“Dad, I want to start a blog to make money and buy my Death Star” Photo Credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/45940879@N04/6012209875/
You heard somewhere that you can make money blogging.
It’s something magic: someone said that you can work 4-hour a week, from everywhere in the world, and make lots of money…much more than you could do with a full-time job!
You dreamed about passive income, and finally you had an easy chance to get it, so you got on the boat: you started your own blog.
You worked on it and took information about blogging.
To tell the truth you worked fuc**ng hard on it, and you read everything you could read about it.
But, since the beginning, you haven’t earned a lot of money from your blog. You tried everything, but you just get few cents (and maybe not even them).
What’s missing?
Traffic? Comments? Tweets or likes? Email subscribers?
No, it’s something more important.
Blogging (Alone) to Make Money Online is a Waste of Time
Many people think that they can monetize their blog with ads.
Yes, you can do it, and you can even have a decent income with that approach…but do you really want that?
To live by blogging ads you need to have a HUGE traffic direct to your blog. You can bring that amount of traffic to your blog, but how much work will it require?
A lot.
Is your hard work worth the prize?
I don’t think.
Life is one and time is extremely precious. Every second you waste will not come back. You want a passive income to enjoy the most of the time you have. It’s a non-sense to waste an enormous amount of time for few cents.
Other people think that they can monetize their blog with ebooks.
This a better approach. Much better!
You’ll need a smaller traffic to have a decent income.
But, again, your way on a decent income is quite long.
Ebooks and ads are 2 of the most used ways to monetize blogs online.
Both of them will require a lot of work and maybe you’ll never reach the full-time income with them.
You are working hard to get a small amount of money.
Now let’s consider a different approach.
Stop Blogging, You Want an Online Business
Stop thinking to you blog as a blog and start thinking about it as the way to start your business.
This is the only way with which you can make a good quantity of money without working like a slave.
And it’s the best way to reach the success you desire.
Considering your blog as part of your business will give to your strategies a radical shift:
1) You Work Seriously on Your Business
If you consider your blog just a blog, you will not push yourself to bring it to the next level.
You will not write your posts if you don’t want.
You will not promote your blog if you don’t want.
When you think to your blog as the base of your business, you will force yourself to write posts, promote your blog, write guest posts, reach other bloggers and many more…
You take it seriously because you know that you are working on the source of your income.
When I started my first blog, I wrote posts and then I published them after a quick review.
Now, every time I write a post:
- I read it carefully
- I change many elements
- I try to improve it as much as possible
- I edit it
- I publish the ultimate post
I do these because my posts are windows to my business: If I don’t do the best for you with my posts how could you trust my business?
I want to give you my best, so I do my best.
This approach is a key for your online business success.
2) You Invest in Your Online Business
Would someone with a healthy mind invest in blogging?
No way.
No one will invest in something that will not give a reasonable return of investment.
Instead, if you consider your blog as part of your business, you will invest in it.
You know that to start a business you have to afford some costs.
It’s ok, because you know that once you get on the right track, you’ll get money from it.
To build a solid business with to your blog, you need to invest.
Anyway the costs of your blog will be smaller than the ones for an offline business.
Do you know that starting an offline business takes from 7.000$ to several thousands of dollars?
Well, with a blog you can start your business with less than 1.000$ dollars:
- Web hosting is about 90-120$ dollars per year (with BlueHost)
- An email software like Aweber (the best one) only costs 194$ per year
- A formidable WordPress theme (like Genesis) will only cost 80-100$
- Trainings to speed up your blog have various costs…for example, the best guest posting training is only 137$
An offline business may take years to cover the initial investment, with an online business, in 6-12 months you start enjoying your work.
If you want to make money online, be serious about your business: investments are an essential part.
Try to avoid them when it’s possible, but some of them are indispensable.
3) You Work on Different Sources of Income
At the beginning of this post, we talked about ads and ebooks as sources of income.
I’m not contrary to them, but it’s crucial to be smart.
Are your ads a support to your income or are they the main source of your income?
In the first case, I think it’s ok (even thought it’s not the best strategy).
In the second case, you may want to review your priorities.
The same applies to your ebooks.
Ebooks are great because they are easy to make and easy to sell, but they should be a side strategy.
You can get experience and build authority with your ebooks (they are perfect fits as first products), but then pass to “heavy things”.
You have many ways to build the core of your online business income:
- Courses (live or video)
- Consulting (1-on-1 or companies consulting)
- Membership sites
- Physical products
- Softwares
- Seminars or Webinars
- Audio products
Whit my first ebook, I made some money from it…but the average earning for first few months was about 250$.
When I launched my first video course, I made 388$ in 3 days!
Do you see the power of these sources of income? 
Why should you limit to ebooks and ads?
Notice that all the suggestions listed above have a bigger price than ebooks.
4) You Stop Making Silly Things
I did lots of silly things; it’s normal when you don’t understand.
When I started my first blog, I published 5 posts per week in the first few months.
I saw that “strategy” from other bloggers, so I thought it was the way it had to be.
I wish I published half of those posts. I wish I spent the time saved in that way bringing my posts to more people.
It was a wrong strategy to publish 5 posts per week.
When you think to your blog as a blog you don’t ask yourself key questions.
When you think to your blog as an online business you start asking yourself:
- Is this task going to help my business?
- Is it worth my time?
- Can I do it better?
- Is there anyone that can teach it to me?
| “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” – Decouvertes (Click to Tweet) |
These questions will help you to find the best strategies to succeed.
5) You Aren’t Afraid to Sell
It’s fun: many people use content marketing to make money with their blogs, but they forget to sell.
The marketing part in content marketing is equally important as the content part.
Some bloggers feel shame to sell their stuff.
They think it’s awkward to sell their products explicitly.
When you have a business, you know that you have to sell.
It’s normal: you have a business to sell something 
If you have something phenomenal to offer, you even feel proud to sell: you know that you are doing a kindness to offer your great services/products.
The best businessmen know that.
They think: “My services are so awesome that you should be silly for not buying them”.
People perceive that and think: “Wow! Look at him: he’s so proud of his services that they should be phenomenal. I should be silly for not buying them”.
Your Time
The choice between blogging and online business depends on your goals.
Are you blogging or are you running an online business with your blog?
Let me hear your opinion 
Also, if you have any question, I’m here to answer to you.
Mauro D’Andrea
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I like the post…I think a lot of bloggers don’t make the distinction between building a business and being a blogger. To me, it’s all about the content. My own blog, which is only a couple of months old, is not part of my business (yet), but the posts that are on it are, IMHO, high quality. But they’re few, because I do a lot of writing for other publications, ghost writing, etc. What I find difficult is having the great approach you outline above, but doing it for myself. For some reason, it’s easier to do it for other business owners.
At any rate, I’ll certainly try to implement some of the advice above!
Hi Heather, I’m glad you like it.
I think that writing for other people is the most important part in the initial stages for a blog.
You need to build your audience and writing for others is a great way to bring people to your blog.
You are right doing it.
Ok, I understand.
Let me help you with that.
Try this:
While you write your next post try to imagine that you are writing it for CopyBlogger (or some other huge blog).
It’s your chance to impress the world, it’s important that you give 200% of what you can do.
Write it, review it and re-write it using 4-5 days.
In the end publish it on your blog.
You will be surprised by the result
Also, I want to signal you this post on Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/blogging-tips-from-the-pros/
Read the tips #1, it will be very helpful!
Let me know what do you think and if there is something that isn’t clear just ask.
Affiliate marketing is the best way you can make money online!
All you need to target the right audience to make money… Making money online is easy for those who are doing right things..
But, for those people who don’t take “make money online” seriously will never be able to make money online..
Choose the right domain, build web 2.0 links, aggressive blog commenting, choose right product to market, update your blog with quality articles, rank well in Google..
And BANG!
See your bank account raking up
Hi Dhruv, taking it seriously, as you say it’s crucial to make money online.
There are many ways to succeed online, ranking well in Google is not the only way, but, sure, it works
Affiliate marketing works, but in my opinion it’s not the best way to do it. There are much more efficient ways to earn a living online.
The Amazon Associates Program is one of the many ways you can do to monetize your blog and make money online. If you have tens or hundreds of followers in your blog, why not take advantage of this golden opportunity to earn? You can start to experiment on it now.
Hi Neha, thanks for sharing your experience with us.
In my opinion, the Amazon Associates Program works, but as every affiliate program, you need a big following to make a good amount of money.
This is truly a wonderful piece. Now back to your question, with me, I was blogging but now I’m running a business with my online affiliate store. It was really amazing when I started my first blog. I was posting more than 5 times a day but at the end I was just making less than 0.01 dollars a day even though popularity was high.
The road to becoming a successful blogger is patience.
Thank you Kabenah!
It seems like you are on the right track now.
I agree, it’s a common problem in the blogosphere: many bloggers publish many posts on their blog hoping that something great could happen.
The fact is that few people speaks about this topic in a clear way, so most of the bloggers don’t get this information.
Yes, it’s true: patience is a key element to succeed with a blog.
I’m curious: what did make you shif from blogging to business?
There was someone or a specific event?
Great points Mauro. I especially like the ‘blogging alone’ point. That was my problem at first:)
Thank you Tania!
It was mine too. It’s one of the most common problems online
You really hit the point: The truth is that many people are so obsessed with blogging that they forget about building a business. Every business owner knows that the most important thing is the bottom line. Therefore, they focus their energies on ensuring they do things that improve it. Yes, a blog is a good platform for building a business only if the publisher uses well.
Many bloggers are more concerned with the number of comments they have for each post than they are with the number of subscribers they have on their list and how well they convert — That’s NOT a business mentality.
Chimezirim, I completely agree with you.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
The business mentality is essential to succeed.
This is fantastic Mauro!
The line that resonated with me is “Considering your blog as part of your business will give to your strategies a radical shift.” I could not agree more.
I see my blog as the platform to share my message and ideas. I treat it like a business because to me it is a business. It is a business that I love with all my heart, and believe deep in my core.
I know that the only way I can get this message across is to work my butt off, invest in personal growth, and focus on taking action.
I am a believer that it starts by providing insane value to your readers. At some point as a blog grows it will only become logical to start developing products because products are an easy way to be able to help people on a much larger scale.
Superb my man!
Thank you for this awesome comment, Izzy!
I think that it adds a lot of value to this post.
I totally agree with you.
Especially the part about the product development: products should the most natural (and useful) way to help people.
Hi Mauro! I agree with Izzy. Blogging for your business is the foundation for making money. However, the traffic point you talked about is exactly what I’m facing right now! I was told by a “guru” blogger to write a daily post and I do. I have to admit it’s very time consuming needless to mention the daily blog readings that I do. My blog has been live for 2 months now and traffic is a huge concern for me.
Would love to get your feedback and ideas to implement and share with you some good results
Could be a great testimonial!
Thanks again,
Niveen
Hi Niveen, I guess that traffic is the most common problem online…and I want to start an entire section of blog posts about traffic
I’ll talk frankly: to write a daily blog post give interesting results.
The problem is that you can afford it only if you:
a) work full time on your blog (however in this case it’s not the best idea to post daily)
b) have a company with many people – each one writes one post per week or less.
c) are CopyBlogger and get many guest posting requests
In all the other cases, daily posts are a waste of time and energies.
You want to give quality to your audience.
People who visit your blog for the first time will come back if you offer them quality. They don’t care about how many posts you write each week.
Obviously you should combine quality posts with a way to drive traffic to your blog.
An example: instead of writing a post per day, write an high quality post per week and one guest post per week.
Your traffic will get better and better!
I’ll write a post about that as soon as I can.
If you have other questions, feel free to ask
Hey Mauro, great post mate – and ever so true! I think if you look at what separates successful bloggers to those who struggle is one thing: their own product. As you said, these bloggers have created a business (the product) and blog around the promotion of such. Blogging for the sake of blogging will slowly break you.
( and thanks for the mention of my post mate, appreciate it.)
Greats stuff mate, came over from your posts on firepole marketing
Thank you Alex! Both for the compliments and for sharing your opinion.
Well, that post was fantastic! I’ll use many of your suggestions to boost my YouTube channel.
The Amazon Associates Program is one of the many ways you can do to monetize your blog and make money online. If you have tens or hundreds of followers in your blog, why not take advantage of this golden opportunity to earn? You can start to experiment on it now. In this article, learn how
Very detailed article.Making money on Internet may become a good idea, really.
Hi Pradeep, I’m glad you liked this post.
I love what you said about “5 posts per week”. It’s definitely true that quantity won’t matter if you don’t have quality content and visitors to read that content! And of course, one of the main things for making money online is simply that you start learning as much as you can from those who have gone before you, and have had success of their own. At least, that was my experience when I was first getting started!
Thanks for sharing your experience Joyce!
Exactly, having a mentor is a shortcut for sure.
Well well well, another insightful post Mauro, and I’m starting to feel like with your posts, I will be learning a lot of things in a short span of time. I too am sceptical about blogging as the only source of income for it may take a lot more effort and time to have desirable traffic. Blogging for your business, whereas can be a good way to improve the selling factor of your products. Thats how i feel though. Cheers!!
I’m glad to see you here too, Nischhal
Exactly! Especially nowadays it would be too hard to earn a decent income by ads.
I agree, many people forget to sell, as a marketer its your job to offer someone a chance to buy some thing every day, A lot of people see there blog as a hobby and not a business. Great post
Hi Myron, and thank you for sharing your experience.
Ciao Mauro! Gran bel post! Condivido il tuo pensiero. Pensa che giusto una settimana fa ho aperto il mio primo blog proprio con l’idea di farlo diventare un “diario di bordo” piuttosto che una fonte di lucro. Se tutto va bene, le mie “entrate automatiche”… Arriveranno da altre fonti!!!
Un saluto
S
Hi Simone, please let’s talk in English
(it wouldn’t be nice to speak here in a language that others can’t understand).
Nice idea! If you like to write, you’ll be more than happy about it.
Well, I wouldn’t define blogging as passive income, it’s not.
Good luck, and let me know how you are doing.
Cheers.
Ehehe Sorry for that! I’ll switch to English!
The point is…if you’re a great great blogger (outstanding contents, frequent posts and so on) this could be a good source of income.
Thinking to my blog…I’m writing not thinking about the idea of create incomes, but because I’m happy to do that, like you said before!
By the way…today I set a NEW RECORD!!! Ten people visited my page.
Using Buzz Lightyear words:” To infinity and beyond!!!”
Cheers
I’m happy that you reached this goal
Generally speaking, things start slowly and then accelerate a lot.
It’s a great start: you need to like what you’re doing to do it well.
Of course, it could be a great source of income, but pay attention, don’t fall in the trap: being a successful blogger is not enough to make money online.
There are many great bloggers who earn less than normal bloggers who are outstanding marketers.
“When you have a business, you know that you have to sell. It’s normal: you have a business to sell something”
That nailed it. I seriously don’t get why some blogging entrepreneurs are pretty subtle when it comes to selling their products. Maybe they just don’t want their readers to think that they’re just after their money. Anyway, that’s a great post and I certainly agree with your main point that blogging as a primary source of income is a big waste of time. I’ve learned that the hard way some time ago.
Hi Ricky, I guess that they are afraid to scare their readers: they gained an audience giving away free content, but they think that selling they will lose that audience.
Good point, Mauro! For me, blogging is useless if not sincere. Still, there are many bloggers that write basing their stories on speculations. Am not blogging for money but still struggling with rounding up an interested audience. Thanks for the tips!
Hi Alexandra! I completely agree with you: it’s crucial to be sincere and genuine – even if you want to make money blogging.
Think that yesterday I read a great post on how your personality affects your business.
Feel free to send me an email, and I’ll see how I can help you with that
I just started blogging and doing it because I like it. But it was nice to read this!
Thank you, Peter! I’m glad you liked it.
I agree that having a business mentality is important as that will determine whether the online business will be a success. I personally think that building own list of subscribers is the long term approach to having a online business as that means I will be able to follow up with them through email in the future of any other relevant products.
I agree with you, Jason: the email list is a crucial aspect of an online business.
Honestly, I’ve never seen a successful blogger who did’t have an email list.
These are good points you make here Jason, I do agree that if you want to make money you need to look at it as a business and not a blog. The only thing here is that if you start out as a blog writing about something you enjoy the content is probably going to be more valuable because your doing it for passion not money. However once that reputation is built up that would be the best time to monetize and start thinking about how to convert your visitors into cash. There are also some great products out there that will help you make money straight away from blogging but its all about effort… Great Post!!
Hi Nathan, of course, before you start selling you need a good reputation – and writing about something you’re passionate about is a good start.
Thank you!
You are right Mauro. Everyone should think their blog as a business strategy and not some hobby.
Hi Ashish, it’s what most successful bloggers do
We’ve been blogging for around 6 months and are above 4k a month phase so I guess that’s doing really welll! See our income reports here (another one for March coming out soon).
http://acoupletravelers.com/a-couple-travelers-by-the-numbers-feb-13/
Congratulations! I gave a look at your report, and you’re doing pretty well!
mauro, i agree with the point that you deliver in this article, i just realized this when i found my blog did not made good conversion then i saw how people around me doing their daily job, they were so focus so they achieve the best from it and reach their success. So it came up to me that making money online is not much different from that people. Making money online need the best effort and strategies, making money online need to be done seriously with a great focus and smart investment. Because this is your business not your hobby.
Love your blog, i learn a lot from here..
Bustami, you completely got the whole point
I’m glad you find my blog interesting!
I hope to hear again about your experience.
Hey there!
Thanks for the tips! I am hoping to monetize my blog by capturing leads too! Just like you have your popup!
They say the money is in the list… I know it is tough with free subscribers and freebie seekers.. but the lists can be monetized!
I have some banner ads up there too! but they are to a licensee program… where I get 90% of the money and 50% on any high ticket sales that are made! BONUS!
I just gotta be consistent with my efforts and make things happen!
Thanks for the helpful information bud!
Craig
Hi Craig, the money really is in the list (but not always!).
If you get some money from them, and you don’t overload your blog with ads, they are not so bad
You’re welcome, Craig!
I am giving owning a blog a go… But driving traffic to it via free methods…. Who knows if it will pan out…. only one way to find out!
“only one way to find out”, this is the right attitude
I think that free traffic is the best – but I have to admit that I currently haven’t a huge experience with paid traffic.
I’ll speak better about traffic with one of the next posts
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Sure, I’ll keep it in mind
thanks man for the great post about blogging. i really like the stuff here. please i will like to get more clarity on the number of articles one can post in his blog per week. This is because you said it is wrong to make five post to your blog in a week . How many post per week is the ideal
You’re welcome, Nathan!
Well, there isn’t a really wrong article frequency, it depends on your specific case. I was alone and publishing 5 posts per week was crazy: too much work to get too little results.
On the contrary if you accept guest posts, have regular contributors (or writers in general) you could even publish 2 posts per day.
The right frequency is the one that allows you to publish posts while promoting your work. For example, now I’m fine publishing one post per week (which I guess it’s good fit for most bloggers).
Great post! I still have to remind myself that I’m worth what I charge, especially when it gets rough..
Thank you!
It’s just about building that habit
This is an awesome blog. I found this article very helpful. I
bookmarked this website. No doubt to come here again and again.
I really appreciate your teaching quality. I have created a same niche
website. Please visit my page and leave a comment for a great
communication.
Thank you, Jimmy! I’m glad you like it.
I’ll see what I can do
What a great post. I thought you were about to say “Blogging doesn’t work and do something els”. You nailed it buddy, “See your blogs as business” and everything falls into place. I have always struggled whether to continue or quits this madness(Blogging). Now i get it, it is my business and i will treat it same. Thank you very much Mauro
You’re welcome!
Thank you!
I LIKE IT!
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