WAHM: Can You Really Make Money Blogging?
I get asked all the time whether or not you can really earn an income from blogging. The short answer is yes. There are many bloggers earning enough money to equate a full time income. My blog has been a huge blessing to my family and has supplemented our income for the last 5 years and provided nearly full support when we’ve dealt with unemployment.
It is possible.
Is everyone who starts a blog going to earn a full time income?
No.
There are a lot of factors that go into determining whether or not you will actually be able to earn a full time (or even a part time income) by blogging.
Before you make a penny, you’ll have to commit to a few things in order to be successful.Â
Be Passionate
There are jobs out there that you can do half-heartedly. Flipping burgers comes to mind. Blogging does not.
If you are not passionate about your blogging, your readers (if you have any at all) will not be interested in what you have to say. Blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you are serious about earning money through your blog, you have to be sure that you REALLY want to be doing it.
Choose a topic that you can really put your heart into– one that you can write about even when you’ve written about it for 90 days straight, your kids have been whining at you all day long, and you’ve got 20 minutes of free time before you have to run out the door.
Don’t Focus on the Income Potential
If you really want to earn money with your blog, the first thing you have to do is stop focusing on making money. You can plaster your blog with ads, write sponsored post after sponsored post, and include 50 affiliate links on a page but if you don’t have any readers you aren’t going to earn any money from that.
Don’t scare your readers away with ads.
Focus on developing good content, creating a community, and offering something that your readers genuinely need. You can’t monetize a blog that has no readers. You monetize AFTER you have readers who care what you have to say.
Sometimes that means blogging for years before you earn a penny. Sometimes that means saying no to opportunities that present themselves and are not a good fit for you or your readers. You have to be selective in order to really create long-term income potential from your blog.
Be Realistic about your Time
Blogging takes time. Blogging to create an income takes a lot more time. The honest truth is you cannot earn a full time income blogging without putting in full time hours. You can earn a part time income by putting in part time hours or you can earn some money to blow on chocolate or other random things with a few hours a week.
You’re the boss.
As moms, I think we all have a tendency to overcommit ourselves though. If you are swamped for time already, don’t take on a huge blogging project that will burn you out by the end of your first week. Start slow and expect slow but steady progress. If you want to test the waters, start by writing for established blogs to get your name out there and get some experience.
Be Consistent
Consistency is key to establishing a blog readership (and you have to have readers to earn money from your blog).
If you know your time is limited, start by blogging once a week and writing posts ahead of time when you find yourself with some extra time. Having a consistent posting schedule will do far more to help your blog grow that it will to publish 5 posts in a week and then have nothing new to give your readers for a month.
Consistency isn’t just about your blogging schedule though. Your readers want to know what to expect. If your blog is all about easy family meals, don’t throw your readers off by suddenly posting about how you changed your car’s oil all by yourself. There’s nothing wrong with being a generalist, but if you know you are going to stray from one main topic, create a more general niche for your blog from the very beginning.
photo credit: ldandersen via photopin cc
What do you want to know about earning an income with a blog? Ask in the comments below.Â
Good tips and so true. The best thing you can do for yourself is the consistency. Write when you can but schedule often. Right now, I’m committed to my own blog 3 days a week to make writing for my other gigs easier. You have to make it work for you but don’t stretch yourself thin. Then it’s like a full time regular out of house job and you’ll be sad if that happened.