Let me start you off with this simple truth:
- You will never make money as a blogger if you continue to do the wrong things.
Albert Einstein’s great quip sums this up – “It is sheer insanity to do something over and over again and expect a different result.”
Many new bloggers are lost in thoughts of being able to travel the world and spend time in expensive hotels eating the best meals. While this is a possible feat to achieve, it sure takes a lot of guts and time in getting to this place of tremendous achievement.
Daniel Lyons (Fake Steve Jobs) confirmed that “While blogs can do many awesome things, making lots of money isn’t one of them.”
He was right if you ask me.
Your blog isn’t a money printing machine; rather, it’s a tool used for reaching the world with your valuable products/services… and possibly making money in the process.
Of course, it takes a lot of work. You must be willing to go through the process patiently, and if you do, success will surely come.
I love Whitney Young Jr.’s great quote, “It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared for it.”
The latter part of the quote paints a typical blogging situation- someone who has a chance at becoming one of the most respected people in the annals of the world but loses out by reasons of unpreparedness.
In this post, I will reveal to you the reasons why you will never make money blogging in 2019. Aside from that, I’ll also show you how you can reverse this and build a money-making blog right now.
Are we still together?
Let’s dive in!
Why You Will Never Make Money Blogging (And How To Reverse It)
1. You don’t have a concrete business model.
Now, before I explain what a business model is and how to set up one for your business, let me quickly tell you why the lack of one is ruining your blogging business.
When you don’t have a system or a plan that encourages or pushes you to take the necessary actions in your business, you risk losing your enthusiasm and passion which will eventually result in the death of your blog.
So what is a business model?
The term “business model” can be defined in so many ways…
For the sake of this tutorial, I will describe a business model simply as a plan or design for the successful operation of a business, the intended customer base, the identified revenue sources, products, and sources of financing.
Similarly, Wikipedia defined it as: “an abstract representation of a business, be it conceptual, textual, and/or graphical, of all core interrelated architectural, co-operational, and financial arrangements designed and developed by an organization presently and in the future, as well as all core products and/or services the organization offers, or will offer, based on these arrangements that are needed to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.”
One of the mistakes often made by bloggers is in thinking that a business model is all about saying: “I want to make money.”
Honestly, if you put the “making money” thing as the primary reason for starting your business, you’re already doomed.
Money shouldn’t be your focus when starting out online as a blogger. The focus should be on creating systems; that includes creating significant and valuable content that takes a reader from where they are to where they ought to be.
Distilling it down, a good business model will let you:
- Identify who your target audience is.
- Identify revenue sources.
- Figure out how to serve your customers. (With text, videos, audios, infographics, etc.?)
- Identify products to create that will further educate your audience on what you currently teach them via your blog posts. (Example: You can create and sell an eBook.)
- Identify where will you get funds and how will you continue to invest in your business to stay relevant in the marketplace.
- Find the best promotional strategies to get your business out there.
These are just some of the things to consider when creating a plan/model for your business.
This is a very important step when starting out as a blogger.
You must give it maximum attention.
For further reading:
- 5 Simple Steps for An Effective Business Plan For Your Blog
- How To Write Killer Blog Business Plan in 9 Easy Steps
2. You are not concerned about value.
As I mentioned, you will never make a single dime blogging if you concern yourself too much about making money.
Making money from blogging does not come overnight. I’ve been in the internet marketing and blogging niche longer than most of you, and I’ve never seen anyone that launched one day and started seeing money roll in the next day.
It doesn’t happen.
Forget all those adverts hovering over the web about how Jack made $$$$$$ within 48 hours of launching his business. If it actually worked that way, everyone would be doing it.
Here’s what you need to remember:
- If you want to make real money in the real world, you need to solve real problems.
If you’re serious about making money, learn to shift focus on wanting to be a quick and overnight success to providing a lot of value to your readers
Value is what sells you and your products, and it is what ultimately helps you to achieve your money-making goals.
According to Copyblogger, “If you don’t offer customers something they dearly want, whether it’s to gain some great pleasure or escape some great pain, you’re not going to make any money.”
3. You are not asking the right questions.
I constantly get readers of ShoutMeLoud asking me:
- How do I make money blogging?
- How can I get traffic to my blog?
- How can I build influence and get blog engagements?
While all these questions are great, there’s always something wrong with the phrasing.
Example:
Don’t ask: “How can I get traffic?”
Ask: “Is my blog capable of getting traffic?”
A lot of the time, people come into the online space to build blogs, publish some crappy content, and splash ads all over the place expecting to make lots of money.
Well, it doesn’t work like that!
You have got to push yourself really far by asking the right questions and doing the right things if you want to attract the right people in order to maybe make money blogging.
For instance, if your article headline is not engaging and compelling enough, it won’t attract visitors to stop over and read the article. The same thing applies to your content; if it sucks, no one will want to engage with your blog.
You have to give people a good reason to leave your competitor’s site and read yours.
How do you do that?
It’s mostly about creating informative and entertaining content that readers will find hard to ignore.
Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Write in your own unique voice, and soon, people will start noticing your unique and outstanding approach.
That’s when they will fall in love with you and make your blog their new dwelling place.
How To Make Your Blog A Success
If you take the time to really read through this post, you will definitely go from making nothing to making a substantial income as a blogger.
Many people are already doing it, and there’s no reason you can’t be doing it too.
You just need to make sure you’re doing the right things.
Don’t fall into the “make money online” trap. Nothing can replace hard work and dedication.
When people can see that you care about what you do, they’ll learn to respect and trust you as an authority in your niche.
When that happens, the money will start rolling in.
What are some common blogging mistakes you often see in the blogging world? Which one of these mistakes are you guilty of? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below!
For further reading:
- 6 Brilliant Tips To Make You Blog like a Pro-Blogger
- 6 Tips for Becoming a Successful Blogger
- How Not to Write Meaningless Blog Posts For The Success of your Blog
Like this post? Don’t forget to share it!!
dear harsha,
one of the wonderful post i read in my life about money making with blogging.i request you plz write about how to set terms and conditions,privacy policy,discliamer pages in a blog?. lot guys like me they have no idea about this. i hope that will be very useful for so many guys.i wait with eager for that? your’s how to blogging news letter is simply super.thank you so much.
I have implemented this and earning $ 78 pee month. I know this is a very small amount but one day it will increase.
Was a superb content buddy, it’s a little bit psychological thoughts too.
Thanks for sharing the valuable information harsh . I am reading you blog from past one month Nd tips you are giving I am following, good news is I am getting good amount of visitors in my blog. Thanks a ton
Rightly said we should focus on giving value to our readers instead of making money.
Thanks for providing valuable advice.
Thank You. We should be careful about these mistakes and make them correct immediately
Even though blogging generates money, it should not be done because of money. The mindset of only trying to make money from your blog leads to failure. Great post Harsh!
Hello Harsh,
You always come up with a complete masterpiece.It was an amazing post and wonderful for new beginner and for me too
I observe that and I face this problem too I want to make money at starting when I was a beginner and I suppose blogging is the easiest way to earn money.I think that I will live a luxury life with it without so much of hard work and dedication.But after that I just made blog made not a single penny with it and stop blogging.But again I come back not this time as a copy paste from reading other content and rewriting it.
Btw I have a couple of question if you can answer me I will be very Happy.
1.Which content you say a High-quality content and which content is Low-quality poor content?
-Sahil Suman
-Founder of Trickydad
Hi Harsh Sir
I agree with You blogging is not only to make money online you should provide good and valuable information to reader thanks for this info keep updating us about blogging
Hi Harsh, thanks for this post. You are one of the inspiration for me to start my blog and yes I also dream of making money from it. This post will help me take the right path towards my goal.
that’s very nice article….i love the way you try to connect with your loyal viewers by writing simple and to the point article…awesome work harsh!
BTW friend, in this article, i read one point you said, i.e. :-“Is my blog capable of getting traffic?”
that’s the best words!
I spend many hours on Quora and there half of the questions people ask to me is “how they can make money from their newly started blog, Tips to increase traffic rapidly, and many more.
I like your words “instead of asking how can I increase traffic ask is my blog is capable for that much traffic”
Really like this article. It is some what different from your other articles.
Thank You sir and Keep writing .
Hello, Harsh Sir
very true and informative article.Thanks for inspiring new bloggers.I have created niche blog with inputs from shoutmeloud.Its been one year, and I am earning well.
Happen to read this post because of the headline. But reading on I didn’t find it discusses anything new, other than what you had spoke many times in this space. Of course it takes a lot of work as you had told before!
HI Agarwal
A very good articles on making money as blogger. The steps you take to explain make the whole process very easy to understand and very practical one. It adds much to my previous knowledge about blogging. Keep writing helpful articles like this about blogging.
Hi Harsh Sir
I agree with You blogging is not only to make money online you should provide good and valuable information to reader thanks for this info keep updating us about blogging
Great key point discovered for blogger. Thanks sir
Hi Harsh,
I am a regular reader of your blog, also installed SML mobile app on my phone. But articles like these are not long enough and there are many links in the article for which i need to open them and read them and if that article has some links to get more information i need read them also… Oh this is lot of reading. Can you please make some articles long enough without less hyperlinks in it, i love to read them and gain good knowledge… Thanks Harsh!!
I agree with Harsh, blogging takes lots of time and lots of work. It’s the reason many newbie bloggers give up blogging in a little time.
Yeah!! I agree with you.. It take time and patience to build rank of blog. This is really a motivating post. Thanks you for sharing it.