I’ve told you what’s the biggest reason for my online success. Now, I’m going to tell you what I think are the biggest reasons people fail at making money online. Technorati says there are over 175,000 new blogs entering the blogsphere everyday. While most bloggers don’t blog for money, a great number entering the sector are doing it for cash because they read some story in Entrepreneur magazine about some guy making over $300,000 a year just by blogging about what he ate for lunch.
The sad truth is the vast majority of these blogging for money bloggers will fail at making any meaningful amounts from their blogs. Why is that? I’ve came up with the following top reasons. I’m sure there are more. Feel free to add to the list in the comments.
They Don’t Take It Seriously
Most bloggers don’t think of their blog as a business. As a result, they don’t take it as seriously as they should. Look at the really big blogs like TechCrunch or Engadget. They are run like full blown bricks and mortar businesses and I can assure you, the owners of those blogs takes it very seriously. Now, you can say they take it seriously because they’re so big but here’s the key; they took it seriously from the get go. It’s really easy to treat a blog like a real business once it’s making real dollars. However, it’s a lot harder to do when the blog is brand new and making nothing.
When I made the decision to monetize this blog, I didn’t tip toe through the tulips. I used as many monetization methods possible and I had to take it seriously if the case study was to succeed. Treat your blog as a serious business if you wish to make serious money from it.
Easy In, Easy Out
Because the barriers of entry in blogging is so low (you can start for zero dollars), people don’t have much to lose and as a result, don’t take it seriously. You start a blog, it makes nothing, you quit. Easy in, easy out. Contrast this with a traditional business where you invested a few hundred thousand dollars into it. If that doesn’t work, you will try everything possible to turn it around.
This low cost of entry has to be the biggest reason people don’t take blogging seriously and that’s really too bad. I’m pretty sure my blog is more profitable than many businesses that took a few hundred grand to start. If making money by blogging required a big money investment, you wouldn’t see a 99% failure rate.
They’re Just Blogging for Money
It’s a strange fact in the blogshere that if you just blog for money, you’ll get everything but money. People who blog for money don’t blog about stuff they’re interested in or are passionate about. They blog about whatever hot niche is paying the most. The problem is they don’t know anything about the topics – they’re only doing it for the money. Readers can see through that from a mile away.
Blogging is very much like a normal business in that it takes time to build up a customer (readership) base. It’s very slow going in the beginning. It took me over a year to go from zero to 1,000 RSS subscribers. The blog now gets over 1,000 new RSS readers per month. If you’re not blogging about stuff you’re interested in, you won’t stick around long enough for the blog to make you money.
They Don’t Believe In Themselves
There is a wise saying (I forgot who said it) that states, “Whether you believe you can or cannot, both are true.” The biggest limiting factor in your blog’s success is you. If you don’t believe that you can be a successful blogger, then you won’t. It’s really that simple.