Over two-thirds of all blogs fail to make any money. But you CAN beat the odds! Keep reading to learn how to get your blog noticed, and what it takes to create a successful and profitable blog.
EDIT: Today, 14th May 2019, you can start a blog for as low as $2.95 per month for 12 months. affiliate link (That’s only $35.40 for the entire year!) Hurry, this deal ends SOON. PS – you also get a free domain name ($15 value) when you sign up for a year’s hosting with Bluehost!
Reality: Most Blogs Fail to Make Money
We’ve all seen the amazing success stories of 6-figure bloggers — I’m one of them!
Blogging has totally changed my life, and every day I am grateful for the ability to get paid for doing something I love, while spending more time with my family.
However, those 6-figure bloggers represent less than 3% of all the bloggers out there. The reality is that over two-thirds of all blogs that are created never make a cent.
In fact, a survey by Blog Tyrant reveals that 69% of blogs make no profit at all.
But why?
What’s the difference between the blogs that succeed and make 6-figure profits and those that fail to make money?
The Difference: Most Bloggers Skip the Fundamentals
One of the reasons that people don’t make a profit from their blog is that they have unrealistic expectations and they don’t build a solid foundation for profitability.
They jump in with tons of enthusiasm, write a few posts, and then start panicking because they have no traffic and no income.
Then they haphazardly begin promoting a blog that just isn’t ready for promotion. Of course there are exceptions to this. But they are exceptions. Skipping the fundamentals of developing the skills needed for a successful blog leads to failure.
A profitable blog starts with building a strong foundation of quality content, a good reputation, and a social media presence. Building a solid foundation will help you beat the odds.
Let’s have some straight talk about blogging.
Before you get started:
If you haven’t read any of my earlier posts, or if you haven’t started a blog yet (but want to) I highly recommend that you start with this one about how to create a blog from the ground up. Next read the 5 things I wish I’d known before I started my own blog. <– seriously…read this! You don’t want to make the same mistakes I did!
Then meet me back here and we’ll break down exactly why most blogs fail to make money and how to make sure yours ISN’T one of them!
How to Beat the Odds and Create a Successful Blog
Sara Garska of My Think Big Life shares the “secrets” that made her blog traffic explode, and allowed her to start monetizing. By implementing these fundamentals, she grew her blog from 7500 monthly page views to 30,000 in just 2 months!
Blogging is probably one of the most romanticized professions out there. And make no mistake, it IS a profession. But most people jump into it and don’t understand how to build and develop their blog in a way that will lead to monetization.
And here’s the thing about serious professions; despite what you read other places — there are NO shortcuts to creating a profitable blog. It requires you to take it seriously and put in time and effort into doing it right.
It doesn’t happen in 20 minutes and it might not happen in 20 weeks. Though you can definitely make some serious progress in 20 weeks.
Most profitable blogs take a year or more to become profitable.
Good News: It IS possible to create a profitable blog
Blogging will be more difficult than you imagined and getting to profitability will probably take much longer than you thought it would. It just does. In addition, way more people start and quit blogging, than see it through to profitability.
Not only is blogging a tough profession to make money at, it rarely happens as quickly as any of us would like.
Not because the blogger is doing anything wrong. Doing a blog right, takes time, commitment, perseverance, and strategy.
Most people work months before they see any kind of return. Stacey was five months in and was thrilled to get a $50 Target card for her first paid gig. (However, within a year, she was making a living income.)
I was in about nine months before I started seeing some affiliate income — but I didn’t get serious about it until about five months in.
The important thing to remember though, is that it IS possible to earn a living blogging. And it is much easier to do so, if you’ve got a solid foundation to grow from.
3 Steps to Build a Strong Blogging Foundation
Let me remind you again: It takes time to build a successful blog. You have to build the foundation first. That includes:
- Building a solid reputation
- Creating quality content
- Expanding your social media bases
Notice, our list doesn’t include scheduling tools, promoting posts, or even networking. You’ll do all those things but it is so important to have your foundation in place first.
Related: I wrote this post about how to start a blog to be my complete guide to blogging. Once you’ve finished reading about why most blogs fail (and how not to be one of them), check out the above guide for even more important blogging tips for beginners. Be sure to bookmark it so you can come back whenever you need to!
1. Build Your Reputation
Here’s one of the problems with trying to promote too soon. If you are promoting not-so-great content and graphics, your reputation will suffer. As big as the blogging world is, if you’re hanging out in it, you get to know what other people’s work looks like.
If you are putting out poor quality content, people will quit clicking on your stuff. It will become almost invisible to them.
Trust me on this, your reputation is important. There are several bloggers that when I see something new, I’m excited to read. There are others, I won’t even click on their stuff anymore.
Why? Because for whatever reason, I haven’t found their content to be useful to me or to the people I like to share it with. This is really important. If you start sharing too soon, all people will have in mind is your beginning efforts.
I know, it’s not fair.
But there are so many people who are etched in my mind as poor writers with poor graphics. And when I don’t see improvement in their graphics, I don’t click to go check out the content either.
The good news is that I have seen people who start digging in and improving their reputation by creating quality sharable pins/graphics. When that happens, I’m usually curious enough to check out their stuff.
2. Create Quality Content
Whether you like it or not, your content has to have value to someone. People are looking for answers to their problems in life.
There might be a few blogs where people just follow because they are into that writer but in general people are searching for answers. That could be the answer to what to have for dinner or for how to deal with a toddler’s temper tantrums.
When I first started blogging it took me much longer to write a post than it does now. Put the time in to write the best post you are capable of. Answer a problem that someone has. And give a real answer.
Don’t worry, these early efforts will not be in vain. They allow you to get your writing and designing chops going. You will get better as you go if you concentrate on writing good and useful content. Notice, I’m not saying write EPIC or AMAZING content.
Just get writing and get better.
Later on, you can go back and give these early efforts a makeover. I had one old post that I gave a facelift to and it became my most popular post ever—five months after I first wrote and posted it.
So, these old posts help you get comfortable with and better at blogging. They establish your presence and they provide a place for you to give the impression of creating new content later.
Read this next:
3. Grow Your Social Media Base
As you are writing your quality content you will want to explore and build one or two social media bases.
We always recommend concentrating on building your Pinterest account as soon as possible. Put thought and effort into creating your boards.
Don’t worry as much about promoting your stuff; instead focus on building your Pinterest presence. In addition, it’s helpful to have a Twitter account, Facebook page for your blog, and Instagram account.
When you are ready to monetize your blog, you want these following numbers to be as high as possible. We’re talking in the thousands.
It’s daunting, but the sooner you get started the better. I could kick myself for all the years I had my Twitter account but did ZERO to connect and get followers.
One of the keys to growing your social following is finding a way to make yourself stand out from the crowd.
Related: Learn how to make your pins go viral here!
How to Find Support
Blogging is by its very nature a very lonely profession at times. As bloggers we absolutely need a place to share our work and our ideas and get support in return.
Knowing your numbers is essential to growing your blog. At any time, you should know what your average daily page views are, how many followers you have on each social media platform, and how your blog is doing in comparison to the month before. You really need to know whether you are growing, going backwards, or stagnant.
I don’t compare myself to other bloggers; I compare myself to what I did last month. Since I’ve begun seriously working on my blogging and recording my metrics, I have seen my numbers go up significantly each month.
It’s not always fun to look this squarely in the face but it will help you in the long run. There is no shame here! We’re here to help you get your blog moving in the right direction. And that direction is towards profitability!
We look forward to seeing you there!
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Mrs Fancy-Pants says
Would love to know average stats on blogs re: traffic over time, but I guess they would vary due to so many factors. I have started Utilizing Pinterest more but not seeing much from it yet.
Jay says
Hi there,
Must say i really liked this post because i know myself that it takes a routine
that consists of patience and quality content. Thus achieving reputation and
like you said, a solid social media base. Thanks for sharing.
Take care.
Rick Rouse says
Lots of great info here, and the most important thing for new and aspiring bloggers to understand is what I consider to be the most sobering (but absolutely essential) line in this entire post:
“Most profitable blogs take a year or more to become profitable.”
I’ve been blogging myself since the early 2000s and I’ve had many aspiring bloggers ask me to help them start their own blogs.
The ones that succeeded went into it with the clear understanding that it takes time to achieve success at blogging. It’s simply not going to happen overnight in the vast majority of cases.
I’ve seen lots of talented people fail at blogging simply because they got discouraged and gave up before their efforts had time to really start paying off.
Hopefully the folks who read this post will learn that all-important lesson.
This is a fantastic post. Thanks for helping out all the newbies and not-so-newbies who might be getting a little discouraged in their blogging careers!
Michelle says
Great information! I’m looking forward to digging into the links. This is a very intimidating and exciting process.