school and the school linked its news letter to my site. I had at LEAST 1200 eyes on my site weekly…
One of my best friends focused 10 years of his life (days and nights,very little sleep) completely focused on intrernet marketing. Littering the web with articles and generic blogs. He now doesnt have to work and is worth several million. But I saw how hard he worked and would never want to have to sacrifice so much.
To me, bottom line, if you want to make a lot of money on a blog, you better have a niche and you better be willing to work harder at it than a 9-5 job. Otherwise, expect to make enough for a nice dinner each year.
J.D.’s note: For those who are unaware, JB (Jamison) won the “website” category for the GRS video contest last spring. As part of the prize, he was set to receive a profile of his site on GRS. He turned it down. He said he was ready to move on from Tech Tips for Parents. (That site is now parked, Jamison — it doesn’t even have your blog! I sure hope you have a backup.)
I’ve been writing The Non-Consumer Advocate since May of 2008, and it’s only since November that I’m no longer posting daily. This is helping me to provide more interesting content. Oddly, my stats have stayed about the same.
I know there are ways that I could make the blog more profitable, but I’m not trying to make a living from it. (I have a well paying and satisfying job as a high risk labor and delivery nurse)
I think what makes my blog successful is that I really am obsessed with personal finance and frugality. I’ve also allowed myself to expand to write about simple living, decluttering, thrift shops and happiness.
If it were all about the money I would have quit ages ago. As it is, I park my blog income in a savings account and then use it for fun stuff like family vacations or some such thing.
The money is a bonus, but not my motivation.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
P.S. Good to see that I at least make more than the average blogger!
P.S. J.D., I’m always happy to see when Get Rich Slowly is actually written by you!
Katy
Great post, JD. I’m one of those lifeless deal bloggers that were at the conference you spoke at. 😉
I agree a lot of deal blogs are “lifeless”, and many don’t have a personal connection to their readers.
However, one thing I’d like to add: how much of yourself you pour into your blog depends on whether you want to be a business owner, or self-employed.
I’ve been blogging about deals in Colorado Springs for over two years, and expanded to Denver in December. At the current rate of anywhere from 5 to 10 posts per day on each site, I knew I couldn’t keep up with being “THE personality” on both sites. I’ve intentionally developed the new site with a more varied personality (I have two employees writing for me) so that it’s not all on me. Obviously, you’re doing that with GRS, too – but I think our audiences are reading us for different purposes.
To me, it’s the difference between being self-employed: always having to be the one to do everything because *you* are the business – and a business owner: being able to delegate certain tasks and responsibilities because the business does not 100% revolve around your personality.
I do try to put myself out there on both of my sites, but simply from a time standpoint, I can’t expand my business and have it be all me, all the time.
I appreciate that I can count on an article a day at GRS. It’s my habit to come to the site daily. Other bloggers would benefit by doing this. That way it becomes a habit of your readers. I quit going to blogs that can’t entertain me daily.
Finally, a honest look at blogging.
Blogging really is a huge amount of work and the people who are making it big seem to be the ones selling books on how easy it is to get rich blogging.
There are huge rewards from blogging, like connecting with like minded people, clarifying your thoughts, organic search engine traffic etc. but it is definitely not a way to get rich quick.
Why: You don’t make much in the first year anyway, so any potential income is offset by valuable experience, plus the happy and hard-earned knowledge that you can/can’t legitimately make a go at blogging.
(Um, this is totally moot if you’re like Hyperbole and a Half, and become an instant internet superstar because your content is phenomenal. In that case, monetize immediately.)
JD,
Thanks for the great article! I really enjoyed the section where you talked about how your blog needs to tell your story. If you need help on this I would strongly recommend the book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Donald Miller. If you want to have a good story you need to make sure you have interesting characters, interesting scenes, and a conflict you can eventually overcome. When JD writes, this blog has it all.
Thanks,
Andy
Thank you for sharing all this information, J. D.
I recently started a personal finance blog in spanish and have been devoting long hours to it. I think the key is knowing what you’re in for. If money is what drives you, you might find several obstacles to achieving your goals and see a slow results.
I’m in because it makes me feel good. I love writting and I’m convinced that sharing knowledge can make a difference. Personal finance is quite an unexplored topic in spanish literature and driving people to it is a permanent challenge. But since I’m not looking for fast returns, or for a replacement for my regular income, the challenge is really interesting.
I’m uploading one post a week and have been working on finding traffic. I’m expecting to close January with over 300 visits to the site, which is an interesting number for me, but I’m commited to the 1,000 mark.
Thanks to information such as the one you shared here, I’m finding inspiration and best practices that will allow me to continue growing.
Keep up the good work!!! And thanks again!
Great article. Most blogs aren’t great because most people don’t put the effort they need. I don’t think you need to divulge everything about your personal life but I think readers want to see bloggers share once in a while.
Oh and I also like it when a blogger posts a photo of themselves, that means there’s a real person writing, not some advertising company, not some anonymous person that’s going to up and disappear. A lot of anonymous blogs disappear too quickly.
I love it when you write about blogging, because it reminds me to get off my butt and add some content to my own blog! I don’t plan to make any money from mine and I keep it ad-free (this may change in the future if I feel I can make some pocket money). For me, blogging is a way to keep up my writing skills. I am at university, but I’m studying a very hands on subject and rarely do any writing. Hacking out a post once every few weeks keeps my writing skills in check so when I do have to write an essay it isn’t as daunting.
Inspired by your blog, I first started one on happiness (the happiness bank), to post about things that made me happy, as well as musings on the science and philosophy of happiness. But I decided that I would be even happier writing about food – so abandoned that to work on a food blog (the indolent cook) instead.
Food blogging really is an over-saturated market, but it doesn’t matter because I enjoy it. I did have illusions about making money through blogging, but I have since realized how difficult this would be, and now I just see it as a hobby. It still has the potential to bring in some extra cash or career opportunities if I put in enough effort and am blessed with a little luck – but even if that doesn’t happen, I will continue to do it as long as it brings me fulfillment.
I think the hardest kind of blog would be one like this. I’m assuming most people come to sites like this to be educated about finances.
A lot of schools never really touch personal finance. So if you aren’t that great of a writer it would be more difficult to cover this subject because you also have to educate the readers as well as entertain.
Personally for me I couldn’t sit still for more than an hour let alone write a blog. So thank you to all who do it 🙂
Even though I have no intention of starting a blog, I always find articles like this to be interesting. One thing I’ve often wondered is how much technical expertise is required? Again, I’m not looking for advice – I’m just curious. Would a brilliant writer who is not computer savy have a chance? Is it difficult for the layman to figure out how to run ads etc? Most of the articles I read about blogging never address this. Is it assumed that technical expertise is required?
Thanks again for your blog.
If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I’m not a blogger (well, I have a personal blog) but I do have a successful etsy shop. For quite a while it was my full time income. I agree with you that it’s a combination of being good at what you do (quality), producing something that people actually want (demand), and also being lucky. And that it takes time. My sales grew exponentially for the first few years, I certainly didn’t start off making enough to quit my job.
Like with blogging, people show up to etsy, list a few items, and wonder why they’re not rolling in dough. If it was that easy, wouldn’t everyone have already quit their day jobs?
Thanks for the insight JD. I started blogging a year ago for my love of creativity and having a lot of knowledge I’d really like to share more than a desire to earn money. A year later, though, I can now see it can accomplish both, and I see that from watching your blog over the years. (Right after I recommend to my clients that they read my blog, I tell them to read yours too!)
JD, I suppose your post was mainly for people who blog to make money.
I started blogging to learn to write better, share my thoughts (if I had any) and whatever else might happen.
After a year and a half, my blog has been nothing but a joy. My blog is a mix of what I find important–what others have to say, and my own ideas. And I must say, I’m proud of my blog. That others would actually subscribe or complement me on my blog, gives me great satisfaction.
And when I look at the subject matter of my blog, I like it, in that I can’t be pigeon-holed. I am a conservative, but my subject matter is vast.
Something important that I notice is that JD has a .org blog while mine is a .com. I would love to be able to allow commenters to edit their comments like JD allows on his blog. The wordpress.com does not allow that I don’t believe.
After reading the comments I’ve subscribed to four new blogs. That’s what I love about the comments. It puts flesh on the bones.
Hey JD — I couldn’t agree more with your insights about blogging. So true.
Key is passion for a particular topic, patience to stick with it, and persistence to put out great content. Helps too if you have a well-defined niche. I blog on sexual intimacy in marriage, but my niche audience is married Christian women.
Anyway, thanks for calling it like it is. If I didn’t love my topic, love encouraging people and love sex, I would quickly be discouraged about blogging. 🙂
I agree that this article is more about money and blogging than blogging by itself. It’s a nice overview.
As far as writing goes, would you believe me if I told you my school wouldn’t allow me to take a grammar course as part of my creative writing minor? Apparently writers don’t need to know about comma splicing…
Oh, one thing.
“A blog on any subject can be compelling it there’s a story behind it. ”
Should that sentence read like this?
“A blog on any subject can be compelling if there’s a story behind it. ”
An easy one to miss.
I make a living from my blogs. But I’ve been at it 5+ years and my background is in professional writing and marketing. Moreover, because of my consulting background, I can leverage a lot of the traffic for other parts of my business.
Someone above said that most of the people making money seem to be those selling get rich blogging books. That seems to be true. I mean, who believes in blogs? People who blog. So who’s going to buy a book on blogging? People who blog.
I’ve got a tough market, because my target audience doesn’t blog much. So the online networking is challenging. However, I have a good conversion rate and my products are good, so that seems to work in my favour. Plus I really believe in what I’m doing.
Great post! I think of my blog as mostly an opportunity to “publish” my writing and to have a ministry, however small, which would likely never happen at all otherwise. It is very time-consuming, and yet when I work on it, the hours fly by. I’ve been very pleased by how easy and user-friendly it is to set up a blog, add Amazon widgets, put in photos and links, etc. I haven’t monetized, but I assume Blogger and the others make that very easy to do as well, or there’s the “Donate” button (don’t know enough about the latter to be for or against it). I just hate for anyone out there who wants to blog to be hesitant to create a blog because they think it takes a computer genius to do it. It doesn’t, and if we hit a glitch, there’s always our favorite search engine to help us. Bess
There’s also a potentially huge opportunity cost for blogging. I’ve been blogging since ’06 and have done 1,035 posts. I’d estimate my total blog income (gross) to be less than $2,000.
The time I spent on my blog in late 2007 would have been much better spent on managing my investments – I bought Index Put Options in March 2007 to protect my share portfolio against a possible market downturn, but when they expired in Dec 2007 I didn’t find suitable replacement options when I made a quick cursory check of the options market at lunchtine at work, so they expired and weren’t replaced. If I’d spent a couple of the hours researching the available options after work instead of blogging, I might have avoided losing several hundred thousand dollars during the market collapse in 2008.
I think for most people blogging should only be a hobby, not something to make a few dollars off of, let alone a living. I’ve tried blogging , I’ve tried running a business, I’ve even tried going back to school and fell flat on my face with everything. I just had to realize that not everyone can do everything, especially blogging for profit.
Kevin-You don’t need a lot of expertise in blogging, just basic computer skills. Blogging can be really simple or more complex depending on the blogging software you use.
I’m currently using Blogspot and I love it for its simplicity. Typepad is also simple to use. WordPress.com is also simple to use. ‘
A lot of the blog platforms now provide easy instructions on how to upload ads and stuff so you don’t really need to be some tech or anything, you just need to have basic computer skills and willingness to learn.
I would add that sometimes the best thing to do is to repeat yourself in a blog.
1. New readers, who have not seen the earlier articles
2. The basics (if you have basics) need to be put out as reminders
3. Find new situations where the basics apply — as everyones situation is a little different so one example has more an impact than another
I scan personal finance blogs/articles very quickly, because I rarely find anything new. More often, I’m interested in the comments to see what people are finding as challenges.
Bruce
How about a book deal?
One of my friends, Ira Wagler, started blogging about his life a few years ago. He had several motivations including honing his writing skills, but his primary drive was therapy for a painful betrayal by his wife. (I grew up with her.)
His blog is very niche and he has not monetized it. There are no ads on it and never will be. He has never offered a single thing for sale.
He used to post once a week. Friday evening. Now it’s hit or miss because he has been working on his book.
Tyndale offered him a book deal and his book is set for release on June 1, 2011. He has cashed his first advance check on the book.
I don’t know how he fits in with the whole thing you are talking about but I thought you might find his story interesting.
His book is titled “Growing Up Amish: A Memoir”.
His website is http://www.irawagler.com/ If you need to delete the link that’s OK.
Any thoughts?
I enjoyed your post! I am in the process of starting a blog and agree that it takes time. Learning Word Press has even been time consuming for me! I’m in no rush to launch. I’m writing a business plan (that includes a marketing plan) as well as a number of sample posts to find my own voice. I’ve learned a lot about what is visually appealing by reading getrichslowly over the years. I love that you write in very short paragraphs and sounds bites. I speed-read through blog posts, and your’s are easily absorbable! Keep ’em coming!
I couldn’t agree with you more! I have been blogging for 4 years. I feel as though I have nothing to say that I haven’t said before. I have to remind myself that not everyone that reads my blog read it 3-4 years ago. But I don’t like to repeat so I hold back. Ugh! It is harder than people think, that is for sure.
I consider my blog a hobby that generates a few bucks. If I were doing it to make money I would have abandoned it as a failure long ago. Considering the time put in and the money generated its far worse pay than minimum wage job. But its still fun so its a hobby. If someone is really interested in it then why not try it, doesn’t hurt to try. But if you just think its a ticket to get rich quick then forget it.
Nice article – thank you! I too enjoy when you write about blogging, especially since it is hard (in my opinion) to find good information online written by those who are already successful bloggers. I believe Trent at The Simple Dollar has (or had) some free or cheap downloads on writing blogs that I have found informative and interesting.
I have started a few blogs over the last 5 years: one on getting back into riding a bike after several years – I was doing well for a time, but then stopped riding due to health, and never kept up with it. I started a few others just for fun that were totally unfocused. My bike blog’s purpose was to keep me motivated. It worked for a while, and I hope to get back to it as well.
I had a website for my resume writing business I had on the side for a while, when I was between recruiting jobs. I am thinking of transforming it into a resume writing and job search advices website. There are a lot of good ones out there already, but I want one with a sense of humor (like Penelope Trunk, but different enough to keep an audience). Besides time (and being lazy), I just haven’t put enough effort this year into formulating some plans on posting.
I was curious if you have an outline/or plan for upcoming posts on a month to month or week basis? Some of my posts should be timely, but there are others that if I take a week or two to research and write carefully could still be relevant.
My first goal is that it will give me motivation to become even more informed on trends and issues in the hiring process, learning new things outside of my current and past work experience. This will only make me a better recruiter and asset to companies I work with as a consulant. My second goal is to improve my overall writing skills in general, and my last goal is to make a little money to add to college funds for the minions, and possibly for funding to travel. I would be estactic if after I get it up and running I could make $50 t $100 after a year.
I would be interested in finding out how you or others plan your writing activities ahead of time so you don’t run out of material and pace yourself.
Thanks!
Thanks, good reality-check on the reality of money-blogging.
I’m writing about ‘purposeful living’, and would rather consider my own blogging value-adding enteprise. My ‘profits’ have atleast the following dimensions:
1. Self-realisation: inner need to clarify the topic
2. Impacting others: ideas causing action in readers
3. Financial benefits: packaging best ideas to sellable tools
The first dimension makes me to write, the 2nd to publish it, and the 3rd will eventually measure my added value to my readers.
Having a focus is the most important thing–for the blog writer and for the blog readers. I work in a specialized/emerging form of librarianship called “embedded librarianship” and started a blog about it three years ago. It’s a labor of love – but last week out of the blue someone write to me about advertising on the site–something highly specialized for this audience. I couldn’t believe it! The blog keeps evolving. I even shut it down completely once when I got sick of it and then resurrected it. I am “writing” it all the time even though I post only once a week. It’s more work than I thought but sometimes I hear from library school students who are reading my blog (even ones I haven’t announced it to in a class lecture!). I’ve embraced the “riskier” posts that make it more bloglike and personal (yes, even in the world of librarianship there are risky issues) and those are usually the better entries. All this to say that I would second the “Be specific” and “Write with personality” tenets.
These are great insights JD. I’ve been blogging for a little over two years now in a pretty bloated niche and I’m starting to realize that the most realistic way to monetize a blog isn’t to directly monetize the traffic you get, but instead to take advantage of opportunities that pop up as a result of your blog.
Trying to super-monetize just traffic is a crazy rat race these days in my opinion.
JD, I think this is a great post. I blog for hobby and just to try to improve my writing skill by writing more often. I don’t try to monetize. But, I know many people who have tried and quit this endeavor in hopes of quick $$. I would point anyone looking at blogging as an income stream to read this post!
JD, I think a lot of people enjoy these “peek behind the curtain” type posts, I know I do. I wouldn’t mind more of them!
I think part of the reason that so many people quit blogging, and why they don’t have as much success as some others do, is that most of them don’t treat blogging as a business. They treat it as an interesting diversion, and they never have any real plan for making money, or for having success. It’s just something they do when they’re bored. Like another commenter mentioned, they think the blogging process goes something like:
Step 1: Blog
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!!!
The problem is that they never take the time to figure out what that middle step is – before you make the profit. That’s really where the rubber meets the road.
I currently make what some might consider a full time income from my blogs, but it isn’t easy. Having success involves long hours of writing new content, promoting content, networking with others, of tinkering with your site and working to find advertisers. When you’re done with all that, you do it all over again.
You really do have to have a passion for the subject matter, and for helping other people to learn. And if you want to make money with it, you have to have a topic that works well for monetization. Some topics work well for making money (like personal finance), while others may not work quite as well (like a personal blog talking about your kids?). The reason? The subject matter has to have opportunity for advertisers who want to reach targeted users for their products or services. Or you have to have a topic that you can use to sell your own products. Most people fail at this very beginning step – they write about something that just won’t work well for making money.
I think about blogging this way. If you treat it as a business, you write good content and you work hard at learning what other successful bloggers are doing to succeed, you have a decent chance of making it. On the other hand, if you don’t define a niche for your site, you don’t write targeted content and you just throw up a random post every now and again without promoting it – you’re destined to fail and you’ll probably be one of the quitters in a few short months.
This subject resonates with several other professions/money making endeavors as well. For example, after college, I chose a career in the Nashville music business. I was doing ok and, I feel on my way to a long career in a tough industry. Then I had to make a choice, I was 4 years out of college and I wanted to have a family. Yes, I am a hard worker, but, I didn’t see that happening in my current pursuit of music business domination; so I chose to leave. If you want to make money blogging, that choice will come. There is ALWAYS a sacrafice of something. And finally, just as the majority of blogs are awful because the bloggers shouldn’t be blogging, there are awful bands and singers because some folks just don’t belong on the stage.
I hate how so many people assume that blogging is such an easy task when it really isn’t. Not everyone can make a living off blogging. But it’s like every other career: if you want to succeed you have to be dedicated.
I started a blog 8 months ago, have 95 posts published on it (average of 2.5 to 3 posts per week). It’s not a finance blog – it focuses on what I do in my consulting business. My purpose with it is:
1) Practice my writing. I’m an author and I know that it takes frequent practice to be able to write well and to write fast.
2) Help people get to know me so they might buy my publications.
3) Publicize my contributions to my profession
4) Teach people more about my field
I have 40 RSS subsribers according to feedburner and about 10 people per day who visit if I don’t tweet. If I tweet a post (which I only do every once in a while) I’ll get about 50-70 hits the day of the tweet. I rarely get comments on the blog itself but if I tweet about the post I’ll usually get 5-10 comments via twitter about it.
Ahh, the great debate of how to grow a blog.
I think you hit it dead on. The underlying thought is that you can kick up a wordpress blog in a few hours, you can even have a killer theme, but if your content or topic is bland, or your writing is horrible, nobody will WANT to visit.
This is a topic that I know you could beat to death. This was a very well written article touching on the basics of what it takes to monetize a blog.
Thanks JD!
Thanks for this post, JD. I needed that.