It seems that most people ask “how much” they can make from blogging rather than asking “if” they can make money from blogging. There are quite a few pie-in-the-sky pipe dream promoters promising a silver lined path to the golden goose from blogging. I think most people who begin to blog do so with dollar signs reflecting from their pupils, and their tongue salivating over how they’ll be the ultimate blogging cash cow in the near future.
The question, “Should You Blog for Money?” may have you thinking I’m crazy to even bring it up. Why would I ask such a question? Primarily because I think it’s unfair to lead bloggers to believe they can cash in quickly from blogging when for most it’s a slow road. This is true with most of the Internet for the majority who start surfing for waves of money from any venue.
For those new to blogging I think it’s important to understand that before you figure on blogging for money that you first need to simply get good at blogging 101! Unless your blog is going to be featuring primarily videos or images, blogging 101 simply begins with being able to express yourself well in writing, and doing so on a consistent basis. Writing content is really the foundation to blogging. Once you begin to build a foundation you can move on to identifying how you can improve, and how you can potentially turn it into spare cash or possibly even a greater source of income.
If one cannot succeed at writing good valuable content then they need to work on improving their blogging foundation. Does that mean that if you don’t write well you should throw in the towel? No, by all means not! Blogging in fact is a wonderful tool for anyone to practice, and become better at writing content. Can’t seem to get the swing of writing good content? That’s fine if you are going to publish a more visual blog rather than one with content. Content however, is a strong tool to bring traffic due to the nature in which robots crawl websites, so if you can’t write content you may need to turn to other resources such as news feeds or other ways to bring content into your blog. But, that certainly does not mean you are at liberty to copying the content from others. You need to be mindful of copyright laws.
I felt this topic would be a good one to bring up because the attitude toward blogging will remain much more positive if the blogger has not set themselves up for potentially a great disappointment from the beginning. A new blogger is better off taking on the attitude that they are not in it for the money, but rather for the sheer enjoyment of sharing their wealth of information and viewpoints with others. As time goes on, and their blog attracts greater traffic and readership, then the blogger can really begin to focus more on the ultimate question of how to monetize their blog.
There are also some who want you to believe that unless you can earn money from your blog that you are not a good blogger, yet nothing could be further from the truth! Blogging, and earning money from blogging are one of the same to some, yet two totally different strategies of focus to others.
The reality is, that each blog or website starts out on the Internet like a grain of sand at the seashore, and until it’s discovered and revisited often it will be passed by many times. Then suddenly the waves of traffic begin to come in and grow larger, and the opportunity for earning extra money from blogging becomes a greater reality. Until then – don’t beat yourself up if your blog has not become a money machine!
