You were browsing the internet recently looking for different ways to make money working from home.
You’ve heard of how some people are earning a full-time salary from the comfort of their home without having a mischievous boss commanding them like robots and now, you’ve also decided to follow that route.
Why not? Who doesn’t want to be a boss of his own?
You imagine how it will feel like to always spend all the time in the world with your family traveling the world like Ryan Biddulph without anyone questioning your movements or giving you the time you should return to the office or stand a chance of losing your job (That can be scary man).
After so much research, you decided to venture into blogging because majority of the people you see online posing on their Lamborghini are bloggers. Now, you don’t care to know if you can do it or not, what’s most important to you is that your friends are making money doing it, therefore, if they can do it, you can too.
Well, I will not argue with you, my friend, you may be right.
However, things don’t always happen that way. I understand that blogging is not a rocket science, but is it for everyone? NO.
Why You Will Never Succeed as a Blogger
The truth they say is always bitter yet, the best thing anyone that loves you can do for you is to tell you the truth, not minding how it hurts.
For the fact that blogging and internet marketing have created lots of billionaires across the world today is never a guarantee that you will also succeed at it.
You might have been told of how easy it is to make money while sitting on the beach but what you don’t understand is that it’s not as easy as people paints it. Anyone who tells you that it’s easy to make money on the internet is perhaps trying to take your money.
The worst disservice you can do to yourself is jump into blogging with the mindset that it’s easy, if you believe in that lie then, you’ve already failed. It might be easy ten years ago but today, most people that know what it’s all about will even prefer to hold on to their day job than sitting on their laptop every day.
The bad news is that there’s no push button to make money as a blogger.
It takes lots of time, efforts and sometimes, money. That is the mindset you should have even before considering launching your blog. This is because most people that started it with the belief that it’s simple often get disappointed along the line and then, they’ll give up.
They are the same people that will later start criticizing bloggers, accusing them of being fake and claiming that it’s not possible to make money on the internet. Take the story of Fake Steve Jobs for example.
Daniel Lyons who was once a blogger and was popularly known as Fake Steve Jobs for years until New York Times revealed his actual identity, this sent over a half million visitors to his site on a single day, and he ended up making $1,038.81 from that traffic.
Of cause, the money was quite beyond his expectation with such amount of traffic. Because of this, he concluded with the statement below:
Fake Steve Jobs worked so hard, he created epic contents, was able to make his site go viral and yet, was broke. But, this does not justify the statement above in any way. Daniel Lyons simply was unable to monetize his blog correctly, and that is not to say that the rest of us bloggers are done for.
How to Know If Blogging Is Really for You Before Launching
The first thing is to find out if you’re lazy and hate working, if that is the case then you don’t even have to think about becoming a blogger because it’s one of the toughest profession I’ve ever seen.
Blogging is never for lazy people; instead, it’s for strong hearted people who truly understand that there is dignity in labor.
You’ve seen one of Pat Flynn’s income reports where he made over a hundred thousand dollars, and you think “wow,” that’s simple, and you start imagining what that amount of money can do for you.
Forget it, my friend; it’s not as simple as you’re visualizing. What you don’t know yet is that Pat started blogging since 2008, and if I’m correct, that’s about eight years ago.
Another important thing to note is that he was not making such amount within his first 2-3 years of blogging. That income you see on his site all came as a result of hard/smart work, consistency, and strong will power to succeed now, do you have these qualities? Or are you looking for a formula that will make you a millionaire overnight?
Some time ago, I made a confession on my site about how I almost quit blogging and even wanted to sell my blog, do you know why? I guess you should be aware.
I wasn’t making a dime from my blog after my first three years, and that frustrated the hell out of me which forced me to abandon by blog for over a year. The reason why I’m still here today is because I’m determined to make it, and that is the real test of a blogger and anyone who want to achieve any meaningful thing in life.
You can’t just fold your hand doing nothing and then, expect money to be following you everywhere, if that what you want, I’ll advise you to play Lottery because blogging can never work for you.
Let me tell you, forget all those lies you’ve been fed with; blogging is not just all about getting a domain, hosting it and then, installing WordPress on your server, No. There are more to it that your fake coach probably forgot to tell you.
If it’s that easy then, everyone will be doing it and Fake Steve Jobs will still be doing it until today but unfortunately, it’s not.
Just like every other good thing in life, you must be willing to lay down so many things before you can become a celebrated blogger. Most of the successful people you see in the world today including bloggers and those in other professions started very tight.
Check them out and you will see that they didn’t achieve all the fame overnight. But the moment you become successful, people will never see all your struggles again. They will forget all the sacrifices you made.
Let’s use the image below as example:
Source: facebook.com
What does this tell you?
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is one of the most celebrated footballers in the world today but look at how he started. People will not even believe his story today.
Therefore, if you are not ready to work, please don’t start a blog because you will never finish it.
Like I already stated above, blogging requires lots of discipline and sacrifices, this screenshot of the post I made on Facebook recently says it all:
Now, the above screenshot has already explained to you the life of a blogger; I want you to ask yourself if you can leave such a life.
You’re always excited about the Internet lifestyle, but I guess you’re yet to understand its true meaning.
- Will you be able to spend all your day on the screen of your laptop?
- Will you be happy to be on your laptop when everyone is fast asleep at night?
- Can you afford to be on your laptop on a Friday night when your friends are busy clubbing?
- What of when they’re going out to have fun on a Sunday evening, can you afford to stay back at home right on your PC?
- When your favorite football club is playing, will you rather be on the internet?
From the post I made on Facebook which I just posted the screenshot here, you will see that some of my friends who are also bloggers even missed this last Rio 2016, myself included.
That is the actual life of a blogger, and you need to ask yourself from start if you can leave such an unenjoyable life and if you answered yes then, congratulations…….. You’re going to make a good and successful blogger.
But if you in any way answered NO then, I’ll advise you look for something else to do with your time.
As a blogger, you will also need some money to invest in tools that will make it easier for you of cause; you’re not expected to start with a free blog if you’re serious. You must be willing to invest in your business too.
WordPress is the best blogging platform on the internet and to use it, you must invest in your domain and hosting. No real business comes free of charge, and if you want to be a blogger, you must understand that too.
You cannot skip all these sacrifices especially on your early days of blogging. I know it will come to a point when you’ve started making some money, and you can now afford to hire a virtual assistant and outsource some of the tedious tasks to freelancers, but that will be later.
Even if you have all the money to spend when starting, you will still need to familiarize yourself with these things before turning it to someone else to help you.
Conclusion
If you do not remember any other thing on this post; I want you to have in mind that blogging is not for lazy people, and it’s not a get rich quick scheme either.
However, I’m very optimistic that you can do it.
Be serious with it, get a coach to teach you everything you need to know to succeed as a blogger, work as if your life depends on it and eventually, you will become like Pat Flynn too.
Hello Theodore !
Monitoring our blogging achievement is similarly as vital as monitoring your pick ins and transformation rates. It is all piece of the business. Each piece has an essential part to play and our sites are the piece that sticks out socially to many. It resembles a colossal distinguishing mark and we should monitor who is going back and forth.
Hello THEODORE, I very much agree with you on this. You’ve really done a great Job in writing such an informative post. keep up the great work. I think you would love the post I wrote on “8 mistakes that kill bloggers career” check it out on pencue [dot] com when you have the time. But I think every new blogger or wannabe bloggers should read it, even pro bloggers can benefit from the knowledge too. Cheers to all bloggers in the house.
Hi Theodore,
First of all It was very engaging to read the entire article. It made me think a little bit about what I’m doing.
Last year when I coined the idea of starting my platform ‘ The Indian Rover ‘ , I didn’t really knew how i am gonna turn this into a career. As you said, Being ordered by a boss is scary AF. I never wanted to become a job person who waits for a paycheck to get things for him. neither I wanted a Lamborghini as you mentioned. But one thing I wanted from my life , that was to travel into the wilds, away from the chaos. and learn to be alone in the lap of nature. In first 4-6 months I didn’t even realized that Blogging can be the solution to questions I have. but , as deeper I went to research for what could be the solution for my dreams, Blogging seems the only way out. I can conclude from many ‘ How to ?’ articles that If You provide value to your reader somehow, somewhere in near future you are gonna make it. And on the lighter note, I am not a fan of Football but Cricket, I now a days miss the matches a lot when my friends and room-mates are enjoying the sixes and fours of our favorite Player.
Am I eligible for a Blogging career?
Hi Theodore,
You are absolutely right!. Every newbie blogger would like to earn huge income like a successful pro blogger but what they don’t want to hear are the barriers and struggles in blogging. I certainly agree that blogging is not for lazy guys. Whether it is summer or winter, you need to be consistent in blogging. There should be a discipline, time management and most importantly the quality in producing valuable content.
According to me, blogging means working for a long period of time for free and then reap your rewards continuously. It requires sacrifice, patience, writing skill, dedication and passion.
I really thank for this wonderful post which could enlighten startup bloggers. Keep writing awesome articles.
All the best brother!!
Thanks & Regards.
Hi, Theodore!
I’m glad you wrote this post. The moment your blog starts to grow, the next thing pops up is a bunch of expenses, maybe, a better host, a reliable framework for blog, and probably a CDN to help support the blog.
You’re being realistic here, which I liked it. You never told to quit and don’t dream about it, in fact, you showed what it takes to become a blogger and embrace the success.
I always say that one should follow the passion, what it means is actually if you follow your passion, if it requires you to work 15 hours a day, you might end up doing it happily because you would know what you’re doing.
Getting a crystal clear mindset is extremely important. What I’ve noticed is, new bloggers try to get their hands on the tricks, SEO, and backlinks, rather than delivering the value and building a community around the blogs.
THANKS, man, for this article.
GOOD LUCK!
Hey Theodore, it’s pretty nice to read your lovely-power-packed post here on ABT. :)
Actually, you just shared some really important truths about the typical life of a blogger and I second your well-laid-out thoughts.
In truth, the life of a blogger is really complicated and it takes a complicated person to overcome the complicated challenges that comes with blogging.
I shrug in laughter to see how ignorant people are as to matters of blogging. I mean I’m forever stunned when I hear words like “Blogging is very easy” or “Blogging is one of the easiest ways to making money online”.
Now, that’s a HUGE LIE from the pit of hell!
If blogging were to be easy like some internet guru claim it is, maybe some of us would have acquired properties in Palm Islands in Dubai or be the first to buy Neverland, MJ’s state-like estate. :)
Funnily enough, blogging is not easy and it’s one of the most toughest careers in the world in that it can frustrate you and make you feel like some kind of jokes who doesn’t know what they are doing.
I remember, when I started 5-years ago, God, it was fun. Is it still fun? Yes, it is. Perhaps because I have a kind of burning desire, an unyielding passion for it.
But you can be sure that the most of us that started at the same time are no where to be found now. Oh boy! If I begin to mention names, I’d be here all night typing and not be able to come to a stop. And mind you, you might even know some of them – some of them were my closest friend.
Where are they now?
Hmmm…..no where in particular. Oh wait…some of them are hiding on Facebook and some even tackle you when they hear you saying “You can actually make money blogging”.
I wonder why they are of a different opinion. Didn’t they say blogging is easy?
Just like you man, I didn’t make a dime from 2011 through to 2014 when I made my first $80 from Enstine Muki’s blog commenting contest and then from Kingged.com and I have never looked back since then.
Someone once said to me, “Sam, success is in series and it usually starts from small wins. Make sure you remember those wins. They will keep you fired up when you’re having doubts.”
Those words have kept me here, cus I know there were times when I will need to pay my host and my domain host (like I now need to from September) and I have not made a dime for that month. It’s hard, yes I know but pay I must because it was obvious that blogging was for me. :)
Just like Kulwant Nagi said to me in one of our chats, “Sam, you don’t make money from blogging but from the things you do around it”.
He was right. I have been making money consistently, Theo, from the beginning of this year and I can beat my chest to tell you that my blog is not responsible for it.
But blogging these years have thought me to be responsible, to be able to come up with winning articles, to be able to handle technical stuff and be able to do basic website customization.
And I have learned so well as to leverage these things to make money, even as a freelance writer and website designer. I have also recently been coaching and consulting for individuals and organizations in my locale.
What do you call these things?
Making money online. Not so?
I think I have said too much and before my comment turn out to be longer than the actual post, I’d better put a halt to the words springing forth from my inner reserve.
Well, it just goes to show how timely this post is you know. And to think of big names running off from blogging is scary and in itself, frustrating.
Thanks for putting up a post as timely and valuable as this one my friend – you are the boss! Do have yourself a nice day and week ahead. :)
Sam
Hello Sam, I understand your frustration. And I believe the reason most bloggers fail to succeed with blogging is that blogging in itself is oversimplified. I failed a lot too in the past and it got to a point that I was so frustrated but still couldn’t give up because blogging seems to be a passion for me. I compiled my experience about blogging and wrote a post on Pencue about “8 mistakes that kill bloggers career”, you can find this post on Pencue [dot] com. I’m sure you’ll find it interesting. However, I don’t think it should have taken up to four years before making some money from your blog, personally, I think you’re missing something. And it could either be your traffic strategy or monetization options. I wish you more success in blogging, Sam. Cheers!