Making money from your blog is one of the greatest challenges for
many bloggers. We use a number of methods to measure the growth and
success of our website. First and foremost, you want to build a loyal
customer base and regular traffic to your blog. You also want readers to
syndicate and reference your content. You want mentions on leading
social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook and you also want
your content to be voted or favoured on social bookmarking sites like
Digg or Delicious.
We also measure our success based on participation from readers via
comments. Increasing the number of RSS subscriptions is another way to
measure growth. However, ultimately most bloggers want to make money and
generate revenue from their blog. In spite of high traffic,
subscriptions and other parameters mentioned above, many blogs fail to
make money in line with expectations. Making money from blogs remains
one of the biggest challenges for bloggers throughout the world across
vertical markets and niches. Making money is one of the main objectives
for most blogs and all other measures eventually lead towards this.
Following are some reasons why bloggers fail to make money. If you
are not making money from your blog, it is quite likely due to the
following reasons.
1. Lack of quality content
The importance of content cannot be emphasised enough. Content is the
building block for monetising your blog. Whether you are relying on
content to generate ad revenue or to build traffic to your blog so you
can sell other products to visitors, you need to build a large
repository of quality content before you can even think about making
money.
In addition to providing better opportunities for Ad revenue, as your
content increases, so does your authority, traffic and page-views. This
provides improved opportunity to generate revenue through other methods
used to generate revenue on your blog.
2. Insufficient traffic
No matter how good your content is, you are not likely to make
substantial revenue without sufficient traffic. Blogs are not much
different to any other traditional business in this respect. Your
product can be the best in the market it is unlikely to generate profits
if no one knows about it.
3. Ineffective Marketing
Whether you rely on Ads to make money on your blog or on sales of
eBooks and other partner products, you are not likely to generate
sufficient revenue if you are unable to reach your market. You need to
market your blog and its content effectively in order to improve your
revenue potential. Your marketing strategy needs to be effective. You
need to apply a combination of techniques to promote your blog. Simply
writing good content and tweeting about it is not sufficient. Following
are some methods used by successful blogs:
- Organic SEO
- Social Media Optimisation
- Article Marketing
- Participation in Blogs and Forums in your niche
- Advertising including Pay Per Click
- Networking
3. Improper selection of Niche
Some niches offer higher income potential than others. In addition,
it is often easier to make money if your blog focuses on a narrow niche
as opposed to a targeting a very broad niche. Focusing on too many
topics can make it difficult to generate revenue. It makes it difficult
to identify and target your audience. It also dilutes your content and
makes it difficult to rank favourably on search engines.
On the other hand, choosing the correct niche allows you to focus and maximise your attention.
4. Your Blog fails to capture interest of your Readers
In order to do well and in turn make money on your blog, it is
important for readers to find your blog appealing enough to read your
content, spend more time on your blog and more importantly visit again.
You not only need to research your content appropriately and ensure it
is of a superior quality but you also need to capture the interest and
attention of your readers. Creating compelling titles is one of the most
effective ways to achieve this. Usability, designs and choice of
functionality are some other elements to achieve this. If readers find
your blog interesting and appealing, it is easier to build a community
of loyal visitors. This in turn improves the potential to generate
revenue.
4. You do not post frequently
Content is the most important real estate on your blog. New content
not only attracts visitors but also provides new opportunities to make
money from your content. Publishing only one post in a month is not
sufficient to run a profitable blog. You must be consistent and post
frequently in order to generate revenue. Almost all profitable blogs
post content on a daily basis.
5. Lack of persistence
Blogging is by no means a get rich quick scheme. It requires a lot of
effort and dedication at least in the beginning. Most bloggers do not
succeed in making money due to lack of persistence. If you want to make
money from blogging, you need to continue to put in effort even if it
looks like you will never make over a few hundred a month no matter how
much effort you put in. If you don’t give up and are willing to put in
effort beyond this point, you will most likely succeed in the end.
6. Your blog is not unique
This principle applies to all business models, offline and online. It
applies equally to websites and blogs. The design or features of your
blog do not necessarily have to be unique as most blogs follow a
standard structure. Nevertheless, there should be something unique about
your blog that makes it stand out from the rest. Perhaps, your content,
writing style or products you offer can be different and unique.
It is common for bloggers to provide a different insight on the same
posts found on other blogs within their niche. While it is OK to get
inspiration from popular posts on other blogs; you should focus equally
on writing unique posts that have not been covered anywhere else. Unique
content that users find interesting can easily go viral. This can lead
to more page-views which in turn increases your revenue potential.
7. You fail to retain readers
You need to make sure readers who arrive at your blog spend as much
time on your site as possible. It can be a big mistake to assume that
the quality of your content is sufficient to achieve this. Instead you
can take a number of steps to ensure customers spend more on your site
and visit again.
Many blogs receive good traffic but suffer from high bounce rates.
You can take steps to recue this. It is important to ensure the title
and the introductory paragraph is compelling enough to encourage readers
to continue reading. Similarly, you don’t want the readers to navigate
away from your site after they finish reading your post. By offering
related posts, featured posts, or a link to subscribe to your feed
towards the end of your post, you can encourage readers to remain on
your post. The more time readers spend on your site and more readers who
visit again, can improve the chances of generating revenue on your
blog.
8. Ineffective Call to Action
Lack of effective call to action on blogs is another reason why many
blogs fail to make money in line with their expectations. This is also
true for many high ranking blogs that receive a lot of traffic. Call to
action is essential to drive conversions whether it is to register for
your newsletter, subscribe to your RSS feed, read another post on your
blog, download an e-book or purchase a product. After all, readers are
more likely to perform an action if you explicitly ask them to.
9. You are relying only on Ads to make money
Relying solely on Ad sales or worse, relying only on one Ad network
such as Google Adsense is another reason why many blogs fail to make
money in line with their expectations. While it is possible to make a
few hundred per month from Adsense or other Ad networks, you cannot make
significant amount only from running advertisements on your site. High
earning blogs use a number of ways to make money. You can promote
affiliate products; sell your eBook, sell templates, paid subscriptions
or Webinars in order to make money. The possibilities are endless.
10. Poor Ad Placements
How much money you make from advertising depends on where ads are
placed. Most ad networks like Google Adsense calculate your earnings
based on the number of times visitors click on your Ads. Where you place
ads on your website has a big impact on click though rates. Research
shows that certain parts of your site have higher click through rates
which in turn generates more revenue. The heat map provided by Google
shows places on your website with the best performance.
11. Displaying Too Many Ads on your website
Displaying Too Many Ads on your website dilutes the importance of
existing ads devalue your blog and discourage advertisers from placing
ads on your website. On the other hand, using too many affiliate links
in your posts can devalue your content and increase the risk of your
site appearing as spam to visitors. This can in-turn drive visitors away
and they may not remain on your website long enough for you to generate
income.
12. Absence of or unprofessional “Advertise here” page
A well designed, visible advertise here page encourage advertisers to
advertise on your website. This can have a big impact on the potential
to generate revenue especially if you rely heavily on Ad revenue to make
money.
13. Poor support or lack of contact methods
No matter what you are selling, customers need to know that it is
easy to contact you if needed. Offering clearly defined support
mechanism is equally important. Your contact information should be
clearly displayed on your website and you should offer multiple ways for
customers to get in touch with you, not just by email. Many studies
have shown that customers feel more confident of buying from a website
where contact information, preferably including telephone, is clearly
displayed.
14. Lack of Refund Policy
If you are selling a product or service, you can improve your
Having a clearly defined refund policy or no obligation trial also
encourages sales as customers feel more confident of buying from you.
This is particularly important if you are selling a product or service.
It is also common for websites to offer a no obligation trial or a 30
day money back guarantee on products.
15. Lack of Urgency
This is another effective and widely used technique to encourage
customers to purchase a product or service from your website. There are
many ways to achieve this. Offering special discount or promotion tied
to a time period is the most common way to achieve this e.g. limited
time offer that is valid only until a certain date or only to the fist
few customers are some common examples.
16. You are leveraging existing customers
Lack of repeat sales opportunities is another reason why many blogs
fail to make money. It is a well know buisness philosophy that the cost
of acquiring new customers is much higher than the cost of selling again
to existing customers. You can increase your revenue potential manifold
by selling again to those who have already registered, subscribed to
your newsletter or bought something from your site. In spite of this
common knowledge, many blogs fail to capitalise on this. You can promote
new services to your existing customers through periodic emails,
special offers or other ways.
17. Lack of dedication or devotion
Anyone can start a blog and it is not necessary to devote your
full-time attention to it. Nevertheless, if you are serious about making
money from your blog, then you will need to devote significant time and
effort. Bloggers who only make a few hundred per month at most from
their blog quite often only devote a couple of hours a week to their
blog. Running a successful and profitable blog requires a lot of
dedication, hard work and investment of your time.
18. You don’t refine and test alternatives
What you think works best is often different to how it is perceived
by your users. This not only applies to your headlines and content but
also to your design, ad placements, internal links, etc. No matter how
well something performs on your blog, it could always have done better.
A/B split-testing is an effective technique to improve your
performance. Split testing can be applied to almost any element. You can
test what type of headline works best, what type of Ads generate the
most revenue, Which Ad positions have the best click though rate, and so
on. The list is endless. Based on the results of split testing, you can
make the necessary changes where needed. Most bloggers acknowledge the
benefits of this but still fail to apply it to their own site.
The process of testing and refining also applies to monitoring the
statistics and performance of your blog and taking steps where
necessary, making changes, performing tweaks, etc. to deliver better
results. You can also refine your content where required to optimise it
or make it more appealing to readers.
19. Lack of testimonials or proof of satisfaction from other customers
No matter what you are selling on your blog, customers need to know
that they are not the only ones to buy your product. Testimonials or
case studies of other customers who have benefited from purchasing your
product or service, is essential to encourage others to buy from you. It
is equally important to ensure this is clearly evident to your
visitors. Simply having a testimonials page may not be enough. You can
use other ways to promote this i.e. via your posts or through other
social channels like twitter, Facebook Fans page or reviews.
20.You don’t use the correct Tools
As discussed above, running a profitable blogs requires hard work. In
order to be successful you need to perform a number of tasks on a
regular basis including creating content, SEO, promotion, managing
advertisers, managing sales, networking, social media optimisation and
so on. There are a number of tools you can use to manage your time
efficiently and deliver better results. This in-turn has an impact on
your revenue potential. The wrong tools on the other hand can lead to
poor results, waste of valuable time and wrong approach.
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