What If You Never Make Money by Blogging?
I see too many blogs coming out that teaches you how to make money. Everyone is a self-proclaimed expert into Search Engine Marketing, and in the ways of making money online when these people have barely started. They don’t even have half the experience. Yet they are Bs’ing their way through blogging. They say they don’t blog for money, but is it true? I don’t know. But I am going to ask and try to find out with you guys. Would you blog if there was no money involved. What if there was no adsense. What if no one ever clicked. What if no one ever bought ads on your site. Would you still be motivated to blog?
I ask this question because I see people getting into this blogging industry and starting a make money online blog to make money. They think that is how money is made online. In all true honesty, if you think that you are an IDIOT. Yup you are. I have experienced and I am sure a lot of you guys will agree with me that blogs are not the direct source of income. It can become a main source of income but that is in a very long run. So what motivates you for the long run… It is actually a pain in the ass to get up and write daily or weekly. Why would you do it?
I would still do it if I make absolutely no money directly from my blog. And here is why:
Collection of Resource – I write multiple articles, multiple tutorials that I put out. A lot of wordpress tricks and tutorials are not originally by myself. They are extracted from the wordpress website from the codex section. I am making a resource for myself because just in case if I ever need this tutorial, I won’t have to search wordpress codex. I would just look into my blog. So it is a resource for myself. I put it out live, so other people can take advantage of this too.
Building Relations and Gaining Credibility – I feel very nice to see the subscriber count growing. I am glad to see that so many of you guys actually care about me, and I care about you guys as well. It makes me get to know my readers who email me. I mean when I went to Izea Conference, people came up behind me and said Hey Balkhis… I turned around and found it this person was one of my reader. I think I build good relations with people. I share good tutorials and my experience which makes me a credible source in those specific niche like designing and SEO. I think this credibility can help me if I ever decide to write a book in the future or so on. A lot of my readers like me and my work, so they recommend me and that is the advantage of good relations.
Indirect Profit – With good relations and credibility, people trust me, and they are more likely to buy my other products that I come out with. So even if the blog doesn’t profit me. It is promoting my other source of income like web design firm, and other products soon to come.
Sharing my life – Yes facebook, myspace and other services like these are nice. But having your own personal blog is just too much better. So I don’t have to personally send my pictures to everyone. All they have to do is watch my blog and see the pictures and the adventures that I am having. That is one of my motivation.
So now if there was no money from blogging would you still blog? And Why?
Hey, I am Syed Balkhi, The guy who is behind Balkhis Inc. I entered the industry back in 2002 not knowing a single thing. I barely spoke English at that time. In the past six years, my language barrier has been eliminated. Aside from English, now I also speak html, and php. Along with the languages I have also managed to master a few arts. Art of web-designing started when I first entered. Messing around with photoshop, I learned how to create my first web design. Now I founded a web designing firm Uzzz Productions. After running numerous amount of websites in various niche, I have mastered the art of web-development. Now I am compiling a resource of what I already know, and what I am learning on this blog. This resource is to help me if I ever need a guide to look back to, and it is help my fellow webmasters.
Building relationships is the top reason anyone should create a blog
Great post!
THANK YOU for this post! my blog is personal political (mostly heated) opinion. i love writing it, and being able to freely express my views and make my protests; i love the fact that i’ve got a few subscribers and that a few new people each week visit and leave thoughtful comments.
but it’s quite unlikely i’ll ever be able to turn a profit on this blog. the political opinion space is already owned by great blogs like firedoglake and dailykos; huge blogs that are similar to mine in tone (okay, maybe not so many eff-words on theirs) but which have a vast wealth of resources and time and writers. me, i’m just one person still working a dayjob, so making a big enough impact in that space to be able to sell ads or whatever on the blog is extremely unlikely. the more research i’ve done on that, the more certain it seems. and i’m OK with it. the blog has legs. it makes me happy and makes some people think, and makes others very angry — either WITH me or AT me. it’s a thought forum, like an online salon. and that’s plenty.
There are always political affiliate campaigns out there. You know like who will be the next governor of florida. Stuff like that. So you can monetize it that way. Even though this post is not about making money that is just a suggestion for you
I love political blogs specially the ones with eff words. Because you really get to express yourself. If a blog takes your style of writing and your personality away then you should not blog.
Good luck with your blog.
I believe if you work at it you will eventually make some money on your blog. But I agree with you it’s for the long run. But I’m using my blog to build good relationship with other bloggers and my readers and sharing what I’ve leaned in my IM journey. But using it to build traffic to my main website is my top priority.
Peter Lee
Yes, I’ll continue to blog… Thinking that it is fun to have my own journal so I can write anything I want. But without money in my mind, well… I might not using too much time to tend my blog…
Especially if I have to pay the hosting and the domain fee, that makes me to monetize my blog…
But if there is no adsense and making money online, I doubt that I’ll get to know “blogging” since I start from affiliate marketing and jump into blogging.
=D, I guess this is what I call journey to blogging…
What if you have to put money from your pocket to fuel the blog meaning hosting and domain fee. Or money from your other business?
I know people monetize for different reasons, but the question what if you have nothing, but just the blog that you are paying for. You can’t sell ads. You can’t put adsense then what.
I like the point that you made when you said you won’t even know blogging… That is the point that I am making in my post. That a lot of people now a days are jumping onto blogging thinking they can make a lot of money. Maybe something like Jeremy’s Adsense check even though his check wasn’t from his blog.
I would like to fuel because my blog has become my source of connecting with people and learning place.
Like you said, many people jump into blogging thinking that it can earn them a lot of money. I admit I am of the them (who thought like that at first), but not now… thinking how much time and knowledge we require to start an online business.
Even affiliate marketing require a lot of marketing effort, I can see a lot of people creating a blog, build up a lot of affiliate link and jumping around forum hoping some “people” purchase through their affiliate links.
LOL, but it is what I call learning, you won’t understand how it works until you have tried once (or maybe scammed once).
This was a great post. I’ve been reading for awhile, but I felt really compelled to reply to this specific post.
Money has never even come into play for me as a blogger.I run a PR blog, and my own personal and anonymous blog. Recently, my personal blog has been gaining more popularity and readers, and this absolutely thrills me. However, I was extremely happy with my two dedicated readers when that was the case.
It is all about building relationships, and honestly, a person should BEGIN blogging for their own personal satisfaction. I love that I can get my views out onto the internet with the click of a button. I like going back and reading my work and learning from it.
[...] What If You Never Make Money by Blogging? I ask this question because I see people getting into this blogging industry and starting a make money online blog to make money. They think that is how money is made online. In all true honesty, if you think that you are an IDIOT. Yup you are. I have experienced and I am sure a lot of you guys will agree with me that blogs are not the direct source of income. It can become a main source of income but that is in a very long run. So what motivates you for the long run… It is actually a pain in the ass to get up and write daily or weekly. Why would you do it? [...]
It is noted that if you start a blog with the mindset of doing it for money, 8 out of 10 times you will fail because you are more focused with ways to monetize your blog instead of building relationships and providing great content for your readers.
I think there is a misconception that great content alone will drive readers and traffic… and I just don’t think so. On a microlevel, it might work in terms of accomplishing goals like keeping connected to your pre-established personal network or making yourself more marketable for some types of employment. But traffic alone from content? No.
If you really want to the possibility of making money, I think you do have to think some about, outside the content… things like SEO, link building, networking, what type of content to add, how others are doing things successfully, where to put ads that work best and what types of ads to use, etc. Yo can’t think just great content.
If I didn’t think there was the potential to make money, I still would maintain my blog/website. I created it with out that intention, with out the idea that this was even a possibility. I love the topic my site is about. I love the people who are involved with my project. Through advertising revenue, I’ve haven’t even managed to cover hosting costs for the month. Money isn’t a motivator at all. What it is about is building a useful resource for people. Knowledge is power and I want to share that knowledge and give others a framework to share around our shared interest.
I was blogging for a year before I saw any slight income from ads and even now it is only a very small amount, truth is I love blogging about guitars because it is what I am passionate about. I’ve been playing for 20 years and I’m always looking for news so I figured why not share it!
I do not make much money from my blog. It however leads me to other profitable areas and some of what you says makes sense. I have a number of friends who blog for the networking that inevitably follows if you comment on other blogs as well and they do not mind not monetizing their blogs but do it to enjoy themselves.
Building blog with income taking first place on your mind is disaster at the beginning. If you don’t make blog to give quality and share knowledge at first place, then you wont be successful at all.
I’ve had a few blogs I’ve made money from, but after a while if it wasn’t a topic that I really enjoyed, then it would become a chore. I really think you have to truly enjoy what you write about and the format to be successful.
You are so correct; there are too many blogs out there that claim to teach you how to make money and in the process hope to make some money themselves. Certainly that is the mind set of an ‘idiot’ as you so succinctly put it!
I think almost everyone wants to make some money on his blog. However not less important motivation for a blogger is building relationships with his reader, sharing your points of view and listening to other opinions.
No there are people who are just blogging because they like it. There are too many personal blogs that does not make any money. They don’t start their blog because they want to make money.
Lets say I like playing Guitar. So I make a blog about guitar lessons. Now I started this on absolutely no intention of making money. Later on my unknown blog became a popular one in the industry. Then If I make money it is ok, and perfectly good.
But if I start my guitar blog with the intention to make money with it. It probably won’t work out.
My blog currently is making me more money every month so there’s definitely money to be made with blogging.
If my blog couldn’t make me money I’d still blog I just wouldn’t talk about blogging tips and making money online because the niche wouldn’t simply exist.
To be frank, when I started blogging all I wanted to do was to make money but now I enjoy blogging so much that I don’t feel that making money anymore would be o important although it will be good to make some money!
I agree make money by blogging is a good idea,but most of people need communication and be a part of community,in hard times it might reflect from personal problems,I think people need balance between material and personal.
This is a very good question. I thought of a similar question, can I make money by blogging? I decided to try it out. I just created a make money online blog.
Blogging is always a great way to build relationships even if you don’t make money from it in the beginning. Eventually as you get more credibility and more trust, the money will come on its own.
I like that you would keep blogging even with lack of profits. I also found it interesting that one of your reasons to continue blogging even if you did not make money through it was “indirect profit”. That one kind of confused me.