Will You Make Money With Your Blog?
Thanks to WordPress, giving yourself an online presence is simple. Most hosting providers now provide a ‘one click’ solution to get your blog online with your very own domain – its never been this easy!
With this in mind, creating a blog has become something of a chore for many people.. often backed by the hope of getting a vast audience and making some money online.
But before following this idea and creating a blog for this purpose, consider the below questions – not only to save yourself the disappointment if it doesn’t work out, but also to give yourself a better chance when you’re at it…
1. What competition do you have?
Something that will probably be repeated all around this ‘Make Money’ category – visitors equal money. Although this equation is in it’s simplest form, it remains true for any money making ideas you may be cooking up for your online venture.
Consider looking at your competition and weighing up whether your blog can bring any value that they aren’t. If it can’t, its likely your visitors will see this, and will remain loyal to the other already established sites.
If on the other hand your site will bring something of value, then straight away you’re onto a winner, and you just need to work on promoting this extra ‘value’.
2. Do you have the time to commit to this?
Blogging takes time. No matter what anyone says – creating good original content is a lengthy process. For maximum exposure and to keep your visitors coming back, you’ll want to be publishing at least twice a week – of course the more you can post, the more exposure you’ll get. Don’t expect to be able to put in 30 minutes a week and be making ten’s of thousands a year. Weigh up whether you can afford to dedicate a good few hours a week to your blog – if not, then consider asking yourself whether you really wish to go at blogging with the intention of making money.
3. Do you have the ideas and creativity to generate content?
Blogging is always easy at the start. You’ll generally have a ton of ideas to start with, and therefore generate the blog to flow these out and publish them to the world. But in a years time, will you still have the same amount of great ideas and content? If you’re going to go into this for the long haul, then make sure you choose a blogging topic that will interest you, and also something that you’ll still be interested in over the next few years at least. You’ll find a lot of people blog about a subject that they do for a living, as this keeps the fresh content flowing in front of them, even when not blogging. As a Web Developer, I know I’ll be learning new things all the time at work, so this have given me the perfect base to start a blog about a web development subject!
4. Most importantly – Do you have a Plan?
If you don’t – stop what you’re doing a create one. Plan your niche – research the subject as well as the competition, read some sample content and decide whether you can match it. Decide how you’re planning on making money – are you going to create an ebook? sell products through your blog? or are you going for Ads?
Do you already have a money making blog? Or are you struggling along making a small amount each month? It’d be great to hear your stories, so please feel free to add them below!
