The Truth About Blogging
There is an idea circulating out there that if you write a blog you can make big money with it.
This leads people to think they are going to start a business and it’s going to be a blog.
What I want to do today is explain how a blog can be monetized and what the numbers really look like.
So if you are thinking of starting a blog or if you are in business and everyone is telling you you need to be blogging you can make a decision on whether or not it’s the right path for you.
Let’s dig in…
if you are thinking of starting a blog you are probably imagining that you’ll rent out advertising space on your blog and get a nice passive income doing this.
There are people that do this successfully, it’s not impossible which is why you’ve been hearing about it. So let’s look at the numbers:
Disclaimer: I’ve never done this because it wouldn’t be a smart business choice for my situation. I am using info freely available on the Internet to show these numbers:
It is said you can earn anywhere between $1 and $5 per 1000 views per day on your website.
This means if you wanted to hit 6 figures, which is a number a lot of people have in their head, you’d have to hit 55,000 views a day.
Let that number sink in for a moment…
That is a MASSIVE amount of traffic.
And that’s taking the highest payment figure per 1000 views.
To give it some more context I don’t think anyone that I know, even the big names making up to a million a year online, has those kinds of traffic numbers.
Plus remember as well there are over 100 hundred million blogs on the Internet. Gah!
So if you are going to take this route you will have to create stellar content and lots of it. Which is a valid path and maybe you want to do that.
It just doesn’t sound so much like passive income now right? Or an easy way to start. (You can hear more about what I think is a better way to start in my training Zero to Paying Clients.)
The long and short of this is I believe monetizing a blog through ads is a long, painful way to making money.
Instead you should be starting an online business that may or may not have a blog attached to it
A business is made up of a core set of ideas around what you do and what you sell (business foundation), a way of making people aware of what you do (lead generation) and a way of turning leads into clients (sales process).
That’s it.
When you look at it in this way blogging is a form of lead generation.
You put content out into the world and people searching for that content will hopefully find it.
Once they are there selling ads is not the best way of making money from the people that find you just because it pays so poorly per person who lands on your site.
So what this means is you are better off selling something else.
Which means you have a business that has a blog. Not a blog that is a business.
You can use a lot of different lead generation strategies – guest posting, podcasting, run Facebook ads, strategic partnerships, networking etc.
The number of strategies is endless but you need to choose strategies that fit your personality style and your business.
So does this mean you should be blogging?
No, not necessarily.
Am I saying content marketing isn’t important? No, definitely not.
What I am saying is choose lead generation strategies that fit your business, draw people in and lead to you making sales.
Blogging may or may not be a great fit for you.
So what does this mean?
A blog by itself is rarely a business – a blog is a long term growth strategy for your BUSINESS but your business probably isn’t the blog.
A blog is a place where people can learn more about your ideas and bond with your brand.
Just because people read a blog doesn’t mean they’ll pay for paid products, the other business elements are needed as well. (Got a blog but no clients? You need this)
When you have a business it doesn’t mean you HAVE to write a blog.
A blog is a strategy that may or may not fit your business.
And your business is likely NOT the blog.
What do you think?
Do you have a blog that runs ads? If so I’d love to hear your experience.
Are you thinking of starting a blog/business? Let’s hear about it!
Let me know what you think in the comments below: