There are more and more ways a person can earn money online in today's ever more connected world. Blogging can be your way, but before you get excited you need to do your homework. There are many resources that generalize on this topic, and mostly because they don't want to give away that secret to success that they have found. Everyone's secret will be slightly different, but let me help you with this week's series on earning money from your blog.
Hang Around Your Peers
If you are not already doing so, you should invest in local or regional meetups of bloggers and other online professionals and discuss your experience as a blogger. These other professionals, hobbyists, and interested parties will also share some of their stories and you will eventually learn things that work and things that don't. Take note and try some of the things out, but don't buy everything without spending time researching it, especially if someone starts talking about registration or sign up fees for a program.
So first let's talk about some of the hard and fast realities and statistics about blogging. While there are countless blogs, most barely earn more than $2500 USD a month. iBlog magazine ran a survey and found that out of the thousands who responded the revenue generated broke down to something like this:
- Only 11% earned more than $30,000
- 68% earned less than $5,000
- and still, 57% could not even break $2500
With that fact out there, lets look also at the bright side of things there are some bloggers that do earn a very healthy six-figure revenue stream from blogging full time There are always opportunities that are available for the blogger who is willing to put in the work and take advantage of the good situations that come around and make the best out of the bad ones.
How Often Should You Blog?
Another fact that was taken away from the iBlog survey was that most of the people responding to the survey worked part-time, 58% in fact. SO that means many of the results were seen with only a 20 hour or less commitment to the blog. 30% of those who participated in the survey were stay-at-home parents and 18% owned a non-blogging business. SO this means a good deal of those blogging and seeing $2500 did not have a high level of engagement on the blog.
You need to come into blogging and realize though that you will not see an immediate revenue stream. Getting a revenue stream is a result and indication of high levels of traffic, a strong community, and a high level of authority for the person blogging. Becoming a topic authority takes work, research, and a long track record of well-written blog articles. Even Facebook started out as a website with no advertisements and was reluctant to add advertisements until the user base reached a critical mass.
Joining the Pro Blogger League
Becoming a professional blogger will require you to work hard, you will need to invest in training, tools, and professionals and stick it out for the long haul. You should expect to wait a year or more before you can really attract enough visitors to monetize your blog. If you are not at this stage yet do not fear, the articles in this series will prepare you for the journey and let you know the tools you will need in order to become a professional.
Another thing to consider while on the road to monetize your blog is the profitability factor is even if your blog does not earn anything from advertising or sponsorships, many other bloggers find that they still can earn a revenue because of their blog. This can translate into meaning you find more customers for your business, employment opportunities, and other things.
So last week we talk about how to pick a target, measure its success, and the basics of managing your community member's conversations which all are lead-ins to generating revenue from a blog. Which is a big part of why they came first in this series? Now with us moving into the financial part of things, it is good to look at your expenses and know how much your blog requires to run. I suggest using a financial program of some sort to make notes of this budget, and once you start getting checks make records of your income. These records are important for taxes and for other legal and business purposes. So make sure to track the following items at a minimum:
- Hosting, Doman Name fees
- Any online services related to your blog
- Any travel expenses, purchases for research that are required for your posts
- As well as how much time you spend researching and writing the posts, count this as an expense against your company.
Make sure to keep tracking these day to day and month to month. If you have not already done so look into getting a business license for your blog, especially if you are considering becoming a professional blogger. There are many places that offer various benefits and discounts to business owners. This wraps up today's post regarding the topic. Tomorrow I will do a break down on Google Adwords and how much traffic you would need in order to make various income points.