Can You Make Money Blogging?
Yes, you can make money blogging and I know people who do it. I even know how to do it myself! I'm going to share the secret of online success with you today, and also explain why I'm not taking advantage of it - because I think my experience will be useful to you , if you're thinking of earning a living online.
As most people know, the blog was originally invented as an online diary. You can still use your blog for that - but you won't make any money, unless you have an amazingly interesting and controversial life (or unless you're famous already).
In fact, you may be surprised to learn that even famous "diary" bloggers like Tila Tequila make almost no money from their blog. Their income comes from the spin-offs, like TV work or paid interviews. That's because the only way to earn money directly from a blog is from advertising.
If you have a "diary" blog like Tila's, people come to your site wanting to read about your exploits. They don't come looking to buy something, so they're not likely to click on the ads - in fact, they may not even notice them, because these days we all suffer from "ad blindness".
"Ad blindness" refers to the fact that we're all so familiar with ads, we no longer pay attention to them.
When internet advertising was invented, people didn't know the difference between content and ads, or they clicked on ads because they were a novelty. Any ad on any blog stood a chance of making an impulse sale. We all recognize ads now and mostly, ignore them. We'll only click on them if we've come to the site looking for that product.
A Blog is a Needle in a Haystack
When I started my own blog, I reckoned that even if only 1% of the 600 million people surfing the net read my blog, I could make money. Surely 1% wasn't too much to ask?
How naive I was! My blog was only one of over 70 million! The chance of anyone stumbling across it by accident was miniscule.
I learned that I had to get the search engines to love my blog. After all, how do you find sites when you're browsing on the internet? You find them using search engines like Google. If your blog is one of thousands on the same subject, it will be ranked on Google according to
- age
- freshness
- popularity.
So a new, unknown blog doesn't stand a chance - it'll be listed on page 20 if it's lucky!
I set about making my blog more attractive to Google. I couldn't do much about "age", except have patience. "Freshness" was easy - that just meant adding a new post every day, and adding things like news feeds or RSS feeds that are constantly changing. I could also do something about "popularity" (i.e. how many other sites had a link to mine). I spent hours posting links on social bookmarking sites, writers’ forums (my blog was about writing), and submitting my blog to directories.
After all that, I still had only one or two visitors a day, and had earned only a few cents for all my efforts!
I discovered my main problem was something else entirely - my topic. If you pick a subject that hundreds of other people are already writing about, you're always going to be listed on the search pages behind hundreds of older, well-established sites on the same subject. I chose "getting published" as my topic - just try Googling that and see how many results you get! So no matter how hard I worked to improve my "search-worthiness", I was behind the 8 ball.
The Importance of Niche
Choosing the right subject to make money from your blog is often referred to as "finding your niche". If you can find a brand new niche - one that no one else is blogging about - then you can make a fortune. For instance, the first "hooker's tell-all" blog was a sensation and led to fame and a book deal - but I bet you never heard much about the second, third and five-hundredth.
The longer the internet exists, the more ideas get used up and the fewer there are left for you! So these days, you're more likely to be looking for a niche that has only a small number of players, rather than none at all. But - and it's an important "but" - it also has to be a niche with lots of potential customers. If it's a small niche because no one is interested in it, then it's not going to make much money.
For instance, nowadays my "niche" is dance. There isn't a huge amount of competition in most dance niches - but at the same time, adult dancers are not a big proportion of the world's population, and professional dancers are often very short of money! So my potential customer base is small and careful about what they buy, and therefore my income is extremely modest. I don't mind that, because blogging is just a hobby for me these days, and my dancewear sites are more of a service to the dance community than a money-making exercise.
The Importance of a "Selling Angle"
Blogs don't make money by magic - you make money from blogging by displaying ads on your blog, or by selling products - either your own or someone else's.
In general, the more directly your blog content is related to your products or your advertising, the better your sales will be. So finding your niche isn't enough - you need to find the "selling angle" of your niche. For instance, on my flamenco site I don't write about dance technique, famous flamenco dancers or shows I've seen - I write about flamenco dancewear, because that's what I'm trying to sell.
How to Make Money Blogging
- write about something original, controversial, exciting or titillating that will create a buzz - then once you've got people's attention, look for ways to capitalize on your fame OR
- find a product or service that people want, that few other bloggers are selling. Design a blog around it, including plenty of ads for the product.
- For either strategy, keep high in search engine rankings by learning about SEO and self-promotion, and posting new material on your blog every day.
- Create other sites and articles to backlink to your blog, to increase its ranking.
Back Links
The other vital ingredient for success (unless you've found a spectacular niche) is backlinks. Not just any backlinks, but backlinks from other established sites on topics that are relevant to your blog.
Serious internet marketers don't leave backlinks to chance, and they don't waste time with social bookmarking or link swapping either, because they know that kind of link doesn't count for much.
Instead, they write more blogs, websites and articles (on article writing sites) to create a spiderweb of one-way links leading to their monetized sites. Are you beginning to get the picture that "passive income online" isn't really that passive after all?
Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm tinkering with hobby sites instead of using my knowledge to make money, I give the answer in my Hub about my internet journey.
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All text copyright Marisa Wright. Tila Tequila photo by Philip Nelson, Live Streaming Expert. "I'm blogging this" photo courtesy of Antigone78 on Flickr.
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Comments
Yes Alan, I think that's the best way to approach it. Writing on the internet is a hobby that you do for fun, and the money is icing on the cake. I’ve come across several disabled or unemployed people setting up on Helium in the expectation that it will give them some real money to live on. It distresses me that people like this get sucked in by the lure of “making money” by writing – it just means they waste hours which they could be using more productively doing almost anything else.
Thank you - realism is rare when the words blog and money are put in the same sentence! I do know people who are making money on the internet but it doesn't tend to be from generalised blogs. I think you have to very niche and in a niche with well paying affiliates - so if you like writing about insurance that's a well-paying hobby but I think the rest of us would call it a job!
Well, you can promote some product you sell, or use your pages as portfolio for your writing or any service. Or impress your boss. Or just to let off some steam.
These are worthwhile in themselves, any direct earning is a bonus.
"...I’ve come across several disabled or unemployed people setting up on Helium in the expectation that it will give them some real money to live on."
That's truly distressing!
Thank you Marisa for throwing needed light on the issue.
I have to agree with you on this subject. And also about the niche blog. If you are passionate about a subject that is not very well covered you can attract an audience. But there aren't many subjects that are not well covered any more. Just type " novel published," in to Google, and see how many sites there are, :)
Oddly enough, that's the subject I started my own blog on, but have since abandoned the idea. Even with a google page rank of 3, the income from it is hardly worth the effort. I actually made more money in a month of writing paid reviews than I did from 5 months of ads. I use smorty.
If you feel like trying that, please sign up through my affiliate
"Before I started my blog, I imagined that out of all those millions and millions of people surfing the net, I’d be bound to gather a small audience."
That's the mistake so many make. In reality, most people will have more success publishing on sites like Hubpages where there is already traffic and search engine attention than writing their own blog and trying to get visitors themselves.
It's easier to piggyback on a site that's already successful.
Once you do get a lot of readers and search engine results, you can start directing some to your own blog where you do get to keep all the revenue.
it's true, blog is not a get rich quick way to earn money. i don even know where my blog is in the position line. maybe the last of the search engines. hehehe. though i admit it's not interestin. hehe
This is a really informative, well-written Hub - I've only just started adding ads to my new blog and writing hub pages (6 so far) - to date I have earned ZERO although I'm getting plenty of impressions (but no clicks/purchases). It is so important to be realistic about earnings. Once again thanks fo a great Hub!
Great Hub! I believe one of the main mistakes with Hubpages and elsewhere, is trying to sell to quick. It works much better to offer something of value for free in exchange of their e-mail address and strive to cultivate your list.
We've all heard that "the money is on the list" and even though it sounds as a cliche, it is 100% true. It's much easier for all of us to buy from somebody we know than from total strangers, and it's no different online.
While it is possible to make a buck or two with Adsense and Amazon links, the real money comes AFTER you've established a relationship with your list. I believe that this concept and a bit of creativity can be used successfully to make money with Hubpages.
I'm not sure if I agree, Tammy. I've read several times that having a loyal readership does not necessarily equal sales - in fact, regular readers are actually less likely to buy, because the ads become invisible to them.
If you're talking about selling a specific product rather than eBay, Amazon or Adsense, then I agree that's a different ballgame
Thank you
wow, honesty on the web, excellent. i'm fairly new to the internet even though i've been on this planet of ours for many years. i just bought my first computer a few months ago and have heard all about the opportunities to make money on the internet (although thats not why i bought a computer). i bought a computer because i have a JOB and i have money to buy a computer because i have a JOB.
i can understand why so many people fall for all this make money from affliate marketing bullshit.
because people are human! but it's still kinda sad.
i'm pretty sure the only people making lots of money with affliate marketing are the people that are selling their own dishonesty.
ya gotta feel sorry for the suckers though
i really don't see any thing wrong with making a few bucks from affiliate liks and such. but for those trying to make a living from it, very sad.
just my opinion, CHEERS to your honestly marisa
Hi Marisa,
I am new to Hubpages. I enjoy writing my hubs and the community here is very welcoming, but I wonder if my time would be better spent sending articles to magazines for publication if my goal is to make some money from writing. Any opinions? There must be SOME way a writer can make money.
Good tips.....
Very Good site. I like it and very helpfull for me
I really appreciate you sharing this information. I am still starting out on this things and your hub guided me in the right direction.
Nice hub as always, I have a funny videos site and it's ranked ok in Google but funny videos doesn't pay that well but somedays I get a dollar from it. Best thing though as you say is it takes very little work, I pick out a funny video, add a few sentences then post it.
I reckon if I worked more at it and looked for links I could get it to pay more. Blogging is fun plus if you go through Blogger you can switch to a Domain name for only 10 dollars, good luck !
I couldn't agree more with the main premise discussed here. There is definately money to made blogging! But which platform & Plugins to use? Can be used for Affiliate Marketing also.
Thanks for this helpful information.Now i have come to know that how we can earn money throw our blogs.
The fact is that many bloggers give up too soon. They dont have the quality to succeed in making money from blogging.
Hi Marisa Wright,
Great hub, 100% agreed with your info regarding making money through blogs or hub pages. Sad thing about hub pages & other social networks is the hubbers or writers are not truthful.
I know few hubbers claiming to make thousands a month but when you tell them the truth about making money on hub pages, they will tell you their income is not from hub pages.
Actually Mr Nice, that's not quite true. I know some Hubbers who are cashing out over $1,000 per month purely from HubPages. They are experienced internet entrepreneurs with other online sites as well, but that money is just from HP. And they don't have hundreds of Hubs, either.
Great stuff - Thank You!
Marisa,
May be you are one of those hubbers. I personally don't know any one can even dream of making that kind of money from hub pages.
Whatever I mentioned in my comment was personal experience. Hubber’s at hub pages tells you all kind of stories. I am making $10,000 a month. It's like those ads you see or receive info in junk mail.
Mr Nice, I wish I was one of those Hubbers! But to be honest, I don't work hard enough to achieve anything close to that. However, I know the people concerned well enough to know the claims are true. I agree with you, though - there are plenty of internet sharks out there, not just on HubPages, who claim to be making thousands without any real foundation. You can usually tell who they are - they're the ones trying to sell you something!
Marisa, this was very informative. I write because I like to so it is not a problem for me if I don't make any money, although it would be nice.
Have you written any how to articles about dance? Another thing you could do is make an e-book and sell it on your blogs. I am looking for quality lessons on belly-dance. I love dance and am interested in many forms.
Dardia, I've written a couple of how-to articles on flamenco posture and footwork - but in general, I'm not a fan of written instruction on dancing.
The main tool of all dance teachers is their body. They'll use words to add extra clarification, but physical demonstration of the moves is the most important aspect of teaching. Photos are no substitute for seeing the body in motion. So if you want to learn any kind of dancing at home, the solution is DVD's, not books.
I've just started a new blog reviewing belly dancing DVD's:
I have seen quite a few dvd's and found them lacking. I will definitely check out your review.
great hub Marisa. It really breaks down the process of getting your blog out there and read by people. I will always come back to this one when I need help in SEO or other related fields. That's why I am bookmarking this. Good Job! Age doesn't matter - it's nothing but a number. I know someone who gets 2000 unique visitors daily and his blog is only about a month and a half old. Or was at that time. To me that's inspiring!!
I just started blogging all of 2 weeks ago. Im glad I read this one though. Great info!
Very good writing and some good points.
Even though the hub has been here for sometime, damn the fact still good. Keep it up and share with us! Love the way you explain things. Keep it up and thank you again.
I gave up on my blog long ago...but I still loved to write and it made me crazy to just "stay in a niche". So, I joined HubPages. :D
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Alan 4 years ago
Although its great if one can make money from a hobby. But its difficult as people have to work around their jobs and commitments. But its great as a hobby though.