7 Reasons your Blog isn’t profitable
I believe that starting a profitable blog is one of the best ways to create extra income. And I am passionate about helping people to learn how to make money from blogging. A successful blog can do many things for you and your family.
A successful blog:
- • May help you pay off your debt;
- • May help you save for a vacation for your family:
- • May help you stop living paycheck to paycheck;
- • May help you reach retirement sooner;
- • May help you not feel as stuck at your job;
- • May help you to become debt free:
It takes work, focus, and perseverance to be a successful blogger. And there is no reason you cannot create a profitable blog too.
*Disclosure: I believe in transparency and want to disclose that I’ve included certain products and links to those products on this page that I will earn an affiliate commission for any purchases you make. My aim is to only recommend products that will truly benefit you.
1. You Haven’t Started Yet
Start today. Or Start as soon as you can.
There’s never been a successful blogger who has ever said, “I wish I waited.” Ever.
Most say, “I wish I started sooner.” Imagine a few months from now cashing checks and earning a nice side income for yourself and your family.
As a passive income source, blogging allows you to earn income while you sleep and enjoy more time with your family. And of course, blogging is a great way to get out of debt.
My guess is that you’ve already been thinking of starting a blog. And you have some idea of what you would want to do. Check and see if your blog name is available.
Its a fun tool and completely free to use.
You might be thinking, “Well, I’m not technologically savvy.” Guess what- Me neither! And most of the successful bloggers I know aren’t either.
What’s important is creating quality content and connecting to your readers. Everything else can be learned.
Since I’m not technologically savvy, I love Bluehost. I’ve used their technical support many times. In fact, they will help you set up your blog if you have need any help.
Either by phone or via chat. I’ve never waited for their representatives more than 5 minutes. Get started today. You will be glad you did.
See my post for Simple steps to creating a wordpress Blog here.
2. Not Enough Content.
A blog needs helpful, engaging content. If you can do that, you will be very successful.
There are no advanced blogging tricks that can overcome a boring blog that doesn’t help people. Keywords, SEO, Lead magnets, and monetization can be learned.
There is no way to monetize a blog that doesn’t help and engage people. Content is really important!
Blog Posts: The longer the better. “Expert bloggers” rarely share this CRITICALLY important blog tip: write longer articles.
Don’t stop at 500 or 550 words. The longer the better. Shoot for a minimum of 700 words for anything your write. This will help you with Google ranking, but also with your reader.
All of the data and research supports this. The most popular and shared pieces of content are always the longest. Yes, many of those are longer than 2,000 words. Write long pieces.
- Relevant Articles:
- The Best Personal Finance Books
- Survey Sites That Actually Pay
- It’s not about the Money. It’s about Taking Charge.
3. You Don’t Take It Seriously View your blog as a profitable business and it will become one.
One of the reasons why new bloggers have trouble getting traffic is because their posts are too short. And they haven’t written enough helpful, engaging content.
They aren’t really serious about their blogs. It’s a just a hobby. And that’s ok.
My focus in this article is for you to earn an income from your blog. And in order to do that you need to take it seriously.
Successful bloggers may pretend they woke up and had thousands of views and an e-mail list full of eager subscribers. Let me be honest: that doesn’t happen.
Blogging is competitive and takes work, dedication, and focus.
Especially if you want your blog to make money.
Many times I have to sacrifice something in my life to finish a post. I did this long before my blog was profitable. But, I had a plan to follow through on my goals and wanted to see results.
Blogging success takes time. In order for Google to rank your articles a certain amount of time needs to pass. You may write an incredible article today that will go on to bring you a lot of traffic and followers.
But, it may take a few weeks or months for the articles to gain momentum on the search engines like Google and Bing.
Stay the course. And plan accordingly. I would never tell you that your blog can be profitable next month. And people that say that are exaggerating.
- View your blog as a profitable business and it will become one.
- Take your content seriously.
- Take credible advice seriously.
- Have a plan.
- Have a strategy.
- And Invest in resources that will help you.
4. You Don’t Have a Strategy to build traffic
Once you have great content, (Yes, I know I am repeating myself because content is really important.) You need a strategy to attract viewers to your blog. Each niche is a bit different, but right now many successful bloggers are using Pinterest to achieve excellent results. Pinterest can be a great source of traffic, especially if you use the right tools.
“Write it and they will come” is a poor traffic strategy. Blogging is too competitive and there is too much content out there. That is why you need to consider your ideal reader/ customer.
Your Ideal Reader: Thinking about your ideal reader is really important.
- Who are they?
- What are their problems?
- How can you help them?
- Where are they?
Some have been incredibly successful and others have been a learning lesson. Have a strategy to build traffic and know that you can keep revising it.
5. You’re not using the right tools:
Tailwind is another great resource for Pinterest. What typically happens is that people wait to use Tailwind until their blog has traffic and is making money. And then they subscribe to Tailwind and get access to their Tailwind tribes and community and they have a big spike in traffic and Revenues.
And then they say, “Why did I Wait to use Tailwind?” That is a common experience. So, it is worth joining now and getting access to their great tools to help you schedule pins and access to their tribes and boards to increase your traffic. More about Tailwind here
- I use Canva to create pins on Pinterest. The cost is about $12 and if your strategy involves creating traffic with Pinterest, then this is a good choice.
- I work with Bluehost because their technical support is amazing. One morning I woke up and there was zero traffic on one of my more profitable blogs. At 5:00 AM I called them and they fixed it in 5 minutes. They saved me a ton of time and money.
- Invest with companies and courses that can help you. I use tools like Tailwind to grow my Pinterest following.
- And as long as I am receiving value and these are helping me grow my business, I will continue to use them.
- Don’t invest in expensive courses unless you are absolutely sure they will be a good investment. And that you are committed to doing whatever it takes to follow through.
5. No strategy to Monetize your blog:
There is no need to wait until you have engaging content to begin to monetize your site. It takes a while to build traffic and to create a relationship with the affiliate companies. Depending on your niche, there will be numerous opportunities with these companies to help you make thousands of dollars in the future.
It makes sense to apply to the programs as soon as possible since some companies evaluate you by how long your relationship is with the affiliate company. If you wait to join the affiliate company, some advertisers see you as a new blogger even if you have an established blog.
Great content allows you to build traffic. Traffic will allow you to monetize (make money) from your blog. Without traffic, it is very difficult to monetize a blog.
Not Using Affiliate Companies:
My advice is to check out their offers to see which ones are a good fit for your niche. Share a sale is an industry leader and has great offers in a variety of niches.
- Share a Sale High quality affiliate company that works with newer bloggers
Other Quality Affiliate Companies:
- Flex Offers High quality Affiliate Company. Strong with fashion, retailers.
- Max Bounty, Their interface is attractive, easy to use, and fun affiliate contests are held regularly. Run by a very friendly and fun group of people who have been in the business for over 12 years.
- Igain Network: iGain specializes in market research offers and features high quality advertisers. They offer a real-time tracking platform, which is great.
If you want to check to see which of your favorite companies are offered through an Affiliate program, a great resource to use is Offer Valult (it’s totally free).
Conclusion:
Keep Learning
Today, bloggers are doing really well today converting traffic from Pinterest. If you read this post in 2020, bloggers could be using Facebook Live or YouTube videos to drive traffic.
I say this because current trends actually suggest that video is becoming more and more important in driving online traffic.
That is why it is so important to keep learning and developing your skills as a blogger and social influencer. Part of what is unique about blogging is that there is so much to learn: SEO, Blog Themes, Driving Traffic, Paid Ads, Lead Magnets, and on and on.
All of this presents an opportunity for you to increase your audience and to make more money. The more you know- the more you can teach others and create value.
I hope this post has added value to you.
Join 1,148 bloggers on my e-mail list for tips and strategies.
also if it looks bad and ctr and bounce rates are bad!
Well written. Not exactly a focus of mine, but you lay out out clearly. Blogging money does not come quick and easy.