One of the biggest misconceptions about blogging today is that anyone with half a brain can earn big bucks from it, just by posting every so often and tacking up a few boxes of Google Adsense on your site. Only when one actually starts a blog does reality sink in: it’s not easy to make money blogging, and just because someone managed to make thousands of dollars within his first six months doesn’t mean that you will, too.
If you’re part of the latter group and would like to know what you might be doing wrong, then this article is for you. Below is a list of the most common reasons why your blog isn’t performing, despite your best efforts:
1. You’re asking for money too soon in the game:
It’s already your third month blogging, and you’ve followed every smart piece of advice on blogging out there, but nothing seems to be happening yet. Is anything wrong? Well, nothing is, but you’re looking for profit way too early in the game. While some bloggers are lucky enough to earn money within their first three months, most bloggers often have to make do with little or no revenue for the first six months – or even for the first year! Just exercise some patience and focus your efforts on making your blog stronger and more credible, instead of agonizing about when your first paycheck will finally come.
2. Ads have overrun your site:
Everyone knows that advertising campaigns make the blogging world go ’round, but just because they’re a decisive factor in the size of your revenue doesn’t mean that you should make them the major player in your strategy. Remember, your readers aren’t visiting your blog to admire the Google Adsense layout you chose. Instead, they’re there to find valuable information and interesting insights about your chosen niche, preferably the kind of content that they won’t find anywhere else. Keep the ads spare, but keep the quality of your posts high.
3. You don’t post enough entries:
If you think that three or four entries in a week is enough for your blog to perform well, think again. Ideally, you should be able to post daily on your blog, no matter how hectic your schedule is. Even the biggest blogs out there – Boing Boing and TechCrunch, to name a few – post multiple times a day. With frequent postings, Google is sure to take notice and index your site just as often, eventually pushing up your blog’s search engine rankings.
4. Money is your primary concern:
This is one of the most fundamental mistakes that bloggers commit: blogging only for the sake of money and nothing else. While it’s okay to want to make money blogging – who doesn’t? – what’s more important is for you to actually be passionate about what you’re writing and to be devoted to your blog and its progress. Bloggers who are in it only for the money tend to flood their sites with marketing gimmickry that don’t yield long term benefits. More dedicated and substantial blogs, however, are the winners in the long run.
If you’re not making as much money from blogging as you would have liked to, don’t be discouraged. Just refine your blogging strategy, keep away from the common pitfalls we named here, and your blog should pick up its pace – and churn out higher revenues – in due course.